Biting

Skofot silently descended the spiral stairs of the Astronomy Tower. As soon as he reached the corner of the lower corridor, he heard Professor McGonagall's voice, unusually cold and severe with extreme disappointment.

"...I have never been as ashamed of Gryffindor students as I am now."

He concealed himself in the shadows of a pillar. The effect of the [Rabbit Rhymer] card made his presence faint, and his footsteps as light as a cat's.

He saw Harry, Hermione, and Neville standing before Professor McGonagall—Harry and Hermione pale as ghosts, Neville looking dazed and wronged.

Not far away, Filch held an oil lamp and grinned with malicious delight.

Harry's Invisibility Cloak had evidently been left atop the tower, becoming evidence they could not deny.

Fifty points from each of them. It was undoubtedly a heavy blow to Gryffindor.

Harry and Hermione were still pleading in vain, but Professor McGonagall had clearly made up her mind and sternly ordered them to return to their dormitory at once.

Skofot watched the scene without much reaction. He even found it a little boring.

The professors' anger, the students' remorse—it was all so... by the book.

While Professor McGonagall turned away and Filch's attention remained fixed on the Gryffindors, he slipped nimbly through the shadows like a real rabbit, merging ahead of them into the stream of students returning to their dormitories.

Harry, Hermione, and Neville trailed behind with their heads hanging low, the atmosphere so oppressive it felt as though water could be wrung from it.

As they passed a side corridor, Skofot suddenly darted out from a nearby alcove and ended up walking alongside Harry.

Harry was still immersed in crushing dejection and guilt toward his Gryffindor classmates, and did not notice someone had appeared beside him at all.

Then, without warning, a hand reached over and gently—almost with clumsy tenderness—ruffled his messy black hair.

Harry stiffened all over and whipped his head around, meeting Skofot's face at close range.

Under the effect of the [Rabbit Rhymer] card, those eyes looked especially clear, even carrying a touch of innocent naivety.

As though ruffling Harry's hair had merely been an unthinking gesture of friendliness from a child—or rather, as though the card's inherent affinity and sense of fragility had stirred up a protective instinct.

A surge of offended rage instantly rushed to Harry's head!

He had just lost one hundred and fifty points, he was in a terrible mood, and this weird Slytherin actually dared to touch him?!

"What are you doing?!" Harry growled, raising his foot to kick him without a second thought.

But Skofot moved faster. He sprang backward like a startled rabbit, nimbly evading the kick, then turned to run.

Yet at the instant Skofot had ruffled his hair, an exceedingly strange sensation had seized Harry.

The touch had been light, carrying a trace of coolness. By all rights, he should have felt disgusted and furious.

But for some reason, he could not summon even the slightest genuine aversion. If anything... that gentle touch had strangely soothed some of his agitation.

That contradiction slowed him by half a beat.

As Skofot was about to slip away, an emotion Harry could not tell was annoyance or simply a reluctance to let this strange fellow run off made him instinctively reach out and seize the wrist Skofot had not yet fully pulled back!

"Don't touch my head!" Harry glared at him. His tone was still harsh, but the grip on the other boy's wrist unconsciously loosened somewhat.

He could feel that Skofot's wrist was very thin, the bones jutting against his hand, his skin icy cold.

Skofot seemed not to have expected to be caught. He froze for a moment, then raised his head and looked at Harry.

A sheen of moisture swiftly clouded those innocent rabbit-like eyes. His eye rims reddened, his lips pressed together faintly, and he looked as though he had suffered an enormous injustice and was about to cry.

The sense-of-fragility buff was in full effect!

Harry was stunned again by this sudden change in expression, and his hand loosened a little more.

In that instant of slackness—

Skofot abruptly lowered his head, opened his mouth, bared his small white teeth, and bit down mercilessly on the back of the hand Harry was using to hold him!

"Argh—!" Harry cried out in pain and instantly released him.

Skofot immediately wriggled free like an eel.

He backed away several steps, clutching the wrist Harry had just grabbed.

With tear-filled eyes, he glared accusingly at Harry as though he were the one who had been bullied.

Then he turned and ran without looking back, his figure swiftly vanishing into the darkness of the corridor.

Harry clutched the distinct bite mark on the back of his hand, where beads of blood were seeping out, baring his teeth in pain.

He stared in the direction Skofot had disappeared, the anger in his heart rising rapidly.

But as he looked at the bleeding tooth marks, he remembered that bony, slender wrist and icy skin beneath his hand, as well as the other boy's unbearably wronged expression at the end...

What even was this?!

In the end, he could not maintain his anger. Instead, the absurdity of the scene made him laugh.

The smile was somewhat twisted, mixed with pain, grievance, and an indescribable sense of being utterly thrown off balance.

"He actually bites people?!" Harry said incredulously to Hermione and Neville, who were staring in shock beside him.

Hermione frowned, looking from the bite mark on Harry's hand to the direction Skofot had vanished, her eyes full of vigilance and confusion.

"...I think he was trying to comfort you? Though his method was very strange... But at the end... Leoqi really is a strange person."

Neville merely nodded dumbly, completely unable to make sense of what had happened.

Harry shook his bitten hand, his feelings tangled to the extreme.

The frustration of losing points, the irritation of having his head rubbed, the pain of being bitten, and that lingering... soft spot for that slender wrist and those aggrieved eyes.

Irritably, he raked a hand through his already messy hair.

"Come on, let's go back," he said gloomily. Tonight had been rotten enough already, and some Slytherin lunatic—maybe not a lunatic, but definitely not normal—had somehow made it even more of a mess.

[Emotion Points +40] (From Harry's anger, pain, frustration, and conflicted softheartedness)

[Emotion Points +20] (From Hermione's vigilance and deep confusion)

[Emotion Points +10] (From Neville's bewilderment)

[Emotion Points: 1490/100]

Once Skofot had run far enough to make sure he was out of sight, he immediately dropped that tearful expression. He rubbed the wrist Harry had grabbed, which did not actually hurt much, then licked at the nonexistent blood on the corner of his mouth.

The effect was pretty good.

He had not only gathered Emotion Points, but further reinforced the muddled impression of being "sometimes fragile, sometimes neurotic," making Harry's opinion of him even more complicated and difficult to pin down.

This feeling of dancing on a tightrope was not bad at all.

In high spirits, he headed toward the dungeons.