Lucas checked Marcus's bedside cabinet again, then went through the scattered items on his bed.

His expression gradually darkened.

He had gone to sleep later than Marcus last night and woken up earlier. Marcus hadn't touched that drawer.

That left only one gap in the timeline, the roughly half hour he had spent wandering the night before, travel time included. Could someone have slipped into their dormitory during that window?

Seeing Lucas stay silent, Marcus grew frantic. Rummaging through every other spot where something might be hidden, Marcus finally slumped onto the bed in defeat.

"Do you have any ideas? Lucas, help me! If my father finds out I lost this, he'll beat me to death!" Marcus was terrified.

Lucas said nothing. He was thinking about how the pocket watch could have disappeared.

He had set up a few spells in the dormitory, specifically, he had placed a Revealer Crystal.

"I think you should go ask a professor for help. A professor might be able to use a different kind of magic to track it down." Lucas offered, unhurried.

"But... Snape won't help me. He'll just say I was careless and lost it myself." Marcus looked to Lucas for help.

What Marcus actually wanted was for Lucas to come along to find a professor, maybe a good word from Lucas to Snape would make a difference.

Lucas shook his head. "This is your own problem."

He watched Marcus's reaction. The young wizard paced back and forth around the dormitory without once thinking that there might be another way to handle it.

"There are only the two of us in this dormitory. It was here yesterday and now it's gone. I think you should go find a professor and ask about it yourself." Lucas said.

Marcus opened his mouth. "I — I never suspected you stole it! You're not that kind of person!"

The simplest thing would've been to pin it on the half-blood, Marcus had actually considered it, but Lucas was not someone to be trifled with, and they were already friends.

Lucas sighed. "So the professor won't think that either..."

Before he could finish, Marcus seized on something and cut in: "So the professor will need to clear you of suspicion — which means he'll help me!"

Marcus didn't wait for Lucas to react. He went thundering out of the dormitory.

Lucas watched the retreating figure. That wasn't actually what he'd meant, but... was Marcus getting faster?

Once he was sure Marcus was gone.

Lucas retrieved a Revealer Crystal from his bed frame and rewound last night's recording.

At the moment he had blown up his pillow, the pocket watch had been sitting beside the Galleons. Then Marcus took out the watch, carefully placated Lucas, gave up decisively when nothing came of it, wiped the watch down, and put it in the drawer.

Lucas fast-forwarded through what came next.

Most of the footage was still. Then at midnight, Lucas climbed out of bed. At twelve thirty-five, he returned to the dormitory with a light step, and in between, the drawer showed no irregularity whatsoever.

He increased the playback speed. The rest of the night passed without incident.

The drawer had no hidden mechanisms, no magic on it, and had never been opened.

The pocket watch had vanished into thin air.

Lucas quickly stowed the crystal and dismantled the protective spells hidden around the dormitory.

He had barely finished when the door swung open. Marcus ushered in a visibly displeased Snape with painstaking deference.

The first thing Snape saw upon entering was Marcus's rumpled bedcovers, a slipper kicked sideways, and a single sock hanging off the foot of the bed.

He gave Marcus a dissatisfied look. Marcus took it in stride. Lucas, meanwhile, was seated in the chair beside the bed, covers folded neatly, that side of the room almost entirely bare, with only a document folder resting at the head of the bed.

"Have you filled it in? Give it to me now." Snape held out his hand toward Lucas.

The moment Snape walked in, Lucas had already stood up.

He hadn't expected Snape to lead with that. He hesitated. "Professor, I haven't finished filling it in yet."

Snape nodded and said nothing more.

That confirmed his suspicion. He decided to wait until Lucas came to his office to deal with the paperwork before addressing it.

The matter at hand was that Nott was missing a gold pocket watch.

Snape, like Lucas, had used an inspection charm on the key item, and the charm had likewise yielded nothing.

"Did either of you go wandering last night?" Snape looked toward Lucas with suspicion. The night before, Walter had practically spelled it out for him: Lucas had been nearby, just by some means he had yet to identify.

Lucas was certainly not going to nod.

He shook his head with perfect innocence. "I slept very well last night." A nagging sense of unease had already begun to settle in, though.

Marcus nodded in corroboration. "Lucas was back before curfew. We chatted for a bit and then we both went to sleep." He added for emphasis: "I really did put the watch in the drawer — and it definitely wasn't Lucas!"

Snape ignored his reasoning and abruptly turned his attention to their pre-sleep conversation. "What did the two of you talk about last night?"

"Nothing much, Professor." Lucas's scalp prickled. He quickly took over the task of describing events. "I did see Marcus put the watch away. I swear I didn't take it. I'm willing to submit to any kind of search, but I think there's more to this than meets the eye."

Snape fixed Lucas with a dangerous stare. "We can rule out the possibility that both you and Nott are misremembering. Can we?"

Lucas nodded.

Snape continued. "You believe someone slipped into the dormitory last night and stole the watch?"

Marcus hadn't considered that possibility. He scrambled anxiously to check the spot where he kept his Galleons.

"No, Professor. I'm a light sleeper, I would have known if someone came in." Lucas pressed on regardless. "I think what we need to investigate is this: how a pocket watch could vanish without a trace from an enclosed space with no magic cast upon it."

Listen to what he was saying.

Snape was so exasperated he almost laughed.

Very well. He now knew that Lucas had been in a bad mood yesterday, had gone wandering and eavesdropped on his conversation with Walter, and had almost certainly set up some kind of surveillance charm in this dormitory, that was the only reason Lucas could state so confidently that the drawer had never been opened and the object had simply ceased to exist.

The smile faded quickly from Snape's face. His expression turned cold. "Tell me, do you want to go find the Headmaster right now and explain this matter yourself?"

Lucas went silent.

He had, in fact, formed a theory about the pocket watch. This room was very close to the Room of Requirement, strictly speaking, it was part of the Room of Requirement.

The disappearance was quite possibly caused by an instability in the spatial magic.

Perhaps the Room of Requirement was hiding some kind of secret?

Hogwarts always held many secrets. This matter could certainly be brought to the Headmaster, but it could also be resolved quietly.

Lucas had looked that pocket watch over. The craftsmanship was entirely ordinary, solid and reliable, nothing of research value. It wasn't an especially precious family heirloom.

Lucas didn't answer.

The atmosphere in the dormitory turned strange.

Snape drew a slow breath. He pointed at the door.

"Get out!"

➤ Next: Researching the Contract

Chapter 207 - Researching the Contract

Lucas and Marcus both looked toward Snape at the same time.

Marcus belatedly pointed at himself. "Are you asking me to leave?" He stared, visibly disbelieving, and asked again just to be sure.

The Slytherin Head of House looked at him coldly. "Mr. Nott, does every piece of magic have to be performed with you as a witness?"

"Of course... not, Professor." Marcus stammered. "I'll go out right now. You and Lucas have a chat — please, please help me find it!"

Marcus realized he'd said something he shouldn't have, and quickly pulled the dormitory door shut behind him.

Snape walked to Lucas's bedside. He picked up the document folder, opened it, and tipped the papers out.

They were still in the same order Snape had placed them.

Lucas had not filled in a single word.

"If you don't want to be my apprentice, you have no obligation to agree." Snape put the documents back and set them lightly in their original spot.

But the folder wasn't balanced, and it slid off the bedside cabinet. The pages scattered across the floor and fanned out all the way to Snape's feet.

Lucas looked up to read Snape's expression. It was impenetrable, hollow and blank.

Lucas moved quickly. "Professor, I want this very much!" Last night he had overheard the conversation between Snape and Walter. Snape truly knew nothing about the ritual.

Lucas had originally planned to guide things gradually, waiting for the right moment to hint at it.

But Snape had clearly come to an entirely different conclusion.

Lucas felt a flash of annoyance at himself.

He grabbed hold of Snape's robes, his tone earnest. "I want very much to be your apprentice — but what I was hoping for from the start was more than this. I assumed the apprenticeship you meant was one recognized by magic."

"Last night you gave me these documents and then said there was nothing else — I thought it was because I wasn't qualified enough yet..." The words came out in a rush. He complained inwardly again that with so many colleagues around, not one of them had ever thought to tell Snape about this.

This was the second time Snape had heard the word "contract."

From yesterday until this morning, Snape hadn't had time to verify Walter's wild claims, but he confirmed it now: the apprenticeship system had another form through which it could be established.

Snape raised an eyebrow, his tone still cool. He ordered Lucas: "Go on."

Lucas hedged. "There's actually a book in the library that covers this specifically."

"I want to hear your version." It was rare to see Lucas looking this convincingly flustered. Snape reclaimed the upper hand, and was perfectly content to use the opportunity to settle accounts over the nighttime wandering.

After that initial flash of anxiety, Lucas steadied himself quickly.

Snape had been the one to extend the invitation in the first place. And now he was making Lucas do the explaining.

Lucas grumbled inwardly. But he glanced at Snape, Occlumency released, smiling with obvious satisfaction...

Fine. He could certainly explain.

"An apprenticeship established through magical ritual guarantees that the master fulfills the maximum obligation to teach," Lucas said, falling into a cooperative tone. "Put simply, anything the apprentice is capable of learning, the master is obligated to teach."

"Magic ensures this is carried out precisely. In exchange, the master holds absolute authority over the apprentice during the period of instruction. The apprentice serves the master long-term in the capacity of an attendant, and one apprentice cannot hold two masters at once."

"In terms of long-term obligation, a bond is established between the two parties. They become involved in nearly all of each other's domestic affairs."

Lucas kept it concise.

In truth, the library's books on the master-apprentice system ran several centimeters thick. The regulations had been refined from before the Common Era through the eighteenth century, with numerous versions to choose from.

Snape studied Lucas with open suspicion. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.

The introduction sounded unproblematic enough. The master must teach everything without reservation, that reasonably explained Lucas's earlier sulkiness. Lucas had likely felt that with magic as witness, the guarantee would be more airtight.

But this was Lucas Graham. When he had been "building his empire" in that Albanian bar, he'd described the locals as nothing more than "warmly hospitable."

Lucas had already put on his signature expectant expression. That smile carried a hint of cunning. "Professor, did you not know about this form of apprenticeship before? Are you willing now?"

Snape didn't answer immediately.

The young wizard looked up at him quietly, and, against all expectation, didn't press further.

Snape watched Lucas standing there with such certainty. They had only known each other a year, and in that time this young wizard had gone from suffering an accidental magic outburst over a few overheard words to standing like this: composed.

As though the possibility of being refused had never crossed his mind.

Snape found that he genuinely struggled to refuse.

But agreeing was far from easy either.

This system was more complicated than he'd imagined. He couldn't hastily agree to something he didn't fully understand.

"This contract sounds very... archaic." Snape chose his words carefully. "I would hope your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher has mentioned that contracts in the wizarding world are extremely dangerous, once formed, they may be impossible to dissolve."

Lucas was entirely unconcerned. "That's the whole point of a magical contract."

Snape was momentarily at a loss for words.

The eager light in Lucas's eyes slowly faded. For just a moment, hurt crossed the young wizard's face, then was quickly concealed.

A hand came to rest on top of Lucas's head, covering his eyes.

Snape vented his frustration by ruffling Lucas's hair and said through gritted teeth, "I will go and research this contract. As long as I can confirm that your description is accurate, we will have this matter settled before the end of term!"

That slightly cool hand pressed down firmly every time Lucas tried to lift his head or sneak a peek.

A moment later, Snape gave a dry cough and released Lucas's disheveled head.

Lucas stole a glance at him. Snape's expression was as composed as ever, but the tips of his ears were faintly red.

Oh.

When Snape's glare swept over, it caught only Lucas looking perfectly earnest.

Snape looked around the room, frowned, and said, "What is the situation with Marcus's pocket watch?"

Lucas kept a straight face. "You have to believe I didn't take it."

A useless thing to say, and he knew it. He stepped back half a pace to protect his head from incoming retaliation.

Lucas sped up. "It's like this, I have a theory. I can take you to see for yourself!"

Snape had no patience for theories from children this age. He declined to go along. "I'll leave that to you. Keep an eye on your roommate, I don't want him developing the habit of running to a professor over nothing. I am not his house-elf!"

Lucas tried to picture Snape as a house-elf. Before the image could fully form, he felt the Professor's eyes narrow dangerously.

Lucas hastily agreed. "Of course. I'll take care of all of it."

He walked Snape to the dormitory door. Snape stopped. He glanced at Marcus's bed, then said, a little stiffly, "Sometimes you may find your peers very stupid. Trust me, that is not an illusion. But perhaps you'll happen to find something useful among them all the same."

➤ Next: The Pocket Watch, The Pocket Watch