Chapter 3 — If You're Going to Fight, Use Magic
A month after the start of term at Hogwarts, the first-years had adapted well. These little radishes who had never left home before wandered endlessly through the mystery and wonder of Hogwarts, so enchanted that hardly anyone felt homesick.
As was customary, a few overly energetic students caused minor disturbances, but overall, everything went smoothly.
One late night, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore was in his office writing his column for the Daily Prophet when an uninvited guest barged in. The headmaster's office, like the common rooms of each House, could be entered by anyone who knew the password. Of course, to avoid trouble, not everyone was given it. Besides Deputy Headmistress Professor McGonagall, Dumbledore had told the new password to only one other person.
The visitor wore a black robe like a long coat. When he walked, his slightly spread arms resembled a human bat. Greasy hair hung over his gaunt cheeks, and his waxy, unhealthy, sun-starved complexion made him look like the very image of a vampire. It was the Head of Slytherin House, Severus Snape.
Dumbledore was clearly accustomed to his sudden entrances. Snape, as though this were his own room, made his way unerringly to the cabinet where Dumbledore kept his finest wines. He took the most expensive bottle of whiskey and two glasses, sat in the chair reserved for counseling troubled students, poured two glasses, downed one, poured another, downed it, poured again, and drank yet another. Only when a faint flush returned to his ashen face did he stop.
Dumbledore looked at the half-empty bottle and offered a wry smile.
"No need to stand on ceremony with me, Severus. When one encounters difficulties in life, falls into confusion and self-doubt, having a drink with a friend is the best solution. If the drink is your friend's, the effect is even better."
Snape frowned. His already unapproachable face became even more forbidding. Pressing at his throbbing temple, he cast a glance toward the Sorting Hat and asked casually, "Is that hat broken?"
Dumbledore followed his gaze to the Sorting Hat. Then he sat down opposite Snape and said half-jokingly, "Perhaps. It has existed for a thousand years. After generations of headmasters patching it up, it's probably reached its limit. And I'm not skilled with handiwork—when I was young, my brother handled the household chores."
"You know that's not what I'm asking." Snape's displeasure at Dumbledore's deliberate feigning of ignorance was clear. "Was there a problem with the Sorting Ceremony? At least this year, I believe there was a significant one."
"Ah, that. Every year, someone who's experienced the Sorting questions it. The timid enter Gryffindor, the dull end up in Ravenclaw, the ignoble are sorted into Hufflepuff…" Dumbledore paused midway. His aged yet wise eyes met Snape's. "And the brave and noble join Slytherin."
Snape stared at Dumbledore in confusion. Clearly, they were not thinking of the same Slytherin student.
"I think it should be changed to 'idiotic trolls join Slytherin.' That boy is just like his father—arrogant, violent, dismissive of rules. And even more foolish than his father. Isn't recycling supposed to be Hufflepuff's job?"
"Professor Sprout would be very upset to hear that. Besides, Sorting is not everything. It's merely the most superficial label."
"The Sorting Hat's criteria are based only on the outward personality traits of eleven-year-olds whose minds are not yet fully developed. Its purpose is to ensure that when they leave home for the first time, they have like-minded companions. The founders defined the traits of each House, and the Hat filters students accordingly. But ultimately, what they hoped to cultivate were individuals who possessed the virtues of all four Houses—not narrow-minded people who embody only fragments of them."
Snape stared blankly at Dumbledore as if enduring a lecture. Finally, he exhaled as though he'd had enough.
"Why don't you write that down and use it as next year's opening speech? It's far better than those odd poems you come up with every year."
"No," Dumbledore replied. "The ramblings of a bored old man are best shared with an equally bored middle-aged man. Even if I said such things to those curious children at the start-of-term feast, they wouldn't remember them by the next morning."
He lifted his glass, swirling the whiskey and savoring its aroma. "So you came here tonight, drank the bottle I'd intended to save for Christmas, merely to complain that Harry lacks talent?"
Snape looked at Dumbledore, hesitated as though wanting to say something, and then downed another glass.
Watching his bold drinking, Dumbledore sighed. "If you've already prepared a potion to prevent a hangover, do leave a portion for me before you go."
Snape said nothing and poured himself another drink.
"Oh, by the way, you've deducted more than a hundred points from Slytherin this month. What happened?" Dumbledore asked curiously. "Everyone says Snape has suddenly become strict with Slytherin. Some professors even think you should be more lenient with your own students."
"You think I want this?" Once branded the most biased teacher, now suddenly impartial and strict—not only were the Slytherins unaccustomed to it, the entire school was.
At that moment, a second uninvited guest entered the office.
"Dumbledore, there's something I need to discuss with you." Professor Minerva McGonagall walked in carrying a stack of documents. Only then did she notice Snape and looked at him in surprise.
"Good evening, Minerva." Dumbledore raised his glass calmly, as if her arrival had also been expected. "Severus and I are hosting a late-night tasting. Care for a drink?"
"No, Dumbledore. I came today to—" She stopped mid-sentence, glanced at Snape, and awkwardly added, "—discuss Potter."
Snape covered his face in despair. If he had four hands, he would have plugged his ears as well. He didn't want to see or hear what McGonagall was about to say—though he already knew the content.
"Oh—Harry? Isn't he doing quite well?" Dumbledore said. "I heard he spent the entire day in the library yesterday. Aside from Miss Granger, he's the first-year who spends the most time there."
"He isn't studying. He's solving word puzzles. He was late to Potions because of them, and during my class he was still working on them. More importantly… he hasn't even finished one. That puzzle—forget students his age, a troll might solve it faster than he could."
Those who didn't know the truth believed Harry Potter to be a very diligent student. Rumor even had it that Hermione had developed a competitive spirit because of him. For Snape, who could read minds with Legilimency, this was excruciating.
Hearing Snape's complaint, Dumbledore glanced at Professor McGonagall somewhat awkwardly. She nodded in agreement with Snape's account and added, "And he wrote the answers directly into library books with a quill. For that, I assigned him detention."
"A mischievous child." Dumbledore scratched his hair before continuing, "But wasn't he rather chivalrous? When Longbottom was being bullied by two Slytherin upper-years, Harry seemed to rush in without hesitation to protect him, didn't he?"
"That part is true…" McGonagall nodded guiltily. She genuinely approved of Harry's courage—but not quite of his methods. "If only his sense of justice were a bit more… wizard-like."
"Enough talk, Dumbledore…" Snape drew two silvery strands of memory from his temple with his wand. Rising, he dropped them into the Pensieve. Dumbledore and McGonagall leaned forward, and the three of them stepped together into the scene of Harry's righteous intervention.
"Please, I'm going to be late for class…" The round-faced boy, Neville, was cornered in the corridor by two tall Slytherin students. He tried to run but took a wrong turn and found his path blocked by storage cabinets instead.
"Sigh—" McGonagall couldn't help but sigh at the sight.
"Like a wild boar running headfirst into a tree," Snape muttered, speechless at Neville's spectacularly poor maneuvering.
"Oh, aren't you the Longbottom boy? The one whose parents became the Dark Lord's final victims? Oh—hero's son, how impressive. My parents are Death Eaters. Are you threatening me now?" The Slytherin upper-year was clearly bullying Neville, yet somehow framed himself as the victim.
McGonagall's face remained expressionless, but even a blind person could sense the fury simmering beneath her calm exterior.
Snape observed the student bullying Neville. The behavior stirred some unpleasant memories, yet as a teacher, he refrained from comment.
"I didn't…" Neville tried to break free, but the upper-year shoved him, knocking him to the ground.
"Ah—ah—my hand—" The one who had done the pushing suddenly clutched his own arm, feigning agony as he looked at Neville. "It's broken! The Auror's son broke my arm! Even though my parents' crimes have nothing to do with me, he still broke my arm—"
"I didn't… I didn't…" Neville's lips trembled, his eyes brimming with tears as he looked at the upper-year.
McGonagall couldn't bear to watch and turned her face away. It wasn't that Neville looked too pitiful being bullied—rather, she wanted to ask how someone could look so utterly like prey, practically inviting others to bully him.
"Gryffindor—courage and honor… Gryffindor—courage and honor…" Snape muttered the House motto under his breath, unsure whether to mock or mourn. Neville was the perfect example of what he had just called a sorting mistake.
"Neville, why are you still here? Weren't we going to class together?" Harry's voice suddenly came from behind the two upper-years. He looked at Neville and the older students in confusion, then stepped between them and pulled Neville up in one motion. "Stop slacking off. If you get me turned into an alarm clock by Professor McGonagall for being late, I'll ring in your ear a hundred and twenty times a day."
"Potter, this doesn't concern you." One of the upper-years shoved Harry threateningly.
"Hey—the Boy Who Lived. Heard your new nickname?" The other upper-year sneered to his companion. "The Malfoy family's new lapdog. Trailing after the Malfoy heiress all day. What, did your master abandon you?"
"Please don't do this," Harry said awkwardly. After all, they wore the same House colors; certain matters were delicate. "I don't want to argue with you. If this gets blown up, Malfoy will end up cleaning up my mess again. I don't want her wiping up after me anymore."
"Oh? Using the Malfoy name to pressure me? You're quite comfortable being a lackey." The upper-year looked at Harry with disdain.
"No, it's just that Slytherin's points are already low enough. I really don't want them dropping further. Can't we solve this without arguing?" As Harry spoke, he opened the storage cabinet behind Neville. It appeared to hold the school's shared flying brooms—inside were rows of antique Shooting Stars.
"Enough nonsense. I'll count to three. Get lost."
"Seniors, let's resolve this in a more 'civilized' way."
What followed was a scene too dreadful to watch. Snape turned his face away in anguish, as though witnessing some cruel torture. McGonagall covered her face outright; as an elderly witch, the spectacle unfolding before her was far too stimulating. Only Dumbledore continued watching the brutality on display. More familiar with Muggle affairs than the others, he seemed comparatively accustomed to such scenes—though he still gazed at Harry's valiant figure in astonishment and couldn't help but sigh, "Merlin's beard. This child should have joined the Knights of the Round Table."
The memory ended there, as the student providing it had lost consciousness at that moment. The three returned to reality. McGonagall looked at the documents in her hand. One was the medical report of the two students. No wonder Madam Pomfrey had said the injuries were not difficult to treat, though she had rarely seen wounds like those at Hogwarts and hoped McGonagall would investigate how they had been inflicted.
The other was a report from Madam Hooch, noting that when preparing for flying lessons, she discovered that the school's stock of old brooms had all been damaged for unknown reasons and requested that some new models be purchased as replacements.