Rock hurried back to the Ravenclaw common room and stopped in front of Rowena Ravenclaw's stone statue, standing there in silence.
"Greed," "Guardianship," "Courage"—they lined up perfectly with the thief who stole the stone, the three-headed guard dog, and the trio destined to get swept up in everything.
Out of the three, the only thing he needed was the Philosopher's Stone—for his carving work.
Everything else? He wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.
After the troll incident, he'd already made a decision: talk less with Hermione about coursework.
And tonight, he found out when Dumbledore would need the Stone.
Thankfully, Dumbledore only asked him to observe and return it. He wasn't dragged into any direct conflict.
Rock had decided—he'd give Dumbledore the Stone, but only while keeping himself safe and staying far from the center of the storm.
"Lady Ravenclaw, wisdom lies in choosing not to step into unnecessary danger."
"It's not that I can't handle things… it's that an eleven-year-old taking on a Dark Lord possessing a professor is just—"
He whispered to the statue, but the more he spoke, the more wrong everything felt.
Since the moment Dumbledore stepped into the Dorset manor, Rock had already stepped into the chessboard.
He'd always wanted to be "the keeper who stays out of the game."
But Dumbledore's decision to have him look into the Mirror of Erised clearly wasn't something a bystander was meant to do.
Dumbledore had waited for him tonight—maybe to ask about the troll incident, sure—but there was no real reason to make him see the mirror.
Which meant… there was only one explanation:
Dumbledore used the Mirror to evaluate him—or even shape him.
And giving him the Stone the first time wasn't an accident or convenience.
It was likely a test—testing a potential Dumbledore had already suspected existed.
A chill crept up Rock's spine, quickly replaced by a deeper, sharper realization.
Every plan he'd made to stay far from trouble—every intention of watching events from the sidelines—felt childish in the face of a century-old wizard.
Rock looked up at Ravenclaw's statue. Her eyes seemed to watch him calmly.
Rowena Ravenclaw's wisdom was never about avoiding problems—it was about solving them.
Not staying out of events—but understanding the connections inside them.
So… escape?
No.
Rock exhaled slowly, the frustration and reluctance fading from his gaze, replaced by a deeper calm.
He wasn't trapped in a role—he simply needed to choose his own one.
If he didn't want to be someone dragged into trouble,
then he would become the observer.
"Before anything else… I need to become a Ravenclaw who isn't shackled by power."
He opened the pocket watch hanging from his chest. The hands were moving toward five o'clock.
Click—
The crisp snap echoed through the quiet room. Rock turned away from the statue.
He had a new plan to make.
Trouble was still trouble—but that didn't mean it couldn't be unraveled.
---
The Potions classroom door swung open again, black robes sweeping across the floor.
Snape glided to the front of the room like a giant bat, his cold stare sweeping over the students.
"Turn to page 23 of Magical Drafts and Potions."
Everyone flipped pages in unison until the rustling fell silent.
"Today," Snape said slowly, "we will be covering… the Forgetfulness Potion."
"It can make an already empty head feel even more… tidy."
Classic Snape—opening with poison-laced sarcasm.
Under his icy gaze, the students froze in silence.
Snape turned to the board and flicked his wand. The ingredients and brewing steps appeared line by line.
"Observe carefully: Lethe River water, valerian root, mistletoe berry juice… simple ingredients, yes?"
Here it comes.
The students internally begged not to be called on.
Whenever Snape reached this point, he always asked a question—and never the one they expected.
"Here—add two drops of mistletoe berry juice. Off the fire. Why must it be off the fire?"
The classroom fell deathly quiet.
Rock stared at the instructions on the page. Between Dumbledore's long talk and not catching up on sleep afterward, his mind was foggy.
"Scamander. Stand. Tell us—why must it be added off the fire? And what happens if you add it while heating?"
Snape's voice had a faint note of anger—something Rock had never heard directed at him in Potions class.
Rock stood immediately. "Because mistletoe berry juice contains a fragile memory-stripping property. High heat destroys it instantly and triggers a violent reaction."
Snape stepped closer, his dark eyes drilling into Rock.
"And the result?"
"It creates boiling toxic fumes that corrode the lungs, causing the person to suffocate while fully conscious," Rock answered calmly.
"Correct. But you only described the immediate consequences. Afterward, the victim may permanently remember that pain—ironically defeating the purpose of a potion meant to induce forgetting."
"Ravenclaw loses one point. Now… read every word on the board carefully.
If anyone makes a mistake brewing this in the next thirty minutes, I will personally let you experience the cost of forgetting."
With a sweep of his robes, Snape moved aside.
"Begin."
Rock lowered himself back into his seat and copied notes from the board.
Snape never taught by making students memorize the book. He taught through method—the subtle steps he wrote on the board, the corrections, the hidden logic.
Of course, the atmosphere was brutal, which led to frequent mistakes.
One wrong motion could ruin the entire cauldron.
Like the off-fire interval for adding the mistletoe juice.
The moment the cauldron left the flame, temperature dropped—a brief window.
The student had to add the juice in the last second of that interval.
Add it too early, and the heat destroyed the acidity.
Too late, and the potion congealed into useless jelly.
Rock studied both the textbook and Snape's annotations, organizing everything in his notes.
Sometimes, brewing potions had nothing to do with timers or instruments.
Sometimes, as Snape always said—
"With a mind that isn't entirely empty, after ruining about thirty cauldrons… you gain intuition."