"What good news?" Hermione leaned in, trying to catch a glimpse of the note.
"Professor Sprout says she has good news. I'll just go ask her directly, though I have a pretty good idea what it's about."
With that, Kane stuffed two fried eggs into his mouth, wiped his face, and bolted out of the Great Hall, jogging toward the greenhouses.
Hermione began to stroke her chin. Anything Kane classified as "good news" couldn't be a small matter. Was it a headline in the Daily Prophet? She hadn't seen anything unusual.
In Greenhouse One, Professor Sprout was lounging in a rocking chair, holding a stack of parchnt—or more accurately, a stack of deposits.
She had never looked happier. She was still savoring the mory of the expressions on her old Alchemy and Herbology professors' faces when they had tried on the Premier Gardeneer Hat. Her only regret was not having a cara to immortalize the mont.
Kane pushed the door open just as she was chuckling to herself.
"Ah, Kane! Co see this. Did you know your papers were accepted?" she called out, sitting up straight.
"I didn't get a letter, but I did get two heavy bags of Galleons. I assud those were the royalties," Kane said, sitting across from her.
Sprout shook her head. "It's more than that. Look at these." She handed him about a dozen letters. "These are from Herbology masters I know personally.
They want to order your Premier Gardeneer Hat. These are their addresses and magical checks—you can cash them at Gringotts."
Kane snatched the letters and stuffed them into his pockets. He realized he needed to ask about the pricing. The hat didn't cost much to make—a bucket, so seeds, and a bit of gold for the electrical components. He figured maybe seventy Galleons was a fair price?
Professor Sprout looked at him with the indulgent gaze one saves for a naive child. "Too low, Kane. You underestimate the wealth of Potion Masters, you underestimate , and you certainly underestimate that hat."
Kane, still feeling like a child, held up one finger. "One hundred Galleons?"
Sprout slowly held up two fingers.
"One hundred and twenty?"
"Two hundred Galleons! Don't look so shocked, Kane. Wisdom and monopoly are very expensive things." Sprout bead. It had been years since she'd seen a student this gifted.
Kane's brain stalled for a second. Ten letters... two hundred each... that's two thousand Galleons. Even after subtracting the cost of the gold bars, he'd be left with at least fifteen hundred.
He had gone from being a magical "Dalit," a total nobody, to a student with fifteen hundred Galleons in his pocket. While it might be pocket change to the old pure-blood families, it was enough for a decent down paynt on properties in both the magical and Muggle worlds.
Kane stared blankly at the two Mandrake spirits rolling around inside Dumbledore's protective barrier. This... this felt pretty good.
Sprout didn't say a word, allowing him to bask in the glow of his bright future. He was only twelve, after all. If she'd had two thousand Galleons at twelve, she might have fainted from joy.
Finally coming down from his "financial freedom" high, Kane looked at Sprout and wondered if he should ask her to be his godmother. He was an orphan, she was unmarried... he could take care of her in her old age!
Before he could act on this impulse, the ground near his potato patch began to vibrate. Sprout looked over, confused, and donned her Gardeneer Hat to investigate.
The hat gave her one piece of information: Mature.
But why, Sprout wondered, did a simple potato maturing cause a localized earthquake?
Unlike her, Kane knew exactly what was happening. Two seconds later, a massive potato rumbled out of the earth, followed by a second, a third, and a fourth. Each one was roughly the size of Hagrid's hut.
And the greenhouse do? Well, since the patch was close to the glass, the do inevitably shattered—again.
Sprout stared. This wasn't science, and it barely felt like magic. She knew Kane was talented, but growing a crop larger than the plot of land it inhabited? Hagrid grew "giant" pumpkins, but they only reached his knees.
These were houses. Were the roots extending all the way to the Forbidden Forest or the Black Lake?
She took the hat off and put it back on. The data hadn't changed. Herbology as I know it is dead, she thought. But at least they aren't sentient.
If these four "Potato Spirits" had woken up like the Mandrakes, the greenhouse would have been leveled.
Kane used an Shadow Blade to neatly trim the opening in the glass, then used a Levitation Charm to float the four massive tubers into the air.
"Professor, do you want one?"
Sprout hesitated for less than a second. "Absolutely!"
Kane lowered the largest one onto a cleared space in the greenhouse. He floated the other three outside, then used a giant shadow hand to scoop up the two Mandrake spirits from the ceiling.
"What about these two?" Kane asked, then realized he'd asked a silly question. Soon, Sprout would be teaching Mandrakes in class.
If these sentient ones stayed here and watched their cousins being pulled from pots, dried out, and sliced into potions... they'd probably have a breakdown. Or worse, they'd start attacking students in self-defense.
For the peace of the classroom and the ntal health of the spirits, they needed a new ho. Hagrid's place was the obvious choice.
Hagrid was sitting in his hut, carding wool for a seat cushion, when the sky suddenly went dark. He looked up.
"Oh, it's just Kane."
Kane landed with three potatoes and two squirming Mandrake spirits held aloft by shadows. After a bit of convincing, Hagrid agreed to take the new neighbors—provided they didn't mind being "tasted" by Fang.
Kane left one potato for Hagrid to eat and set the other aside as a "house" for the spirits. He handed the Mandrake spirits two carving knives he'd found in Little Pumpkin (remnants from Halloween) and told them to carve out their own rooms.
He took the final potato back to his dorm. He didn't know what he'd use it for, but it was a great souvenir.
Using Shrinking and Enlargent charms, he managed to get the tuber into his room. He used Shadow Blade to carve a workspace inside, stuffing it with his Science Machine, Atomizer, and various other gadgets.
Gryffindor's triple dorms were spacious, but honestly, living in a potato was looking more and more appealing.
That afternoon, Harry returned from Quidditch and Ron escaped the clutches of his older brothers. Only Hermione was missing—likely still "grinding" in the library.
Kane decided to be a good friend and went to find her to share the wealth. However, Hermione looked at him with the vacant, wide-eyed stare of soone who hadn't slept in three days.
Her brain stalled before she slowly shook her head. "No... I don't think I'm that short on cash."
Her actual internal thought process was quite different. In her sleep-deprived state, Kane's invitation to "make money" sounded like a villainous recruitnt speech.
She imagined him bursting into the library in gold-threaded robes, Madam Pince being taken out by a rogue curse, and Kane inviting her to "burn Diagon Alley to the ground and charge the residents for the matches."
Given his recent "sting" with Lockhart, she truly felt his business plans weren't for her.
Kane told her to get so rest and left. Hermione watched his retreating back. Was that... a threat? she wondered. (It wasn't; he was genuinely worried about her health.)
Back in the dorm, Harry and Ron helped him prepare the materials: buckets and a furnace for the gold. In front of a tearful Ron, Kane lted down a handful of Galleons into a gold bar to create the electrical components.
By the end of the week, all ten hats had been shipped out. A few days later, the final paynts arrived.
The three boys sat in a corner of the common room, humming a little tune as they spread the checks out on a table.
Kane believed in splitting the loot; Harry and Ron had done the "dirty work" of gathering cow dung and braving the weird looks of the student body. They earned their share.
"Two hundred for you," Kane said, handing Ron two checks. "Two hundred for you," he said to Harry. "And the remaining eleven hundred... is mine." He bundled his pile and gave it a satisfied flick.
"Are you playing Monopoly?" Hermione's voice suddenly popped up from behind them. She looked exhausted and in desperate need of a break. "If it's Monopoly, I'm in!" she said, plopping onto the sofa.
"No," Ron said in a hushed, surreal voice. "We're actually splitting up money."
Hermione's brow furrowed. "Did I mishear the currency?"
Harry shook his head. "Nope. Gold Galleons."
Hermione crossed her arms and fell into a deep, silent contemplation.
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