23 Chapter 23

To read up to 15 chapters ahead: https://www.patréon.com/SlyOW

So I think I've decided on the schedule, I will release 5 chapters a week, so one a day except for Friday and Saturday.

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Neville finally showed his worth as he and Ethan searched for the golden ratio. They had to take every ingredient into account to find how much of the crushed fangs they had to put to get a 'perfect' potion. Thankfully, the only other ingredients were the dry nettles and the porcupine quills, as well as the water, so it wouldn't be too hard.

And although they weren't dealing with only plants, which was Neville's strength, his knowledge of plants and how to work with them could actually be applied with any ingredient, if enough effort was made.

And this was where Ethan's ability to extrapolate between several subjects came in place. Just like how Ethan could easily use the fundamental runic languages to figure out the new ones, or use a few Transfiguration spells to create more advanced ones, he could also use Neville's knowledge on plants to figure out the golden ratio.

In the end, they only took 17 minutes to find how much crushed fangs they had to put, and the answer was tricky as it was 6.2 grams.

It wasn't even a round number, so the probability of getting the exact number through luck was very low.

After the thirty minutes of waiting, Neville added himself the exact proportion of crushed fangs into the mixture, while stirring it manually. Ethan noticed that in his excitement, Neville had actually stopped shaking.

"Interesting. Did you find this on your own, Grindelwald?"

While Ethan was observing Neville, Snape had appeared behind them, and he was looking at the notebook. Ethan looked at his teacher, who had a face as cold as usual, and said, "We found the answer together, Sir. And about earlier, it was self defence, as well as a warning. I meant no harm, nor did I dig very deep."

Snape coldly replied, "I care not for your explanations, Mr Grindelwald. Don't let me catch you again."

Ethan nodded stiffly, and Snape started walking away, but not before adding, "Five points for Slytherin. And Gryffindor."

Everyone was stunned by the comment and looked at Ethan and Neville's table curiously. Be it through rumours or simply the impression Snape had made on them, everyone in the class knew that Snape very rarely gave out points to students, even to Slytherins, whom he was known to favour.

So for him to award both Slytherin AND Gryffindor five points, Ethan and Neville must have done something great. Unfortunately for them, the two's work bench did not look any different from theirs.

Since they had already done the most complicated, the rest of the potion came along easy. Neville stirred the potion continually for ten minutes, before putting out the stove and letting the potion rest for a minute and a half. Then, he finally added the last ingredient, 4 grams of porcupine quills.

And like that, both Ethan and Neville aced their first potion class, having the best results out of everyone in the class.

The only three groups that could come close to them were the Harry and Hermione's group, as well as Cassia and Sophia, and Malfoy and Nott in the Slytherin group, but they were still some distance away as they had simply followed the instructions to the letter, they hadn't found the golden ratio.

Something worth of being noted down was that Snape had praised Malfoy and Nott quite a few times, while he kept silent for the four Gryffindors, barely giving any praise if a soft grunt of approval could count as one.

As their class ended, Neville's confident expression turned slightly nervous as he said, "Thanks you for today."

Ethan patted his shoulder with a smile and replied, "No worries, but you better not go back to your old ways while I'm not there."

Neville nodded, and Ethan walked away, to his friends.

Barely had they left the room though that Ethan saw a silver flash as a weight appeared on his shoulder. Ethan looked at Miyuki, who had jumped on his shoulder, and asked in Japanese, "What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to wait for me in my room?"

Miyuki softly purred like a cat and gently nudged his cheek, making him smile as he scratched her behind the ears, whispering, "I guess it saves me a trip…"

He looked at Daphne and Theodore and said, "I'll be going off now then."

Daphne asked, "Are you sure you don't want us to come with you?"

Ethan shook his head and replied, "I'll be fine."

He walked away, and as he did he did not notice the few pairs of eyes looking curiously at him, coming from a certain group of Gryffindors.

Ethan left the castle's insides, and walked toward a particular hut right outside of the castle, at the border of the Forbidden Forest.

Yesterday, Hagrid had invited him to his hut for tea, which Ethan had decided to accept, and so here he was.

The hut was larger than Ethan remembered it to be, but considering Hagrid's physiology, it was fitting for a half giant. Next to the door, Ethan spotted a giant crossbow that was closer to a ballista than an actual crossbow, as well as a pair of galoshes almost a meter long. Those were large shoes.

As Ethan knocked on the oversized door, Ethan almost felt like he was knocking on the great door, making him smile.

He heard some shuffle inside as he knocked, and after a few seconds the door was opened, revealing the half giant.

Hagrid stared at Ethan and Miyuki for a moment, before coughing lightly, "Come on in."

Ethan and Miyuki both entered the house, and as he looked around Ethan commented, "You have a cosy home, Hagrid. Do you live here all year?"

Hagrid moved to his stove, and started heating up a kettle as he replied, "Yes I do. Hogwarts' been my home for 50 years now. Sorry if it's a little shabby for someone… like you."

Ethan asked with a smile, "A Pure blood?"

Hagrid did not reply, yet his lack of response was a response in itself as the half giant didn't dare to look at Ethan, focusing on the boiling kettle.

Ethan thus said, "You don't have to fear me because of my name, Hagrid. I am not my grandfather. To be honest, I couldn't care less about your ancestry."

"I'm not scared of you…" Hagrid started defending himself, but he stopped as Ethan took out his wand as he took several steps back.

Toying with his wand, Ethan said, "Yes you are. And I understand, I'm not offended. But I want you to understand that I am not my grandfather. You obviously know about animals, so you should know that for Miyuki, a Kitsune, to willingly become my pet, I had to earn her mother's approval. For your information, I have had her for seven years already. And I call her a pet for convenience's sake, but she is no pet. She is a companion, and part of my family."

Hagrid stared at Miyuki, who was toying with his dog, Fang. The poor dog was shaking in fear in front of Miyuki, who was only half as big as it was. What Hagrid didn't know was that in Fang's perception, Miyuki looked twice as big as it was, and was turned from beautiful to terrifying.

Hagrid finally cleared his throat and said, "I'm sorry for my behaviour, it's just that I have dealt with more than enough judgement on my family… and I thought I had moved on."

Ethan smiled, flicking his wand at the kettle which was already boiling, and served them their tea as he said, "As I said, no worries, I understand. Now, you asked me to come to see Miyuki?"

The half giant blushed as he was seen through, but Ethan didn't mind as he said, "Do what you want, as long as you hold no ill will towards her, Miyuki will be friendly, although a little distant. I've only known one man outside of my family who was capable of befriending her right when they met… well, to be fair, we didn't meet many people."

Hagrid, seeing the cups filling themselves and hovering towards the table, walked toward Miyuki, and crouched, but he was still way too tall. Miyuki showed no sign of fear though as she undid her illusions on Fang, and looked curiously at Hagrid.

"Hello… my name… is… Hagrid." To Ethan's and Miyuki's surprise, Hagrid actually introduced himself in broken Japanese. For sure it was a broken Japanese, but it was still a surprise a 'boor' of a person such as Hagrid could speak another language, especially Japanese. He definitely wasn't as stupid as he looked, or was thought to be.

Of course, Ethan didn't reduce Hagrid to the image people had of him, he knew the man was a great Magizoologist, but still, it was surprising.

Miyuki was not as introverted as she once was, and although she didn't particularly like interacting with people other than Ethan and his family, she could still listen to someone, or be petted without kicking a fuss.

Hagrid's kind personality was more than sufficient to melt the ice and before long Hagrid was playing with Miyuki, even laughing out loud and forgetting his guest and his tea.

As for Ethan, he had already served himself some tea as he continued looking around the room, and after a moment his eyes set on a newspaper on the table, today's edition of the Daily Prophet.

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST!

The bold words stuck out as Ethan read the article, and after a moment asked, "Hagrid, you heard about the Gringotts robbery?"

Hagrid, who had almost forgotten Ethan was here, turned around and he looked at the newspaper, before looking back at Miyuki and speaking without thinking, "I did. Scary such a place was robbed, fortunately I fetched the stone before the robbery…"

Hagrid finally realized he said something wrong as a grin stretched out on Ethan's lips, and he said, looking into Hagrid's eyes, "The stone?"

At the same time, Ethan broke his own rule of politeness as he invaded Hagrid's mind. The half giant obviously had no experience in Occlumency as Ethan easily entered his mind.

Scenes of Dumbledore ordering Hagrid to fetch the Philosopher's stone, Hagrid taking it from Gringotts and handing it to Dumbledore surged out, but that wasn't what Ethan was interested in.

"Did you tell anyone else about this stone?"

Hagrid stammered, "I-I said too much, don't mind me."

However, Ethan frowned. Not because of Hagrid's words, but because no memory of Hagrid mentioning the Philosopher's Stone to anyone else appeared in his mind.

Mind reading someone while conversing with them and not getting caught was arduous as Ethan couldn't just pluck a memory from Hagrid, not quickly at least, and so he had to ask specific questions if he wanted to be subtle and quick. When asked a question, the mind would naturally bring out the related memory, whether they chose to speak of it or not.

So Ethan had chosen his question carefully, so if no memory surged out, it meant Hagrid really hadn't mentioned the stone to anyone else than him. That, or Hagrid was a master Occlumens in hiding, which Ethan doubted.

Ethan smiled and got up as Miyuki ran to his side, and he said, "The tea was wonderful, thank you for the invitation. It's time for me to return to the castle. Have a great day, Hagrid."

Hagrid nodded, a bit confused, while Ethan left.

However, as soon as he was outside, Ethan's smile faded away to be replaced by a frown as he thought about what he saw, or rather didn't see.

If Hagrid wasn't the one who told Cassia and Harry about the Philosopher Stone in a slip up, then how exactly did the Potter siblings learn about the stone?

It was with his mind filled with questions that Ethan returned to the castle for dinner, hands in his pockets as he failed to see the pair of viridescent eyes watching him from a distance.