“Just look at Potter’s face.”
After class, Draco said gleefully in the Great Hall, “Absolutely brilliant. He never expected Professor Snape to keep deducting points from him.”
“Too bad he only lost one point,” Pansy added sharply, poking a pea with her fork.
“Considering how that idiot Longbottom nearly burned straight through his cauldron, five points would have been fair. I was sitting against the wall and could still smell that awful potion.”
Daphne nodded lightly, taking a small sip of pumpkin juice without joining the discussion.
Even so, there was a trace of Slytherin superiority on her face.
After all, she and Henry had just earned ten valuable points for their House, while the Boy Who Lived and his reckless companions had been thoroughly humiliated by their Head of House.
Henry sat beside them, completely absorbed in Hogwarts: A History.
He paid no attention to his companions’ discussion.
His eyes calmly scanned the yellowed pages describing the early disagreements between the four founders, while his quill occasionally jotted down a few keywords on a piece of parchment beside him.
Draco noticed Henry’s silence.
He felt that the carefully cultivated atmosphere of we’re on the same side needed some interaction to maintain it.
So he raised his voice slightly, attempting to draw Henry into the conversation.
“If you ask me, Professor Snape should have taken even more points from that little fat idiot. Don’t you agree, Henry?”
Henry looked up from his book.
His gaze swept across Draco’s expectant face, but he did not answer immediately.
He closed the book calmly and placed his quill beside the ink bottle.
“I actually think Professor Snape is a very gentle man.”
The moment he said this, everyone nearby looked at Henry as though he had completely lost his mind.
The gloating expression on Draco’s face froze.
Pansy’s fork stopped in midair.
Even the usually composed Daphne widened her eyes slightly in surprise.
Even the most hardcore and biased Slytherin would never associate Professor Snape with the word gentle.
Gentle?
Did that word have even one Knut’s worth of connection to him?
Draco froze for a moment before quietly drawing in a breath.
As expected of a prince.
This ability to turn black into white—
No, no, that wasn’t right.
This was the great masterpiece known as Emotional Intelligence.
There was a lifetime’s worth of learning in it.
Learn.
Henry leaned back slightly, his fingertips gently tapping against the closed cover of the book.
“Think about it,” he began, his voice still calm.
“Longbottom made a foolish and dangerous mistake. He nearly hurt himself and endangered the students sitting nearby. According to classroom rules, deducting ten points—or even assigning detention—wouldn’t have been excessive.”
Pansy instinctively nodded.
That was exactly what she had said earlier.
“But Professor Snape didn’t deduct any points.”
Henry’s gaze slowly swept across Draco and Pansy.
“He didn’t even humiliate Longbottom with a long-winded series of sarcastic remarks the way he did Potter. Deducting points isn’t the objective. The objective is to punish the mistake and make the person who made it understand what they did wrong.”
He paused.
“Longbottom already paid the price for his mistake. After experiencing something like that, I’m sure he’ll understand what he did wrong. I imagine that’s why Professor Snape didn’t impose an additional punishment.”
Well, there was no denying it.
Several Slytherins nearby nodded vigorously.
Even some Gryffindors behind them who had watched points being deducted seemed somewhat swayed by Henry’s reasoning.
This was certainly an unexpected interpretation.
“Then why did Professor Snape deduct another point from Potter?” Daphne asked curiously.
“You can’t expect him to deduct no points at all, can you?”
Henry smiled faintly.
“His anger has to have somewhere to go. Potter can only blame himself for not preparing before class and giving the professor an opportunity to catch him off guard.”
But Henry knew the truth.
Professor Snape had done it deliberately.
After all, Harry looked almost exactly like his father, James Potter.
Considering Professor Snape’s history with James Potter, today’s Potions class had probably only been an appetizer.
The real intensity was still to come.
“Oh.”
Pansy suddenly picked up the newspaper from the table.
“Look at this. There’s a new report from Gringotts about what happened on July thirty-first.”
Henry glanced over.
The headline read:
Latest Report on the Gringotts Break-In
It is widely believed that the incident was the work of an unidentified dark wizard.
The goblins of Gringotts once again emphasized today that nothing was stolen.
The underground vault that was searched by the intruder had, in fact, already been emptied earlier that same day.
A Gringotts goblin spokesperson stated this afternoon: “What was stored in the vault is not a matter for public disclosure. It would be best if everyone refrained from interfering in this matter.”
Draco immediately became distracted by the article.
He snatched the newspaper and quickly scanned the headline.
“Unauthorized intrusion? July thirty-first?”
His brow furrowed.
“Wasn’t that shortly after we received our letters? Who could possibly break into Gringotts? Isn’t it supposed to be safer than Hogwarts?”
Pansy leaned closer and pointed at several lines.
“Look here. Nothing was stolen. And the vault had already been emptied earlier that day. Don’t you think that’s a little too coincidental?”
Daphne also put down her pumpkin juice.
Her voice was soft.
“The vault was emptied on the exact same day it was broken into. Is that really a coincidence? Or did the intruder know the vault was about to be emptied and wanted to get there first? Or perhaps…”
She hesitated.
“Could the person who emptied the vault have some connection to the intruder?”
Several older students nearby at the Slytherin table were also drawn into the conversation, quietly listening to the first-years’ discussion.
For children born into wizarding families who had grown up surrounded by secrets and conspiracy theories, the strange incident at Gringotts was far more interesting than a minor classroom dispute.
“Maybe there wasn’t any gold in the vault in the first place?”
Pansy’s eyes lit up as she enthusiastically embraced the more dramatic possibilities.
“It could have been some dangerous dark artifact, or a family heirloom. Or perhaps some kind of secret contract? That’s why it had to be moved so urgently…”
The discussion quickly became heated, with one theory after another emerging.
Draco leaned toward the idea that it had simply been a failed robbery, demonstrating either the intruder’s stupidity or the goblins’ incompetence.
Pansy was more convinced that some secret family feud or dark-magic transaction was involved.
Daphne silently considered the coincidence in the timing and the contradictions within the official statement.
When the initial excitement finally began to settle, Draco noticed that Henry was still reading his history book.
He turned toward him.
“Henry, what do you think? What’s really going on? Are the goblins actually telling the truth? Was nothing really stolen from Gringotts?”
Henry turned another page without looking up.
“First law of politics,” he said absentmindedly.
“Only what the authorities deny can be trusted.”