Chapter 15: Future Alchemy Tycoon (Patreon)

Afternoon sunlight slanted through the long, narrow arched windows on the fourth floor of the castle, scattering warm diamond-shaped patches of light across the mottled stone floor.

Raven had just checked out two ancient illustrated volumes on medieval Runic from the library. He was cutting through a deserted corridor hung with tapestries of old stag hunts, a shortcut to the dungeons.

Tap, tap.

Along both walls, a few rusty suits of heavy armor creaked faintly in the draft, metal rubbing against metal.

Just as Raven reached an enormous tapestry, The Fat Friar Taming a Stag, two identical red-headed figures burst out from behind the quiet suits of armor without a hint of warning!

"Hey! Look who it is—" "Slytherin's great hero, the genius Capet who got the old bat to award ten points in Potions, the first time ever!"

Fred and George Weasley blocked Raven's path, one on each side, wearing the same dazzling, trademark grin.

An ordinary Slytherin first-year would have drawn his wand by now and snapped at these "crude, red-haired blood traitors."

Raven, however, simply stopped. He shifted the volumes to his left hand, swept his dark eyes over the twins' freckled faces, and a playful smile curled his lips.

"The Weasley twins. If I'm not mistaken, you've been lurking here for at least twenty minutes. Filch's cat has a three-minute gap in her patrol, which is just enough time to bolt back to Gryffindor Tower before you get caught."

Fred's grin stiffened a little, and he couldn't help glancing at George.

"Cool… he even knows Filch's patrol schedule," George said, raising an eyebrow.

"And he doesn't look the least bit interested in pulling out his wand and hexing us, does he, George?" Fred said, folding his arms with a grin.

"Why would I waste a curse on two future alchemy masters?" Raven said lightly, his tone as calm as if he were discussing the weather.

"Hold on… alchemy masters?"

Fred rubbed his ears theatrically, as though he'd heard some absurd joke, but he couldn't hide the thrill of being struck right where it counted. "Listen to that, George! The whole school calls us layabout troublemakers, even Ron thinks all we can do is make prank props, and this Slytherin aristocrat calls us 'masters'?"

"Only a real fool would write off prank props as cheap tricks."

Raven regarded them calmly, his voice cool and clear. "Ordinary spellcasting relies on a wizard's will, gestures, and the resonance of his magic. Fixing a spell structure into a dead object, so that it works free of the wizard's control, triggers on a delay, and releases a specific effect reliably… in the ancient magical systems, that's called 'advanced enchantment and micro-circuit encapsulation.'"

He turned slightly, his gaze settling on Fred's bulging pocket. "Take the little thing in your left pocket, the one leaking a faint smell of sulfur and mandrake juice. If I'm not mistaken, that's a first-generation Delayed Smoke Decoy, isn't it?"

That wiped the teasing look off the twins' faces completely. In its place came something they'd never felt before: shock and feverish excitement!

Fred carefully fished a rough, tinfoil-wrapped black ball out of his pocket, his expression dead serious. "Merlin's beard… how did you even see that? We haven't told anyone, not even Lee Jordan!"

"I can see it, and I also know why it still can't go into mass production."

Deep in Raven's eyes, [Magic Circuit Analysis Sight] quietly stirred.

At a microscopic level no ordinary person could perceive, the crude magical channels inside the little black ball were riddled with flaws in his eyes.

"You're using dried mandrake leaf as a magic damper to get a five-second delay after throwing. But you've overlooked that mandrake volatilizes faster when heated. Shake that smoke bomb more than ten times at room temperature and the circuit collapses early, and it goes off right in your own pocket."

George sucked in a breath and instinctively touched the singed hem of his robes from last night. He looked at Raven almost as if he were gazing at a god. "…Dead on. Last night in the common room it nearly turned Percy's owl bald."

"The fix isn't complicated."

Raven drew a quill from his pocket and, on the blank back of a library card in the volume, casually sketched a neat, flowing ring of runes. "Swap the mandrake leaf for belladonna oil that's been double-condensed and distilled, and engrave this basic Rune Stabilizing Circuit on the casing.

"That fixes the delay at exactly six seconds, triples the smoke's spread, and adds a mild tear-inducing effect and directional blinding."

The twins practically knocked their heads together, staring hard at the rune structure on the card.

With the talent they'd honed over years of prank-making, one glance was all it took for them to realize how terrifyingly workable the improvement was!

"A brilliant design…" Fred murmured, panting like a bellows.

"Smooth as magic itself, George."

"He is magic itself, Fred."

The twins snapped their heads up. In the way they looked at Raven there was no trace left of house prejudice or wariness, only sincere admiration and burning hunger.

"Capet… name your price," Fred said, lowering his voice and slipping into the manner of a shrewd merchant. "What do you want for pointing us to this circuit? If it's so we'll stay away from pranking the Slytherin dungeons, we—"

"I have no interest in childish games between Houses."

Raven cut him off, then, as the twins stared, gracefully drew a heavy pouch of pure black deerskin from his robes.

Clink! With a crisp, pleasant jingle of gold, Raven loosened the drawstring to reveal twenty Galleons lined up in neat rows, glittering brilliantly!

Twenty gold Galleons! To the Weasley brothers, who came from a poor family and whose whole household had to pool money just to buy a secondhand broom, it was an unimaginable fortune!

"Consider this the first-round angel investment in your research."

Raven tossed the pouch lightly into Fred's arms, unhurried. "I provide the funds and the improved circuit design. You provide the hands-on skill and the testing grounds. For every finished product your workshop turns out, I get a permanent thirty percent share of the profits, plus first right to purchase and to commission custom work."

The twins caught the heavy pouch. Both their throats bobbed in unison, and their hands were shaking.

"Of course, besides the profit share, I'll need one special bonus." Raven raised a finger, his black eyes deep as a pool.

"What bonus?" George gulped and pressed at once.

"Information."

Raven smiled faintly and lowered his voice meaningfully. "I hear that in your first year you 'borrowed' a rather interesting piece of parchment from Filch's office… one that clearly shows the movements of every single person in Hogwarts castle. Is that right?"

Boom! The twins froze on the spot, eyes nearly popping out of their sockets!

The Marauder's Map!

It was their greatest trump card, a top secret that even Ron and Harry didn't know about!

Where on earth had this Slytherin first-year dug up such an earth-shattering secret?!

"No need to look so tense."

Raven patted Fred's rigid shoulder, his manner gentle and refined. "I don't need to keep it for myself. On certain special nights, I'll just need to consult you on some corridor node data. In return, I can help you break the seals on several ancient hidden doors on that map that haven't been fully activated yet."

A long silence followed.

Fred and George exchanged a look, and the shock in their eyes slowly turned into an ambition and relief they'd never felt before.

Partnering with a Slytherin who was not only powerful and learned but also as open-handed as the living embodiment of a Gringotts vault gave them no reason at all to refuse.

"Deal, Boss Capet!"

Fred stuck out his hand, that carefree, dazzling grin back on his face. "From today on, you're the one and only secret major shareholder of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes!"

"By the way, if anyone in Slytherin gives you trouble…" George winked and grinned. "We can stuff ten dozen Dungbombs into Flint's cauldron any time. Free of charge!"

"I don't think that'll be necessary for now."

Raven shook both their hands and smiled. "Keep an eye on your research schedule. Also, tomorrow morning is the joint Slytherin-Gryffindor flying lesson… I expect it'll be quite a show."

[Ding. Successfully invested in key fate characters, 'the Weasley twins.']

[Key intelligence lead on the 'Marauder's Map' secured ahead of schedule. Black-tech workshop branch unlocked.]

[Causal Reversal Points +220.]

[Current remaining Causal Reversal Points: 2,120.]

Listening to the crisp chime of the notification in his ear, Raven slipped his hands back into the pockets of his long robes and, bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun, strolled unhurriedly back to the dungeons.

Money, technology, an intelligence network. This was the rhythm one needed to truly take hold of Hogwarts.