“H-How...no, why do you have red eyes?” Sol didn’t have a good feeling about this. Katie came back from vacation and the color of her eyes had changed from brown to a beautiful shade of red. It almost looked like they were sparkling, kind of like rubies.

“I don’t know. I woke up one day with them. Freaked out my mum and pops.” Katie shrugged.

“Oi! This is not something you just wave off. You suddenly wake up with red irises and you don’t know why?” Sol quickly activated Mana Eyes. He only hoped she hadn’t been turned into a vampire or been possessed. It’s not like having red irises was a indication that you were a vampire. It was true for this world though.

He looked into her but didn’t find anything. No possession frequency or irregularities in her mana flow. Hell, she didn’t have the blood-red aura of a vampire either.

Katie pointed at his eyes, “Hey, your eyes turned purple. That's like the kettle calling the pot black.”

Sol raised his eyebrow and flicked her forehead. While she was rubbing her head to ease the pain, he deactivated Mana Eyes and spoke, “Oh, so you learned some new sayings after going home? And you’re hallucinating. My eyes are blue as always.”

Katie looked at him again, indeed his eyes were blue like always. But she wasn’t willing to accept that, “No, I’m not! Your eyes did turn purple.”

Sol sighed and looked at Ron and Harry, “Did you guys see my eyes change?”

Both of them shook their heads in a daze. They were still shocked at Katie's change. Sol turned to Katie again and smiled, “Enough of that-“ He pointed to the seat beside him, “- sit down. Dinner is going to start soon.”

Though Katie started arguing with Sol, she was happy that he was talking to her again. Though she was a bit curious as to what happened the past 10 days.

She took a seat beside him and shot a glance at him. He was smiling and joking with Harry and Ron. It seemed a bit off. It almost seemed like he was here. Or rather, he didn’t feel as distant as before.

She tapped his shoulder to which he turned to look at her. “Did you find your answer?” she asked.

Sol smiled at her, revealing his upper teeth a bit, “Yep! I did.”

The crowd dispersed and took their seats according to their house. Cormac took a seat beside Sol as well. Hermione came and sat in the middle of Ron and Harry. She quickly whispered something in Harry's ear, to which Harry simply shook his head with an apologetic expression.

“Had a nice vacation, you guys?” Sol asked.

“Y-Yeah,” Cormac was a bit puzzled at Sol's sudden change in attitude but was happy nonetheless.

“Would’ve been better if my eyes didn’t cause a stir with my folks. Mum took me to the hospital and Pops tried to stuff me with potions.” Katie complained.

“Is that right?” Sol wondered. None of them were as shocked as Sol, Ron, and Harry. They already witnessed her change on the train and were somewhat used to it.

“Can someone please tell me why there is a huge ice sculpture of Harry in the courtyard?” Hermione suddenly asked.

“What?!” Harry threw her a surprised look.

Everyone looked at Sol and then at each other before nodding their heads.

“Yep, it was Sol.”

“I wager five sickles that it was Sol.”

“Who else would it be?”

“He should’ve made it a bit bigger.”

Various opinions rang out and Harry just shot a look at Sol. Sol acted offended and gasp, “Why I never- yeah, it was me.” He then grinned, “How do you like it?”

“Is this what you meant when you said you’ll take care of it after lunch?” Ron asked.

“Huh? Was it supposed to mean anything else?” Sol asked, seemingly puzzled.

“...”

“Ah, Harry, don’t worry. I’ll ask the Headmaster to make it a permanent attraction.” Sol started teasing.

“Do you know how embarrassing that would be? A 4-meter statue of Harry just up in the courtyard. That’s the first thing people will see when they come to Hogwarts.” Hermione couldn’t even think about what that would look like.

“But you have to admit, it’s a pretty well-made sculpture,” Katie chimed in.

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“Can't deny that.”

“Yeah, he even etched the scar on.”

“The scar has to be there. No questions about it.”

With the various voices of approval, all Harry could do is hold his head with his hands.

Everyone chatted and joked away the entire dinner. When it was finished, they went back to their respective common rooms led by their perfects.

After having a hearty time in the common room, they went to sleep. Christmas vacation was finally over.

“Hagrid, why do you have a dragon egg?”

“A hooded bloke gave it to me down at the pub. He seemed a bit too eager to get rid of it. So I kindly took it off his hands.”

It was two months after the Christmas vacation and Sol was sitting with Hagrid in his hut. He was sipping tea and ‘eating' the rock cakes that Hagrid gave him with Body Reinforcement. He noticed the dragon egg inside a cauldron over the fireplace. He was incomparably excited when he saw that it was a dragon with Mana Eyes. Dragon organs were treasures. Dragon Blood was a priceless potion ingredient and assimilating their Heart was a good way to get improved Mana Veins. Replacing your eyes with theirs would give your X-ray vision, mana sight, thermal vision, and aura sight. Hell, even their penises were incomparably useful. So many dragons were castrated. What a pity!

But Sol's excitement dimmed very fast when he remembered that the dragons in this world weren’t that powerful or great. Their blood was still a good potion ingredient even if their organs had no use. He was thinking of how to let Hagrid give him some blood when another thought hit him.

Sol narrowed his eyes, “And he didn’t ask anything back?”

“Well of course he did. He only wanted to know about Fluffy,” Harris replied innocently.

Sol was very close to face-palming, “And you didn’t feel suspicious?”

“Why would I? You tell me when you come across a three-headed dog. They're rare I tell ya. So, I can understand the curious bloke. And I’m getting me a dragon egg. I think it was reasonable trade.”

Hearing that, Sol was itching to beat someone. But he couldn’t do that to Hagrid. The big lug's a bit slow in the head but loveable.

“Hagrid. I’ll say this slowly, okay?” Sol was going to try his best to explain.

“Go ahead,” Hagrid scratched his head and attentively listened.

“Fluffy is one of the many things guarding the Philosopher's Stone down in the dungeons.”

“Hey! How do you know that?”

Sol snapped his finger in front of his face, “Focus! This isn’t the point. Fluffy is one of the many things guarding the Philosopher's Stone in the dungeons, right?”

“Right.”

“The Philosopher's Stone is a very dangerous thing, so much so that it needed to be guarded in Hogwarts.”

“That’s true.”

“If someone gets their hands on it, it’ll spell nothing but trouble.”

“Certainly.”

“Then when someone asks you about Fluffy who guards the Philosopher’s Stone, you don’t tell them.”

“Right you are.”

“Then why did you tell the hooded man about Fluffy?”

Hagrid scratched his head and stayed silent for it, it was as though he was thinking. His eyes opened and he smacked the palm of his hand with a fist, “Blimey! You're right!”

He then looked back at the dragon egg sitting inside the cauldron. “Eh...nothing to do now. I hope it's a boy.”

Sol ground his teeth.

Late at night, Sol woke up as everyone was deep asleep. He lifted the blankets from his body and made his way to the door in his pajamas. He silently opened the door as he didn’t want to wake the others up. He felt a bit dehydrated and wanted to drink some water. As he opened the door, he heard a sound, no, a song. As he listened more carefully, his eyes widened at what he was hearing.

“That's...”, he whispered and held his breath.

Someone was singing An End To The Eternal Night in the common room. The voice was melodious, hitting all the notes perfectly. Their control over their voice was masterful. It was almost as if it was Sol who was singing it. But not quite. It felt a bit off to Sol but others might not pick up on this oddity.

He slowly crept closer to the source. He focused wholeheartedly on the song. At the same moment, he felt a chill up his spine.

This should be a song from my previous world. Moreover, I was the one who made this song! How does anyone-

When he finally came downstairs, the sight in front of him amazed him. A girl was singing the song. Her eyes closed as if she was focusing on the song and nothing else, trying to feel the emotion from it. She sat next to a window and the moonlight illuminated her face. It felt as though she was sparkling under the soft light of the moon. Sol stood still. He didn’t dare stop her. He took in the beautiful scene with his eyes wide open. He didn’t want to miss a single second of the song.

After a while, she opened her eyes. Her ruby-red irises looked at the person in front of her.

“Oh, Sol. What are you doing here?” Katie asked in a quiet voice.

Sol had his mouth agape. He stuttered as he was brought back to reality, “ N-Nothing. How do you know this song?”

“Oh, they just popped up in my head one day,” she replied nonchalantly

Sol had an urge to flick her forehead when he saw her carefree attitude and so he did. The graceful demeanor she had just a few seconds ago was shattered and what remained was a girl who was pouting and looking at him furiously whilst rubbing her forehead, trying to ease the pain.

Sol couldn’t help but laugh at the sharp contrast between the two scenes. Which led to him eating a few blows to the chest from Katie.

“Do you remember any other songs?” Sol asked with a smile on his face.

“Yeah, a whole lot of them.”

“Fine, wait here a bit.” Sol then left her in the common room and quickly went back to the boys’ dorms. After waiting a bit, Sol quietly came out of the dorms with a mandolin in hand.

He came to her and cast a Regnum Ignotum with his wand. With that done, he spoke, “Let’s do a duet or whatever it’s called.”

“O-Okay,” Katie was a bit surprised. She certainly hadn’t expected this turn of events.

Sol started playing the mandolin, his fingers nimbly pulling at the strings. A melody started to play out. A sad one. When Katie heard it, she felt it extremely familiar. And as if a switch was flipped, she started singing matching Sol's melody.

Lullaby For The Departed

It was a beautiful but rather sad song. And this song was being sung in a breathtaking harmony but no one could hear it.