Sometimes, tears aren't a sign of sorrow.

In fact, sadness itself can, on rare occasions, be a strangely positive emotion.

Vaughn stood silently, emotions roiling beneath the surface.

A faint meow echoed from the hallway. Fruity, who had been using his litter box, suddenly bolted into the room.

The moment she saw the lazy, silvery-blue translucent Maine Coon curled beside Vaughn's feet, her fur puffed up in rage. He crouched low, hissing sharply in outrage.

"Alright, alright, Fruity, calm down. It's my Patronus, not a rival. No need to get jealous," Vaughn chuckled, scooping the angry tabby into his arms.

Fruity still took a few swipes at the ghostly feline, but when her claws passed straight through the other cat's body, she paused in confusion. After sniffing a bit and confirming the illusion, she huffed with indignation.

Crisis averted, she flicked his tail smugly at the spirit-cat and threw Vaughn a look that screamed, Don't ever scare me like that again. I'm not falling for this without at least three fish treats.

Thanks to the interruption, Vaughn managed to pull himself out of the emotional storm that had overtaken him earlier. The impact of summoning a Patronus for the first time had shaken him more than he'd expected.

But it would be the last time. With the help of the system's enhancement panel, he'd reawakened memories of happiness he thought he'd forgotten and had finally learned to channel positive emotions properly.

He wouldn't lose control again.

He looked down at the silvery Maine Coon at his feet. He could feel a faint mental link connecting them, a sense of shared emotion and presence.

In the wizarding world, a Patronus is often thought to represent one's truest ideal of happiness, a living reflection of the soul, untouched by corruption, a piece of beauty one refuses to let go of. It embodies both the wizard's emotional core and their purest self.

So then, what did it say about him, that his Patronus took the shape of a cat?

Was it the unpredictability of cats? Or, as many magical texts suggested, the idea that cats are living vessels of magic itself?

Considering how obsessed he was with magic, Vaughn figured the latter was probably closer to the truth.

As for why it looked exactly like a Maine Coon… well, that was easy. Fruity was the only pet he'd ever had, both in this life and the one before.

The past was gone, untouchable. And while he didn't wear his heart on his sleeve anymore, Fruity was the one thread that connected both versions of himself. A living memory.

Patronuses could change, after all. Snape's certainly had.

Once he fell completely in love with Lily Evans, his Patronus became a doe, her Patronus.

Otherwise, judging by what Vaughn knew of the man, Snape's Patronus would almost definitely have been a snake or a bat.

He studied the magical threads around his silvery companion one last time, then let the spell go. The Maine Coon shimmered and vanished into soft mist.

With a breath, Vaughn turned his attention to the second spell that had just reached Level 1 on his system interface: the Vanishing Spell.

This one, frankly, was terrifying.

Unlike Disillusionment Charms or teleportation spells, the Vanishing Spell didn't hide something or move it elsewhere.

It made the target… cease to exist.

The first time Vaughn even considered trying it, he'd asked Professor McGonagall for advice. Her answer was short and stern.

"It breaks things down to their most fundamental state, Mr. Weasley. It doesn't teleport or conceal. It dissolves. I don't believe you're ready for it."

In Muggle terms? It disassembled the object into microscopic particles.

That alone had made Vaughn drop the idea on the spot.

A Level 0 spell was still in its trial stage. At that level, spells often failed or worse, went haywire. That was also why he still hadn't dared to try the Firestorm Charm.

Failure was fine. A misfire? Not so much.

Most young witches and wizards had weak enough magic that even a misfire wouldn't do much harm. Vaughn, on the other hand, had enough magical power to rival a full-grown wizard. A misfire with a spell like this? That could be catastrophic.

Sure, the Vanishing Spell had a counter-spell, but if something went truly wrong, no one could predict the consequences.

He hated that sort of unknown risk.

"Even with the system shortcut bypassing the beginner phase," he muttered, "this spell's still tricky. Technically a charm, yes, but half of it is rooted in Transfiguration."

Like Transfiguration, it worked in stages. Inanimate objects were the easiest to affect. Then came organic materials, simple lifeforms, complex creatures, and finally intelligent beings.

Vaughn waved his wand at a smooth pebble he'd picked up near the Black Lake. The stone shimmered and vanished from the desk.

He focused intently, trying to trace the magic at work.

"The spell skips the usual transfiguration steps, no need to analyze molecular structure or project it into your mind. It uses raw magic, emotion, and the ritualistic nature of the incantation to collapse the object's structure. The stone's macro form just… disappears."

But even as he stared at the empty space where the pebble had been, he could still feel something.

It wasn't truly gone.

As the caster, he could vaguely sense that the stone had been broken into micro-particles, but those particles were still there. They hadn't dispersed into nothing. The magic was holding them, suspended in a fragile, in-between state.

If he spoke the counter-spell quickly enough, it would reassemble, returning to its solid form.

But the enchantment was unstable. Too much magical interference, and the residual magic would collapse. At that point, the object would be truly, irreversibly gone.

Vaughn followed that faint magical thread and released the spell. In a whisper of energy, the pebble reappeared, sitting innocently on the desk.

"Fascinating..."

His eyes gleamed with curiosity. What would happen if he tried it on something living?

Something simple, like a slug?

At Level 1, the spell could only affect simple lifeforms. But if a living body vanished, what happened to the soul?

Wizards believed life consisted of both body and soul.

If the body vanished, did the soul become exposed? Or did it fragment along with the flesh? Or maybe it entered some weird quantum overlap state?

Questions buzzed in his mind, but Vaughn didn't act on them.

He still lacked the tools to sense or study the soul. Even if he vanished a slug or a snail, he wouldn't be able to see what had happened.

Still, he jotted it down. Definitely something to investigate after perfecting that new line of soul-sensitive potions he'd been working on.

Although... that came with its own problem.

Research involving souls was dangerous territory. Forbidden, even.

The Unforgivable Curses weren't outlawed simply because they lacked counter-curses. It was because they touched the soul directly, mangling something that should never be tampered with.

Vaughn sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"Well… that's a problem for future me."