Alistair lay in the hospital bed for four days. During that time, Dumbledore came to see him and mentioned that his mother, Cali Rerick, wanted him to go home to recuperate, but he refused.
Over the past few days, he had sorted through the memories in his mind one by one. He couldn't shake the feeling that everything that had happened before had been implanted in him by someone else, yet it didn't feel like the Imperius Curse—from what he remembered, people controlled by the Imperius Curse had no recollection of the things they had done.
Perhaps his body still housed its original soul? He would have to observe carefully.
In addition, Alistair felt he needed to preserve his memories from the other world by extracting them from his mind so as to prevent others from discovering his identity.
The only way to extract memories was by using a Pensieve, but a Pensieve was a rare magical artifact; he doubted he would be able to get his hands on one.
So, Occlumency? He remembered Dumbledore saying that it was very difficult for ordinary people to master, but he could give it a try.
Merlin! Alistair began to pray that no one would take an interest in his memories, while deciding to act merely as an onlooker and offer a tiny bit of help only when necessary.
"Ali?" Xina pulled back the curtain around Alistair's bed. "Here are today's notes."
"Thanks, I appreciate your hard work." Alistair took the notes. "Could you do me a favor and borrow a book from the library?"
"What book?"
"<i>Occlumency</i>, or any book with the Half-Blood Prince's notes?" Alistair looked at Xina.
"Another weird and wonderful book? Oh, please, try to socialize with people more. If you keep nose-diving into books like this, you won't make any friends!" Xina said helplessly.
"Do you think I can make friends lying here?" Alistair blinked. "Alright, go borrow the book for me, and as a reward I'll give you a bit of pocket money, how's that?"
Xina feigned reluctance, curling her lips before smiling and agreeing, "Fine, considering the pocket money."
"Hurry up, I'll wait for your news."
Xina walked to the door, suddenly stopped, turned around, and gave a mischievous reminder: "Ali, Professor Snape gave you detention with Filch in the Entrance Hall for an evening, starting the day you're discharged."
"What?" Alistair wanted to say something, but Xina had already scampered off.
He let out a helpless sigh. He had originally wanted to be a well-behaved student, but he never expected to get detention on the very first day of the term.
Filch... seemed to be a Squib? Alistair's biggest impressions of Filch were the Basilisk petrifying his cat, and various detentions spent scrubbing floors.
Alistair felt as though he had forgotten something, but couldn't quite put his finger on it.
He pulled his wandering thoughts back and began to concentrate on studying the notes Xina had brought him.
The scars on his face were starting to peel and itched from time to time; several times he had almost failed to keep himself from scratching them.
Because of this, Alistair wished the wizarding world would invent a potion that made scars vanish instantly, saving him from the agonizing itch when they shed.
Sigh, why on earth had his cauldron blown up? He couldn't figure it out for the life of him.
His second major used to be botany—out of personal interest, he understood plants to a certain extent. Combined with his first major in pharmacology, if he couldn't even brew the simplest healing potion, his classmates would surely laugh at him if they ever found out.
Once he was discharged, he definitely had to look into it!
During his time in the Hospital Wing, Xina had only managed to find a standard copy of <i>Occlumency</i> in the restricted section; she hadn't found any book borrowed by the Half-Blood Prince.
Alistair had pored over the book for three whole days, but couldn't make sense of a single thing.
Of course—Harry only started practicing Occlumency in his fourth year; for him, having just been introduced to magic, it was simply asking too much of himself.
On the day of his discharge, Xina didn't bring homework to see him this time; instead, she accompanied him back to the dormitory, chattering all the way about all the amusing things the Weasley twins had been up to that week.
"It was just so hilarious! You really should have seen it for yourself."
Alistair curled his lip and kept silent, walking straight back to Gryffindor Tower.
"Alright Xina, I'm heading back to the boys' dormitory," Alistair cut off Xina's desire to keep babbling. "I've got a lot of things to do."
Xina let out a couple of hums, muttered something about him being devoid of romance, and walked away.
When Alistair returned to the dormitory and saw three strange boys hitting it off, with a brown-haired little boy reading a book on a bed in the corner, he suddenly felt a bit of a headache regarding the socialization before him.
As a twenty-two-year-old man having to deal with a bunch of brats, it really was rather awkward.
The moment they saw someone arrive, the three boys immediately stopped fooling around. The brown-haired boy put down his book, and four heads turned in unison toward the door.
"Hello," Alistair nodded at them. "I'm Alistair Rerick."
The three boys jumped down from their beds. Two of them looked identical and had yellowish-brown red hair, and he instantly recognized them as Fred and George.
Looking at the slightly chubby-faced twins, Alistair found it hard to associate them with the mischievous third-years they would become.
"Hello, I'm George Weasley." One of the red-haired boys walked up to Alistair and held out his fist.
Alistair blinked and also extended his fist to bump his.
"Hey! I'm George, he's Fred—don't let him trick you." The other red-haired boy came over and threw an arm around his shoulder.
"Is that so?" Alistair looked at the two of them. They really did look alike!
The third boy was Black, and he stepped forward, extending his hand with particular warmth: "Hello, I'm Lee Jordan."
"Hello." Alistair also reached out and shook his hand.
The fourth boy didn't get out of bed, simply nodding at Alistair. "My name is Civet Bambling."
Alistair returned his nod.
"Oh, can I call you Ali?" Having obtained Alistair's consent, the Weasley twins began excitedly recounting what had happened during class.
"You were brilliant, blowing up your cauldron in the very first Potions class! You should've seen the look on Snape's face—it was as black as ink!" Fred exaggeratedly gestured the scene.
George stood beside him, mimicking Snape's expression and tone at the time: "Wretched, you lot are a bunch of blockheads!"
"His expression back then was just too funny!" The twins burst into simultaneous laughter.
Alistair smiled and shook his head. "I'm going to put my things away first, you guys carry on." He rattled the items in his hand.
He placed his books and homework on the table beside his bed, took some clothes from the wardrobe, and prepared to head to the bathroom to wash up.
The Gryffindor dormitories slept five to a room, and the bathrooms were shared. Alistair suddenly felt a twinge of envy for Slytherin; he seemed to remember their rooms were single or double occupancy? Along with private bathrooms and a small sitting room outside their bedrooms.
He was green with envy—he felt like a walking lemon at that moment.
When Alistair came out of the bathroom, he saw the Weasley twins and Lee Jordan huddled together whispering.
Fred caught sight of Alistair and beckoned to him. "Hey mate, want to come and help us figure something out?"
Alistair walked over and saw several pieces of parchment covered from top to bottom in dense writing. "What are you lot working on?"
"We bought some magical items from some upper-class students..."
"And we're trying to improve them!"
"Isn't that exciting?" The twins blinked at Alistair together, as if saying, <i>"Come on! Join us!"</i>
Alistair sat down and looked over their drafted plans.
"Look! This is a squeaky toy designed specifically for scaring people..."
"What if we make this toy move around on its own? How about that? Brilliant, right?!"
"If it scurries all over the place, it'll definitely be terrifying." Lee Jordan stared at Alistair with glowing eyes.
Alistair curled his lips into a smile. "Then girls are bound to hate you."
"We don't need girls to like these, do we, Fred?" George threw his arm around Fred's shoulder and joked.
"Of course not. If girls found out, they'd try to stop our invention—it'd be a terrible hassle and it would slow down our research progress!" Fred pulled him back in an embrace.
"Girls aren't troublesome at all. If they heard you say that, they'd be heartbroken." Alistair glanced at the clock; it was ten o'clock, and he still had time to go back to bed and read for a bit. "Still, your toy proposal isn't bad, but it's very late now. Time for bed."
"Oh! Goody-two-shoes Ali?" George winked at Alistair, teasing him.
Fred rolled up the parchment and chimed in with teasing tone: "Our good little boy is off to bed?"
Hearing this, the corners of Alistair's mouth couldn't help twitching, and he said, "I just want to go back to bed and read for a bit before sleeping."
Little brats trying to act all grown-up was quite amusing.
"Oh! Well, you're going to miss out on our midnight stroll."
"Poor goody-two-shoes Ali."
"What?" Alistair hesitated for a moment, turning his head to look at them. "A midnight stroll? Aren't you afraid of getting caught by Filch?"
"Of course not," Fred smiled mysteriously. "We have ways of making sure he doesn't catch us."
"That's a secret," George chuckled stealthily. "Off you go to be your good little boy and sleep."
Alistair couldn't help thinking of Harry's two legendary artifacts for nocturnal wandering—the Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map!
The Invisibility Cloak was given to Harry by Dumbledore, so... could it be that the Weasley twins had gotten their hands on the Marauder's Map already, on the very first week?! Merlin! And they'd managed to get detention in their very first week?!
Just before falling asleep, Alistair thought to himself that when he went to Filch's detention tomorrow, he would have to check whether the map had really ended up in their possession.
If he could get his hands on the map, he would study it first—he was terribly curious about those secret passages.