Hogwarts: Harry Potter's Return from the Witcher World

Ron suddenly understood.

He had heard plenty about alchemical bombs—even if he hadn't seen one himself, George and Fred had described them in exaggerated detail. Dumbledore had even praised their talent, lamenting that if they had been born fifty years earlier, they might have had the chance to become Nicolas Flamel's apprentices.

The twins truly had a gift for alchemy.

Ron immediately abandoned his essay, stood up excitedly, and blinked eagerly—almost like a begging Baus—at his brothers. "Are we heading out now?"

"Harry?" George and Fred looked toward the most important person in the group for approval.

"Let's go," Harry said, setting down the newspaper.

"What about the article?" Hermione tugged at his sleeve.

"Let Dumbledore and the others deal with it," Harry shrugged. "It's not our problem."

After all, wasn't that what the Order of the Phoenix was for—handling such troubles?

Hermione sighed but followed him as they left the castle.

Saturday Morning at Hogwarts

The early morning hours on a weekend were the quietest time at Hogwarts.

There were no late-sleeping students rushing en masse to the Great Hall or scrambling to reach their classes.

No professors moving about.

Even Filch was sleeping in, while Mrs. Norris lazily lounged near the entrance, basking in the morning sunlight.

They reached the Black Lake.

"Last night must have been wild," George remarked, eyeing a piece of clothing left abandoned on the shore.

"Looks like it belongs to Jordan's girlfriend," Fred said, crouching down to examine it more closely.

"Really?" George sounded intrigued.

Fred nodded.

"How do you know that?" Ron asked, surprised. "That's Lee's girlfriend!"

The twins exchanged a wicked grin, making Hermione visibly uncomfortable.

Ron wanted to press further, eager to uncover more details.

But Hermione flicked her wand, sending the clothing flying into the lake, where it transformed into a stone and sank with a plop. "Enough with this nonsense. Get on with your experiment."

"Of course, of course, Miss Granger," George quickly dug into his pocket. "Please don't take points from Gryffindor."

"She's not a prefect," Fred reminded him in a whisper.

George gasped. "Merlin's beard! I can accept Harry not being a prefect, but Hermione too?"

"Mum mentioned it when she was praising little Ron!" Fred shook his head. "You weren't paying attention."

They bickered as George finally pulled out an egg-shaped grenade.

It closely resembled a Muggle hand grenade, except for the engraved design—a fierce, majestic griffin etched into the casing.

"Ta-da! Presenting our latest invention!"

"Just as you wanted, Harry—a high-power, large-scale weapon!"

"It's super easy to use!"

"Just like this—"

George slipped his pinky into the ring, gripping the grenade tightly, and raised it high above his head.

"To prevent Muggles—or anyone else—from misusing it, we added a safety feature based on Muggle designs," he explained.

"It requires a spoken trigger."

He took a deep breath and shouted, "Explosion!"

The incantation had six syllables, but unlike true spells, it didn't require precise pronunciation or emotional intent.

The grenade was hurled through the air in a beautiful arc before landing in the Black Lake with a plop.

Harry raised his wand.

"Protego Totalum."

An invisible barrier enveloped the group.

A fraction of a second later—

BOOM!

A massive explosion shook the lake.

Waves surged high into the air, rolling outward in great ripples. A freezing chill followed almost immediately, catching the water mid-rise and solidifying it into jagged ice formations. The lake's surface thickened into a layer of ice, spreading out rapidly in all directions.

Even the magical barrier protecting them was dusted with delicate frost patterns.

"Well? What do you think?" George grinned, smugly rocking on his heels.

"Impressive," Harry admitted, eyes flashing with admiration.

The ice continued spreading—within moments, it had covered nearly one-tenth of the lake.

From beneath the frozen water, several figures shot upward—but before breaking the surface, they halted abruptly, shivering from the intense cold, and immediately retreated.

The merfolk.

A few, however, braved the center of the lake, keeping their distance from the ice. They began casting spells to melt the frozen surface. Though their magic worked, the sheer volume of ice slowed their progress significantly.

Back at the castle, Mrs. Norris had bolted inside, clearly startled by the explosion.

"Originally, we were just going to make it freeze," George explained. "But that night, you saw what happened—it froze too fast, and even we couldn't escape in time."

"So, with Dad's guidance, we took inspiration from Muggles and added an explosion first."

"I bet no one would ever expect this thing to have two effects!" Fred clapped his hands together, fingers splaying out like fireworks. "The explosion alone is enough to catch anyone off guard."

"Still, I wish it were a bit stronger," George sighed. "A bigger boom would be even better."

Fred nodded. "Professor Dumbledore had to use two spells to fully cancel the effects of our alchemical grenade. At the time, we naively thought it could at least pose a threat to him."

"Dad set us straight," Fred admitted. "But he did say it would be very useful in your hands, Harry."

Ron frowned and pointed at the lake. "Isn't this already really powerful?"

"Even during Harry's duel with Snape, nothing caused this much destruction."

He swallowed hard and added, "I mean, even Snape didn't use a spell this powerful."

"Little Ron, you're still too young," George shook his head, looking at him with exaggerated pity. "If this thing actually exploded near the professors—or even Dumbledore himself—I guarantee they'd end up in St. Mungo's for a while."

"But that's not so easy to pull off," Fred sighed. "There's at least a two-second delay between throwing it and the explosion. The professors may have never seen this before, but they wouldn't just let it reach them."

"Professor Flitwick could block it with a Shield Charm."

"Professor McGonagall could Transfigure it."

"Snape could just incinerate it with Fiendfyre."

"Maybe only Professor Sprout might fall for it?"

Harry shook his head. "Not a chance. She'd have a Venomous Tentacula swallow it whole and throw it back at you."

The twins shuddered at the memory of that particular plant.

"How many of these have you made?" Harry asked.

"Besides the one we just tested, we have three more," George said, rummaging through his pockets before producing the remaining grenades and handing them to Harry.

"We wanted to make more," Fred sighed. "But they're expensive—each one costs over a hundred Galleons to produce."

Ron's eyes widened.

Over a hundred Galleons—per bomb?!

His brothers had casually thrown a hundred Galleons into the lake just to see it explode?!

Since when had the Weasleys become this extravagant?!

"It's not just the magical materials that are hard to get," George complained. "Even the gunpowder is tricky. You have no idea how crazy Muggles are about it, Harry."

"We just tried to buy some, told them we needed it for a few bombs," Fred put his hands on his hips, still fuming. "We had money—real British pounds! Borrowed from Sirius! The shopkeeper even told us to wait while he got the stock."

"Next thing we knew, he called Muggle Aurors—what were they called again?"

Hermione, expressionless, answered, "Scotland Yard officers?"

The twins nodded furiously. "Yes! Those guys! They arrested us!"

Harry glanced toward the castle.

A group of Hufflepuffs had gathered at the entrance, gawking at the massive ice formation on the lake.

Filch, following behind Professor McGonagall, was muttering furiously.

McGonagall's voice rang out, cold and severe.

"I am very unhappy to see you causing this much commotion on a Saturday morning—and then immediately scheming to break Muggle laws."

Fred and George turned around with wide, innocent grins.

"Professor, we haven't done anything yet."

McGonagall extended her arm, pointing at the lake. "Then what is this?"

Right at that moment, a merperson broke through the ice, shivering violently, and let out a string of angry, garbled sounds before immediately diving back into the water.

"Just a small, insignificant experiment," George gestured with his fingers, forming a tiny circle.

"You call that small?!" Filch exploded. "Merlin's beard, I thought the castle was blowing up!"

He had been sound asleep when the explosion had jolted him awake, shaking the very walls. Even the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw towers had been disturbed by the noise.

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Powerstones?

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