Just then, a furious shout rang out from one of the castle windows.
“Harry Potter!
Morrin White!” Professor McGonagall came charging out of the castle so quickly that even her spectacles had slipped crooked on her face.
“How dare you, you could have broken your necks—” She pointed at the two boys who had just landed, her lips trembling.
“Come with me.” Her voice was severe.
Malfoy watched them being marched away with obvious delight.
Ron and Hermione, on the other hand, looked thoroughly worried.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Inside the castle, Professor McGonagall strode along at such a pace that the two boys had to half jog to keep up.
Harry had already sunk into despair.
He was certain he was about to be expelled.
Morrin, by contrast, remained perfectly calm.
He even had the leisure to study the suits of armour lining the corridor.
He knew the plot.
This was not an expulsion.
It was an opportunity.
Professor McGonagall stopped outside a classroom and called Professor Flitwick out of his lesson.
“Excuse me, Filius.
Could I borrow Wood for a moment?” Oliver Wood emerged.
He was a tall, solidly built fifth-year with a thoroughly puzzled expression.
“These two.” Professor McGonagall pointed towards Harry and Morrin.
The anger in her eyes had already transformed into excitement.
“I’ve found you the finest Seeker, and the finest Chaser.” Wood’s eyes lit up instantly.
“Really, Professor?” “To perform a dive and sudden stop like that on one of those dreadful school brooms…” Professor McGonagall looked at Morrin as though she had discovered a priceless treasure.
“Mr White, have you ever ridden a broom before?” “No, Professor.
That was my first time.” Morrin lied without so much as blinking.
“I have studied a little aerodynamics, however.” “A natural!” Professor McGonagall exclaimed before turning towards Harry.
“Potter as well.
That dive…
even Charlie Weasley was never that reckless.” “Wood, I want you to recruit both of them.” Wood excitedly circled the boys twice, squeezed Harry’s arm, then cast a rather awed glance at Morrin and the cold pressure surrounding him.
“Potter would make an excellent Seeker.
He’s light and fast,” Wood analysed.
“As for White…
Merlin, that interception just now!
Put you in as Chaser and the Slytherins would never get the Quaffle off you!” Then— Wait.
Wood’s smile froze.
Professor McGonagall’s expression froze with it.
They had both just realised one rather serious problem.
Harry Potter was a Gryffindor.
But Morrin White…
The boy standing there in robes trimmed with green…
Was a Slytherin.
The corridor became extraordinarily quiet.
Morrin rested both hands on his wand, the corner of his mouth curving into an amused smile as he regarded the two Gryffindors before him, both of whom looked as though they had swallowed flies.
“It appears we have a small problem, Professor McGonagall.” Morrin broke the silence softly.
“While I’m very grateful for your appreciation, I suspect Slytherin captain Marcus Flint would be somewhat displeased to see me scoring goals for Gryffindor.” Professor McGonagall covered her forehead and let out a pained groan.
She had been so excited that she had completely forgotten.
She had personally discovered a prodigy— only to discover that the prodigy belonged to her House’s greatest rival.
“Very well…” Professor McGonagall waved one hand weakly.
“Potter, go with Wood and learn about the team.
As for you, Mr White…” She gave Morrin a complicated look.
“…your Head of House, Professor Snape, will be delighted to hear about this.
I should warn you, however, that first-years are not normally permitted to own broomsticks.
I will recommend that Professor Snape make an exception in your case.” “It would be an honour.” Morrin gave a slight bow.
Once they left the classroom, Harry was still too excited to think straight.
“We’re going to be on the teams?
I’m a Seeker?
That’s brilliant!
Morrin, we’ll get to play together—” He stopped.
“Oh.
Right.
We’re going to be opponents.” Harry looked rather conflicted.
Morrin patted him on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Potter.” He looked out through the window at the clear blue sky, a distinctly commercial gleam entering his eyes.
“I’m considerably less interested in knocking you off your broom than I am in working out how to turn Quidditch into a profitable business.” Morrin smiled.
“When the time comes, remember to sign my sponsorship contract.” Harry stared blankly at him.
“What?” Morrin offered no explanation.
He merely smiled, turned, and headed towards the dungeons.
He now had a meeting to arrange with his Head of House.
The subjects of discussion?
A first-year joining the Slytherin Quidditch team— and a business proposal in which Morrin would sponsor an upgrade to Nimbus 2000s for the entire team.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ September 12th, evening.
The dungeon corridors were cold and damp.
Torches burning with eerie green flames lined the walls, casting Morrin’s elongated shadow across the rough stonework.
After the commotion of flying lessons, Morrin had not returned directly to the Slytherin common room to bask in the cheers of his Housemates.
Instead, he had come straight to the door of his Head of House’s office.
He raised his wrist and glanced at his watch.
“Five o’clock exactly.” Morrin stopped.
Rather than knocking immediately, he habitually summoned the system in his mind.
System, perform today’s Daily Check-In.
Over the past fortnight, this had become an unbreakable daily routine.
The once a day Daily Check-In did not merely provide small random rewards.
More importantly— it was his only reliable source of additional extraction opportunities.
[Ding!
Check-In Location detected] [Outside Snape’s Office (Core Potions Area)] [Daily Check-In successful!] ━━━━━ REWARDS ━━━━━ [Reward Acquired] 🎁 Remaining Extractions +1 ━━━ 🎁 Boomslang Skin ×1 Rare potion ingredient ━━━ 🎁 Fragment of Snape’s Private Notebook Annotations concerning bezoars ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Morrin glanced towards the bottom corner of the system interface.
[Remaining Extractions: 20] “Still a comfortable reserve.” Morrin nodded in satisfaction.
Since beginning school on September 1st, he had accumulated his daily opportunities on top of the twelve he had started with.
After subtracting the two used on Malfoy’s [Flying Talent] and the Philosopher’s Stone’s [Origin of Alchemy], along with several more he had wasted experimenting on Filch’s cat and various older students over the past few days, he still had a full twenty extraction opportunities on hand.
If I can save up fifty, I wonder whether the system will unlock some sort of Guaranteed Gold Pity Pool.
Morrin calculated silently.
Still, twenty is more than enough to handle any unexpected situation for now.
Having organised his thoughts, Morrin straightened his collar and raised one hand to knock on the heavy oak door.
Knock.
Knock.
“Enter.” Snape’s unmistakably cold, toneless voice came from beyond the door.
Morrin pushed it open.
The office was dim.
Shelves lining the walls were crowded with glass jars containing all manner of nauseating specimens: toad entrails, enormous eyeballs, and some sort of hairy mollusc drifting in preservative.
The sharp combined smell of preserving fluid and medicinal herbs hung in the air.
Severus Snape sat behind his desk marking parchment.
His quill scratched across the pages with a sound that somehow suggested he was carving directly into the students rather than their essays.
He did not look up.
“If you have come to plead on behalf of the exploded cauldron, you may leave, White.
Mr Longbottom will serve his detention.” “No, Professor.” Morrin walked to the desk and planted his wand neatly beside him, his posture as elegant as ever.
“I’m here on behalf of Slytherin’s honour.” Snape’s quill paused.
Slowly, he raised his head.
Those deep, empty black eyes fixed upon Morrin, as though assessing precisely how much substance lay behind those words.
“Professor McGonagall has already spoken to me.” Snape set down his quill and interlaced his fingers beneath his chin.
“She informed me that during your flying lesson, you openly disregarded instructions and performed dangerous aerial manoeuvres at considerable height without a professor present.” CREATORS’ THOUGHTS Hidden_Quill Thank you so much for reading!