Professor Snape stood completely expressionless beside Damian's workbench, watching him brew.
After the cauldron began emitting a thick, red steam, Damian skillfully turned off the heat and used a fine sieve to filter out the crushed residue.
Finally, he poured the clear, perfectly brewed liquid into a new crystal phial.
After Damian finished the final step, Professor Snape picked up the phial holding the Salamander horn extraction and held it up to the dungeon's dim light.
"Finished first. And flawlessly executed," Snape drawled, his voice carrying effortlessly across the silent classroom. "Five points to Slytherin."
Professor Snape had successfully found yet another opportunity to award his own house points.
He set the phial back down and swept toward the podium at the front of the room. "Ten minutes left. Those who have not finished will copy the exact process for extracting Salamander horn liquid one hundred times."
The students below panicked, frantically quickening their pace. But the rushing only caused them to make more and more mistakes, and Professor Snape's expression darkened visibly with every ruined cauldron.
Ten minutes later, Professor Snape announced the end of class. Those who had managed to finish just in time breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
Those who hadn't finished looked completely ashen. The thought of being punished with writing one hundred lines by Professor Snape on the very first day of classes left them utterly dejected.
After Damian stayed behind to help Professor Snape tidy up the classroom ingredients, he approached the professor's desk. "Professor, I've been researching Ancient Runes recently and would like to consult Salazar Slytherin's original manuscripts. I need your signature for a Restricted Section pass."
Professor Snape paused, his dark eyes locking onto Damian. "Do not waste your talent, Damian. Spreading your energy too thin this early in your education is not a wise choice."
Damian smoothly offered his pre-planned excuse. "You know my grandfather was Alphard Black. He was a renowned scholar of Ancient Runes, and I have recently taken a deep interest in continuing his work."
Snape stared at him for a long moment, but said nothing more. He pulled out a piece of parchment, sharply signed his name, and handed the permission slip over.
Leaving the dungeons, Damian headed straight for the Great Hall. Potions had been his last class of the day, and it was finally time for dinner.
Arriving at the Great Hall, he scanned the Slytherin table and spotted his roommates, who had saved a seat for him.
As Damian sat down, he realized Jerry and Geralt were still gossiping about Potions class.
"Professor Snape seemed to be in a genuinely foul mood today," Jerry muttered, buttering a roll. "I think his glare is even more terrifying than last year."
Geralt took a sip of black tea. "I just heard from Pansy Parkinson. Apparently, during the first-year Potions class this morning, Snape deducted points from Harry Potter."
Jerry's face filled with surprise. "You don't usually get points deducted just for failing to answer a question, even if you are a Gryffindor."
Geralt shrugged carelessly. "Who knows? Perhaps Professor Snape just finds the 'Savior' particularly disagreeable."
Damian glanced over toward the Gryffindor table. He was mildly surprised to find Harry, Ron, Neville, and Hermione all sitting together; the four of them had seemingly become fast friends in just one day.
Harry looked miserable, poking at his food. Thanks to him, Gryffindor had already lost house points in the very first week of school. The other three first-years were leaning in, trying hard to comfort him.
The Golden Trio has assembled, Damian thought to himself, plus Neville.
Turning back to his own table, Damian nudged Jerry. "Let me copy your Charms homework for today."
He couldn't be bothered to do the actual assignment. His magical progress was leagues ahead of the third-year curriculum, making standard homework completely useless for his growth.
Jerry rolled his eyes. "The top student in the entire year actually wants to copy my homework?"
Geralt grinned around a mouthful of potatoes. "I'm going to copy it too! Rounding up, that means I'm officially tied for first place with Damian."
Halfway through the meal, a small brown owl swooped into the Great Hall and dropped a letter directly onto Damian's plate.
Damian took the envelope and offered the owl a piece of chicken.
It was a letter from Luna Lovegood.
In her uniquely looping handwriting, she asked how his first day of classes had gone, happily announced that the mistletoe by her front door had sprouted, and finally detailed exactly how many mealworms her baby Thunderbird had eaten that afternoon.
Damian quickly drafted a reply on the back of his Charms notes.
He told Luna about the dramatic first-year feast, mentioned Snape's unusually foul mood, and finally recounted how he had bumped into the new Gryffindor first-years on the Hogwarts Express.
"Goodbye, BoBo," Damian said, handing the folded reply to the owl. The bird took the parchment in its beak and immediately took flight.
Geralt watched the bird go, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "You and your 'neighbor' sure have a cozy relationship. Ever since we started Hogwarts, you receive a letter from her every single week. What a good neighbor, eh?"
Geralt suddenly scowled. "Hey! Why are you taking my food? Leave me a chicken wing!"
Damian calmly chewed the stolen chicken. "I thought you were full."
After dinner, Damian headed straight up to the library.
Having a signed permission slip from a Head of House didn't mean he could just browse the Restricted Section at will. The slip specified exactly what materials he needed, and he was only allowed to borrow the titles written on the parchment.
He handed Snape's permission slip to Madam Pince. The strict librarian inspected the signature closely before silently leading Damian to the Restricted Section at the back of the library.
The heavy, chained bookshelves here were arranged strictly by danger level, and within each danger level, they were further categorized by subject.
It didn't take long for Madam Pince to locate the Slytherin manuscript Damian had requested. She handed him a heavy, leather-bound book.
The gold-leaf cover read: Slytherin's Secrets: A Collection of Ancient Runes Manuscripts.
Clearly, this wasn't the original raw text, but rather a revised, compiled edition made by later scholars.
"Thank you," Damian murmured. He took the heavy tome and found an isolated seat in the library's public study room to begin reading.
Unfortunately, Slytherin's compiled manuscripts had very little description of actual "meditation" and made absolutely no mention of the specific Aemon's Basic Meditation Method he had found in the other world.
However, after flipping through the brittle pages for a while, Damian finally found the exact phrase: "Meditation is the key to Runic Script." It was located in a chapter titled Tracing the Origin of Runic Script Pronunciation.
The book stated that when Salazar Slytherin was researching the origins of runic magic, he discovered that the earliest known literature recording Runic Scripts dated back to the 7th century.
At the very end of the chapter, the text recorded a brief conversation between Salazar Slytherin and one of his most famous students.
I asked Merlin how Runic Script could be seamlessly integrated into modern spellcasting.
Merlin replied to me: 'Meditation is the key to Runic Script.'
Damian frowned, his mind racing. Interestingly, Merlin—arguably the most famous wizard in history—was among the very first batch of students to ever attend Hogwarts, personally sorted into Slytherin House.
According to magical historians, Merlin was active during the Middle Ages. His achievements were legendary: he established the Order of Merlin and championed the regulations prohibiting the use of magic against Muggles.
The common wizarding expletive, "Merlin's beard!", referred directly to this man.
However, this created a massive historical paradox. In the Muggle world, the legends of King Arthur and his advisor Merlin first appeared in Welsh bardic poetry around the year 600 AD. Historians generally agreed that the actual historical period of King Arthur—and the ancient Merlin—was around the late 5th century.
Yet Hogwarts wasn't founded until the late 10th century!
The active periods of the Muggle legend's Merlin and the Hogwarts student Merlin were separated by nearly five hundred years! Because of this massive gap, the general consensus in the wizarding world was that the two Merlins were entirely different people who just happened to share the same name.
"Merlin said this?" Damian muttered to himself, completely baffled.
According to Hogwarts: A History, the wizard Merlin's magical power grew at a terrifying, unprecedented rate after he enrolled. In his later years, Salazar Slytherin and Merlin shared a relationship that blended mentorship with deep friendship.
However, after Merlin graduated, their drastically different views on Muggle relations caused a massive rift between them, and the two legendary wizards eventually went their separate ways.
A sharp knock on the study room door broke Damian's concentration.
Madam Pince stood in the doorway, her face severe. "It is time for the library to close, Mr. Black."
Damian sighed and packed up the heavy book. He needed to head back to the Slytherin Common Room to process this new information; Hogwarts' curfew was notoriously strict, and he had a lot to think about.
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