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Glenn's life had become quite leisurely in the following days.
On school days: attending classes with Hermione, accompanying her during meals, reading with her, helping her review for final exams, visiting Hagrid with her to check on the dragon egg's incubation progress. At night, he would patrol fully armed near the unicorn herd with his enhanced senses activated, watching for any sign of Quirrell. On weekends, he and Hermione would practice spell combat.
Life was absolutely wonderful.
The nightly stakeouts were tedious, but Glenn was well accustomed to this lifestyle from his previous life. He'd once had a similar mission where the target was extremely cautious. After a traitor in the organization had leaked news of the assassination attempt, the target had holed up in a safehouse and sent bodyguards and other assassins to hunt down Glenn.
But Glenn hadn't been impatient then. If the target wanted to be careful, he would simply bide his time, taking other assignments while avoiding the hunters and maintaining irregular surveillance of the target's location.
Those bodyguards and assassins never caught even a glimpse of him.
After a full year, the target finally lost patience. On his first outing in that entire year, Glenn had ended his mission with one slash to the throat.
Back then, Glenn had been in plain sight. Now, operating from the shadows, he had even less reason to rush. Besides, Quirrell and Voldemort couldn't sustain themselves for long on their last drink of unicorn blood. As long as they hadn't attempted to steal the fake Philosopher's Stone, they would have to return to the Forbidden Forest.
It wasn't Glenn who needed to hurry, but Voldemort and his servant.
The fully armed hunter had set his trap. Now he only needed to wait for the wounded prey to walk into it.
Glenn only needed to strategically despise his opponent while tactically respecting them. He had done everything possible and felt little burden. He was prepared - if the first strike failed, he could safely retreat.
If his luck was truly terrible and he couldn't spot Quirrell in the Forbidden Forest before Dumbledore's trap at the fourth-floor corridor, then Glenn would let it go.
After all, Quirrell and Voldemort would end up severely injured at minimum - it was just a matter of timing.
With Glenn ahead and the old honey bee behind, even if Dumbledore deliberately let him take the fake Philosopher's Stone, it would still make Voldemort furious enough to spit blood.
How utterly miserable would that be?
Glenn treated this period as a vacation - it was far easier than his previous nightly training sessions.
He'd have to make up for it later though. Like rowing against the current, not advancing meant falling behind, Glenn thought to himself.
The little girl beside him was particularly excited today because during breakfast they had received a note from Hagrid with just a few words: "It's hatching."
Even though Hermione tried to appear uninterested in Hagrid's dragon about to be born, still focusing seriously on her classes, Glenn knew this girl was actually extremely curious about it.
"Shall we go to Hagrid's after this Herbology class?" Glenn suggested, seeing her state.
Hermione was clearly tempted, but thinking about her afternoon Charms and History of Magic classes, and how she wanted to review the key points one more time to ensure she could earn maximum points in class, she restrained her desire and shook her head. "Let's wait until after History of Magic. The baby dragon won't run away - we can see it after classes."
"Alright then," Glenn had no objections. If the little girl could control her curiosity, he would respect her choice.
However, Harry and Ron in the distance clearly couldn't focus on the lesson, just waiting for class to end.
Draco, sitting across from Glenn, also seemed somewhat distracted, though for unclear reasons.
Glenn paid it no mind and continued recording information about the plant before him.
[After History of Magic class...]
Glenn was pulled along by an excited Hermione all the way to Hagrid's hut, forcing him to put away his walking stick as he couldn't use it while running.
After suppressing her curiosity all day, the little girl eagerly knocked on Hagrid's door and burst in after receiving permission.
In the center of the room, a black baby dragon was wobbling about - to be honest, it was quite ugly.
Polite Dragon: How dare you!
It had a long snout with white nostrils, bumpy horns on its head, bulging orange eyes, and spiky wings.
Several of Hagrid's fingers were wrapped in bandages, apparently from being bitten by the young dragon.
But Hagrid didn't mind, still gazing adoringly at the dragon on the table.
"Oh, isn't it beautiful?" Hagrid sighed proudly as Glenn and Hermione entered, clearly having grown very fond of the dragon.
But the baby dragon wasn't welcoming to Glenn and Hermione. Already startled by the suddenly opened door, it became alert at the sight of two strange creatures and launched an attack without hesitation!
It lunged toward them!
"No! Norbert! Don't!" Hagrid finally snapped out of his daze, horrified as he tried to stop Norbert from attacking Glenn.
Pulling Hermione behind him, Glenn's wand appeared in his hand with a flip, while Hermione, though startled, quickly drew her wand as well.
Then something extraordinary happened.
The moment they drew their wands, a subtle wave emanated from the baby dragon, seemingly captured by Glenn and Hermione's wands.
Suddenly, their wands blazed with light, mysterious black and white mists emerging and connecting between them.
This had never happened before - Glenn hadn't noticed anything unusual about either of their wands previously.
But now it was different. Guided by some mysterious force, Hermione hugged Glenn from behind and pressed the tip of her wand against his.
The black and white mists connected, merging outside while flowing gently through their bodies where their wands and hands touched, forming a circuit. An enormous surge of power instantly manifested.
A rhythmic dragon's roar echoed faintly in their ears, though neither knew what the sound was.
The black and white energies swirled and merged in the air, forming an ink-wash style dragon pattern.
As it was said: Black and white merged, covered in scales, twin-winged, treading on clouds.
Black and white mists floated from Glenn and Hermione's eyes, entering the dragon pattern's eye sockets. In that instant, the dragon seemed to come alive, opening its mouth in a silent roar.
This wasn't good - Glenn sensed something wrong and struggled to control the power.
Under his deliberate control, he managed to contain it to a small area in front of them, though it still leaked outward.
While Glenn and Hermione were unaffected, poor Norbert suffered greatly.
The dragon fell unconscious without a sound, its tiny body having endured something it shouldn't have at such a young age, dropping to the ground with a thud.
Hagrid rushed over: "Glenn! Hermione! Are you alright?!" From his perspective, he had only seen Hermione fearfully hugging Glenn before Norbert collapsed.
Seeing they were fine, Hagrid patted his chest in relief, then picked up Norbert with concern: "The little one must have been scared, that's why it attacked you. Oh dear, it's fainted from fright."
The bewildered pair exchanged glances, thinking: "Could Hagrid not see it?"
They confirmed each other's thoughts.
With Norbert unconscious and their minds preoccupied with other matters, they hastily bid goodbye to Hagrid and ran back to the Room of Requirement.
Only after confirming no one could enter did they collapse onto the sofa and begin discussing what had happened.
They placed their wands side by side on the table before them. The black and white energies appeared again, but much fainter than before, barely visible and slowly dissipating.
After a while, the mist completely vanished, and Glenn could no longer detect anything unusual.
"Hermione, did you receive any information when you hugged me?" Glenn asked after a moment of silence.
He wasn't sure if Hermione had heard that sound.
The little girl nodded, clearly remembering it well.
"Yes, there seemed to be a voice in my ear, like a beast's roar?" She wasn't entirely sure, as neither of them were particularly knowledgeable about animal sounds.
"It must be related to that black and white mist creature that appeared with the roar, but what exactly that animal was remains to be investigated - I've certainly never seen anything like it before," Hermione speculated.
Obviously, Glenn didn't know either - he had very little knowledge of such things from his previous life.
They set that matter aside for now.
Glenn fell silent, entering a state of internal observation. The little girl beside him didn't interrupt, quietly waiting for him to finish.
Glenn was carefully sensing the changes in his body. He had clearly felt that black energy merge with him, and after searching his body thoroughly, he was surprised to find his physical abilities seemed enhanced, with slight improvements in various aspects - changes so subtle that only someone with Glenn's extraordinary perception could detect them.
The enhancement was minimal but continuous - even now he could feel his body changing at an extremely slow pace.
For the better.
Emerging from his internal observation, Glenn shared what he had discovered.
Hermione said she couldn't feel any changes in herself, but Glenn suspected the changes were happening in her too. Besides the black energy he had absorbed, she had absorbed the white energy - the effects were probably just too subtle for her to perceive.
There was nothing they could do. The incident had been sudden, information was lacking, and there was nothing to reference. Glenn felt that as long as the effects were beneficial to himself and Hermione, and the power could be used by them, it was a good thing - no need to waste effort tracing its origins.
But the studious Hermione was determined to get to the bottom of this matter. For such a scholarly and curious girl, simply ignoring this would make her very uncomfortable.
However, besides the beast's roar and the animal pattern, it was difficult to know where to begin their investigation.
Knowing how vast the scope of research would be, even Hermione felt somewhat discouraged.
"Take it slowly, we're not in a hurry," Glenn patted Hermione's head comfortingly. "If you really want to uncover the truth, we have plenty of time and many lifetimes ahead to investigate. I'll always be with you."
After all, the two little ones had the Philosopher's Stone, and their life together was just beginning.