Kyle didn't know what Cedric and Cho had talked about in the hall earlier, but he returned to the Hufflepuff common room with a smile on his face. As he sat down to read, a bulging bag suddenly dropped onto the open pages of his book.
"What the—," Kyle exclaimed, startled, before turning to see Cedric grinning widely. "What's gotten into you? Why are you smiling like that?"
"This is way faster than picking up money," Cedric said, squeezing onto the sofa beside Kyle. "Guess how much we made from selling the maps in Ravenclaw… Fifty-two sickles, each!"
Although Cedric phrased it as a question, he didn't wait for an answer and continued excitedly, "A few sheets of parchment, five knuts worth of materials, and a couple of simple incantations, and we made so much money…"
"Wait a minute." Kyle, confused by Cedric's enthusiasm, interrupted. "Shouldn't there only be forty sickles? And what's this about parchment?"
"Well, here's what happened," Cedric explained, settling in. "I went to the Ravenclaw Tower at noon and adjusted the routes to better suit their needs. Cho saw the revised map and suggested raising the price a bit, so that's how we ended up with fifty-two sickles instead of forty.
As for the parchment—it's a little trick with the Doubling Charm. For stuff like notes or maps, you can skip duplicating the complex parts of the parchment itself and just copy the content. It makes the spell easier to cast, and the replicas last longer."
After hearing this, Kyle understood why they'd earned twelve more sickles than expected. The quality of the map had been improved, so naturally, the price had gone up. However, he thought using parchment was a bit excessive. In his view, those maps would probably become obsolete in about a month, so Cedric had really gone the extra mile.
Fortunately, parchment wasn't expensive, costing less than two sickles overall, which was nothing compared to the profit. Plus, Cedric had paid for it himself, which Kyle appreciated the most.
Kyle stashed away his share of the sickles and casually asked, "By the way, what's your impression of Cho?"
"Cho?" Cedric thought for a moment before responding, "I think she's a very smart witch, has integrity, and a good personality. She seems like she'd be a good friend."
"That's it?" Kyle frowned.
"Well… big-hearted and generous?" Cedric ventured, trying again.
"Forget it, don't say any more," Kyle sighed, rubbing his forehead. It might be a bit early to expect much, but Cedric's first impression of Cho being that she was upright wasn't what he anticipated.
Who describes a girl as upright? This is exhausting.
Kyle closed his book and stood up, heading towards the common room corridor.
"Going somewhere?" Cedric asked.
"I'm going to feed the cat," Kyle replied.
"Alright," Cedric muttered, already distracted as he counted his earnings. "Haha, who knew I'd be making pocket money? I'll have to write to Dad and tell him the news."
As Kyle walked into the wooden corridor, he felt a moment of silent sympathy for the Ministry staff. Mr. Diggory had something new to brag about, and Kyle just hoped they'd get used to hearing about Cedric's latest achievement soon.
...
Leaving the Hufflepuff common room, Kyle deliberately made a lot of noise as he walked down the corridor. He had a promise to keep. Since he'd told Mrs. Norris he would bring her a small dried fish, he wasn't going to back out now. Plus, there was the lingering disappointment of the failed "Professor McGonagall Feeding Project." Kyle had tried to convince himself it was a ridiculous plan from the start, but after hoping for so long, the letdown still stung.
No matter. He was determined to feed the cat today—even if Dumbledore himself showed up, it wouldn't stop him. Mrs. Norris might not be a tabby like McGonagall's Animagus form, but at least she was a cat, and that was good enough for Kyle.
Within three minutes of Kyle's purposeful ruckus, Mrs. Norris appeared, as expected, with Filch trailing behind her.
"Aha, caught you!" Filch said with a sinister smile. "The little wizard making noise in the hallway. I'm going to ground you!"
"Sorry, Mr. Filch, but I think you're mistaken," Kyle replied calmly. "School rule 22 clearly states that making noise in the hallway outside of curfew hours only results in a verbal warning. Only after three offenses do you get detention."
"I know the rules! I don't need a student to remind me!" Filch snapped, his face darkening. "Reciting rules won't save you if you deliberately break them. I'll be watching you, and you better not slip up, or I'll catch you."
"That day will never come," Kyle said with a smile. "And by the way, Mr. Filch, the reason I was making noise is because I was looking for Mrs. Norris. Hogwarts is so big, and this is the quickest way to find her."
"What do you want with my cat?" Filch's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I warn you, if you try anything, I'll make sure you pay!"
"You've misunderstood," Kyle explained. "I just wanted to thank her. My roommate had an accident this morning, and Mrs. Norris led me to the hospital wing. This is my way of showing gratitude."
With that, Kyle pulled out a small bag of dried fish and offered one to Mrs. Norris. Unfortunately, she didn't even glance at it.
Filch sneered. "Don't bother, she only eats what I give her."
"Then you feed her," Kyle said, handing Filch the bag. "It's just regular dried fish, but feel free to ask a professor to check it if you're worried."
"No need, we don't want it," Filch replied coldly.
"Don't be so quick to refuse," Kyle said casually. "It's a small thank-you gift, and this isn't just any dried fish. It's dried long-whiskered barracuda, top-quality stuff. A bag like this costs ten galleons and is hard to come by. It's considered one of the best cat foods in the wizarding world. I went through a lot of trouble to get it."
Filch hesitated. If it had been ordinary dried fish, he wouldn't have even considered it. But long-whiskered barracuda? Kyle wasn't exaggerating—it was indeed premium cat food, and Filch had once thought about giving Mrs. Norris some for Christmas. But he hadn't been able to buy it, not because of the cost, but because it was always out of stock in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. No matter how much money he had saved, he simply couldn't find it.
Filch carefully sniffed the dried fish in his hand, checking for anything unusual. After a moment, he looked up at Kyle. "You'd better not be lying to me."
"Poisoning the caretaker's cat would be no small matter," Kyle said calmly. "I'm only a first-year, and I don't want to get expelled so soon."
Filch considered this and realized Kyle was right. If anything happened to Mrs. Norris, the consequences for Kyle would be severe.
"Fine. This time, I'll pretend I didn't see you," Filch muttered.
"Thank you," Kyle said, walking past them. As he passed Mrs. Norris, he tossed the dried fish in his hand toward her. "Oh, and you can keep this, too."
This time, Mrs. Norris didn't refuse. After receiving a slight nod from Filch, she quickly snatched up the dried fish and devoured it in two or three bites.