"No one in Gryffindor could compare to me," Roger said with perfect confidence. "Not even Harry Potter, the so-called saviour of the wizarding world."
"The key point is that I am also extremely handsome," he continued, touching his chin as if seriously evaluating himself. "Those little lions would be driven mad with jealousy. Perhaps by the time I graduated, not a single person in the tower would still be my friend."
"Pah!" Hermione rolled her eyes at him.
She wanted to refute him, but annoyingly, some part of her heart admitted that his arrogance had a solid foundation. The carriage atmosphere, which had been heavy only moments earlier, relaxed at once because of his shameless narcissism.
"By contrast, Slytherin suits me better," Roger said. "Most of us come from similar backgrounds, and no one looks down on anyone else for having a complicated family history. Malfoy may oppose me, dislike me, or even try to fight me, but he will never reject me for being what I am."
He looked at Hermione and suddenly asked, "Do you know why Slytherin has produced so many dark wizards?"
Hermione opened her mouth as if she wanted to answer. After thinking for a moment, however, she shook her head and said nothing.
"There are many explanations," Roger said. "Family influence, pure-blood beliefs, ambition, the hunger for power. But if those explanations are enough, why do students from every house need a professor's signature to enter the Restricted Section?"
Hermione lowered her head in thought. She understood what Roger meant. Dark magic was dangerous to any wizard, and once someone came into contact with it carelessly, there was a real risk of being dragged into the abyss.
"To be honest, Sectumsempra is a spell Professor Snape created himself," Roger said calmly. "It contains elements of dark magic. Do you still want to learn it?"
"I'll learn it," Hermione said firmly. "Of course I'll learn it."
She could not forget the night of the troll attack, when Roger had told her to run first while he faced the danger alone. If something like that happened again, she would rather stand beside him and fight than flee helplessly.
"Then you must be careful when using it," Roger said. "The power of Sectumsempra is beyond imagination. I also have one more request, and I hope you will agree."
"What is it?"
"Please do not teach it to Harry Potter or Ron Weasley."
"I promise," Hermione said after a brief pause. Then she seized the chance to press him. "But why are you telling me this?"
"Because Harry's father was James Potter."
"I have seen that name in the trophy room," Hermione said. "I even used it to encourage Harry before."
"James entered Hogwarts in the same year as Snape, but they were sorted into different houses," Roger said. "Snape was a half-blood and went to Slytherin. James was a pure-blood and went to Gryffindor. From the beginning, James held hostility toward Professor Snape."
Roger thought for a moment and silently wondered whether the Sorting Hat was always right. Perhaps it merely never admitted its mistakes.
"During their school years, James, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew frequently bullied Snape," Roger continued.
Hermione looked at him in disbelief, and Roger's voice grew colder.
"It was worse than you are imagining," he said. "Once, it nearly cost Snape his life."
Hermione covered her mouth. She had never imagined Harry's father could have been that kind of person. In that moment, the noble figure she had built in her mind looked disturbingly similar to Malfoy.
"Later, James used certain methods to win over Snape's childhood sweetheart," Roger said. "That woman became Harry Potter's mother."
He paused, then added more carefully, "This is only my subjective view. Perhaps after you learn the whole story someday, you may reach the opposite conclusion."
"But no matter how you judge it, Snape's hatred toward James and the others was real," Roger said. "If it had been me, I would have killed them long ago."
He twisted his neck lightly. Hermione looked at him and felt a strange sensation lingering in her chest, caught between discomfort and complicated sympathy.
In Roger's eyes, Snape was like a sheep wrapped in a wolf's hide, frightening at first glance but trapped in a pain sharper than anyone realised. The woman he loved had been taken from him, and he had silently left to become a spy. He was clearly one of the most renowned Potions Masters in the wizarding world, yet he spent his days in a dark, sunless dungeon, living with memories he could not escape.
Perhaps Snape was punishing himself. Perhaps he had been punishing himself for failing to save Lily Potter for more than ten years.
Roger sighed as he looked out at the grassland rushing past the train window. Snape was an unchained prisoner, free to walk anywhere and yet unable to leave the prison of his own emotions until death.
"No wonder he hates Harry so much," Hermione said suddenly. "He even tried to throw Harry off his broom during the Quidditch match."
"On the other hand, a loyal knight will always protect his princess," Roger replied. "It is true that our Head of House dislikes Harry, but he would not truly harm him."
He paused after saying that, realising again how deadly preconceived notions could be. Harry was Lily's only child. No matter how much Snape hated James Potter's face, he would never ignore Lily's blood.
"Simps deserve terrible endings," Roger said with feeling.
He did not know whether to admire Snape's devotion or despise his self-pity and wishful thinking. Perhaps both feelings could exist at the same time.
"Simps deserve terrible endings?" Hermione froze. This was the second time she had heard Roger say something like that.
"It is like the saying, 'Even if the goddess marries a thousand men, I will still love her as I did at first sight,'" Roger explained.
Hermione's face flushed, then paled, shifting through several emotions in quick succession.
"Roger, your mouth is far too sharp," she said angrily. "You turned such a tragic and touching love story into… into that."
"Touching?" Roger shrugged. "Snape only touched himself."
"Stop talking. I do not want to hear it." Hermione covered her ears and turned away in frustration. "I do not want to hear it at all."
"You promised me you would not teach them the spell," Roger reminded her.
His expression turned serious, and he clenched his fist. "Otherwise, I will cripple them. I will make sure they can never cast spells again."
Hermione looked at his face and knew he was not joking. No one who had seen the aftermath of Lee Jordan's beating would question Roger's loyalty to Slytherin, and no one sensible would assume his threats were empty.
What Hermione found strange was that Roger's attitude toward Snape had changed dramatically after only one Christmas holiday. What had once been admiration and respect now seemed mixed with something like disappointed affection.
"Compassion," Hermione murmured.
The word still felt strange when applied to Roger. If he had known what she was thinking, he might have called it steel-hearted love from Moscow. In truth, the real reason was Snape's Christmas gift: the Phoenix Tears that had allowed him to rise from the ashes.
For the next part of the journey, Hermione joined Roger's investigation of the Golden Snitch. Together, they used water to trace a star map in the air, suspending shimmering droplets into constellations that shifted with every tiny correction.
"Leo needs to move a little higher," Hermione said, holding the Golden Snitch and gesturing for Roger to adjust the constellation's position.
"Like this?" Roger gently raised the watery star pattern. When Hermione nodded, he quickly fixed it in place.
"A little to the right," Hermione said. "No, that is too far. A tiny bit left."
Her meticulous and strict requirements ensured that the water-drawn star map matched the engraving on the Golden Snitch as closely as possible. Roger had to admit that if precision were a magic of its own, Hermione would have mastered it long ago.
"Hermione, we are running out of time," Roger said suddenly.
He looked out the window and noticed the train beginning to curve left.
"Give me the camera."
"It is on top," Hermione said, reaching toward his things.
"Not the bag. The trunk," Roger shouted.
Hermione was so startled that she dropped the bag. Fortunately, she had not opened it. If she had, the trouble would have been serious.
"Roger, you scared me," Hermione said, frowning as she opened the trunk instead.
Inside the expanded case lay many books Hermione had never seen before. The two on top were Secrets of the Vampire: The Magical Genetics of Dark Blood and Occlumency. Their titles alone were enough to make her fingers pause.
"Dark magic?" Hermione asked, startled.
Even so, she kept calm and took out the instant camera. She aimed it at the floating star map and pressed the shutter just before the train finished turning.
"All right, it is taken."
Roger let out a breath of relief. As the train rounded the corner, the distorted star map collapsed into a puff of water and flew out the window.
"I'm sorry. I startled you just now," Roger said.
He picked up the bag, inspected it carefully, and then put it away with obvious caution.
"Roger, are you hiding something?" Hermione hesitated before asking. Her voice carried worry rather than accusation.
She believed friends should not keep serious secrets from one another. At the very least, if there were difficulties, they should be shared instead of carried alone.
"I went to Eastern Europe during the holidays and brought back some things," Roger said.
He opened the case slightly, noticed the dark magic book facing upward, and understood why Hermione had asked. From her expression, she was clearly thinking of Hogwarts rules and the dangers of unsupervised study.
"A dark magic book?" Hermione looked at him seriously. "The school strictly forbids students from accessing these without permission."
"Calm down, Hermione," Roger said, closing the case and gesturing for her to sit down. "Let me explain slowly."
She sat, though her expression remained cautious.
"It is not some dangerous spellbook," Roger said quickly. "It is a book about the Maledictus curse."
"The Maledictus curse?" Hermione repeated.
It was her first time hearing the term, and the name alone was enough to make a chill run down her spine.
"An ancient blood curse," Roger explained. "Strictly speaking, it is a form of blood magic. The incantation and original casting method have been lost, but its effects still exist today and continue harming witches."
To stop Hermione from pressing him too aggressively, Roger had no choice but to reveal part of the matter concerning the Maledictus. "Those born with the curse can transform into animals."
"A born Animagus?" Hermione exclaimed, astonished by the power of such a bloodline. "Isn't that a good thing? Why do you call it a curse?"
.....
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