"Professor Kasenhis… put that thing away," Dumbledore said as he walked over. With a flick of his wand, Grindelwald's wand flew out from his sleeve and landed neatly in Dumbledore's hand.
"You really came all the way here without first checking how this would end?" Dumbledore asked calmly.
Grindelwald snorted. "You know I don't believe in that nonsense."
"Wow.. A prophet who doesn't believe in prophecies…" Dumbledore murmured, then turned to Kasenhis. The latter nodded, lifted his hand, and summoned the Ender Pearl that had been suppressing all space within Hogwarts.
With two gentle taps, the pearl dimmed, and the spatial restriction was lifted.
Dumbledore placed a hand on Grindelwald's shoulder.
Snap! In the next moment, the two of them vanished with a crack of Apparition.
Only then did Kasenhis finally let out a long sigh. He glanced around at the mess—shattered floor tiles and cracked floor-to-ceiling windows—and begrudgingly pulled out blocks to repair the damage, patching everything back together.
Once it was all done, he finally felt like a massive weight on his chest had been smashed to pieces.
Meanwhile, up in the 3rd-floor bedroom, the temporarily blinded Sirius Black regained his sight the moment Dumbledore left Hogwarts.
He trotted down to the 2nd-floor office, looking around curiously. He wasn't quite sure what had just happened, but judging from how nothing seemed out of place…
…maybe it was just some side effect from the ring that War General Kasenhis had given him.
At this moment, poor Sirius still had no idea that War General Kasenhis had already been erased from the timeline.
Well, even if he had known, it's unlikely he would've suddenly found motivation to "do his job."
After all, it was War General Kasenhis who started the whole silent treatment, and he hadn't even given Sirius anything to communicate with him. Why bother putting in the effort to monitor someone like that? Obviously, the most important thing now was to hurry off and check in on his dear beloved godson in Gryffindor Tower.
As for the surveillance mission… well, let his handler come find him for the handoff. He'd say what needed to be said then.
Just as Sirius was thinking this while jogging off, freedom practically in his grasp—he was suddenly scooped up by two arms. "!!??"
"There are little wizards all over the castle. I can't have a big dog like you just wandering around…" Kasenhis said as he set Sirius down on his desk. In the same motion, a pixelated pair of clippers appeared in his hand.
He swiftly clipped Sirius's nails, paw by paw. When he got to the middle, he instinctively went for a snip—then froze as he realized that was the big dog's little dog, not a villager's nose. Definitely not snip-able.
Lying quietly on the desk, Sirius was still blissfully unaware that he'd nearly said goodbye to the Black family's last remaining legacy generator.
He was just enjoying the nail-clipping service provided by his poop-scooping human.
The next moment, he suddenly felt an invisible hand grasp tightly around his neck… it was a collar.
Sirius: I'm scaring myself…
Meanwhile, Kasenhis was already engraving the tag on the collar in little golden letters: [Bruce]
Then, Kasenhis carefully enchanted the collar to prevent Sirius from randomly biting people, finally satisfied enough to pat him off the desk and let him roam around on his own.
Right now, what Kasenhis needed most… was rest.
He really needed rest.
Really, really needed it.
So.. He slept straight through till evening!
By the time he woke up, the small witches and wizards had all returned to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express, marking the end of the Christmas holidays.
Kasenhis was promptly dragged off to the Great Hall by Professor Sprout.
Dumbledore had already posted on the bulletin board the joyous news that the basilisk had been slain—and that all the students would now be able to take off their glasses.
And just like that, Kasenhis found himself back at a small desk in the Great Hall, stuck pulling another miserable shift.
As for the task at hand, it was simple: using a miniaturized grinding wheel, he lightly ran it across the frames of each student's glasses.
That single touch dispelled the binding curse embedded in them.
However, the other enchantments on the glasses—like cleaning charms, comfort spells, and curses for defensive shielding—were all still intact, along with the paired teleportation device.
You could consider it a little gift for the young witches and wizards: the basilisk crisis was over, and now they had a life-saving gadget built right into their glasses—just break them in an emergency, and poof, safety.
Not a bad alternative Christmas present.
After all, this year's Christmas had been a mess. Kasenhis honestly hadn't had time to prepare gifts. Not even one…
Well, not exactly no one. He had prepared a present for Sherlock.
Actually, two. One of them was the case in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom—which Sherlock had dismissed with obvious disdain.
But the second gift, a full holographic Hogwarts puzzle, had kept him entertained for hours.
After clearing the binding curse from the last pair of student glasses...
Wait a second.
Wasn't he forgetting someone?
...
Meanwhile, in the bathroom at St. Mungo's.
Gilderoy Lockhart had filled the entire sink to the brim with water and was holding his breath as he plunged his entire face in, furiously shaking his head side to side, hoping the flowing water might somehow rinse away the thin magical film that had formed over his eyelids—left behind by the glasses.
"Sigh... living is hard."
Lockhart pulled out a tissue and wiped his glasses-covered face, muttering helplessly to himself.
...
"Professor Kasenhis, Professor Dumbledore asked you to come to the Headmaster's office."
Just as Kasenhis finished removing the last of the binding curses from the Hogwarts students' glasses and was about to pack up and head back to his quarters, a young witch approached, clearly sent by Dumbledore with a message.
"Oh… alright, sure."
Outside, the sun had completely set. All of Hogwarts was now lit by torches and candles hidden in various nooks and crannies around the castle.
And it was in this charmingly spooky hour that Kasenhis arrived at Dumbledore's office.
"Dumbledore… whoa—he's not dead yet?" Kasenhis said the moment he opened the door and spotted the thin, silver-haired old man sitting in the corner on a couch.
"I'm just saying, Dumbledore, maybe you should cut back on the sweets. Look at him—so skinny, so stylish."
"…I don't eat your candy, I will buy and eat anything I want with my money!" Dumbledore said with a huff, but his one eyebrow was twitching, clearly a bit embarrassed.
"No need to deflect the question... he asked why I'm not dead yet, didn't he?" drawled Grindelwald lazily from the corner.
"Uh…"
_________
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P@treon: Dragonel