“You two,”
Hermione pulled her gaze away from the quiet figure at the far end of the Slytherin table, turning back to Harry and Ron with an exasperated, teeth-gritting tone.
“Have you two noticed that Flins is being isolated by the Slytherins?”
“What?!”
Ron still had a large mouthful of jam pudding in his mouth, mumbling the word out so loudly he nearly choked himself.
He rolled his eyes and turned to Harry, only to receive a pair of equally blank green eyes in return.
“Honestly, boys.”
Hermione let out a helpless sigh, forking a small piece of pie, her voice chilly.
“Haven’t you noticed that Flins has been blowing up his cauldrons constantly lately?”
“Well, Harry and I blow ours up sometimes too,”
Ron muttered in defense.
“Seamus blows them up more than anyone else.”
“Boys,”
Hermione set her fork down, raising a single finger earnestly.
“The only class we share with the Slytherin house is Potions.
But this is completely obvious.
If you two would just look up during meals for once and notice where Flins sits—”
“Oh, our little Ronnie—”
“—doesn’t even care about his own good friend.”
“Poor, dear Kyryll—”
“—shivering all alone in a nest of vipers.”
Fred and George materialized behind them out of nowhere, picking up Hermione’s thread one after the other.
One of them flipped the edge of his robes up, mimicking a swaggering bully; the other quickly dabbed a finger into some chocolate sauce, smearing two “dark circles” under his eyes, and hunched his shoulders to act out a bullied Flins.
The two performed it with vivid detail, and several Hufflepuff students nearby couldn’t help laughing out loud.
“But Kyryll liked eating alone back in the Muggle world, too…”
Harry forced himself to defend him.
“I thought it was just one of their house customs.”
“Besides, Kyryll wouldn’t let Slytherins bully him!” Ron added, then suddenly remembered something and raised his voice sharply.
“Wait, you two!
Why are you calling him Kyryll?!”
“Oh, little Ronnie—”
“—we met Kyryll way before you did.”
The twins exchanged a knowing look.
George lowered his voice, leaning in with a mysterious air:
“Besides, Kyryll is a genius at night-walking.
Even if we had…
well, certain special channels, we still couldn’t find him.”
Fred nodded along, wearing a you-know-what-I-mean expression.
Having said that, the two threw their arms around each other’s shoulders and drifted off into the crowd, leaving behind a string of satisfied, low chuckles.
Ron stared blankly as they vanished into the throng, muttering:
“I have a feeling they just said something quite extraordinary…”
“Wait,” Harry suddenly caught up, his green eyes widening even further than before.
“Kyryll goes night-walking?!”
“Yeah, and he didn’t even bring us along!”
Ron said with deep indignation.
“Wait, boys.”
Hermione’s tone suddenly turned cold as she looked sternly at Harry and Ron.
“Night-walking is against school rules.
This should be reported to a professor.”
“Merlin’s smelly socks, have you lost your mind?!”
Ron whipped his head around to stare at her, his face a mix of shock and disbelief.
“Do you have any idea how many Gryffindors go night-walking?
Stop making trouble where it isn’t needed!”
“You—”
Hermione glared at him, stood up abruptly, and spun on her heel to leave.
Her thick, bushy brown hair whipped through the air in an arc, striking Ron squarely across the face.
With a sharp thwack, Ron froze, clutching his cheek.
“…Mate,”
Harry watched Hermione’s angry back vanish into the entrance hall, patted Ron on the shoulder, and said with earnest sincerity, “you really could try saying a little less sometimes.”
“Hey, I was just speaking the truth!”
Ron rubbed his cheek, his voice dropping a notch, though he remained defiant.
“Isn’t it because of that mouth of hers that nobody wants to be her friend?”
Harry opened his mouth to argue, but then felt that Ron’s words weren’t entirely unreasonable.
In the end, he simply sighed, picked up his fork again, and poked gloomily at his plate of pie.
He glanced over toward the Slytherin table.
Draco Malfoy was sitting near the middle of the table, bragging about his glorious flight history of nearly crashing into a helicopter.
The surrounding Slytherins offered appropriate gasps of amazement and laughter.
At the very end of the long table, however, Flins sat entirely by himself.
An open book lay before him, one hand resting on the edge of the page as he quietly turned it.
The small patch of space around him looked as though it had been deliberately cleared out—while every other spot was packed tight, a wide circle around him remained completely empty.
Harry pulled his gaze back, an inexplicable sense of discomfort welling up inside him.
Clearly, during the first week of term, when Flins was standing right among those Slytherins, they had looked completely harmonious.
How had things turned into this after just a single weekend?
As he was wondering whether to find a chance to go over and chat with Flins during flying lessons later, his peripheral vision caught sight of Malfoy standing up and walking over toward the Gryffindor table.
Before Harry could react, Malfoy snatched the small red-glowing ball right out of Neville’s hands, tossed it high into the air, and caught it steadily.
It was the Remembrall Neville’s grandmother had sent him.
Neville’s face flushed bright red as he tried to reach for it, only to be blocked by Crabbe and Goyle.
“I seriously doubt this thing could be of any help to you, Longbottom.”
Malfoy weighed the Remembrall in his hand, his chin slightly raised and a disdainful smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.
Harry had already stood up.
Ron leaped to his feet right beside him, both moving almost in unison.
For some reason, they had wanted to pick a fight with Malfoy for a long time.
“Nobody asked you what you think, Malfoy.
Shut it.”
Harry clenched his fists, thinking to himself: Malfoy’s skinny and scrawny, doesn’t even weigh half as much as Dudley.
In a fight, I’ll definitely come out on top.
A thin flush spread across Malfoy’s pale cheeks, and his lips parted as if to snap back.
Before he could get a word out, however, a sharp voice rang out behind them:
“What is going on here?”
Professor McGonagall had appeared beside them seemingly out of nowhere, dressed in impeccably tailored emerald-green robes with her hands folded in front of her.
Her sharp gaze swept back and forth between Harry, Ron, Neville, and Malfoy.
“Malfoy took my Remembrall, Professor.”
Neville spoke up, his voice small but clear.
Malfoy’s face darkened, and he quickly tossed the Remembrall back onto the table.
“You’ll pay for this.”
With that, he hurried off, followed closely by Crabbe and Goyle.