"What are you doing here?" Ron asked. "Aren't you supposed to be sitting at the Slytherin table? What are you doing coming over here to Harry?"
He maliciously speculated, "Don't tell me you're gloating because you saw Harry get so many points deducted?"
Draco looked at the redhead with an expression usually reserved for imbeciles, rolled his eyes, and said sarcastically, "It's not like you Gryffindors; just because a few points were deducted, you start isolating your precious savior."
He snorted. "Some friends you are."
Ron was furious, but he had nothing to say; even as dim as he was, he could see the dissatisfied expressions on the faces of his Gryffindor classmates.
Unable to retort, he immediately deflated.
Harry actually didn't care at all; he waved his hand. "It's nothing really. They're not my friends."
Wanting to be friends with him, these little brats whose feathers weren't even fully grown were far from qualified.
Originally, considering Severus Snape was his mother's friend and his own achievements were high enough, Harry had intended to get on good terms with him.
But now, it seemed that for the next seven years, they would be at odds.
Draco paused for a moment, didn't say anything more, turned, and shoved the package in his arms into Harry's.
Harry sniffed, catching a sweet scent; he weighed the package and guessed, "Candy?"
"Hmph." Draco snorted discontentedly, reluctantly explaining, "You gave me candy, so Mother told me to share my snacks with you too."
He muttered quietly, "Mother made these snacks herself. If it weren't for Mother's instructions…"
Harry smiled and, under Draco's eager gaze, swiftly put the package away. He was a young master who had his head full of his parents.
"Then I'll gladly accept."
Draco, who had half-hoped Harry would decline, was not only disappointed but also a bit angry.
He tossed his head, turned, and ran off.
Ron finally couldn't hold back; he nudged Harry with his elbow twice. "Harry, how dare you pick a fight with Snape?"
Harry gave him an odd look. "What's there to be afraid of?"
"I mean…" Ron muttered quietly. "Snape is the Head of Slytherin House. Slytherin… I've heard that a lot of Slytherins are from Death Eater families. Who's to say that grumpy old bat isn't a Death Eater too?"
"They'd probably go out of their way to target you because of their master."
Harry paused, thoughtful, and turned to look at Ron. So that was the angle? Wasn't Snape his mother's friend?
Such things were rarely baseless; there had to be a story behind it, but if it was true, the implications of Dumbledore allowing Snape to continue teaching at Hogwarts were quite interesting.
It seemed he'd need to push Agatha to speed things up.
His face pale, Ron whispered, "I also heard from George and Fred that Snape brews students who disobey him into potions. He's a villain who collaborates with Filch!"
Harry: "…"
"…That's probably not true."
That was too absurd.
Harry decided to hold back the rest of his probing questions; he maintained a smile on his face. Never mind, he doubted this foolish boy knew much about the inside story anyway.
Harry casually changed the subject. "So I insulted him. What could he do to me?"
Physically, nothing had happened.
"…But he almost took away all our House points…"
Ron murmured weakly.
"Are House points that important?" Harry countered. "Do House points add to your final exam score? Or can they make you omniscient and omnipotent?"
"Uh…" Ron was stumped, but couldn't help arguing, "But the House with the most points wins the House Cup. That's a great honor."
Harry scoffed sarcastically. "Honor? Is honor going to follow you to the grave?"
"Well…" Ron was speechless.
"In the end, it's just a lousy incentive." Harry currently had no sense of belonging to Gryffindor, or even Hogwarts, so he felt no guilt saying this.
"The House Cup gives me nothing tangible, yet it expects me to swallow my pride for the sake of a few points?" Harry gave a cold laugh. "Do I look like a complete pushover?"
Besides, Snape's attitude was clearly blatant targeting.
Ron blinked stupidly and murmured to himself, "But, but it's always been this way…"
Harry looked at Ron with the same expression one would use for an imbecile. "What they do has nothing to do with me."
He still had a whole string of things he hadn't figured out; even though he'd made an enemy of Snape, he still hadn't gotten the information he wanted about his parents.
In fact, Harry was even secretly mulling it over; if things got too difficult, he could have an operations team find an opportunity to kidnap Snape and see if they could extract anything useful from an interrogation.
But he ultimately dismissed the idea; Snape's bad attitude toward him might be due to some misunderstanding.
Though that didn't stop Harry from opposing him.
But he'd wait and see for now.
Just thinking about having to scan the Forbidden Forest again tonight, and that this would go on for a long time until he had a sufficiently reliable map, made Harry feel irritable.
"Let me make this clear. Snape targets me; am I supposed to just take it? If I don't counter him into the ground, my name isn't Harry Potter."
With that, Harry snorted coldly and strode away.
Soon enough, Harry faced his first Charms class.
This time, Ron and Draco weren't sitting beside him; the seat next to Harry was taken by Seamus Finnigan, who had arrived a bit earlier.
Seamus was looking at his textbook eagerly, his wand waving restlessly in his hand.
Professor Flitwick was in charge of teaching Charms. Before class, he set up a pile of books behind the lectern and then climbed onto them, using both hands and feet.
He cleared his throat, straightened his tie, and just as he did so, the bell rang.
He then took attendance; when he called Harry's name, he couldn't contain a small squeal and tumbled straight off the pile of books.
Harry was baffled.
The spell for the class was the Levitation Charm. Harry listlessly poked at the feather in front of him with his wand, his mind already wandering to the cameras he had hidden away in various corners of the castle.
Just as he was daydreaming, thinking about where to place cameras next, a loud bang sounded right by his ear.
Harry jolted, his hand slipping; his wand jabbed into the desk, and the feather that had been sitting neatly before him instantly shot up and stuck to the ceiling.
But Harry had no time to worry about that; he turned his head in shock toward the student beside him. He saw Seamus Finnigan, who had been eagerly waving his wand moments before, now with a face blackened and hair standing on end.
Rolling his eyes back, Seamus opened his mouth and a puff of black smoke billowed out.
Harry stared wide-eyed and instinctively shrank back.
Professor Flitwick's shrill cry rang out. "Oh, Merlin! What a dreadful mistake! Mr. Finnigan, are you alright? Do you need to go to the hospital wing?"
Seamus, with his eyes rolled back, had his ears and head ringing from the loud bang.
He weakly shook his head, his eyes dazed. "What? Professor, are you talking to me?"
"Good gracious…" Professor Flitwick gasped. "My boy, you'd better go see Madam Pomfrey."
Seamus heard that clearly; he agreed and then stood up unsteadily and walked out.
Harry stared dumbfounded at the feather on Seamus's desk, which was now just a quill shaft with its downy fibers scattered everywhere, and slowly drew in a sharp breath.
This was no accident.
This was clearly a talent!
Harry rubbed his hands together eagerly, his mind already formulating a series of plans to lure Seamus Finnigan into Silver Sun and put his abilities to good use.