Chapter 101: Memories and Letters
The common room was quiet and dark. It seemed Kanna and Cedric's detention wasn't over yet. Kyle didn't bother turning on the lights; instead, he sank into one of the sofas, mulling over the night's events. So much had happened, and he needed to piece it all together.
Firstly, he was certain that the figure they'd seen during the nighttime walk was Hagrid. There was no way it could have been someone else disguised as him. Even if someone could look like Hagrid using a Polyjuice Potion, Fang, who had been by his side, couldn't have been an Animagus and Polyjuice Potion didn't work on animals.
But if that really had been Hagrid, why did he insist he hadn't been in the Forbidden Forest? And then there was Dumbledore's cryptic remark. Memory... a Memory Charm? Kyle considered. Or maybe... the venom of the Swooping Evil.
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small piece of wood with signs of corrosion and rubbed it thoughtfully between his fingers. He'd secretly cut it from the tree trunk earlier when Hagrid wasn't looking. In the moonlight streaming through the window, the wood emitted a faint blue glow. The color seemed right, but Kyle recalled that Swooping Evil venom wasn't known to be corrosive. Or am I remembering it wrong?
Just then, the door to the common room opened, and two figures entered quietly.
"Kyle, I knew you'd be here," Cedric said in a low voice. "Filch left on some errand earlier and came back furious. He must have been looking for you."
Kyle tucked away the wooden block and nodded. "I ran into him on the way back."
"What did you do to make him so mad?" Cedric asked, intrigued.
"It wasn't me; it was Hagrid," Kyle said, holding back a laugh. "Filch ended up getting a bit... roughed up by him."