"Are you a pauper?"
Draco Malfoy looked genuinely shocked. In all his eleven years, he'd never seen a Slytherin discuss money so openly — so casually, like it was something ordinary.
Slytherins didn't do that. Slytherins were supposed to be elegant. Refined. Above such vulgar practicalities.
"I answered your question," Hall said, setting down his fork and meeting Malfoy's eyes properly for the first time. "Payment is the natural next step."
He watched Malfoy's face and knew he'd won.
Platinum-blond hair. Pale skin. Grey eyes radiating inherited arrogance. A face that screamed Malfoy.
No wonder the men in that family go bald early.
Malfoy looked him up and down one final time, sneered, and stalked back to his seat with his nose in the air.
"Who are you?"
The voice came from beside him — hollow, cold, like wind through a tomb. Hall turned.
A translucent figure sat at the bench, dressed in Slytherin robes stained with great blotches of silver blood. Sunken eyes. Gaunt face. Chains hanging from his wrists, dragging across the table.
The Bloody Baron.
Hall knew the story. A Slytherin from the founders' era. He'd loved Helena Ravenclaw — and killed her in a rage when she refused him. When he realised what he'd done, he'd turned the same knife on himself. He'd haunted Hogwarts ever since, still wearing her blood like a curse.
"Henry William," Hall said.
A chill crawled down his spine — not just from the cold that ghosts carried. McGonagall hadn't looked at him twice. Dumbledore hadn't blinked. The Disguise Mage had held against every test.
Can ghosts see through it?
"You carry the scent of an old friend's blood." The Baron's hollow eyes fixed on Hall with something that might have been recognition. "After all these years... I smell it again."
He drifted closer, and Hall didn't move.
"If you ever need help, boy — come to me."
Then he floated away, chains trailing silently through the table.
The older Slytherins erupted.
"Merlin's beard — the Baron spoke to him!"
"Four years. He's never spoken to anyone except the Head of House!"
"Did you hear? Old friend's blood —"
"William... William... Could he be from one of the old families? A fallen pureblood, maybe?"
"I'm writing to my father tonight."
"Same."
The first-years stared around in confusion, understanding nothing except that something significant had just happened — and that it involved the skinny boy eating his supper.
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Malfoy reappeared at Hall's elbow, resentment written all over his face. "You. Explain."
Hall gave him a cold look and took another bite of chicken.
Malfoy's cheeks went pink. He pulled five Galleons from his pocket and slapped them down on the table.
Well. Hall raised an eyebrow. He learns.
He swept the coins into his pocket. "The Bloody Baron is Slytherin's house ghost."
"I know that. Tell me something I don't know."
"Can't. He came to me. I've no idea what he meant." Hall shrugged — and it was mostly true. "If I find out later, you'll hear it first. Trust me, it'll be worth it."
He patted his pocket.
Malfoy stormed off with a face like thunder.
Hall went back to his food, but his mind was already working.
The Baron said he smelled an old friend's blood. But the Baron had never met Henry William — and whatever blood Hall carried, it wasn't William blood.
It was Weasley blood.
The Weasley line was ancient. One of the oldest pureblood families in Britain. If a Weasley ancestor had known the Baron a thousand years ago...
Hall's fork paused halfway to his mouth.
The Baron had lived in the founders' era. He'd known Salazar Slytherin personally. And everyone assumed the Chamber of Secrets was Slytherin's only legacy — but Gryffindor left a hat and a sword. Ravenclaw left a diadem. Founders left things.
Slytherin wouldn't have left just an empty room. Where's the real chamber? Where's the treasure?
And now there was a ghost — a ghost who'd just offered to help him — who might actually know.
Hall smiled at his plate and kept eating.
When the feast wound down, Dumbledore rose.
When the plates finally cleared themselves, Dumbledore rose. The hall fell silent.
"Just a few more words," Dumbledore said. "Now that we are all fed and watered."
"First-years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."
Hall followed Dumbledore's gaze to the Gryffindor table, where the twins were too busy laughing to notice they were being pointedly stared at.
"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to remind everyone that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors."
"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house should contact Madam Hooch."
"And finally — this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
Hall nearly laughed out loud.
That's not a warning. That's an advertisement.
Half the Gryffindor table was already whispering urgently. Hall could see the twins' eyes gleaming from across the hall.
"And now," Dumbledore continued, "before we go to bed, let us sing the school song! Pick your favourite tune, and away we go!"
The hall filled with a thousand voices singing to a thousand different melodies:
Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please...
Hall sang his to "God Save the Queen," which felt appropriately disrespectful. The twins finished last, bellowing the final verse to a slow funeral march while Dumbledore conducted them with his wand.
"Ah, music." Dumbledore dabbed at his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now — bedtime. Off you trot!"
The students filed out in rivers of black robes.
The students streamed out of the Great Hall in rivers of black robes.
"Harry."
Hall was near the doors when he heard it — Dumbledore's voice, gentle, calling Harry aside. Hall kept walking but angled his head just enough to watch.
Harry looked up at the Headmaster. Then, at some quiet question Hall couldn't hear, he glanced across the hall — directly at Hall — reached into his pocket, and handed over the folded parchment charm.
Dumbledore turned it over in his long fingers, studying it with peculiar intensity. Then he followed Harry's gaze.
Blue eyes met Hall's across the crowded hall. Behind the half-moon spectacles, something sharp glinted — keen and knowing.
Discovered. On day one.
Hall considered the situation.
And? What's he going to do — expel me for selling Harry a charm? I got his precious saviour into Gryffindor. Well. I intended to. Didn't work out that way. But Dumbledore doesn't know about Slytherin yet. Harry won't tell him. So from Dumbledore's perspective, I'm just some boy who happened to catch the Headmaster's interest.
I didn't even charge him for it.
Hall smiled back at the most powerful wizard in Britain, turned, and followed the prefects down to the dungeons.
The smile didn't fade until he was alone in his dormitory, thinking about a ghost with hollow eyes and blood-stained robes, and exactly what that ghost might know about Salazar Slytherin's real legacy.