The atmosphere at the feast was lively.
Up and down the long tables, apart from Slytherin, the new students chattered eagerly, trading names and stories.
Slytherin’s table told a different story.
Most of the conversation there revolved around family names and old money, less a house of eleven-year-olds and more a miniature high society all its own.
Will had barely finished trading names with the students nearest him when someone decided to make trouble.
“Well, well.
Behrens.
Can’t say I’ve ever heard of that family.
Suppose I’m just not well-read enough?” The boy speaking had a soft, round belly and a voice dripping with mockery.
He’d introduced himself earlier as Ivan Selwyn.
If Will remembered correctly, the Selwyns sat somewhere near the bottom of the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight.
So this one’s looking for someone to step on, is he?
“I’m Muggle-born,” Will said plainly, as though the word meant nothing at all to him.
“Well then, you should count yourself lucky landing in Slytherin.
Maybe you can pick up shoe-shining work in the common room.
Might make your time here a bit more bearable.” Ivan laughed the flat, self-satisfied laugh of a minor villain who’d never once questioned his own cleverness.
“Selwyn.
Shut up,” Sylvia said bluntly.
“Oh?
Since when do the Lestranges take up for Muggle boys?
Did someone slip you a love potion?” The boy beside Ivan cut in.
Oberyn Nott, of the Nott family.
Will rubbed his cuffs.
This, exactly this, was why he hadn’t wanted Slytherin in the first place.
He had no interest in wasting a single evening on idiots like these.
“If all you’ve got is your mouth, I’m happy to shut it for you.
Come find me after the feast if you’ve got something real to say, instead of squawking at each other like a pair of overfed geese.” The words made the students around them shuffle a step back.
“What did you just say to me?”
“Get your hearing checked at St.
Mungo’s if you missed it.
I’m not repeating myself.” Will went back to his veal.
Ivan’s round face went red enough to rival a bad sunburn.
He shot a glance toward the staff table, gave a short, contemptuous snort, and turned away, done talking to Will entirely.
The students nearby quietly put a little distance between themselves and Will, clearly unwilling to end up on Selwyn’s bad side.
Only Sylvia leaned in slightly, frowning.
“Slytherin really wasn’t the right call for you.”
“Wasn’t my call to begin with.
That miserable hat made the decision on its own. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
I was aiming for Hufflepuff.”
“Well.
Whatever you need, come find me.”
“Find you?” Will raised an eyebrow.
The offer felt oddly eager coming from someone he’d known for all of a few hours.
Sylvia seemed to catch his confusion and blinked.
“You remind me of someone.
I’ll explain later.”
Great, Will thought.
Even here, someone’s playing games.
…
The feast wound down, and the prefects led the first-years off toward their common rooms.
The Slytherins followed theirs down a long, winding staircase.
Will was starting to suspect that a few years of these stairs might leave him with a permanent limp.
After what felt like an unreasonably long descent, they reached a bare stone wall.
The prefect announced, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Password is ‘honor.’ Remember it, or you’ll be sleeping in the corridor.
And if you forget what Slytherin’s honor actually means, you won’t be staying long enough to need the password again.”
Carved serpents beneath their feet slid upward, forming a living archway of stone snakes, and the wall split open on its own.
The stairwell beyond was lined on both sides with more carved serpents, coiling the whole way down.
At last, the Slytherin common room opened up in front of them, lit by dozens of hanging lanterns.
A massive, elaborately carved fireplace burned steadily at one end, and the whole room felt warm and dry, nothing like the damp dungeon Will had half expected.
That, at least, was a relief.
The walls were black Gothic marble, and overhead, a half-dome of dark crystal served as a ceiling, threaded through with pale green lights hanging from chains.
Striking, in its own way.
Also unmistakably underground.
Living beneath the lake, in a room lit green and carved from stone, left Will with a quiet, resigned sort of dread.
Damn that hat.
If there was a silver lining, it was the size of the dorms.
Slytherin students got double rooms, likely because there was more room to spread out underground, or simply fewer students to house.
The room itself was spacious, and Will’s trunk had already been set down inside.
The bed alone was worth noting: a tall four-poster draped in emerald flannel and stitched through with silver thread, the kind of quiet luxury only magic could produce so easily, the sort of comfort most Muggles would never come close to.
And despite being buried underground, the air moved freely, nothing stale or heavy about it.
It felt no different from anywhere else in the castle.
None of that improved Will’s mood much, though, not with his roommate glaring at him from across the room.
Oberyn Nott.
“You’re finished, kid.”
As if summoned by the thought, two more “fools,” in Will’s private estimation, burst through the door right behind him.
One was Ivan Selwyn. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
The other Will didn’t recognize, though he was clearly running with Selwyn’s crowd.
“Muggle boy, you’d best apologize to Ivan right now, or you’ll be spending your first night at Hogwarts in the hospital wing.” Oberyn drew his wand, clearly eager to show off whatever he’d already picked up.
Spotting the wand already in Will’s hand, he smirked.
“What, planning to swing that thing like a club?
Or does the Mudblood think he’s already mastered the Killing Curse?”
“Don’t waste your breath on him, Oberyn.
Just beat some manners into him.
Teach him how to treat his betters.” Ivan, wandless, cracked his knuckles and squared up for a straightforward brawl.
First-year fights tended to come down to fists more than spells anyway, and his weight clearly seemed like an advantage to him.
The third boy cracked his own knuckles.
“No harm if the Mudblood doesn’t know his place yet.
Maybe I’ll lend him to my house-elves for a while.
He’ll pick up manners fast enough.”
The scene played out like something straight out of a cheap school drama, three bullies closing in on the quiet, bookish kid.
Except this was the wizarding world, where knowledge counted for far more than muscle.
Will didn’t flinch.
His silver-grey eyes stayed cold, faintly amused, and something about that composure clearly got under Ivan’s skin enough that he charged first.
A flicker of something sharp passed through Will’s eyes.
His wand was already raised.
“Stupefy.”
The spell caught Ivan square in the forehead mid-charge, dropping him instantly, dead weight collapsing at Will’s feet.
“You actually used a spell?” Oberyn blurted the obvious out loud, only then remembering to raise his own wand.
“What did you expect, a fistfight?
Idiots.
Expelliarmus!” Oberyn’s wand flew from his grip.
“Petrificus Totalus!” He froze mid-motion, arm still outstretched from the spell that had already disarmed him.
The last boy tried to bolt the second he saw what was happening, but Will’s second Body-Bind Curse caught him before he’d made it two steps, freezing him mid-stride in an almost heroic pose.
“I really can’t stand fools.” Will’s gaze swept over all three of them.
“Especially ones this predictable.”
A few minutes later, the room had gone quiet, just Will left standing in it.
He sealed the door with a Colloportus and dropped onto his bed, comfortable at last.
The air already felt cleaner with the idiots gone.
While Will drifted off without much trouble, three stiff, frozen first-years hung propped against a wall lamp out in the Slytherin common room, an introduction to Hogwarts none of them would forget anytime soon.
Will felt no particular guilt about the enemies he’d just made.
What he needed was time, and knowledge, nothing more.
In a world where raw power decided most arguments, strength was the only foundation worth building on.
If he ever reached power anywhere close to Dumbledore’s, none of these people would dare open their mouths around him again.
For now, all that mattered was grinding skills and learning magic.
He had no intention of wasting a single evening playing house with fools like these.