Some time after the Easter holidays, Chelsea Chester approached Richard during dinner. The girl had managed to lose all the polish she had displayed over the summer. Once again, she was doing her best impression of a plain little mouse, with large horn-rimmed spectacles, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, and an old, shabby robe concealing her thin figure.
"My Lord," she addressed Richard politely, "I've completed the task you gave me. May we speak?"
Justin, who as usual was sitting beside Grosvenor, looked considerably surprised.
"Richie, do you actually give assignments to older students?"
"Not just older students, Justin." Grosvenor grinned cheerfully. "Graduates too. Sorry, Jus, I need to step away on business."
Richie and Chelsea retired to one of the abandoned classrooms. With magic, they made the place comfortable for themselves. Chester was astonished by Richard's command of Transfiguration—the spells themselves were simple, first-year material, but the level of execution was that of a sixth- or seventh-year student. After all, from fifth year onwards, students were hardly taught any new spells; instead, they were taught to use the spells they already knew at a higher level: casting nonverbally, applying them to multiple objects at once, and so forth.
"My Lord, that's incredible! To cast like that at your age!"
"Miss Chester, let's dispense with the blatant flattery. I assume you wouldn't have approached me for no reason. Therefore, you have something important to report. Have you come to delight me with the news that you've devised a method for mass-producing quantum transmitters?"
Chelsea faltered.
"No, My Lord. I found out about Wrackspurts."
"Ah, Wrackspurts..." Grosvenor sounded slightly disappointed. "So, what sort of creatures are they?"
"They aren't creatures." Chelsea shook her head vigorously. "I read dozens of books in the library and asked Professor Kettleburn and Madam Pince, but neither of them knew anything about Wrackspurts."
"Not even old Kettleburn?" Richard was mildly surprised. "If the rumours are true, he's been Professor of Care of Magical Creatures since before the war—the thirties, if not earlier."
"No, he doesn't know either. But I still managed to find out what Wrackspurts are."
"Miss Chester, don't keep me in suspense."
Chelsea lowered her gaze to the floor as though she had suddenly spotted something fascinating there. In a wavering voice, she said:
"I... My Lord, please don't be upset..."
At those words, Richard tensed like a coiled spring. His mind had already conjured up the worst possibilities, drawing parallels with things he already knew about. Horcruxes—almost no one knew what they were, apart from a handful of wizards who kept the information secret. Wrackspurts—if hardly anyone knew about them either... It was perfectly understandable why Richie expected some nasty surprise, as would many people in his position if they had been unlucky enough to acquire a fragment of another wizard's soul in their hand.
"Tell me," Grosvenor said hoarsely.
"Wrackspurts aren't magical creatures. They're thoughts that affect a wizard's behaviour. Or delusional ideas and things like that."
Richard stared at Chelsea, his eyes enormous with astonishment.
"Thoughts?"
"Yes, My Lord. Thoughts."
Grosvenor frowned, a deep furrow appearing across his forehead.
"Where did you get that information?"
"From a first-year in my House."
"Wait, wait." Richard held up both palms. "Let me guess—Luna Lovegood?"
"Yes, My Lord."
"Ha!" A laugh escaped Richard. "Thoughts?!"
"Luna put it differently," Chelsea said with an apologetic smile. "She said Wrackspurts get into your head and make your brain go fuzzy..."
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Richard could no longer restrain his laughter. "Make your brain go fuzzy... And here I am trying to catch them and send them off to a laboratory for study! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Brilliant!"
Chelsea did not understand what Grosvenor found so funny. The thought that the young Earl might have gone mad made her slightly frightened, and she frowned.
"Excuse me..." she ventured.
"Luna was only joking!" Richard explained to the bewildered girl. "It was a joke delivered with a perfectly straight face. Absolutely first-rate! And I fell for it like a complete fool... Invented some mysterious, dangerous magical creatures in my own head. Ho-ho-ho!"
"Oh..." Chelsea's lips formed a perfect O. "So Miss Lovegood was playing a joke on you?" she asked with some annoyance.
"Yes, Miss Chester."
"And I..." A note of resentment crept into Chelsea's voice. "So I wasted all that time for nothing?!"
"No, no, Miss Chester," Richard objected sincerely. "Not at all. You managed the unthinkable—you saw through the little troll in your House!"
"Troll?" Chelsea looked at Richard in confusion.
"Not a real one. A prankster-troll—a special subspecies of troll capable of disguising itself perfectly as an ordinary Muggle or wizard... But Luna! Oh, she's good, the little devil! I genuinely believed there were dangerous magical creatures called Wrackspurts! Of course, some thoughts really are dangerous and perfectly capable of turning your brain to mush. But I never imagined anything like this."
***
In May, the students were in a state of agitation. Exam season was drawing near. The pupils suddenly remembered that the library existed and threw themselves into preparing for their exams. Richie mostly studied with Padma Patil or Hermione Granger, the cleverest girls in the second year.
He tried studying with Justin, but that proved difficult. Finch-Fletchley could not sit still in the library for long and was constantly tempted to start chatting about something completely unrelated. What else could one expect from an ordinary boy who was not particularly driven to learn everything he could about magic? His future was bright and cloudless; there was no reason for him to push himself. Perhaps Richie would have been the same if he had not known about the danger threatening the planet.
At the end of May, Richie paid yet another visit to the library. He could have read the books Hermione had managed to scan on his wrist computer, but firstly, those amounted to only a small fraction of the school's collection, and secondly, the reading room was quiet and peaceful. Most students preferred to take books away with them. Besides, Madam Pince strictly enforced silence and order.
This time, Hermione joined Richard. The girl looked both anxious and excited. Unable to contain herself, she hurriedly shared her news with him in a loud whisper:
"Richie, I've found another secret passage!"
"Hmm..." Grosvenor looked up from the History of Magic textbook he had been trying to analyse by comparing its facts with Muggle history. "A secret passage? Where?"
"In the girls' lavatory on the second floor."
(End of Chapter)
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