The following morning dawned clear but with that sharp autumn chill. As Harry descended to the Great Hall he noticed that yesterday’s feverish excitement had somewhat subsided. The Durmstrang and Beauxbatons pupils still drew attention, but people no longer gawped at them as though they were exotic beasts. The French had commandeered the Ravenclaw table, politely sustaining conversation, while — to many people’s surprise — the Durmstrang contingent had found common ground with the Slytherins.
Harry made his way to the Gryffindor table, courteously stepping aside for a giggling cluster of Beauxbatons girls who smelt of flowers and mint, and sat down beside Ron.
‘Morning,’ he muttered, pulling a goblet of juice towards him.
Opposite sat Dean Thomas and Kieran. Dean was waving his fork enthusiastically, expounding on Muggle football.
‘…and then the manager brings on the substitute, right? And West Ham’s defence this season is absolutely shocking! If it weren’t for the keeper the score would’ve been a rout. Pure strategy!’
Kieran listened, calmly stirring his porridge.
‘Soccer,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Too much running about, Dean. And far too little proper contact. I prefer boxing. Or, at a pinch, rugby. There it’s honest: you get knocked down, you get up and hit back. In football they barely get touched and they’re rolling on the grass begging for a free kick. Bit dull.’
Dean opened his mouth indignantly to defend his team’s honour, but Harry had already turned to his food and the end of the argument passed him by. His hand automatically reached for the dish of fried bacon and sausages, then halted. Remembering that their first lesson was Potions in the stuffy dungeons that always reeked of pickled toads and sulphur, he decided a heavy breakfast was unwise. Glancing at Morgan’s porridge, he concluded there was sense in such restraint, and instead of greasy meat he helped himself to a slice of wholemeal toast and some fruit.
Ron, who was heartily demolishing a mountain of sausages, eyed his friend’s plate suspiciously.
‘What’s this then?’ he asked, staring. ‘Harry, don’t tell me Morgan’s influence is catching. First you turn your nose up at the Goblet, now at bacon. What next? Getting up at five to meditate in Hagrid’s vegetable patch?’
‘Just don’t fancy feeling sick during Snape’s lesson,’ Harry shrugged, spreading jam. ‘It’s bad enough breathing down there.’
At that moment Hermione swooped down on the table. She looked as though she had already visited the library and transcribed half the textbooks.
‘Eat faster!’ she commanded, snatching a slice of toast and jam on the wing. ‘We’ve got Potions with the Slytherins. Snape will be in a foul mood today, I’m certain. I don’t know how Neville managed to earn detention in the first week, but he did. I’m sure points will be flying off us before roll-call’s even finished. Come on, stop dawdling!’
The descent into the dungeons always induced melancholy. The damp cold seeped into the bones, and the wall torches burned dimly, casting long shadows. A crowd of pupils already milled outside the Potions classroom door. The Slytherins, as usual, had claimed the positions against the wall, conversing lazily.
At the centre of their group stood Malfoy, holding forth to Crabbe and Goyle. Spotting the Gryffindors approaching, Draco curled his lip in his customary sneer. His cold gaze slid over Harry, lingered on Ron’s patched robes, then fixed on Hermione.
‘Granger,’ he drawled, voice dripping with familiar arrogance. ‘I do hope you—’
Ron immediately bristled, fists clenching in readiness for a row, but Draco abruptly fell silent. His eyes had shifted slightly past Hermione’s shoulder and landed on Kieran.
Malfoy’s expression changed. The mocking smirk vanished, replaced by calm, almost courteous composure. He peeled himself from the wall and took a step forward, ignoring Ron and Harry.
‘Kieran,’ he said evenly, extending a hand.
‘Draco,’ Morgan replied with equal calm, returning the handshake.
It was a brief, restrained greeting between old acquaintances, devoid of excess emotion. The Slytherins behind Malfoy showed no surprise — evidently accustomed to their leader speaking with whomever he chose.
‘Father said you’d come back to Britain,’ Malfoy observed, glancing over Morgan’s robes. ‘I expected to see you on my House. Odd choice of colours.’
‘Didn’t work out,’ Kieran shrugged indifferently.
‘These things happen,’ Malfoy gave a small huff.
He nodded farewell and returned to his entourage, resuming his air of importance.
Ron stood gaping. His face registered a mixture of shock and the vindicated glee of a paranoiac who has finally found proof of conspiracy.
‘Did you see that?!’ he hissed furiously, yanking Harry’s sleeve as soon as they had retreated to their side of the corridor. ‘I told you! They’re in it together! Shaking hands like old mates! “Kieran”, “Draco”… Ugh! Dark, Harry! They all know each other!’
Harry turned to Morgan, who was calmly adjusting his bag strap with unruffled composure.
‘You know him?’ Harry asked, trying to sound merely curious rather than accusatory.
‘We’ve crossed paths,’ Kieran answered. ‘Magical Britain is smaller than it seems, Potter. We met a couple of times at receptions when I visited my parents in the summer.’
‘And what do you make of him?’ Ron pressed, boring into Morgan’s back with suspicious eyes. ‘Don’t tell me you think he’s a “decent bloke” too?’
‘He’s all right,’ Kieran replied. ‘Just… complicated. His father puts a lot of pressure on him to live up to the name. So he tries.’
Ron snorted, clearly unconvinced that Malfoy could be considered a victim of circumstance, but before he could continue the argument the classroom door burst open with a loud bang and Professor Snape appeared on the threshold. His black eyes, cold as a dungeon draught, swept over the suddenly silent pupils.
‘Inside,’ he hissed. ‘No talking.’
The students pushed and shoved their way in, anxious to claim seats as far from the teacher’s desk as possible and avoid drawing the Potions master’s attention.
In the crush and confusion as Gryffindors and Slytherins scrambled through the narrow doorway, Harry and Ron were separated. Harry stumbled over someone’s foot, collapsed onto the nearest chair and only then realised he was beside Hermione. She had already laid out parchment, scales and a set of knives in perfect order.
Ron had been pushed to the back benches. Harry glanced round and saw that the only free seat was next to Morgan. Ron hesitated, staring wistfully at his friends, and Hermione half-rose, clearly about to suggest they swap, but then the door slammed shut.
‘Sit,’ Snape’s cold voice lashed across the room. ‘And stop scurrying about the classroom. You are here to study the subtle science and exact art of potion-making, not to arrange your personal lives.’
With an expression of deepest displeasure Ron dropped onto the chair beside Morgan. The latter did not even turn his head, calmly arranging his phials as though sharing a bench with a Weasley concerned him not at all. Ron rolled his eyes and shot Harry a look that clearly said: *Why is it always me?* Harry could only offer a sympathetic shrug in reply.
Snape swept to the front, his black robes billowing behind him. He surveyed the class with a heavy gaze that silenced everyone instantly.
‘Today we shall be brewing antidotes,’ he began softly. ‘You will prepare a remedy for compound poisons. This is delicate work. An error in proportion may cost a life… or a mind, though in the case of some of you the distinction would be negligible.’
His eyes roamed the room and settled on the back row.
‘Mr Morgan,’ Snape said insinuatingly. ‘Our new… guest. I sincerely hope the celebrated school of Mahoutokoro devotes proper attention to the healing arts. And not merely to the practice of tsujigiri on unsuspecting Muggles.’
The class froze in bewilderment. To Harry — and evidently to most of the pupils — the word was merely an incomprehensible noise. Crabbe and Goyle exchanged blank looks. But beside Harry, Hermione gave a sharp, indignant intake of breath, pressing a hand to her mouth, her eyes widening with outrage.
Kieran slowly raised his head. He sat with perfect posture, his demeanour showing no defiance — only calm, respectful attention.
‘The curriculum at Mahoutokoro is quite comprehensive, Professor,’ he answered evenly. ‘Potions receives as much emphasis as any other subject. We were taught to counteract the effects of all manner of influences.’
‘How gratifying to hear,’ the corner of Snape’s mouth twitched in an unpleasant smirk. ‘Because during this term I may select one of you… and administer poison. Without warning. We shall then see how well you have mastered the material and whether your concoction is capable of saving your life. Begin. The recipe is on the board.’
The room filled with the rustle of parchment and the clink of cauldrons. Everyone moved with redoubled speed, plainly unnerved by the prospect of sudden poisoning.
Harry began weighing out bezoars, but curiosity burned inside him. He leant towards Hermione, who was furiously chopping roots, nearly slicing off the tops.
‘Hermione,’ he whispered, glancing at Snape, who was circling the Slytherin tables like a hawk. ‘What did he say to Morgan? What’s “tsujigiri”?’
Hermione froze, knife in hand. She shifted closer to Harry and whispered furiously, her voice thick with indignation:
‘It’s awful, Harry. Simply revolting. Tsujigiri is an old term. It literally means “killing at the crossroads”. In the old days samurai who received a new katana would sometimes go out at night and kill the first passer-by they met just to test the blade’s sharpness. Like using a dummy.’
She dropped the chopped root into the cauldron with such force that the water hissed threateningly.
‘Snape just implied that Japanese wizards are cruel savages who practise on Muggles. It’s… it’s unbelievably rude! Ron’s rice jokes are just ignorant twaddle, but this… This was deliberate, aimed to wound. It’s worse than racism — it’s vicious discrimination.’
‘How do you even know all that?’ Harry asked quietly, dropping in dried mistletoe berries. ‘Have you learnt Japanese already while you’ve been spending all your time with the new boy?’
Hermione flushed slightly and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear with a nervous gesture. She kept her eyes on the mortar in which she was grinding unicorn horn with fierce concentration.
‘One can learn about other cultures by occasionally opening books, Harry,’ she replied with a trace of her usual didactic tone, though her voice was a little higher than normal. ‘Not just *Quidditch Through the Ages* or sports pages. And… well, yes, I know a few phrases. Basic greetings and thanks. But I certainly don’t speak the language. The writing system is incredibly complex — I simply wouldn’t have time.’
Harry noticed how she fussed with the phials, rearranging ones that already stood perfectly aligned. He decided not to pursue the topic further. Hermione was their only hope of surviving the lesson without turning into toads or breaking out in purple boils, so upsetting her equilibrium would be tactically unwise.
‘Understood. Shutting up,’ he said placatingly, stirring the brew. ‘Just asking.’
They worked in silence for another ten minutes. The dungeon filled with thick vapours and the bubbling of dozens of cauldrons. Harry was beginning to think the conversation was over when Hermione, without turning her head, suddenly asked:
‘Harry… is it really that obvious?’
‘What is?’ he asked, carefully counting out drops of Bubotuber pus.
‘That I’m spending all my time with Kieran,’ she spoke very quietly, almost without moving her lips. ‘People… are they saying nasty things about me? Gossiping?’
Harry paused, pipette in hand. He remembered Ron’s grumbling about “nannying”, Lavender and Parvati’s sideways glances, the Slytherins’ whispers whenever Hermione entered the hall with Morgan.
‘Rubbish,’ he said firmly, looking her straight in the eye — a lie told with conviction. ‘No one’s saying anything like that. Everyone’s just curious — he’s new. And you know him better than anyone, that’s all. Don’t let it get to you.’
Hermione’s shoulders relaxed and she gave him a grateful smile before immediately reverting to her commanding tone:
‘Good. Now add exactly three drops, Harry. Not two and not four. Three.’
By the end of the lesson their potion had achieved the required pure turquoise colour and gave off a faint silvery vapour.
Snape, gliding between the rows and trailing an aura of dissatisfaction, paused at their table. He loomed over the cauldron, his hooked nose almost touching the vapour. He was clearly hunting for fault: wrong shade, wrong consistency, odd smell. But the potion was flawless.
‘Hm,’ he conceded with palpable disappointment.
He added nothing — no praise, no points — merely slid onwards to the back table where Ron and Kieran sat. Their potion was slightly darker than ideal but otherwise acceptable.
‘It might have been better,’ Snape sneered, stirring their brew disdainfully with his wand. ‘The colour is murky. Evidently, Weasley, you once again confused clockwise with anticlockwise. But… passable. For now.’
He spun on his heel and returned to his desk.
‘Bottle samples! Label and place on my desk!’ he commanded. ‘Now get out. I see the summer has thoroughly addled what few brains you possess. You have evidently spent the holidays thinking only of Quidditch — if indeed you troubled yourselves with thought at all. I trust the prospect of poisoning this term will occasionally force you to engage your minds.’
The pupils did not wait for a second invitation. They hurried towards the door, relieved that today no one had fallen victim to the Potions master’s pedagogical experiments.