While the outside world was in an uproar, the witch inside the dream knew nothing.
The cloud-ink cat-panther lifted a paw. The mist within its body surged up and swallowed it, and in the blink of an eye its form shifted into a black cat.
Soul-based magical transfiguration was wonderfully strange. Just as some wizards could switch freely between their human body and an Animagus form, Sean could also freely switch between his magical-creature forms.
And doing so took no effort at all.
The black cat gazed out over the white, endless Borderlands. When it raised a paw again, several mist-balls drifted together on their own.
There were dream-clusters belonging to Hogwarts professors; dream-clusters from the distant orphanage; and, farther still, large dream-clusters from Ilvermorny as well.
Summoning them felt to the black cat the way a cat chases yarn—natural, almost playful.
It first scanned them carefully, then nudged some closer and pushed others away.
Watching. Searching.
Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall still hadn't fallen asleep—odd.
Headmaster Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen, even though he had said he would speak with Sean in a dream.
Sean found himself curious: what was holding Dumbledore back?
This was Hogwarts Castle, after all…
Setting aside the conversation with Dumbledore, the black cat sorted out a few faint "yarn-balls" higher up around the tower.
These were special. They didn't point to the dream-clusters near the Victorian building—they pointed deeper into the Borderlands.
—These were Ravenclaw's yarn-balls.
Following a faint, almost intangible pull, Sean could sense that the two Ravenclaw ladies were not far away.
Which meant… perhaps he could finish something else first.
So he quickly drew in more yarn-balls.
These were smaller than the others, stranger and more kaleidoscopic—but unmistakably, they made up half the entire cluster.
These were the yarn-balls created by the Castle Spirit Cat Club.
The black cat studied them in thought.
In the end, as if making up its mind, it decided it needed to understand what changes occurred after forming a link with a wizard inside the Borderlands—and it needed to know why these yarn-balls had suddenly appeared at all.
After all, the Castle Spirit Cat Club had existed for a long time, yet the "yarn-ball swarm" only appeared today.
Was it a matter of numbers… or something else?
Meanwhile, in Hogwarts Castle—
Behind the large barrel on the right side of the corridor leading to the underground kitchens.
Though the holiday had just ended, everyone was already longing for the next one.
So on the last night of the break, plenty of Hufflepuffs still weren't fully asleep.
Inside the Hufflepuff common room—a round lounge crowded with tables and sagging armchairs—the fire crackled merrily.
A few students were still whispering, or playing the "night edition" of Wizard Chess.
This was a brand-new version: only at night did the pieces wake up.
After all, the pieces were special types—werewolf wizards, vampire kings, and the like.
By incomplete statistics, Night-Edition Wizard Chess had lowered Hogwarts' "early-to-bed rate" by one hundred percent.
—According to the statistician, Fred… and George.
The younger students believed it completely, and it stayed popular for a long while.
Even tonight, some were still playing.
And though many Hufflepuffs were awake, the club president, Hannah, clearly wasn't one of them.
On Valentine's Day and the weekend after, she'd organized another round of night patrols. Seventy-seven club members had nearly turned Hogwarts upside down.
But the lucky black cat that had once helped her never appeared again.
She was disappointed—again.
And the disappointment fed into her own theory: the Castle Spirit Cat only appeared at moments of real importance.
Like guiding Harry to the truth, protecting Ginny from harm…
So how could she possibly find it?
The Castle Spirit Cat must be fighting some terrifying danger in secret, she told herself, and so it was busy—she understood that completely.
But disappointment was like grass seed carried on the wind: it took root and multiplied in soft soil.
"Oh—just once, let me see you once—the messenger on the night Christmas arrives, the Castle Spirit Cat who commands good fortune… the towering castle is your ears, the turning staircases are your breath…"
As always, she murmured her little prayer with a not-too-small, not-too-big hope—and fell asleep.
When Hannah opened her eyes inside the dream, her mouth fell open.
She had never dreamed anything like this in her life.
Everywhere: uncanny mist-balls. Everywhere: a holy, endless whiteness—except for one abrupt smear of black, crouched atop a mist-ball, emerald eyes fixed on her.
"Good evening, Hannah," the black cat said.
"G-g-good evening, Mr. Black Cat!" Hannah forced herself to whisper, determined not to shriek.
The black cat nodded with eerily human composure, then glanced—so subtly it barely counted—at Hannah's yarn-ball.
In that instant, it swelled dramatically.
The black cat understood.
A deepening connection to someone could change the yarn-ball's size.
That was easy enough to grasp.
But there was still one thing it didn't understand: how had these yarn-balls suddenly appeared in the first place?
"Mr. Black Cat!"
Before the cat could speak, Hannah could no longer hold back.
Merlin—she had so many questions, so many things she wanted to know. How could she possibly endure silence?
"I… may I ask you something?" she hurriedly added, realizing she'd been overeager.
"It's fine," the black cat said. "In dreams, we have plenty of time."
Hannah felt that made perfect sense—though she couldn't explain why it did.
So she spilled everything: hazy, urgent, worried thoughts, all at once.
"Is this my dream? Or your dream? Did I really dream of you?
Will you appear in the castle again? Can we meet you in the castle again?
You like our club, don't you? Oh Merlin, I still have so much to say…"
When she finished, she clapped a hand over her mouth.
Why had she asked so much? Would Mr. Black Cat be annoyed?
"It's fine if you ask more," the black cat said, pressing down on its tail as it spoke slowly. "This dream exists for you in the first place."
"Really?!" Hannah couldn't help it—she let out a tiny gasp.
"Really," the black cat said.
It seemed to smile; its whiskers trembled lightly.
It drew out one yarn-ball. Inside it, a shy young witch lay on her bed with a faint smile.
It was… her.
The dreamlike sight made Hannah even less able to believe it. She stared at the black cat, and it nodded again, calmly.
She covered her mouth.
It seemed that tonight—
A free wind had stirred a dull tree, and a chatty young witch had managed to dream of good fortune.