Early morning.
Bright sunlight pierced through the atmosphere, striking the surface of the lake.
Filtered through the heavy depths of the water, it softened into a deep, velvety green hue before bleeding through the glass windows of the Slytherin dormitory, scattering flickering serpent-like shadows across the room.
Silan woke up early, spending a brief moment by the window admiring the Giant Squid as it drifted through the lakebed.
He had heard that the Black Lake at Hogwarts was heavily enchanted; if any student happened to tumble into the water, the Giant Squid would gently scoop them up and ferry them back to the surface.
It had to be said that this was an incredibly humane safety feature.
He couldn’t help but wonder, though–just how much of a salary did Dumbledore pay that massive, tentacled lifeguard?
Selecting the books required for the day’s curriculum from his trunk, Silan navigated his way up the spiral staircase, heading toward the Great Hall for breakfast.
However, he didn’t rush straight to the dining tables; instead, he picked a spot with an excellent, unobstructed vantage point to observe the influx of students heading to class.
Hogwarts boasted a staggering one hundred and forty-two staircases in total.
Almost every single one of them had a habit of moving entirely on its own whim, and a few were notorious for vanishing altogether without warning.
To make matters worse, several doors weren’t actually doors at all, but solid, unyielding stone walls disguised as entryways.
While this chaotic layout had been explicitly designed centuries ago to fend off Muggle witch-hunts, the only souls bearing the brunt of the architecture today were the students.
Case in point: Silan watched with his own eyes as Draco Malfoy stepped directly into a sudden void, plummeting clean off a moving staircase.
Had the castle not been laced with specialized cushioning charms to ensure a perfectly smooth, injury-free landing for young wizards, Hogwarts would have gone bankrupt and folded long before Voldemort could ever make a comeback.
“Damn it all!” Malfoy barked, brushing himself off as he scrambled back onto his feet.
“Now I have to climb up all the way from the ground floor again!
I am absolutely telling my father to write Dumbledore a letter demanding he tear these bloody staircases down!” Silan, on the other hand, rather fancied this architectural quirk.
If one fell off the stairs at the right angle, they plummeted directly toward the entrance of the Great Hall–an absolute masterclass in spatial efficiency.
By the time a ninth student plummeted from that identical vanishing step, Silan had thoroughly reverse-engineered the shifting patterns of the staircase.
After all, he had plenty of willing test subjects throwing themselves into the abyss to map out the anomalies for him.
But for now, his immediate priority was sustenance.
The breakfast spread was remarkably lavish; the Hogwarts house-elves routinely prepared a massive variety of dishes for the student body.
Of course, one shouldn’t harbor overly grand expectations regarding traditional British fare; it wasn’t particularly superior to a classic German joke or American history.
Silan casually gnawed his way through a roasted chicken leg, sliced a few pieces of sausage, grabbed a handful of supplementary sides, and meticulously assembled a massive, densely stuffed sandwich for himself.
He possessed an exceptional talent for flavor combinations, rendering his creation vastly superior to standard cooking.
It even carried a nostalgic hint of a classic meat burger.
As he ate, Silan became acutely aware that the surrounding young wizards were eyeing him with highly distinct expressions.
A great number of students accelerated their pace as they passed his seat, shooting him quick, furtive glances, while others clustered together at a distance, whispering in hushed, urgent tones.
This puzzled Silan immensely.
*What, do they all want a bite of my sandwich?
If you want one, bloody well build it yourselves.
Why are you staring at me?* [LanLi: Charge them for the ‘making’ service.] Under the intense scrutiny of his peers, Silan accelerated his eating speed.
Finishing his meal, he gathered his textbooks and prepared to head out for his first class.
The moment he stepped out of the Great Hall, he watched Ron Weasley plummet straight off the moving stairs.
Number ten.
A perfectly rounded statistic.
With a fluid flick of his wand, Silan deployed a smooth Levitation Charm, catching Ron mid-air before gently guiding him back onto the safety of the staircase.
“Cheers,” Ron offered, poking his small head over the stone banister to offer a breathless word of thanks.
Drawing upon the data he had just harvested from observing his classmates, Silan stepped onto the stairs with absolute confidence.
He reached the infamous vanishing step within moments, only to find Harry and Ron still lingering at the landing.
“We wanted to say a proper thank you,” Harry said, before Ron interjected with a sigh, “Oh, honestly, we haven’t a bloody clue how to get to the classroom.
We’ve been wandering in circles around this landing forever.” It wasn’t until Silan stood directly before them that Harry and Ron fully registered the emerald green trim on his robes, realizing he was a Slytherin.
The revelation caused a slight, instinctive friction in their chests.
Slytherin’s reputation preceded itself, and with Malfoy constantly swaggering around making a public spectacle of their house, the two of them had subconsciously concluded that there simply wasn’t a single decent soul sorted into the dungeons.
Even if the person standing before them happened to bear the Prewett surname.
“Allow me to guide you,” Silan volunteered smoothly.
Harry and Ron exchanged a silent look, nodding quietly as they fell into step behind him.
“Hey, Harry,” Ron whispered in a hushed tone as they walked.
“I heard a rumor that a massive row nearly broke out in the Slytherin common room last night.
Chris Nott’s hair was completely blasted off.” “Who did it?” Harry murmured back.
Ron subtly jerked his chin toward Silan’s retreating back.
“Slytherins are just an inherently disloyal lot.” He paused, looking thoughtful.
“Is he truly a cousin of our family?” “Not entirely certain yet,” Ron mumbled, popping a Chocolate Frog into his mouth before pulling out the enclosed collectible card.
“Ugh, Dumbledore again.” The first period of the day was Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall–a joint class shared between Slytherin and Gryffindor.
Hermione Granger had arrived exceptionally early, claiming a seat in the very front row as she meticulously flipped through her textbook to conduct a thorough pre-class preview.
Of course, one could easily argue she was merely reviewing, considering she had already memorized the entirety of the text cover to cover.
Professor McGonagall had not yet arrived; the only presence on the podium was a sleek tabby cat perched squarely on the desk, periodically lifting a paw to lick it with aloof dignity.
The young wizards showed no immediate desire to enter the classroom, choosing instead to cluster in small groups along the corridor.
The absolute second Silan stepped through the threshold, his eyes locked onto the cat sitting atop the desk.
The feline turned its head to stare directly back at him.
Silan could clearly discern that the distinct markings ringing the cat’s eyes bore a striking, geometric resemblance to Professor McGonagall’s square spectacles.
One would have to be an absolute blockhead not to deduce exactly who this was.
Silan felt a profound urge to march up, give the cat a thorough scratching behind the ears, and then casually play dumb to escape any consequences.
As a fresh, wide-eyed first-year wizard, failing to recognize a professor’s advanced Animagus transformation was an entirely reasonable defense.
Perhaps because his intense stare lingered a fraction too long, the cat hopped down from the podium.
In the blink of an eye, the feline form expanded and shifted, materializing into the stern figure of Professor McGonagall.
“Good morning, Professor McGonagall.
I had absolutely no idea that was you,” Silan offered with a perfectly executed look of profound shock.
*A tragic, squandered opportunity!* The chance to catch Professor McGonagall in her cat form to welcome the new students happened precisely once; there would be zero opportunities to casually pet the cat professor in the future.
As expected, hesitation truly breeds absolute defeat!
“Good morning,” McGonagall replied, pushing her spectacles up the bridge of her nose as a flicker of surprise flashed across her eyes.
She remained slightly skeptical as to whether Silan had genuinely failed to recognize her from the outset.
Hearing Silan’s voice, Hermione seemed to react instinctively.
She lifted her head from her heavy textbook, waving her arm enthusiastically.
“Over here, Silan!
Quick, come sit next to me!” “Thank you, Hermione,” Silan smiled, stepping over to slide into the adjoining seat.
Harry and Ron exchanged a brief, thoroughly conflicted look before quietly shuffling toward the rows at the very back of the classroom.
“Good morning, Silan,” Neville Longbottom called out, leaning forward from his seat a few rows back to offer a timid wave.
“Good morning, Mr.
Longbottom,” Silan replied politely.
“How was your first night in the dungeons?” Hermione asked, turning her full attention to him.
Silan methodically arranged his textbooks on the desk before answering smoothly, “It was quite pleasant, actually.
My housemates proved to be remarkably enthusiastic.
We’ve already managed to strike up a roaring, bloody hit with one another.” *Slytherins…
enthusiastic?* Even coming directly from Silan’s mouth, the statement struck Hermione as thoroughly bizarre.
Because the two of them occupied the absolute center of the front row, every young wizard walking into the classroom was immediately confronted by the sight.
The gaze of every entering student turned distinctly peculiar; a Slytherin and a Gryffindor sitting together in perfect harmony was a sight that felt entirely unnatural.
While cross-house seating wasn’t explicitly banned, the boundaries between the two houses during joint lectures were traditionally written in iron.
Once the attendance was full, Professor McGonagall officially commenced the lecture.
She was a notoriously strict educator by nature, and her classroom demeanor was characterized by an even greater layer of rigid, unyielding discipline.
Her introductory words spared absolutely zero feelings.
“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts,” McGonagall announced, her sharp gaze sweeping across the room like an absolute drill sergeant, ensuring every single child felt as though her eyes were locked squarely onto them.
“Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back.
You have been warned.” With a sudden, sharp flick of her wand, she transformed her massive wooden desk into a living, snorting pig.
Hermione’s eyes widened to absolute saucers, her gaze darting across the animal to detect a single structural flaw or lingering wooden texture.
She abandoned the effort almost immediately; the creature looked so completely like a pig that it defied any scrutiny.
Noticing the expressions of profound shock painted across her students’ faces, McGonagall offered a look of quiet satisfaction.
“Before you begin waving your wands, however, we must first master the fundamental theoretical framework governing Transfiguration.” As it turned out, the introductory lecture of practically every magical discipline followed an identical protocol.
The professor would invariably spend the initial hour dissecting the overarching framework, practical applications, theoretical foundations, and historical lineages of the craft.
While these academic lectures possessed negligible bearing on the immediate physical execution of a charm, the defining line between an established, prestigious academy and a crude, self-taught hedge-wizard lay entirely in this rigid systemization.
It was precisely why an experienced hand could deduce a wizard’s pedigree the absolute second a spell was cast.
Following a lengthy, thoroughly dry theoretical exposition, McGonagall finally granted the students permission to draw their wands, tasking them with transforming a simple matchstick into a functional sewing needle.
Backed by the raw talent modifications of his system, Silan grasped the core mechanics of the Transfiguration Charm within moments.
“Exceptional,” McGonagall remarked, lifting the finely crafted embroidery needle Silan had produced to examine it.
She nodded with deep satisfaction.
“Five points to Slytherin.” Hermione achieved a successful transformation shortly thereafter, securing an identical five points for Gryffindor, maintaining a flawless dynamic equilibrium between the houses.
Neville labored intensely for the better part of the period, ultimately managing only to sharpen the tip of his matchstick into a jagged point.
Nevertheless, he looked immensely pleased with his progress; he knew that with a few more sessions of dedicated practice, success was well within reach.
When the bell finally rang to signal the mid-class recess, a heavy silence fell over a section of the room.
Chris Nott stood up from his seat with absolute, visible reluctance, dragging his feet with stiff, agonizing strides as he slowly shuffled over to stand directly before Neville Longbottom.
— Almost there let’s go.