The first Grade A treasure chest was secured.
Eric felt no emotional fluctuation whatsoever.
He withdrew his luxurious lunch, the silver knife gliding smoothly through the chocolate mousse cake. The movement was elegant, precise, without a single wasted motion.
He did not even spare Ron another glance.
This complete, bone-deep indifference was far deadlier than that poison-laced statement from earlier.
Ron Weasley kept his head lowered, his blue eyes fixed on the mangled lump of sandwich in his hands. His entire body trembled at a faint, uncontrollable frequency.
The flames of anger had been thoroughly extinguished by icy shame, leaving behind only smoldering embers of humiliation, trailing black smoke.
Harry Potter, sitting nearby, directed all of his vigilance toward Eric, the uninvited guest.
Harry knew nothing about Ron's family circumstances, yet he could clearly sense the spine-chilling aggressiveness radiating from Eric. This boy was unlike anyone his age Harry had ever met—unlike even his bully of a cousin, Dudley. Dudley's bullying was crude, obvious, and stupid.
This boy, however, was far too calm. Far too precise.
Every word, every glance, every subtle movement was like a scalpel—directed, deliberate, and terrifyingly purposeful.
The atmosphere in the compartment was stifling to the extreme.
The air was so thick it felt impossible to breathe.
The only sound was the faint, crisp clink of silver knife against fine china as Eric cut into his mousse cake.
Click.
Click.
Each sound stabbed into Harry and Ron's nerves like a needle.
Just as the suffocating silence was about to drive them mad, the compartment door was yanked open once again with a loud clatter.
This time, the movement was even rougher—deliberately ostentatious, brimming with undisguised arrogance.
A platinum-blond boy strode in.
His complexion was pale, his features refined, his pointed chin radiating the cultivated nobility of someone raised in luxury. Behind him followed two unusually large boys, dull-eyed and silent, like slabs of human flesh, blocking most of the corridor's light.
Draco Malfoy.
Eric's eyes narrowed slightly, the motion of his knife pausing for half a second.
He knew this was the second investment point.
Malfoy's purpose was obvious. His pale gray eyes swept swiftly around the cramped compartment, instantly locking onto the lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead.
"So it's true."
Malfoy spoke in his signature slow, drawling tone, each word steeped in condescension.
"They really were saying Harry Potter would be among this year's first-years."
He didn't give Harry any chance to reply, as if this were merely a one-man performance.
"My name is Draco Malfoy."
He nodded with restrained pride, then casually shifted his gaze toward Ron.
It lingered for a moment on Ron's faded, obviously undersized old robes, then skimmed over the freckles covering his face.
A sneer curled at the corner of Malfoy's mouth.
"Hah. Red hair, freckles everywhere… no need to ask—you must be a Weasley."
The words were like boiling oil poured onto the raw, bleeding wound that had just been torn open.
Malfoy clearly enjoyed himself, continuing with his familiar brand of pure-blood rhetoric—mocking the Weasley family for being numerous yet impoverished, a disgrace among pure-blood lineages.
At last, he turned back to Harry and extended a hand.
"You'll soon find that some wizarding families are far better than others, Potter. You wouldn't want to make friends with the wrong sort. In that regard, I can help you."
Ron's face instantly turned the color of pig liver.
The self-esteem that had just been pierced by Eric's cold "facts" was now trampled repeatedly by Malfoy's crude mockery.
He surged to his feet, eyes bloodshot with fury, glaring at Malfoy.
But someone moved faster.
Eric acted.
He did not stand. He merely set the silver knife down beside his plate at an unhurried pace.
Click.
Another soft sound.
Rather than showing any intention of helping Ron, Eric instead turned his gaze toward Malfoy.
Only then did Malfoy finally notice the "third person" in the compartment—someone other than Harry Potter and the Weasley.
Eric's refined attire, the perfectly tailored dark robes without a single wrinkle, and the exquisite lunch laid out before him—
All of it made Malfoy instinctively classify him as one of his own kind.
"Hello, I—"
Malfoy was just about to repeat his well-rehearsed introduction.
"Malfoy?"
Eric spoke.
His voice was colder and flatter than Malfoy's affected drawl—utterly devoid of emotional inflection, yet carrying an innate, superior scrutiny.
Malfoy's expression froze.
Eric picked up his napkin and wiped the corner of his mouth with deliberate slowness, every movement measured as if by ruler and compass, perfectly aligned with some older, harsher aristocratic etiquette.
He lifted his gaze, deep eyes settling on Malfoy's stiffened face.
"Didn't your father teach you that a true aristocrat never personally steps forward when investing in allies?"
The word investment, spoken by Eric, carried an icy, commercial precision.
Malfoy's complexion changed.
Eric leaned forward slightly, continuing in that calm, almost cruel tone.
"Before you've figured out the other party's background, you expose your intentions so rashly—worse, you elevate yourself by belittling a potential third party."
"What you're doing is discourteous, Malfoy."
"You've brought shame upon your family."
The final sentence struck Draco Malfoy like a sledgehammer to the heart.
He was shaken—utterly shaken.
Not because Eric defended Ron. In fact, Eric hadn't said a single word in Ron's favor.
What stunned him was that this unknown boy understood—no, understood better—the hidden rules of true pure-blood aristocracy than even he did. Better, even, than his father Lucius Malfoy, who so often lectured him on them.
"Investing allies."
"Personally stepping forward."
"Discourtesy."
"Family shame."
Each word was a perfectly cut key, unlocking his deepest, most concealed fear regarding family honor. Lucius had indeed taught him these things—had warned him that the Malfoys must always act with elegance, subtlety, and superiority.
Yet he had never imagined that the aristocratic bearing he took such pride in would be dismantled so effortlessly—so casually—by a peer, and in the posture of a teacher.
It felt like a child flaunting a few newly learned words, only to run into a true master of language.
Harry and Ron were completely stunned.
Their minds could no longer process the bizarre scene unfolding before them.
The boy who had just bullied Ron with ruthless precision had, in the blink of an eye, subdued the overbearing Malfoy using a method they couldn't even understand—yet somehow felt was vastly more "advanced."
"Who… who are you?" Malfoy asked, his voice dry.
His lofty arrogance had visibly crumbled by half. He even withdrew the hand he'd extended toward Harry.
Eric stood up.
His movements were unhurried, yet carried an undeniable pressure. He was slightly taller than Malfoy, and as he straightened, that negligible height difference was infinitely magnified in this psychological confrontation.
He looked down at Malfoy.
"I am Eric Prince."
Prince?
Malfoy's pupils shrank sharply.
Among the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the Prince family name was also one of the ancient and illustrious ones—though legends said it had long since withered, perhaps even gone extinct.
"I come from a reclusive branch of the Prince family."
Eric delivered the carefully prepared lie without the slightest change in expression.
His innate cold temperament, combined with that flawless "aristocratic reprimand," perfectly reinforced the plausibility of the claim.
Malfoy was completely intimidated by the surname—and by the aura of a truly ancient noble lineage that seemed to radiate from Eric, as though inherited over a thousand years.
He reassessed Eric from head to toe.
The arrogance in his eyes vanished, replaced by deep wariness—and a hint of ingratiation he himself hadn't yet realized.
He could not be sure whether this so-called "reclusive Prince" was older, more noble, or more powerful than the Malfoy name itself.
If what Eric said was true…
Then Malfoy's earlier eagerness to curry favor with Harry Potter while trampling on the Weasley boy would, in the eyes of a true "ancient noble," look like nothing more than a clown leaping about, desperate for attention.
[System Notification: Grade B Fate Deviation detected! Target: Draco Malfoy.]
[Emotional Anchor: Shock and self-doubt.]
[Congratulations, Host. Grade B Causality Investment completed!]
[Reward obtained: Causality Points ×30!]
[Reward obtained: Malfoy's Shock Treasure Chest ×1!]