Chapter 62: The Mobile Advertisement Cat Project

As the exam date drew nearer, the atmosphere in the castle grew increasingly tense; students could often be seen hurrying through the corridors, clutching thick spellbooks and muttering incantations and potion recipes under their breath.

The library was even more crowded; sometimes, if you moved even a little too slowly, you couldn’t find a seat and had to borrow books to read elsewhere.

But most of these students were preparing for their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s; Silven, being in first year, felt no pressure at all.

The only difference was that he had become more popular.

This was mainly because Fred and George, on the very day their detention ended, paraded around the castle with their “brand-new” wands.

They drew plenty of attention—and inadvertently gave Silven a free advertisement; now many students came to him asking about the dye spray.

To be honest, he felt ashamed: he’d prepared the product right after term started, but had forgotten all about it amid other distractions, only selling his first bottle near the end of the term.

But by now, most students had spent nearly all their pocket money, and Silven’s pricing was set to “earn for thirty years,” so while many asked, hardly anyone bought.

“What if you lowered the price a bit?” Fred suggested over breakfast. “If it’s just one Galleon, most people could afford it if they really wanted to.”

“Yeah,” George nodded beside him. “A wand costs seven Galleons—your dye spray shouldn’t be more expensive than that.”

“No way. I’m not cheating poor students.” Silven replied firmly.

“Huh?” The Weasley brothers stared at him, suddenly feeling insulted.

Silven actually thought they weren’t poor students? That felt… nice… wait, no.

Come to think of it, if Silven hadn’t offered such a tempting discount, they wouldn’t have spent ten Galleons on a wand dye spray that served no purpose beyond decoration.

“Then you’ll just have to advertise,” George said. “Maybe trick more people into buying.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Silven rubbed his chin. “But how do you even advertise? The common room notice boards?”

“If you could get into the other three houses’ common rooms, that’d be perfect.”

“I can’t get in,” Silven shrugged. He didn’t even know all the Gryffindors by name—how could he know anyone from the other houses?

“Want to hear my suggestion?” Fred lowered his voice, grinning slyly. “Think about it—who wanders tirelessly through every corner of the castle every day?”

“Who chases after every student?”

“And who is known by every student?”

“Dumbledore?” Silven ventured.

“No, no,” George shook his head vigorously. “It’s Mrs. Norris.”

“Why don’t you use the dye spray to write an ad on Mrs. Norris?”

“Then she’ll carry your product right in front of every student,” Fred coaxed. “And you won’t have to spend a single Knut.”

“Yeah, and she’ll bring it straight to Filch—next year, Filch’ll add dye spray to the banned items list,” Silven snapped. He shouldn’t have trusted these two to come up with anything smart.

“Don’t say that—you won’t know if it works unless you try!”

“Exactly. Give it a shot.”

They chased after Silven, pleading earnestly, urging him to give Mrs. Norris a bright new color.

But Silven knew perfectly well—they just wanted an easy way to spot enemies during nighttime prowling.

Besides, Tom had spent plenty of time bullying Mrs. Norris; he couldn’t bring himself to mess with what little fur she had left.

He already made pocket money selling his “pet wands”—that was enough… Silven was easy to please on this point.

A few more days passed, and exams began.

Silven, like everyone else, had to sit in the stifling, uncomfortable lecture hall, battling exam questions.

First-year exams weren’t hard; Silven estimated he’d get about half right, mostly because he hadn’t bothered memorizing the tedious, vague, and overly long questions—like the fifteen ways to deal with a werewolf.

Honestly, you didn’t need fifteen methods. Two were enough: run, or if you can’t run, kill the werewolf. Everything else was nonsense.

And werewolves read these books too—Hogwarts textbooks hadn’t been updated in at least thirty years; they probably already had their own solutions figured out.

Only Hermione in Gryffindor bothered memorizing this stuff… maybe Percy too.

Practical exams, by contrast, were far more interesting—especially for Silven, since he could “cheat”: with the right wand, high scores were easy.

Hogwarts taught mostly light magic, and with Silvermane’s enhancement, even the harder exams became simple.

In Transfiguration, they had to turn a mouse into a snuffbox—Silven was the first to finish.

In Charms, Professor Flitwick asked them to make a pineapple tap-dance across a desk.

This tested students’ control of the Levitation Charm; “tap-dancing” simply meant moving the pineapple up and down on the desk to make it look like dancing.

After all, the “Tarantallegra” spell wasn’t in *Standard Spellwork, Level One*—you’d have to find it in *One Hundred Ways to Revenge Your Enemies*.

If it was just levitation, it was no challenge—even without Silvermane, Silven could easily meet the requirement.

His tap-dancing looked more like a robot’s shuffle—he wondered if he’d lose points for that.

If there was one exam that was truly troublesome, it was Potions, since potions relied mostly on cauldrons, and wands only stirred.

Snape demanded they brew a correct Forgetfulness Potion within two hours.

This was far from Silven’s strength; the correct result should’ve been a blue liquid with gray smoke, but Silven turned in a brown liquid with pink mist.

From Snape’s expression, he’d almost certainly not get a high mark.

Silven then took his Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and History of Magic exams; after that, the exams were over.

To welcome the coming holiday, the castle erupted into a sea of joy, the previous gloom instantly swept away.

The day after break began, Fred and George found Silven again, asking for another collaboration—inviting him to attack the Whomping Willow that night, and swearing repeatedly that this time they wouldn’t mess up.

But Silven still refused.

Not only did he not trust their promises—he was waiting for something more important.

…

(End of Chapter)