It was completely normal that Professor McGonagall didn’t return before the end of class.
Back in the day, people like Lucius Malfoy could rely on Gold Galleons to ensure the Ministry of Magic and the Wizengamot didn’t use Veritaserum or Legilimency on them.
But Peter Pettigrew, lurking beside students transformed into a rat, certainly wouldn’t receive such luxury treatment at Hogwarts.
With Albus Dumbledore and the others handling it, they would pull every secret out of him in a matter of minutes.
And the moment Peter’s true identity was exposed, it would be an earth-shattering scandal.
That Professor McGonagall couldn’t make it back was entirely within Tris’s expectations.
What wasn’t in Tris’s expectations, however, was that she still assigned homework under these circumstances.
So much homework!
Whether Professor McGonagall naturally liked assigning this much homework or whether the questions Tris and Hermione asked in class made her feel this year’s students were at a higher level—prompting her to bump up the difficulty slightly—was anyone’s guess.
In any case, the amount of homework was so massive that even Hermione, who normally delighted at the sound of assignments, couldn’t help a slight shift in her expression.
Tris, who had known in advance that Transfiguration and Potions would carry heavy workloads and had prepared by getting most of his other assignments done early, couldn’t help drawing a sharp breath at this moment.
“Merlin’s saggy underpants…” Ron muttered, looking as though the sky were falling after hearing the amount of homework.
Draco Malfoy’s already pale face drained of even more color, looking as if his father had just died.
“My goodness, so much homework…” Seamus groaned, clutching his head.
“I don’t think we’ll finish this all weekend…”
“If you play chess and cards while doing your homework, that’s certainly true,” Hermione said, having already recovered her composure.
“But if you dedicate all your energy to it, completing this amount of homework—while somewhat difficult—is doable.”
Ron and Seamus both looked completely shocked.
They looked at Hermione, seeing not a trace of joking or boasting on her face, and then involuntarily turned to look at Harry beside them.
“Harry, is Muggle primary school really this intense?” Neville asked hesitantly.
Harry shook his head, the surprise in his eyes toward Hermione barely any less than Ron’s or Seamus’s.
“Tris,” Ron turned to Tris, “my dear brother, you’ll help your most wonderfully friendly brother, won’t you?”
Ron’s eyes were filled with earnest hope.
Harry’s eyes lit up too, suddenly realizing—that’s right, they still had their good friend Tris!
Although from the classes they had so far, Hermione clearly belonged to the top-student type, they weren’t all that familiar with her yet.
Compared to her, Tris was far closer.
Especially Ron, who felt he and Tris had known each other since before they were born, sharing a bond forged by bedwetting together as infants.
If Tris didn’t help him out, it would be downright cruel.
Tris didn’t mind this much.
To him, homework wasn’t a big deal at all.
He didn’t rule out the possibility of people who absolutely refused to copy homework—Hermione, for instance, almost certainly wouldn’t copy anyone else’s.
But copying homework was, in his eyes, the most normal part of student life.
Just as he was about to agree, Hermione frowned beside him and spoke up.
“Tris, you definitely aren’t going to let them copy your homework, right? Homework is something you must complete yourself for it to have any meaning!”
Hermione stared strictly at Tris as she said this, as if letting others copy homework were a heinous crime.
“Erm… well…” Tris momentarily didn’t know what to say.
“Weasley, aren’t you hanging around Gryffindors a bit too much for a Slytherin?” A voice came from behind them.
Tris turned around to see his roommate, Theodore Nott.
“Nott? There’s a big problem with what you just said,” Tris pointed at Ron beside him.
“This is my twin brother. Do you really think being in different houses can sever our brotherhood?”
“That’s right!” Ron cheered, feeling immense satisfaction.
He threw an arm around Tris’s shoulders, looking every bit the proud brother.
“Nott, you—and you, Hermione—don’t any of you think you can drive a wedge into our brotherhood!”
“Who cares about you two,” Nott scoffed, turning on his heel and walking away.
He had simply considered befriending Tris because of his outstanding performance in class over the past few days. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Who knew Tris would have such an attitude?
He certainly had no objection to Tris being close with Ron—they were twin brothers, after all.
What he cared about was Tris’s attitude toward everyone else.
That Potter boy, and Granger.
If it were just Potter, even if he wasn’t strictly pure-blood, he still hailed from the ancient Potter family and had wizard parents, which was barely within the acceptable range for Slytherin students.
But what was up with that Granger girl?
How could a Slytherin converse so seamlessly with someone of that background?
The Weasley family truly had fallen.
Although he had known this all along, actually witnessing it firsthand left Nott thoroughly disappointed.
However, while the Nott family was also one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and valued blood purity deeply, they didn’t flaunt it as blatantly as the Malfoy family.
At the very least, while words like “Mudblood” crossed his mind, he would never say them out loud.
At lunchtime, Tris made a point to check the head table.
Albus Dumbledore, who had been present in the Great Hall at every meal over the past week, was absent today.
He was likely off dealing with Peter Pettigrew’s situation.
Aside from Tris, no one else seemed to notice.
After lunch, Tris returned to his dormitory for a quick nap and woke up feeling thoroughly refreshed.
“Confucius says: skip a midday nap, crumble before dusk. Mencius says: Confucius is right,” Tris muttered under his breath, letting out a goofy chuckle that only he understood.
“What are you laughing at?” Blaise asked, frowning as he walked out of the common room with him.
Neither Blaise nor Theodore Nott had the habit of taking afternoon naps, so they had spent the entire time frantically grinding out homework in the common room.
Indeed, there were plenty of students like Harry and Ron who had thought their previous workload was light enough to leave for the weekend.
Then Professor McGonagall hit them with an ultimate-move-level Transfiguration assignment.
Aside from Ravenclaw who fared slightly better, the critical hit rate among first-years in other houses was over ninety percent.
As a result, almost everyone was madly rushing through homework during lunch break.
Nobody wanted their first weekend at Hogwarts to be spent wrestling with assignments in the common room or the library, so the common room was packed with panicked first-years trying to catch up.
The older students watched this, laughing silently in their hearts.
We all went through the same thing back in the day.
Seeing you suffer the exact same agony makes us feel so much better.
Tris was one of the few exceptions among the other three houses outside Ravenclaw.
He had taken the initiative to complete his work daily, leaving him with very little remaining homework.
Furthermore, his efficiency was vastly superior to that of normal young witches and wizards.
Possessing a Mind Maze, he could clearly recall everything he had read in his textbooks.
While other young wizards had to flip through books to check facts, he could write continuously in one go.
Not even Hermione could match his speed.
After attending another Herbology class in the afternoon, Tris brought his books to the library to work on his assignments.
Looking around, he noticed far more people than in previous days, mostly first-years.
These were clearly the students who had taken Transfiguration—the pressure was palpable.
Finding a relatively quiet corner, Tris put down his bag and began writing.
Not long after sitting down, a subtle fragrant breeze reached his nose.
Looking up, he saw a very pretty Indian girl dressed in traditional attire sitting across from him.
“Are you… Padma?” Tris asked, somewhat uncertain.
Padma Patil, one half of the prettiest twin sisters in their year.
Even though Tris wasn’t particularly fond of Indian people due to various reasons from his past life, he had to admit that these twin sisters were genuinely beautiful.
What satisfied Tris the most was that, being Asian, the sisters didn’t carry the average European body odor, so they didn’t need weird perfumes or other tricks to cover it up.
Nor did they have any offensive curry smell, perhaps owing to a high-caste background.
Instead, a subtle floral scent wafted off her—though whether it was perfume or natural body fragrance, he couldn’t tell.
“Is something up?” Although secretly appreciating her good looks, Tris showed none of it on his face.
“Parvati told me you successfully cast the Transfiguration spell on your very first try in class today?” Padma asked.
“No,” Tris shook his head firmly.
“I actually practiced many times at home. I mentioned that at the time.”
“Parvati said you were probably just being modest because your understanding of Transfiguration is deep and thoughtful.
She told me about the questions you asked and Professor McGonagall’s answers.
“Unfortunately, her memory is… well, not that great, so she couldn’t recount it completely. That’s why I came to ask you. Since you asked the questions yourself, you must remember them clearly, right?”
Padma’s words took Tris slightly by surprise.
He hadn’t expected this young girl to come looking for him just to ask about that.
Though considering she was a Ravenclaw, it actually made total sense, didn’t it?
Tris naturally remembered the questions he had asked and McGonagall’s answers—that was the power of his Mind Maze!
Anything he had ever remembered, even short-term memory, was converted into permanent memory stored inside the maze, ready to be recalled at his command.
After thinking it over, Tris felt there was no harm in sharing it.
On the contrary, showing a genuine passion for Transfiguration would reinforce the narrative that his exposing Peter Pettigrew’s identity was purely a stroke of luck while trying to learn Transfiguration.
Tris also realized he would need to maintain this image of thirsting for knowledge for some time.
Otherwise, it might still arouse suspicion from watchful eyes.
While thinking, Tris lowered his voice and recounted his classroom questions and McGonagall’s explanations to Padma.
Padma frowned repeatedly as she listened to Tris’s questions, seemingly pondering without immediate answers.
But upon hearing McGonagall’s explanations, her brow smoothed out and her eyes lit up with excitement.
At that moment, Tris was convinced—Ravenclaw truly was the house of top achievers.
You see, when he had posed those questions in the combined Gryffindor-Slytherin class, almost every student except Hermione had worn a clueless expression, unable to comprehend what he meant, as if he were speaking a foreign language.
Even when McGonagall answered, except for Hermione, whose expression shifted from thoughtful reflection to joyful enlightenment, the rest remained completely bewildered.
Academic underachievers across the board.
Yet look at this Ravenclaw girl—she absorbed the concepts effortlessly.
So it turned out the Sorting Hat wasn’t as unreliable as he thought—ever since Tris was sorted into Slytherin, he had firmly believed that old hat was completely hopeless.
While he was lost in thought, two small heads popped out from behind a bookshelf.
It was Ron and Harry.
However, the two didn’t come over right away, instead winking and making goofy faces at Tris.
Tris chuckled, amused.
“If you need help, come over. If not, I’m getting back to my own work.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Ron trotted over immediately, looking at Tris expectantly.
“My dear brother, that History of Magic essay… could you…”
“Don’t copy it word for word. Get the main ideas and write it yourself.” Tris didn’t waste breath, tossing over his completed History of Magic assignment directly.
Ron’s eyes lit up instantly.
Even Harry couldn’t help himself and scurried over as well.
“Oh, by the way,” Harry said offhandedly as he pulled his parchment and quills from his bag, “how come we haven’t seen much of Malfoy lately?”
Tris raised an eyebrow slightly.
What’s this?
Is the legendary Drarry plotline about to unfold?