After the Sorting, Ryan hesitated for a moment before choosing the Gryffindor table. While he could technically have chosen any of the four tables, the Weasley twins' cheers of "Good job, bro!" and "Come here!" were too loud. Ryan even saw the helpless eye roll from Cho Chang at the Ravenclaw table, who had clearly invited him to sit down as well.
After he arrived at the table and took the seat the twins had intentionally left vacant, they greeted him enthusiastically.
"Ryan, we've all heard!"
Fred winked. "You taught that Malfoy—Draco, I think?"
George shrugged. "Whatever his name was, well done!"
The two brothers excitedly high-fived, and the lion cubs beside them cheered and clapped. Their voices were loud and unrestrained, so the young wizards of Slytherin House at the nearby table could hear them clearly. They all glared at him, and the lion cubs, unfazed by the stage presence, glared back defiantly.
"I don't think it's anything to brag about," Ryan said, frowning upon seeing this. "But this has nothing to do with Slytherin itself—it's just Draco Malfoy's own lack of refinement..." he added. He also noticed that, after a thousand years at Hogwarts, the divisions between the four houses seemed to have become quite serious.
Slytherin was particularly prominent—they were almost universally disliked by the other three houses. This displeased Ryan.
"Oh, Ryan, you don't know those Slytherin guys..." Fred began, seeming eager to say more. But George interrupted him with a pat on the shoulder. The two brothers exchanged glances, realizing Ryan didn't seem interested in discussing this. So, George immediately smiled and changed the subject. "Oh, let's not talk about these unhappy things... Ryan, you almost cost us five Galleons."
Ryan looked even more confused. What was he talking about?
Fred explained, "We made a bet with Cho that you'd definitely be sorted into Gryffindor..." He threw up his hands. "The bad news is, we were wrong."
George nodded. "The good news is, Cho wasn't right either."
The two brothers smiled at each other, finding the outcome quite amusing.
Ryan then continued his small talk with the Weasley twins, mostly about the professors at the guest table. "You know Professor Flitwick—he's always enthusiastic, but sometimes a little too enthusiastic..."
"Professor McGonagall is serious, but we can tell you in secret... if you could join the Gryffindor Quidditch team, she'd become much more approachable."
"Professor Sprout is a very gentle elder, but it's best not to go to her greenhouse when you're playing pranks, or the results won't be very good—Charlie said he'd rather face a two-day-starved dragon alone than face an angry Professor Sprout."
"The bat spirit... oh, I mean Professor Snape—he's the Head of Slytherin House, and when he gets angry, he deducts points from Gryffindor... Everyone except the Slytherin students hates him."
"Headmaster Dumbledore? We don't know much about him, but I've heard from Dad that he's the greatest wizard of our time, the most feared opponent of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and he's accomplished many legendary deeds— even defeating the first Dark Lord himself!"
Finally, Ryan noticed the last of the professors—a timid-looking young man wearing a turban.
"That's Professor Quirinus Quirrell—this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Dad's obsessed with his Muggle Studies books," George said knowingly.
"Quirinus Quirrell?" Ryan recalled the name. He had followed Professor Flitwick to Diagon Alley and heard the clerk, Julius, mention this professor at Flourish and Blotts. He remembered Julius mentioning that on the same day Ryan went to Diagon Alley, Professor Quirrell had also visited Flourish and Blotts to buy textbooks and seemed to be very close to Mr. Malfoy.
"Mr. Malfoy... does he mean Draco Malfoy's father or elder?" Ryan found it odd.
Draco's words and actions made it easy to infer what kind of people his father and elders were. So, he found it hard to understand why a wizard specializing in Muggle Studies would be so close to a purist lunatic. And then, Ryan learned something from the twins that he considered absolutely perverse.
"Are you saying the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor changes every year?!" Ryan's eyes widened.
"Yes—last year's professor was Professor Asprey Delor. While on vacation in Finland during the summer, he was ambushed by a cave troll and lost an arm and a leg."
"Professor Terrell the year before was even worse..." the twins recounted.
Simply put, their outcomes weren't good. And as far as the twins knew, this situation had been going on for a long time. Every year, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor changed—perhaps due to illness, urgent matters, injury, or even death. It had almost become a new "tradition" at Hogwarts!
Of course, in recent years, there have been rumors that this tradition might not last much longer—because even with the salaries and treatment offered to Hogwarts professors, it was difficult to recruit suitable candidates for the Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
For a moment, Ryan didn't even know what to say. That was Defense Against the Dark Arts!
In his opinion, it was practically one of the most important classes at Hogwarts. As far as he knew, even in this era, thousands of years later, Dark wizards had never been eradicated—wasn't the emergence of two generations of Dark Lords in just a hundred years a testament to this?
After briefly inquiring about the quality and content of Defense Against the Dark Arts, Ryan couldn't help but sigh internally.
"I don't understand." He murmured. "I remember Hogwarts back then, that vibrant, lively place, a scene of everything flourishing. It's still vivid before my eyes. All Dark wizards, hearing the name of Hogwarts, were like mice hearing a cat—if they didn't pee their pants right away, they'd be drinking less Butterbeer. But now..." he muttered in frustration. "If you can't handle a situation like this properly, how can you run Hogwarts?"
The Weasley twins exchanged glances, unsure what to make of Ryan's sudden remark. But they didn't have time to ask.
"Ryan... uh, I mean, Elias," a voice interrupted their conversation. Ryan turned around and saw a little witch standing behind him.
"... Miss Hermione Granger?" Ryan recognized her—the smart lady—albeit a little bit rude—who had been looking for toads on the train.
Hermione nodded, then whispered, "Um... I came to thank you..."
"Sorry?" The voice was too soft for Ryan to hear clearly.
"I say thank you!" Hermione raised her voice slightly. "When we were outside the hall, you..." She didn't finish, but Ryan recalled it—wasn't she the "mudblood" that Malfoy had been scolding outside the hall?
"You're welcome—just call me Ryan," he replied gently, indicating she could sit down.
"Okay, then... Ryan, that spell you cast in front of the Great Hall—Silencio—means 'silence,' right?" As soon as Hermione sat down, she asked curiously, "Is that a spell you saw in a book, too?"
"To be precise, the correct pronunciation is Silencio, with two tongue-rolling pauses in between; otherwise, the spell will fail," Ryan explained. "I did see that spell in a book—Ronald Coppin's Spells in Brief."
Ryan knew that the spell was based on the ancient spell Silence All Sounds, but that version was far more potent. For example, Ryan had seen Ravenclaw use it to silence all sound on a mountain. Remarkably, the reason Ravenclaw did this was to quietly contemplate the depths of magic.
"Silence aids contemplation," Ryan remembered the great witch's words.
But Ryan's answer made Hermione's eyes light up. She loved reading, but most of her peers didn't. She'd rarely met anyone like Ryan—someone who read even more than she did.
"Do you have that book... I mean, can I borrow it?" This made Ryan feel a mix of frustration and joy—almost like discovery.
"Of course, but if you want to read about spells, I'd recommend..."
The two continued their conversation, leaving the twins nearby exchanging bewildered glances. They weren't big readers—in fact, most Gryffindors weren't. But clearly... these two were an exception.
"Oh, Fred, maybe we misjudged Ryan—making friends with him might not be the best idea."
"George, my brother, I think so too... but it might be too late to say that now."
Their chat was soon interrupted by a sudden cheer from the table.
"We've got Potter!"
"We've got Potter!"
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Author's note
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