On the way back to the dormitory, Draco called out to Henry.
"Your Highness." He hesitated, then appeared to make up his mind. "There's something I want to tell you."
"Go ahead," Henry said, stopping.
"In private," Draco added, glancing sideways at Crabbe and Goyle.
The two stood where they were until Draco told them plainly to go back to the dormitory, at which point they lumbered off without comment.
Draco and Henry walked to a quieter corner of the corridor, and Draco scratched the back of his head with an expression of someone who had been rehearsing an apology and still found it uncomfortable to deliver.
"It was my fault. If I had controlled myself, Potter wouldn't have made it onto the Quidditch team."
"Tell me what happened," Henry said, in a tone that suggested he had not already worked it out entirely.
Draco recounted it in full. He had seen the Remembrall on the ground after the lesson, picked it up intending to return it to Neville, but Potter had spotted him with it and come over to demand it back.
Something in the way Potter had approached him had made Draco's temper flare, and he had thrown the Remembrall into the air rather than hand it over quietly.
"I understand," Henry said, and rested a hand briefly on Draco's shoulder. "You don't need to apologise for this. Everyone has people they find genuinely difficult to be around, that's entirely natural, Draco."
Draco blinked, visibly caught off guard by the mildness of the response.
"Your Highness, I—"
"Don't feel guilty about it," Henry said, with a slight smile. "But tell me: what do you think you've taken away from what happened today?"
Draco pressed his lips together. His brow furrowed, then smoothed, and he finally offered, with a note of uncertainty, "That I should control my temper?"
"That's part of it. But the more important lesson..." Henry paused, letting the anticipation build just long enough, then raised one finger and said slowly, "Never hate your enemies. Hatred clouds your judgement."
Draco stared at him. His expression was one of a person who had heard the words clearly and was still trying to decide whether they made sense.
The torches along the corridor wall threw shifting shadows across his young face.
"Don't... hate the enemy?" he repeated, his voice uncertain. "But they are the enemy. Potter, and those Weasleys, they—"
"They are your opponents, Draco," Henry said, his voice gentle but precise. "The word enemy carries too much feeling with it. Feeling makes you make mistakes, as it did today."
He began walking, and Draco fell instinctively into step beside him. The two moved slowly down the empty corridor, their footsteps a soft, steady rhythm against the stone.
"Let me ask you something," Henry said, turning his head toward Draco. "When you picked up the Remembrall and saw Potter walking toward you, what was the first thought that came into your mind?"
Draco considered it, his brow creasing. "I thought... I thought he was going to come over and interfere, as usual. And I didn't want him to just take it without any trouble."
"That thought was what drove you to throw the Remembrall into the air," Henry said, with the calm tone of someone observing a sequence rather than assigning blame. "And in doing so, you handed Potter a stage to showcase exactly the talent he had. Now think about what would have happened instead if you had simply returned the Remembrall to Longbottom, or even handed it to Potter directly."
Draco had clearly never considered it from this angle.
"Longbottom gets his things back, and the matter ends there. Potter has no opportunity to make that dive, and Professor McGonagall sees nothing remarkable. Gryffindor does not have a Seeker." Henry's voice remained even. "As it stands, Gryffindor has a Seeker. And what did you gain? A moment of satisfaction, and then?"
The colour in Draco's cheeks deepened.
He had gained a moment of satisfaction, and in exchange had given his opponent recognition, a place on the team, and the specific kind of preferential treatment that came with being noticed by a Head of House.
It was, when laid out plainly, a thoroughly terrible exchange.
"Intense dislike, when you allow it to take hold, narrows what you can see," Henry continued. "You see the immediate pleasure and nothing beyond it. Slytherin's great advantage is supposed to be a clearer head for calculating costs and outcomes than anyone else in this school. Today you didn't use it."
The words landed like cold water. Draco was quiet.
He thought of his father's occasional instruction: Malfoys pursue interests, not emotions. Today he had done the precise opposite, and been led somewhere he would not have chosen to go.
"Then what am I supposed to do?" he asked, and his voice had lost its usual edge entirely, replaced by something more genuinely uncertain. "When I see Potter, I just, I can't help it."
"You can observe him instead of despising him," Henry said, stopping and turning to face Draco directly. "Treat him as an opponent worth studying. Watch him, his instincts in the air, the limits of his technique, how he responds under pressure, who he trusts, what he cares about most. That kind of information is worth considerably more than a moment's humiliation."
The furrow in Draco's brow eased slowly. Something was shifting behind his gray eyes.
This sounded, he thought, genuinely Slytherin. More Slytherin, in some ways, than his father's frequent invocations of pure-blood honour, which had always felt like a principle he was expected to feel rather than a strategy he could actually apply.
"You could have observed a great deal today," Henry went on. "How quickly does Potter respond under real pressure? What are the limits of his diving? Does he maintain his stability in the air when things go wrong around him? All of that was available to you this afternoon, and you missed it because your attention was entirely on how to make his path more difficult."
Draco exhaled slowly, and for the first time the regret on his face had nothing to do with having done something wrong. He was regretting a missed opportunity. That was a different and considerably more useful feeling.
"So when you're next in front of Potter, or anyone else you find difficult," Henry said, his tone taking on the quality of someone who has simply lived long enough to know something worth passing on, "take a breath, settle yourself, and ask: what is the best available course of action for me and for Slytherin right now? Is it to provoke him into an error, or to watch and collect what he gives away? Is it a direct move, or something more considered?"
He raised another finger. "Anger can be useful. Uncontrolled anger will be used against you. A clear mind is the advantage worth protecting."
Draco was silent for a long moment, then nodded, not the quick, performed nod of someone agreeing to be agreeable, but something slower and more deliberate.
When he looked up, his eyes were different. The restless, impulsive quality had settled into something calmer and more watchful.
"I understand, Your Highness," he said. "Thank you."
It was not his usual courtesy. It was something more considered than that.
Henry could see it clearly the beginning of a shift in the way the boy in front of him was approaching the world. The spoiled young heir was starting, slowly, to learn how to think.
"Good." Henry smiled. "So. We now have a common opponent Gryffindor's new Seeker. What do we do about it?"
Draco laughed, and it was a different kind of laugh than his usual sharp, mocking one. "We study him. We watch his training, map his patterns in the air, find the weaknesses. And then, when the time comes, we beat him the Slytherin way."
"That's exactly right." Henry nodded with satisfaction. "Now, let's go back. I want to hear your thoughts on the team's current tactics, from the perspective of a future Quidditch player."
+++++++
The system is active on Chapter 52, this is a sneak peek of how it looks:
Left Side: Influence Panel
[Current Influence Range: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry]
[Influence Level: Emerging (5/1000)]
[Available Influence Points: 5 (Initial Gift)]
[Influence Sources:]
Slytherin House: +5/week
Hufflepuff House: +3/week
Gryffindor House: +3/week
Ravenclaw House: +1/week
Professor's Attention: +3/week
[Current Weekly Income: 15 points]
[Influence Shop (Unlocked, requires Influence Level 5)]
Right Side: Monarch Panel
[Monarch Trait: Not Awakened]
[Monarch Points: 0]
[Monarch Behavior Record:]
Upholding Royal Dignity and Responsibility: +1 (Repeatable Task)
Establishing Cross-House Dialogue Channels: +5
Demonstrating Inclusivity Beyond Prejudice: +5
Promoting Knowledge Exchange and Inheritance: +5
Monarch-Inspired Behavior: None (Behavior cannot be repeated)
Imperial Mindset: None
[Current Convertible Monarch Points: 16]
[Convert?] (Yes/No)]
Bottom Center: Magic Skill Tree
[Currently Mastered Spells: Lumos, Scourgify, Wingardium Leviosa, Spongify, Alohomora, Reparo]
[Available Monarch Points: 0]
[Tip: Monarch Points can be used to directly increase spell mastery, unlock magic talent branches, or accelerate the learning of special skills]
[System Motto: A true monarch not only rules the territory but also guides the mind. Magic is your scepter, wisdom is your crown.]
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