"How embarrassing. Even those Hufflepuff blockheads managed to show up in the end. Just how long are Crabbe and Goyle planning to sleep?"
After class, Draco walked gloomily down the corridor, occasionally kicking the wall beside him and leaving dusty footprints behind.
"And that dwarf professor is ridiculous. Way more Hufflepuffs were late, but he only deducted points for absentees. I bet he's just jealous that Slytherin has won the House Cup for six consecutive years!"
"Lykos, what do you think?"
Draco waited for a response, but none came.
Turning his head, he saw Lykos walking beside him with his nose buried in a copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One, reading so intently that he seemed completely unaware Draco had spoken.
"Lykos, did you even hear what I said?" Draco called out louder, growing more annoyed.
"Hm?" Lykos looked up in confusion. "Oh, yeah. I heard you. Sure, sure."
After giving a perfunctory reply, he lowered his gaze back to the book.
During Charms class, he had skimmed through The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One and discovered quite a number of basic spells.
It turned out those spells were exactly the same as the ones in his memory.
The reason he couldn't cast them was probably because casting magic required more than just reciting the incantation. Each spell also needed a specific wand movement and a corresponding magical response.
In the end, magic was a complicated discipline. Not every spell could be cast purely through muscle memory like the Killing Curse.
Just then, a brown-haired boy approached them.
"Draco, how come those two fat guys, Crabbe and Goyle, aren't following you around today?"
He wore a backpack slung over one shoulder and casually stuck a hand in his pocket, nodding coolly toward Lykos.
"And weren't you telling everyone last night that you were going to teach Hayden a lesson? Why are you walking so close to him today?"
"Don't talk nonsense! When did I say I was going to teach Lykos a lesson?" Draco jumped, sneaking a cautious glance at Lykos.
Seeing that Lykos didn't react at all, Draco let out a quiet sigh of relief before whispering to the brown-haired boy,
"Theodore, Lykos and I just had a bit of a clash at first. Now we're friends."
"Who had a clash with you, Draco?"
Lykos's teasing voice suddenly came from beside them.
Draco turned and saw the faintly amused smile on Lykos's face.
"N–nothing, boss! I didn't say anything!" Draco's back stiffened instantly, his already pale face turning even paler.
"Go ahead and keep reading, boss. I won't disturb your studying…"
As he spoke, he leaned close and whispered in Lykos's ear.
"Boss… give me some face out here, will you?"
Lykos chuckled softly and waved him off before returning to his spellbook.
Draco, meanwhile, turned back to the stunned Theodore Nott and hurriedly changed the subject.
"By the way, Theodore, weren't you asking about Crabbe and Goyle?"
He skillfully shoved the blame onto his two lackeys.
"They're probably still asleep. Those two idiots embarrassed Slytherin. I'll deal with them properly when we get back."
…
After wandering to the Great Hall for lunch, Lykos and the others slowly returned to the Slytherin common room.
Sure enough, Crabbe and Goyle were still lying in bed, fast asleep.
Their sleeping positions were atrocious. One pillow was soaked with drool, their blankets had been kicked onto the floor, and their snoring thundered through the dormitory.
Draco's anger immediately flared.
He leapt onto one of the fat boys and smacked his balloon-like belly repeatedly.
"Wake up! Wake up!"
"Slytherin lost five points because of you two, do you know that?! If we don't win the House Cup this year, will you take responsibility?!"
"And do you know how many times I got stuck in those staircases because you weren't there to help…"
After several rounds of belly-smacking, Crabbe and Goyle finally woke up, staring blankly at Draco, whose face was flushed red—whether from anger or exhaustion was unclear.
"Draco… is it time for Charms class?" Goyle asked groggily.
"Shouldn't we go eat breakfast first?" Crabbe added.
Draco: "…"
He pounced on them again.
"I said Charms class! And breakfast!"
…
After a short break, the Slytherin first-years headed to Classroom 04F on the second floor for History of Magic with the Ravenclaw freshmen.
This time, Draco had learned his lesson from the morning.
Half an hour early, he dragged the still half-asleep Crabbe and Goyle out of bed and forced them to come along.
As they walked, Draco happily pushed the two bulky boys ahead of him to trigger any staircase traps.
Unfortunately for him, the History of Magic classroom was much closer to the Slytherin common room than the Charms classroom had been. Most of the route was also familiar by now.
Lykos carried the parchment where he had recorded the trap steps and warned them whenever a step was missing.
Thanks to that, Crabbe and Goyle barely triggered any traps.
Clang… clang…
When the deep chime of the castle clock tower echoed through Hogwarts, every student was already seated in the History of Magic classroom.
"That's strange," Draco whispered to Lykos while staring at the empty podium. "Is the professor not coming?"
"Did we show up early for nothing?"
"Don't worry," Lykos said, glancing at the History of Magic textbook on the desk and sighing softly.
"I'm sure he'll come."
He just wasn't sure if he could survive the most boring class in Hogwarts.
Just as the final note of the bell faded, a pearly-white ghost floated straight through the wall behind the blackboard.
The ghost wore a pair of tiny thick glasses and carried a tattered translucent book. His entire figure looked ancient and shriveled.
"I am Professor Cuthbert Binns, your History of Magic teacher. Today we will discuss…"
The ghost began lecturing immediately in a dry voice without any introduction.
The students were stunned.
None of them had expected their History of Magic professor to be a ghost—and even fewer expected that a ghost could make a perfectly normal subject this unbearably dull.
After struggling for five minutes, Lykos gave up trying to follow Professor Binns's droning lecture. The sound reminded him of an old vacuum cleaner humming away at the front of the classroom.
Instead, he quietly told Draco the story of Professor Binns.
"They say Professor Binns kept teaching until he was extremely old. One night he fell asleep in front of the fireplace in the staff room… and when he went to teach the next morning, he forgot to bring his body."
"After that, he became Hogwarts' only ghost professor. Who knows—he might never retire."
"So that's written in Hogwarts: A History too?" Draco asked curiously.
"…Hmm."
Lykos fell silent.
He had a feeling that A History probably didn't include gossip like that.
"Maybe," he replied vaguely.
…
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