As the bell rang, Pyram sat up from his seat, stretched, and walked out of class with his legion trailing behind him to Transfiguration class.

From what he knew, he and his classmates studied about the Switching spell, and today they would be attempting to perform it. Pyram, of course, already had tried it, but it wasn’t difficult enough for Pyram to be truly invested in it. So, in short, Pyram planned on using his Transfiguration class time to perfect the spell. If he managed it before the bell rang–which was unlikely–, then he would work on his homework.

Yes, a very good plan indeed. One that his wand agreed with when he asked for its judgment. At this point, Pyram knew that his wand was in some way sapient. Pyram didn’t mind this; it only made decisions less stressful when one had a very experienced friend to ask about them instead.

And so with this in place, he started thinking about names for his wand. One that had…meaning. Like his name, which meant, “bright flame bonfire,” if that one Latin dictionary in the library was correct. After his classes, he planned on going to the Will-Do room to pick up a translator for Latin, then he’d find a good name for his wand.

Pyram nodded to himself as he opened the doors to McGonagall’s classroom, seeing her inside transformed into her signature cat form with the little markings around her eyes. When he saw her, he broke into laughter and wiped away a tear. He had always found Professor McGonagall’s animagus form extremely hilarious. From a powerful, feared witch into a…cat!? Pure comedy.

The “cat” looked at him as if it was wondering whether he was a madman or just heard a really good joke from nowhere. Of course, it was the third option. He was just cooler than everyone else. Still making a hiss-laugh noise with his mouth closed, Pyram stalked into his seat as usual.

When his eyes passed over the “cat” again, he broke into a grin that would make a dolphin frown in concern. It was quite obvious that Pyram’s humor was not skewed at all it was everyone else’s humor that was the problem, Pyram thought as he got to work on practicing the Switching Spell in silence.

He was working on something mundane for now; two quills, one with a normal feather and another with a feather painted green. They switched within two seconds last he had cast it, but as he did so again and again, the process got faster and faster till the quills switched faster than he could blink. Then he replaced the green quill with a sheet of parchment, and he started the process again.

By the time class had officially started, Pyram wagered that he would be on top of the class once more. Mcgonagall switched out of her cat form, an odd transformation that Pyram wouldn’t mind studying, startling the class and beginning to lecture the class about safety while performing the switching spell.

Relatively boring stuff, all of which he ignored because at this point Pyram just didn’t care about his safety. When they got into it, his classmates were struggling a little too hard and complaining after seeing Pyram cast it seemingly effortlessly.

McGonagall nodded at him in approval and awarded his house another 5 points, the strict (and maybe just a little biased) teacher as she was. A relaxed class for a tired Pyram was pretty much heaven in Hogwarts, so Pyram chose to savor it by putting his head down and resting his eyes.

Just before the bell rang, Pyram got up and organized his school supplies and told his legion to prepare for their dismissal, as the next class was Herbology and therefore a ways away from McGonagall’s classroom.

Pyram looked around the blossoming greenhouse; a contrast to the cold environment outside. Dittany was today’s subject. A useful plant, dittany was known to cure shallow wounds when ingested, as when they met a wizard’s stomach acids, the healing magic was siphoned out and drifted over to the wound. Pyram had done a little bit of extra reading when he heard of Danny’s effects.

Sadly, when class started Pyram learned that they were going to be harvesting the leafy plants for them to later use as ingredients in their Wiggenweld potions in Potions class, which was the period after Herbology. They simply cut off the leaves a little further to the bottom of the stem, the leaves that were “ripe”.

Afterward, Professor Sprout looked over the cuttings and graded them based on how cleanly cut they were, how close the stem was to the leaves, and the quality of the leaves themselves. No one but the three proud Hufflepuffs were rewarded house points, but that was to be expected.

After reviewing the cuttings Professor Sprout had done and then answering some questions about Dittany– “Where did Dittany originate?” “How much sunlight does Dittany require?” –, the bell rang and Professor Sprout told the class to place their cuttings in their vials, and only after that was Pyram dismissed to go to Potions.

Pyram had to walk significantly faster to get to Potions before the bell because of this, putting him in a slightly worse mood than he would have been in if he had more time to get to class. Snape noticed this immediately and Pyram found that Snape was significantly more lenient in this class than the others.

He had simply pointed to the chalkboard and said, “Today you will be brewing the Wiggenweld Potion, it is used more to sterilize or heal minor injuries, and it is also the cure to the Draught of Living Death; the potion I had you all make at the beginning of the year,” He drawled while Pyram wondered about the backward logic of the school; why didn’t they make the antidote before they made the poison? Snape then went on to explain the instructions–in more detail–on the board.

As Pyram prepared his ingredients, after he had prepared his workspace, of course, he allowed himself to slowly unravel like a rolled-up scroll without wax. His heartbeat slowed as he fell into motion. After he had prepared all of his easier ingredients and added them to the concoction, he now was at the hardest part. The extremely specific amount of dittany sap.

After just about 2 straight minutes of slicing, the dittany leaves were chopped enough and he turned his knife to the flat size and crushed the chopped-up leaves, squeezing the juice out. When he had precisely 2.589 tablespoons of the “juice”, he poured it into his cauldron and checked off another box in his notebook.

All he needed to do was stir the potion clockwise for 3 minutes, then counterclockwise for 30 seconds and the potion would be finished. Pyram allowed his thoughts to drift to his wand’s name. Studying another language was hard. Hard to the point where he didn’t even think there was a point in studying another language, but alas he had to.

Pyram wanted to base his wand’s name on something powerful but also mysterious because that was his wand in a nutshell. Perhaps he could just name it Sethifold, for its wood and core. But isn’t that kinda stupid? He needed something that would simply…fit. Something hinting at its greatness.

Or should he just do the simple route and ask his wand? It would be pretty rude if he didn’t just ask and call his wand “Bob”, after all. No, if his wand had a name, Pyram would’ve known about it already. Pyram already had an idea of what his wand’s name would mean anyway, and he daresay it would fit.

Just before he began going off into a tangent, he felt something a little like a poke in the side; a reminder. Oh right, he was brewing a potion. Pyram stopped stirring for a moment and reversed directions, beginning to count.

Soon after, he looked at Snape who was diligently glaring at the class with beady black eyes not unlike a vulture searching for its next meal. Snape caught his eye and nodded at Pyram to bring his cauldron over, as was protocol.

When Snape was done analyzing the cauldron, he gave a curt nod and said, “5 points to Ravenclaw.” The sound of knives chopping came to a sudden halt as the other students in his class whipped their heads up to see just who had achieved the impossible.

Those who were among his legion were impressed and respectful, although some Hufflepuffs exchanged frowns and sneers; obviously, they were a bit jealous of Pyram’s recent endeavors.

About 20 minutes later, the other students had turned in their potions and the bell rang. Since “flight class” was only a couple of lessons and was mostly for muggle borns, there were only a couple of lessons before it was replaced by two smaller periods; math and English. It just wouldn’t make sense if wizards and witches were only good at magic and nothing else.

The last (technically 2) periods of the day were relatively tame and lax, an easy time for Pyram. In four days the Christmas holiday would start, so during that time Pyram would be staying at Hogwarts, and then…wait, where would Pyram go for the Summer holiday?

Seeing as this was a much more major problem, Pyram halted naming his wand to confront Professor Flitwick about this.

Pyram knocked on the tall, oak door, asking, “Professor Flitwick, I have a question that I would like to ask.”

From inside he heard a muffled, “Oh, yes, come in, Mister Claraflam.”

As the…obedient child that Pyram was, he opened the door and walked in, pulling up a chair in front of Professor Flitwick’s desk and sitting on it almost automatically. He looked up at his Head of house and then inquired with a little nervousness, “Where do I go for the Summer holiday?”

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Flitwick held his chin and frowned, “I…don’t know. Let me go fetch the Headmaster real quick.” To Pyram’s confusion, instead of just getting up to go get Dumbledore, Flitwick tossed a powder into the fireplace and said clearly, “Albus Dumbledore.”

Pyram’s eyes widened at the sight of a–slightly haggard– old wizard with pitch black robes step out of the fire only to give a solicitation to Flitwick, “Ah, Filius, why did you call me?”

“Well, you see here, Mister Claraflam and I have just been wondering where he would go for the Summer holidays,” Flitwick answered, Pyram nodding along a little hesitantly.

Dumbledore laughed as if he had just heard a joke, but when neither Pyram nor Flitwick laughed with him, he stopped and asked, “You’re serious, Filius?” The Charms Professor only nodded, looking a little embarrassed now.

The headmaster then cocked his head and slightly narrowed his eyes, thinking. “I suppose I could ask one of his teachers to look after him over the summer,” He raised an eyebrow at Filius who shook his head pointedly.

Am I that bad? Pyram couldn’t help but think.

“I’ll go send owls to the others, then. When I receive a response, I’ll inform you both.” With that out of the way, Albus Dumbledore stepped back into the fireplace and was swept away by a short burst of green flame which soon after turned back to orange.

There were a few seconds of silence before Flitwick decided to dismiss Pyram, who then walked straight to the seventh floor and into the Will-Do room that supplied him a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a Latin-to-English dictionary.

He had a few keywords he intended to translate and then combine, to make a cool name that wasn’t odd in any way. One word was simple; assassin. After flipping through many, many pages, he found the word to translate it to; Sicarius. It also meant murderer and killer, but that doesn’t matter. The next word was experienced; Peritus. This word also meant skillful and expert, two more words that described his wand well enough.

His last word–or rather two words– was right-hand. Both because he held his wand in his right hand and because it was like his right-hand-man…object. This was translated to Manus Dextra. There were many, many ways to combine these words. He could scramble them up entirely and then put them together like some kind of word puzzle or just cut the words in half to stick them together.

He decided to go the easy route and give his name a first name, a middle name, and a last name which would be Claraflam by default. The first name he came up with was Manius Pextra, but something about the “pextra” didn’t seem quite regal enough, and “manius” sounded like madman, and his wand wasn’t mad. Neither was Pyram. His second name was Perus Sictra. A definite no for that one. Too much like Perro. His wand was not a dog.

The third name, Sinus Peratra, sounded like some kind of disease, but the word “Peratra” sounded cool so he decided to keep that for the fourth and final name. Sicarus Peratra Claraflam. The final and complete name for his wand.

Nodding, proud of himself, he took out his wand, looking at it for a long moment. It was an almost white beige color, the handle fading a little into black and the “stick” part of it splotched with a dark silver. Pyram had never really taken the time to look over his wand, although he had spent 2 whole years with it.

So much had happened since he…found it. Pyram shook off the reminiscent feeling and stood up, looking over his notes. With a small thought, a fireplace was conjured in the room and Pyram tossed the notes into it. It wasn’t for any particular reason other than a sense of, “Might as well do this now,” that he had done so.

Walking out of the Will-Do Room, Pyram made his way up to the Ravenclaw Common room once more, walking in the same footsteps as he had stepped in only a few nights ago.

“Hey, Claraflam, what are you doing every night when you go out?” a member of Pyram’s legion by the name of Trevor Boot asked.

Pyram blinked a few times, caught off-guard by the sudden question Boot had asked mid-spell casting. “When did you know about it?” he said instead.

Boot sighed, “Mate, you aren’t getting out of this. We’ve all known for a while now.” Pyram’s legion chorused with a bunch of nods and sheepish, “Yeah..”s. All except for a girl named Lyla Leslie, who looked around in confusion.

Pyram thought for a while, disguising it with a look of extreme uncertainty before changing it into disgruntled acceptance, “I’ve been studying ahead in Ravenclaw’s Room of Requirement.” A partially true answer that he wouldn’t be guilty of because he was, in essence, studying ahead. Just on materials the school didn’t exactly teach.

That answer warranted a couple of seconds of silence while his liege took a few moments to absorb the knowledge. That was until Boot asked him yet another question.

“You know where it is?”

Pyram tilted his head at Boot, “You don’t?”

And that was how Pyram was now leading his legion to the Will-Do Room. He didn’t think it was bad, but it may be more than a little annoying down the line if they told anyone and he had to do something in secret.

When they entered the corridor, Pyram stopped and looked back at his legion, “This is as far as I’m taking you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be heading back to the common room to work on that homework Professor Vector assigned us. Remember not to tell anyone else.” Of course, if there was a chance that he didn’t have to bother with the problem, then Pyram would take it.

Leaving his legion behind to scramble around, feeling the walls and floor, he headed up to the common room to work on his argumentative essay about whether dementors were sapient or not. Of course, they would be sapient, otherwise they wouldn’t have the intelligence to know not to attack certain people and guard Azkaban.

Next was his math homework which he honestly didn’t think was particularly necessary, as muggles were already inventing devices to do all of this without a problem. (ba-dump-shh) After all of that, he made sure that his switching spell was good and brushed up on the seventeenth goblin rebellion.

When all of his homework was either finished or mastered, he retired to reading a book about useful spells, taking note of Scourgify and Protego, charms that he had been holding off learning for a while. Then, when everything he planned to do was done, it had passed seven o’clock, so Pyram turned off the lights and went to sleep.

The next week was relaxing. Wake up, eat, go to classes, have lunch, watch his legion struggle to find the Will-Do Room when it was right there in front of them, and do his homework before he went to bed. Life was simple and easy this way with no worries at all.

Until it wasn’t.

Pyram was going to Defense against the Dark Arts, as usual, but when he got there Quirrell was extra stuttery and somehow seemed extremely happy about something. Pyram passed it off as Voldemort being in a good mood for a change, but he learned why he was so happy during lunchtime.

An owl had come to Pyram with a letter while he was drinking some water, and when he opened the envelope, he nearly spat out his water. Quirrell, or rather Voldemort, had decided to look after him for the summer.

This was completely illogical to Pyram; wouldn’t Voldemort, even if he was able to gather the money to look after a whole child and wasn’t on the run from Aurors (and that would be if Harry didn’t end up killing him), Voldemort wouldn’t have any good reason to take Pyram in…unless. Pyram sighed.

The Dark Lord is trying to recruit me, isn’t he? But I’m not promising enough for him to do so, right? Even if he was interested in my Verdimillious Charm, surely that wasn’t enough to pique Voldemort’s interest, right? Maybe…does he know I killed the troll? Pyram’s eyebrows furrowed at this unsettling train of thought, but in the end, he decided to put his worry to the side. It wouldn’t do, crying over something that might happen in 4 months.

So he took the letter folded it into his pocket and went back to eating while his legion asked him what the letter was about. Pyram smiled at them and told them that he would be staying in England over the summer.

When Pyram looked behind him at the Gryffindors’ table, he saw Harry whispering with Hermione and Ron. Seeing the trio in person was a little odd, odd in the sense that he knew Ron would, at some point in the year, be in the Hospital Wing because a dragon hatchling ended up biting him.

The bell rang a few minutes after and Pyram got up to go to his next class, small prickles of nervousness poking his spine every few seconds.

A few days after he got his letter, Pyram’s legion found the Will-Do Room. Even when they asked him how to use it, he simply told them, “That’s for me to know and you to…maybe, find out.” with the same grin he would give McGonagall’s animagus form.

In the time that his legion took to find the room, Pyram had mastered Scourgify and he didn’t doubt that he could use the charm without an incantation. He had first tried it on water, then mud, then a few drops of his blood. It had cleaned the mess in only a second, leaving nothing remaining.

Pyram could only think about how useful it would be; he wouldn’t have to take half the time he normally did while showering anymore. It could also, of course, clean up any bad messes he may make in the future. There was no doubt that Dumbledore would learn eventually, but he wanted to keep his prowess at least a little hidden till he could defend himself.

The next few months were tedious, at best. He didn’t dare go into the Will-Do Room as much anymore, so he didn’t quite get the chance to practice the Protego charm. He did get the chance to fully explore Hogwarts, however. He found two hidden passageways out of Hogwarts. While Pyram doubted he’d need them, it was good to know at least.

The first one was a passageway that lay behind a mirror on the fourth floor. On a quiet weekend night, Pyram explored it and found that it led to Hogsmeade. The second was inside the hump of a One-Eyed Witch’s statue that led to a sweetshop in Hogsmeade. On top of this, Pyram suspected the Whomping Willow of also being a secret passageway, but he didn’t know where or how to get to the passageway.

Over this time, he also read up on some textbooks about dangerous beasts and spells, noting down a few interesting ones to look at for later. Dragons he was particularly fond of. Maybe he could have one when he was older or get a job related to them. Before then, he had to focus on his studies and not die.

He also made sure to read Hogwarts: A History, if only just to see why Hermione was so infatuated with it. When he did so, he could see why. It housed pretty much every fine little detail about the Castle’s enchantments and, of course, its history.

This was all great, and all, but why did everything feel so… dull?

He asked his wand this, which responded with a simple phrase, “Excitement is limited here. If you must, find a way to break that limit…or, it could be lying right in front of you. You just haven’t opened the door quite yet.” After this, his wand went quiet.

“Open the door? Which door?…Oh…of course..” He had explored Hogwarts, but he had avoided one corridor very purposefully. The third-floor corridor.