Without staying long in the common room, Flins and Blaise made their way toward the boys’ dormitories.
By Merlin’s grace, Flins, Blaise, and Draco were assigned to the very same room.
In addition, there was another young wizard named Theodore Nott.
When the door swung open, the mood inside formed a sharp contrast to the low whispers and idle chats in the common room.
Draco sat at the study desk by the window with his back to the door.
His quill was scratching across parchment at high speed as he mumbled under his breath, slipping in an impolite word or two from time to time.
On a four-poster bed on the other side, a boy with dark hair—his bangs long enough to nearly cover his eyes—lay flat on his back, hands pillowed behind his head, quietly staring at the ceiling.
“A bit lively, isn’t it?”
Blaise spoke in a cheerful tone.
He halted by the doorway, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two.
Flins stepped in behind him.
“Indeed.”
Hearing the sound, Draco turned his head and shot Blaise an annoyed glare:
“Blaise, you could really try talking less.”
Then his eyes landed on Flins, his voice softening a touch.
“Kyryll, it seems you clearly understand who is worth keeping company with.
Still, you’d better keep your distance from this fellow; he heard about your family a long time ago.”
With that, he tossed Blaise a look that said, Stop pretending.
Blaise took no offense at all.
He sauntered over to his own bed and sat down, crossing one leg over the other, his tone leisurely and unhurried:
“Come now, young Master Malfoy.
With Kyryll’s unmistakable Slavic features, who couldn’t tell where he comes from?
That matter was impossible to hide in pure-blood circles anyway.”
Theodore Nott, who had been lying there spacing out, sat up.
He brushed aside the bangs covering his eyes, revealing a pair of pitch-black eyes that seemed to let no light through.
His gaze fell straight on Flins, his voice low and steady:
“Hello, Flins.
I’m Theodore Nott.”
He paused for a beat.
“As the two of them said, we heard about you long ago.
Your looks are quite distinct, and pure-blood families basically know something about your house.”
Flins kept his face perfectly calm, but a string was plucked in his mind.
The background patch Lumine had given him seemed to carry a lot of missing details.
He had only roughly known that his “parents were killed by Death Eaters and he was raised by a friend of theirs,” but now it sounded like there was far more behind it than just being an orphan.
He gave a slight bow, his tone polite and reserved: “Hello, Mr.
Nott.”
He quietly shifted his gaze out the window toward the murky, deep water of the Black Lake.
After a beat’s pause, he said offhandedly:
“I lived with an old friend of my parents from a young age.
He never cared to bring up the past.
To be frank, regarding their circumstances in pure-blood circles while they were alive…
I know very little.”
Hearing this, Draco looked at Flins with a touch of pity.
“Don’t you find it strange?”
he asked.
“Your father’s branch had quite a reputation before the war.
They were closely tied to several pure-blood families in Eastern Europe, and it’s said they were close to certain figures from Grindelwald’s era as well.
After the war, your father could easily have declared a stance, but he didn’t.
Back then…
that was no small matter.”
Draco lowered his voice slightly when mentioning “Grindelwald.”
On the other side, Blaise chimed in at an easy pace:
“And your mother’s family wasn’t simple either.
According to my mother, her family is tied to an ancient bloodline heritage.
Stories differ on exactly what kind of heritage it was, but at the very least, it was no ordinary wizard’s blood.”
He added another line, as if recalling something amusing:
“That old friend of your parents, the gentleman who…
looked after you—our families actually mentioned him vaguely a few times, saying he was quite an unusual figure.
Living with him all this time, you never picked up on any rumors?”
Flins caught the pause Blaise had deliberately softened, as though the boy were weighing how to ask without sounding too blunt.
Flins turned his head, letting his eyes rest on the dancing flames in the hearth.
After a second’s pause, he assumed an attitude of reminiscing:
“He did teach me many things,”
Flins said, a hint of memory coloring his tone.
“However, he kept nearly silent about that period of history.
And not long ago…
as you know, he passed away very suddenly.
What you just mentioned—the ties to Grindelwald’s era, the bloodline on my mother’s side—he never spoke a single word of it to me while he lived.”
He let out a faint sigh: “I always thought he might have wanted to wait until I was older to tell me.
Sadly…”
Having said that, Flins lowered his head, his slightly long, dark blue hair shading his eyes.
Draco’s quill came to a halt, and Blaise tucked away his frivolous posture as well.
Theodore sat up on the bed and tucked his hair behind his ear, speaking in a calm, steady voice:
“Then let me tell you a few details.
Before the war, your father openly opposed the Dark Lord several times—not by force of arms, but in public speeches and written correspondence.
Back then, hardly anyone else dared to do that, especially here in Britain, but he did.
Curiously, he never joined the Order of the Phoenix either; he never chose to stand in Dumbledore’s ranks.”
Theodore paused, his dark eyes fixed on Flins, as though checking whether the other could bear it:
“Later, when tragedy struck your parents, the outside world widely assumed it was a revenge attack.
But from what I know of that period: if your parents truly were just killed by Death Eaters, the Daily Prophet back then wouldn’t have deliberately kept the reports so small.”
His meaning was clear: there were other things behind it that had been swept under the rug.
Flins listened quietly to the end.
His expression showed no ripple.
The background Lumine provided—at least in the eyes of people in this world—was clearly far deeper than he had first assumed.
Come next holiday, he would have to question that young lady thoroughly.
He was silent for a few moments, then said in a very soft voice:
“So that was how it was.
I had always thought…
it was merely an ordinary tragedy of the war.”
The corner of Flins’s mouth stirred slightly, as if struck by grief.
Then he looked up, his gaze sweeping over Theodore, Draco, and Blaise, his voice returning to that polite and gentle tone:
“Thank you for telling me all this.
I…
truly did not know before.”
He pressed no further, offering only a small nod.
Then he turned and walked toward his four-poster bed with natural ease, sitting down in a relaxed posture.
Draco lowered his head to continue writing his letter, the nib scratching lightly against the paper, though that earlier impatient edge had faded somewhat.
Blaise leaned against the headboard, a cynical smile still lingering at the corners of his mouth.
Theodore lay back down, resting his head in his hands, staring at the ceiling.