Two hours later, Harry woke up from his nap, shivering. He had intended to ask Kane to whip up so atballs, but he was startled to find that Kane didn't look like he was on holiday at all.
The boy was the picture of studious intensity, hunched over his desk, scribbling away at sothing.
"Kane, seriously, it's the Christmas holidays. Is there really a need to be this much of a try-hard?"
Harry spoke with a face full of misery. There was nothing quite as uncomfortable as watching your best friend work like a demon while you lay there like a corpse—wanting to be productive but lacking the will, trapped in a state of horizontal guilt.
Kane picked up the notebook he was working on and tossed it over. Harry caught it, glanced at the pages, and looked at Kane in shock.
"You're... doing my howork?"
Kane, hearing the tremble in Harry's voice, gave a slow nod.
In an instant, Harry felt like a complete monster. He hadn't said anything cruel, just a simple complaint, but knowing Kane was actually laboring for his benefit? He felt like kneeling at Kane's feet and bursting into a soulful rendition of "Dear Father."
Always taking from you without a word of thanks...
While Harry was drowning in the warmth of this "fatherly" love, Kane suddenly coughed. "Harry, er... I have sothing to tell you."
"What's up?" Harry asked.
"That... I used so of your stuff just now." Kane pointed to the Galleon bag hanging at the head of Harry's bed.
Harry followed his finger and waved his hand grandly. "Just a few Galleons? Forget it! My money is your money!"
He looked incredibly generous, the kind of vibe that makes a person want to follow him into the sunset.
However, Kane offered a final reminder: "You might want to check the bag."
Harry didn't understand why, but he reached out to grab the pouch. The re draft from him throwing back his quilt caused the bag to flutter... and collapse into a flat, sad piece of leather.
"...So... It's empty?" Harry turned his head stiffly, looking at Kane with a hollow gaze.
"Obviously. That's why I'm doing your howork." Kane turned back to his desk. As long as he didn't look Harry in the eye, Harry wasn't allowed to be angry.
Harry sat there, his face cycling through various shades of red and purple, eventually landing on the "Cosplay a Turkey" setting.
But the roar of agony Kane expected never ca. Instead, Harry spoke with an eerie, flat calm: "I'll have to go to Gringotts to withdraw more during the break. You're coming with , Kane. And rember to bring your own money bag."
The mont Harry finished, the scribbling Kane started singing softly: "Always taking from you without a..."
"Ugh, stop that! It's creeping out!" Harry shivered in disgust. "By the way, what did you even do with all those Galleons?"
"lted them down. I wanted to craft sothing, but it failed."
Kane sighed. The Life Giving Amulet had ford for a fleeting second—right at the mont he finished hand-shaping it.
But an instant later, starting from the central ruby, cracks had spider-webbed outward until the whole thing shattered.
One ruby, three bars of gold—materials he couldn't easily replace—all gone in a puff of smoke.
"I see. Well, why don't we find Hagrid and take a trip to Diagon Alley before the break ends?" Harry suggested.
Kane shook his head. The shattering of the amulet proved that the laws of the Constant couldn't be directly copy-pasted into the real world. It made sense.
"Maybe my ruby wasn't high-quality enough?" Kane murmured a non-professional, purely "head-canon" theory.
"Right, you're talking in gibberish again. Anyway, if you need sothing and I can get it, just ask." Harry climbed out of bed to find food.
"Thanks. By the way, your howork is finished." Kane tossed the final notebook to him, then walked over to his trunk to check on his other project.
If a high-tier item like the amulet failed, then the at Effigy—the "newbie's" way to cheat death—was even less likely to hold up.
Sure enough, the effigy in the cabinet had turned into a pile of rot. Fortunately, it didn't sll, and the house-elves hadn't cleared it away yet.
Creeeeak—
A depressed Ron walked into the room. He had just returned from the library, haunted by the task Hermione had set him before she left: find a man nad "Nicolas Flal."
Was that even a real na? Maybe it was a code na? Like 'The Nicolas Flal Project'? Just as Ron was despairing over why Hermione would entrust such a task to soone who got sleepy at the sight of an alphabet, he felt the room grow suddenly lively. He looked up.
"Harry! Kane! What are you doing back?" Ron cheered, his excitent overflowing.
"We ca back because we were worried you'd be lonely," Kane said, stretching.
"Pull the other one! Seriously, what happened? You stayed ho for one night?"
Looking at Ron's curiosity, the two recounted their "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" style journey to London, their successful "gift-and-run" with the Dursleys, and their morning of grave-digging in Little Hangleton.
"Er... your holiday is certainly... colorful." Ron didn't know whether to be impressed or embarrassed. Spending all that ti just to dig holes? It was a bit abstract.
However, the second he heard they found gemstones in those holes, the "abstract" part vanished.
"So, can I co next ti? I'm starting to regret not going," Ron said with the honest smile of a poor man.
"Next ti. There will be chances."
That evening, Hogwarts showed its warr side. Most of the ti, as long as you weren't dealing with the "abstract" Headmaster, the school was quite cozy.
Dumbledore had ordered the kitchens to prepare a Christmas feast for the students who couldn't, wouldn't, or simply had no ho to return to.
Since there were so few of them, there were no House tables. Everyone—professors and students alike—sat together. At a glance, they looked like a large family.
But even in a family, there's always one relative you don't want to sit near. For Kane, that was Snape, who happened to be sitting directly across from him.
The two shared a deeply uncomfortable silence. Snape stared at his lasagna, then at Kane, clearly rembering so very "un-tasty" mories.
The feast ended in an atmosphere of mutual distaste. Returning to the dorm, Kane was ready for a long sleep.
God knew what he'd been through in the last twenty-four hours. He dialed down the fla on his bedside campfire, making sure it wouldn't startle the Christmas tree, and drifted off.
Ding!
Kane sat bolt upright the next morning. He had heard that sound in his sleep.
The Constant had sent a gift to its runaway child!
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