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It was as if an invisible shackle had been shattered. Once Neville finally broke through his mental block, he rapidly fired off five different spells—including the Levitation Charm—completely catching up to Professor Flitwick's current curriculum.
Seeing that Neville was finally back on track, Richie and Hermione settled into their own study routines in the empty classroom.
Time slipped by. It wasn't until the Hogwarts bells echoed through the castle that Richie finally snapped out of his hyper-focused state.
Richie was genuinely surprised; his study session tonight had been exceptionally productive. Not only had he rapidly absorbed the textbook material, but his brain had also been making deep, complex theoretical connections. Getting into that kind of "flow state" was incredibly rare—he had only experienced it once before over the past month.
Sitting across from him, Hermione stood up, looking just as shocked.
"I can't believe it. I literally just finished the homework for three different classes!" She looked at Richie, her eyes wide. "That just saved me at least two hours of study time!"
Richie shrugged and offered a half-joking theory. "Helping others puts us in a good mood, and a positive mental state accelerates cognitive function."
"Oh, I think I've read a study about that." Hermione nodded thoughtfully. "That might actually be true..."
Seeing Hermione taking his random guess as scientific fact, and Neville just grinning happily beside them, Richie helplessly massaged his temples.
"Alright, alright. We need to get out of here. Curfew is in a few minutes."
With that, Richie stood up and headed for the door. Hermione and Neville quickly packed up their bags and followed him out.
Leaving the abandoned classroom behind, the three of them navigated the corridors toward the Grand Staircase. Hermione and Neville just had to head straight up the stairs to reach the Gryffindor common room, while Richie had to take a detour to get to Ravenclaw Tower.
"Oh, right. Richie, I wanted to ask you about something you said earlier."
As they walked down the dim corridor, Hermione suddenly spoke up. "You said: 'The Trace has been on you since the day you were born.'"
"Yeah. What about it?" Richie looked over at her curiously.
"Well, actually, I need to correct you. The Trace isn't placed on us when we're born." Hermione shifted fully into her academic lecture mode. "According to Hogwarts: A History, the Trace is a charm applied to our wands when we leave school for our very first summer holiday."
"Huh?" Richie stopped walking. "It's applied after our first year? So we definitely aren't born with it?"
Richie looked at Neville for confirmation.
Neville shook his head. "I don't think so, Richie. I've never heard anyone in my family mention being born with it."
He scratched the back of his head and offered a sheepish smile. "Honestly, my great-uncle was constantly stressed out when I was little because nobody knew if I actually had magic. If the Trace was a real thing from birth, they would've known I was a wizard right away."
"Where did you even hear that, Richie?"
Richie rubbed his chin, looking highly suspicious. "From my aunt. Honestly... she was probably just messing with me."
Right then, an eerie, highly obnoxious voice echoed through the corridor, completely cutting off their conversation.
"Hehehe! Look what I caught! Ickle firsties wandering out of bed!"
The three of them froze in their tracks.
Just a few feet ahead, a ridiculous, jingling bell hat was hanging completely upside down from the ceiling.
"Lalala!"
Suddenly, a grotesque, leering face phased out of the hat and aggressively zoomed right into their personal space. It contorted wildly, its bloodshot eyes bulging and a piece of moldy cabbage wedged between its teeth.
"Merlin!" Neville screamed, scrambling backward in sheer terror. If he hadn't crashed into Richie, his legs would have completely given out.
"Ah!" Hermione shrieked. Completely panicked, she yanked her wand out, aimed it dead center at the ugly face, and screamed: "Petrificus Totalus!"
A flash of white light erupted from her wand—only to pass cleanly through the face and vanish into the stone wall.
"Hahaha! Can't touch me! Can't touch me!"
Richie reached out, physically lowering Hermione's wand to stop her from casting again, and gave Neville a quick pat to steady him.
Then, he looked up at the upside-down face and raised an eyebrow.
"Peeves. I've been looking for you for hours. Where the hell have you been hiding?"
The completely unnatural, casual greeting caught the poltergeist entirely off guard. Peeves stopped making funny faces, floated down from the ceiling, and flipped himself right-side up to stare at Richie.
"You aren't scared of me, ickle wizard?" Peeves blew a massive, wet raspberry. "Pbbbbbt!"
Richie still didn't flinch. Instead, he put on an incredibly earnest smile. "Why would I be scared of you? I've literally been dying to see you all week! Actually, I have a present for you."
"What kind of present?" Peeves dropped the act, suddenly intensely curious.
Richie smiled, reached into his robes, and pulled out a fist-sized egg.
Richie was just trying to figure out how to trick Peeves into taking it, when the poltergeist suddenly clutched his head and let out a horrified shriek, violently backpedaling away from them.
"Ahhhhh!"
"No! No! Get it away!"
"It reeks! It reeks!"
Ah. Fred and George definitely already field-tested this.
Richie immediately tapped the Dungbomb twice against the wall to break the magical seal and chucked it straight at the fleeing poltergeist.
"Run!"
Without missing a beat, Richie grabbed Neville and Hermione by the arms and dragged them sprinting down the corridor.
CRACK!
A sharp, brittle sound echoed behind them, followed instantly by Peeves's absolutely devastated wail.
"Waaaaah! It's so gross! Blurgh!"
Because they had bolted instantly, the three kids completely escaped the blast radius of the weaponized stench.
They didn't stop running until they hit the Grand Staircase. Richie finally let go of their arms, leaning heavily against the stone wall, gasping for air.
At the end of the day, they were still just eleven-year-old kids. After a full day of classes and studying, suddenly sprinting for their lives right before bed was absolutely brutal.
"So... that was the Hogwarts poltergeist? Peeves?" Hermione asked, frowning as she peered back down the corridor they'd just fled. "I've read about him, but I've always been curious to actually see him."
"Yeah, that's Peeves. He's a semi-corporeal spiritual entity. Normal offensive spells pass right through him." Richie stood up straight and gave them a highly condensed explanation of the Dungbomb's origins. "But apparently, he's incredibly vulnerable to foul smells."
"Merlin, that was terrifying!" Neville aggressively patted his own cheeks, trying to snap himself out of the residual shock. Honestly, if Richie hadn't been there, he probably would have wet his pants.
The three of them leaned against the railing for a few minutes, waiting for their racing hearts to settle down.
"Alright, you guys better get back to your dorm. We're cutting it incredibly close to curfew." Richie waved them off and turned to head down his side of the staircase.
"Richie!"
Neville called out. Richie turned back to see Neville looking at him with absolute, genuine sincerity.
"See you tomorrow!"
Hermione stood right next to him, offering a small smile. "Goodnight, Richie."
Richie smiled back and gave them a nod. "See you tomorrow. Goodnight."
With that, Richie quickly descended the stairs. Waiting for the perfect rotation, Neville and Hermione stepped onto their staircase and headed up to Gryffindor Tower.
A few minutes later, Richie made it back to his dorm. He chatted briefly with Terry and the guys, jotted down a few quick lines in his journal, and finally kicked off his shoes.
He collapsed into bed, the heavy velvet curtains drawing shut around him, and completely exhausted, he closed his eyes.