“Are you really that concerned about Malfoy?” Tris asked, eyeing Harry with a touch of suspicion.
“No, why would I care about him?” Harry rolled his eyes, as if Tris had said something incredibly foolish.
He then leaned in with great interest and asked, “I heard Malfoy was given detention by their house prefect for a whole week. Is that true?”
“Ah?” Tris blinked, his mind racing back to the opening feast.
Only then did he remember that Draco Malfoy had violated the instructions of Prefect Miss Farley, who had threatened to put him in detention.
Draco Malfoy had obviously not believed her at the time, and Tris hadn’t been too convinced either.
At the end of the day, the Malfoy family was highly influential in the wizarding world.
Very few people were willing to offend them, and even Severus Snape seemed to have a special connection with the Malfoy family, giving Draco Malfoy slightly favorable treatment.
For a prefect to give Draco Malfoy a week’s worth of detention over a single remark seemed highly unlikely to Tris.
Yet, the reality caught both Draco Malfoy and Tris completely off guard.
From the very first day of term, Draco Malfoy was consistently required to report to the dungeons for detention every single evening after classes.
Three hours every day.
At first, Draco Malfoy had been defiant, shouting that he would contact his father or the Head of House.
Yet on the second and third days, he still went to the detention room as scheduled.
During this time, Draco Malfoy must have reached out to his father Lucius Malfoy or his mother Narcissa, and he surely must have spoken to their Head of House, Severus Snape, about the matter.
While communication in the wizarding world was not as instant as the information age twenty years later, it certainly wasn’t so slow that there would be no reply after three or four days.
This made the situation rather intriguing.
Possibility one: Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa, and Severus Snape received Draco Malfoy’s plea for help but chose not to act.
Possibility two: Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa responded, but Severus Snape pushed back.
Possibility three: Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa, and Severus Snape all reacted, but Miss Farley shut them down.
Whichever scenario it was, this Miss Farley was certainly someone formidable.
After realizing this, Tris had gone out of his way to dig up some information on Miss Farley.
The details he gathered, however, left him somewhat puzzled.
The Farley family was not a prominent clan in the British wizarding world; in fact, they were quite obscure.
Miss Farley’s parents were completely average wizards, the kind who lived in total obscurity.
Yet when it came to Miss Farley, perhaps due to some genetic anomaly, she had displayed extraordinary talent from the moment she entered the school.
She showed astonishing talent in both Charms and Potions, and she was the only student Severus Snape had praised in two consecutive classes over the past decade.
To put that in perspective, Severus Snape praised students in class no more than thirty times a year, and at least twenty-five of those times were heavily laced with sarcasm.
This was a testament to Miss Farley’s excellence.
Since Miss Farley took on the role of house prefect last year, Severus Snape had practically delegated all authority over the house to her.
Whatever punishments Miss Farley handed down, he stood by her decisions firmly, regardless of any objections raised elsewhere.
Although Miss Farley wielded immense power within Slytherin, she acted with absolute fairness.
Even the students she punished, though naturally resentful, could rarely claim her actions were unjustified or unreasonable.
This sterling reputation extended beyond Slytherin; even in the other houses, Miss Farley was highly regarded.
She didn’t dock points or punish students arbitrarily.
But if she caught someone genuinely in the wrong, her punishment was always strictly justified, and she never showed bias toward her own house.
This was a rare trait among prefects.
Currently, over half the students across the four houses believed that come next term, the seventh-year Miss Farley would naturally become Head Girl.
She simply had no rivals who could match her.
Could a student leader really wield such influence purely on account of her personal excellence?
Tris was actually quite surprised, especially by her ability to keep Severus Snape satisfied.
He would have to sneak a look at her photo later, once Hagrid gave Harry that photo album…
With these stray thoughts running through his head, Tris answered Harry aloud, “Malfoy broke a rule on the night of the Sorting Ceremony and was punished by the prefect. He’s still serving detention down in the dungeons.”
“Is that actually true?” Ron danced with joy.
He was immediately startled by a sharp scolding from Madam Pince, the librarian—though the shout was transmitted magically, so only Ron could hear it.
Startled, Ron slipped right off his chair and fell under the table, while Tris and Harry beside him had no idea what had just happened.
Padma left after asking her questions.
Her friends were sitting at another table not far away.
Tris glanced over as Padma walked back, only to see several girls looking their way—or more precisely, gesturing and winking suggestively at Padma as she returned.
*Well, they’re probably gossiping about something,* he thought.
Though Tris didn’t understand girls very well, he could roughly guess what they were talking about.
But that was none of his concern.
Although Padma was quite pretty, she was only eleven after all.
Tris might have his quirks, but he wasn’t *that* degenerate.
***
On Friday morning, there was a heavy downpour.
Although it rained frequently in Britain, it was usually a light drizzle.
Even if it rained in the morning, it rarely affected Tris’s morning workouts.
Today’s rain, however, was far too heavy to step outside, forcing Tris to do his running inside the castle.
Harry and Ron had clearly assumed that with such heavy rain, Tris would take a break too, so they hadn’t bothered to wake up early.
Since Tris couldn’t enter the Gryffindor common room, he had no way of dragging them out.
However, he was fully prepared to mock them thoroughly after class.
Well, there was no need to do it during class.
Today was Potions, and Tris figured their Head of House—the one who clearly despised washing his hair—would already mock Harry mercilessly.
As for the spared Ron, Tris would make sure to double the mockery to make up for it later.
Taunts from one’s own younger brother were bound to be exceptionally lethal.
After showering and changing into dry clothes, Tris walked down to the Potions classroom in the dungeons, where he ran straight into Harry and Ron.
Still blissfully unaware of what awaited him in this lesson, Harry looked quite cheerful.
He smiled and greeted Tris, “Hey, Tris. The rain was too heavy today, so Ron and I didn’t go. You didn’t go out either, right?”
“I indeed didn’t go outside,” Tris said, nodding before shaking his head.
“I ran inside the castle instead. I was actually hoping to use today to help you guys get familiar with the different layouts of the castle.”
“Ah?” Harry and Ron both looked dumbfounded.
Tris’s dedication was clearly beyond their expectations.
Ron instinctively shrunk his neck back, bracing himself for a round of mockery and disdain from Tris.
Even though Ron was the older brother and Tris was the younger, throughout their ten years growing up, Tris had always been the steady, mature one, acting more like the older brother.
There were many times when Ron, in a sudden burst of pride, wanted to reclaim his elder brotherly authority.
Yet up to this point, he had never truly succeeded.
To Ron’s surprise, Tris didn’t say anything.
“Let’s go in. Class is starting soon.”
“Huh?” Ron blinked, surprised that Tris had let them off the hook so easily.
Not just him, even Harry was a bit taken aback.
Although they had only been hanging out for a little over a month, Harry already knew how sharp-tongued Tris could be when he felt like talking.
Did he have a change of heart today?
Or was Tris just in an exceptionally good mood?
Could it be…?
Ron and Harry exchanged a look, a sudden possibility dawning on them.
Before Transfiguration class yesterday, that pretty Slytherin girl had approached Tris, seemingly asking him about running.
Did the two of them run together today?
Ron felt a tiny pang of jealousy over how popular Tris seemed to be with girls, but then again, he was used to it.
They were twins, but because they were fraternal, they didn’t look alike at all.
Tris was much better-looking than him and had always been slightly more popular since they were kids.
Although the Weasleys didn’t get along with the pure-blood families, they still had some contact with ordinary wizarding families.
Whenever they visited families with young daughters, Tris was always more popular with the girls than Ron.
If that was all, Ron might not have been so relaxed about it.
But after school started, they were in different houses and spent less time together.
Plus, he had Harry by his side!
Harry was even more popular with girls than Tris, or at least he drew far more attention!
In less than a week, Ron had watched over twenty girls proactively strike up conversations with Harry just to introduce themselves.
And they were from all year levels.
By comparison, Tris—who only had the occasional girl from their own year coming over to talk—really couldn’t stir up any strong emotions in Ron anymore.
On the contrary, gossiping about him was far more interesting.
Unaware that his troublesome brother was secretly speculating about his love life, Tris ushered them into the classroom.
Glancing left and right, he headed to the front row and sat right next to Hermione.
This move drew frowns from quite a few students already in the room, mostly Slytherins.
In their eyes, it was one thing for Tris to be close with Ron and Harry.
But being close to Hermione was simply taking it too far.
While almost no one would yell the word “Mudblood” out loud, more than a few were thinking it in their heads.
The Gryffindors were slightly better, though many still looked surprised.
None of this surprised Tris.
What did surprise him was that even Hermione didn’t look pleased to see him.
When she saw him sit down next to her, she let out a huff, rolled her eyes, and ignored him.
“What’s wrong? When did I offend you?” Tris asked, somewhat puzzled.
Being someone who never wasted time overthinking, he got straight to the point.
“Did you let Harry and Ron copy your homework?” Hermione asked coldly.
“Uh…” Tris froze.
He really hadn’t expected that to be the reason.
This was a little awkward.
Just as Tris was desperately trying to come up with an excuse to deflect, the classroom door was thrown open.
Clad in a billowing black cloak with greasy hair, Severus Snape strode into the classroom like a sudden gust of wind.