In the Hogwarts Great Hall, the countless faces watching the new students, the floating candles, and the breathtaking ceiling all made Lin Yanqing temporarily forget his troubles with Snape.
Like the other new students, he held his breath and stared at the filthy, patch-covered ancient wizard's hat resting on a four-legged stool.
Then the hat twitched. A wide slit opened like a mouth, and it began singing this year's Sorting Hat song.
As usual, the lyrics described the qualities of the four Houses and the importance of unity. Listening to the familiar tune, Lin Yanqing felt deeply moved, while most of the new students around him looked nervous or curious.
When the song ended, the hall erupted in applause. The Sorting Hat bowed to each of the four tables, then fell still.
Professor McGonagall stepped forward, holding a roll of parchment. "When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool," she said. "Then you will be sorted."
"Amelia Bones!"
A little girl with two golden braids stumbled out of the line and put on the hat, which fell right over her eyes. She sat down. After a brief pause—
"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat shouted.
The students at the table on the right applauded and cheered for Amelia, welcoming her to join them.
Name after name was called, and the line gradually grew shorter. Lin Yanqing could feel Snape's breathing beside him becoming lighter, a tense mixture of desperate longing and fear of rejection.
Finally—
"Lily Evans!"
Lily took a deep breath, stepped forward, and put on the hat. The moment it touched her thick red hair, it screamed, "GRYFFINDOR!"
Lin Yanqing saw Snape's shoulders sag almost imperceptibly for an instant. The Gryffindor table burst into the loudest cheers, with James Potter and Sirius Black pounding the table hard. Lily happily ran over, her face glowing with a brilliant smile.
Then, close to his place in line—
"Severus Snape!"
Snape walked forward stiffly, his face even paler than usual. He put on the hat, its brim covering most of his face.
Time seemed to stretch on forever. Through the contract, Lin Yanqing could clearly sense the surging thoughts from the other end—the thirst for knowledge, the pursuit of power, the fierce desire to escape the mire of the past, and the yearning for Slytherin green, a symbol of pure blood and influence... Mixed in was also a trace of disappointment over Lily being sorted into Gryffindor.
"SLYTHERIN!" the hat finally called out.
Snape almost immediately tore the hat off his head. With the relief of a burden lifted, yet an even more desperate determination, he headed for the Slytherin table. Polite but far from enthusiastic applause came from that side. Several well-dressed older students gave him indifferent glances without showing much interest. Lin Yanqing noticed that one pale blond-haired boy with an arrogant bearing—obviously Lucius Malfoy, seated prominently as a prefect—merely swept a cold glance over Snape before looking away.
Lin Yanqing understood. Just as expected.
Soon, it was his turn.
"Lin Yanqing!"
He walked forward and sat on the four-legged stool. Professor McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat on his head. It was so large that it blocked his vision entirely, leaving him able to see only darkness inside the hat.
"Hmm..." A faint voice sounded beside his ear. "Very interesting. Powerful, ancient Eastern bloodline... Hmm, very special, extremely special... You thirst for knowledge, pursue truth, possess ample curiosity, and are quite clever... Ravenclaw would suit you very well..."
Lin Yanqing relaxed. It was exactly as he had expected.
"But... wait..." The Sorting Hat's voice took on a note of confusion. "What is this? A... soul bond so solid? Connected to... Oh, a little Slytherin? Filled with ambition and... pain. What a rare combination. Do you want to go to Slytherin? Perhaps there, you could get closer to your... 'connected one'?"
"No! Please send me to Ravenclaw!" Lin Yanqing shouted anxiously in his mind. Was this a joke? Going to Slytherin and facing Snape day and night? He was afraid he would not survive his first year, let alone complete those "sweet romance" missions.
"A wise choice." The hat seemed to chuckle softly. "Forcing closeness may only backfire. Maintaining a proper distance might better resolve the deadlock with wisdom. Your nature belongs to wisdom and knowledge. Then it would be best to go... RAVENCLAW!"
The hat shouted the final three words.
Lin Yanqing took off the hat, handed it back to Professor McGonagall, and walked toward the equally enthusiastic cheers at the Ravenclaw table. The blue and bronze decorations were elegant and scholarly, and the older students kindly made room for him. As he sat down, he instinctively glanced toward the Slytherin table and happened to meet a pair of cold black eyes.
Snape was staring at him from afar, his gaze complicated. Beyond his usual wariness and disgust, there seemed to be a trace of... curiosity? Clearly, the Sorting Hat's hesitation and its final cry of "Ravenclaw" had not escaped his notice. He was probably wondering whether Lin Yanqing had failed to go to Slytherin because of him. Or perhaps there was some secret about this boy from the East that even the Sorting Hat had needed to consider? The thought left Lin Yanqing feeling helpless.
The minor incident during the Sorting soon passed. When the last student—a short boy named Peter Pettigrew, who was sorted into Gryffindor—had finished, Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet. Beaming at all the students, he spread his arms as though nothing pleased him more than seeing them gathered together.
"Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to Hogwarts for a new school year! Before the feast begins, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"
He sat back down. Everyone applauded and cheered. Some Ravenclaw upperclassmen beside Lin Yanqing laughed as they discussed the headmaster's annual "quirks."
Then the golden plates and goblets instantly filled with food and drink. There was roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops, lamb chops, sausages, bacon, steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and even peppermint humbugs! It was a dazzling spread, fragrant and enticing.
After such a tense day, Lin Yanqing was starving as well and began eating heartily. The Ravenclaw students around him soon started chatting, moving from today's Sorting to the upcoming classes and then to interesting stories from the wizarding world. Lin Yanqing's gentle nature and mysterious Eastern appearance made it easy for him to blend in, at least on the surface.
Yet he could always feel the existence of that soul bond, along with the isolation and coldness that did not fit in at all from the other end, over at the Slytherin table. Snape did not seem to speak much with those around him and merely ate in silence.
After the feast, the prefects led the new students of their respective Houses back to their common rooms. Ravenclaw's common room was located in a tower on the western side of the castle. Its entrance was a door with no handle, only an ancient bronze eagle-shaped knocker.
"To enter the common room, you must answer a question asked by the knocker," the prefect explained to the new students as he knocked on the door.
In a musical voice, the eagle-shaped knocker asked, "What speaks a thousand words without making a sound?"
The prefect turned to the new students. "Does anyone know?"
A girl with thick brown hair immediately raised her hand. "Is it 'silence'? Or... 'memory'?"
The knocker remained silent.
Lin Yanqing thought for a moment. Drawing on his experiences of transmigration and the contract, he said, "Is it 'a story'? Or... 'thought'?"
The eagle-shaped knocker replied in a pleasant voice, "'Thought' is a close answer, but not precise enough. The answer I was looking for was 'a secret.'" The door slowly opened.
"Getting the answer wrong will not bar you from entering," the prefect added with a smile. "But it will encourage you to think more deeply. Welcome to Ravenclaw, the home of wisdom and curiosity."
The common room was a spacious circular chamber, with elegant arched windows in the walls and blue and bronze silk hanging from them. The domed ceiling was painted with stars, and stars also dotted the deep blue carpet. There were bookshelves, tables, and chairs, and the room was filled with a tranquil, scholarly atmosphere.
The prefect introduced the directions to the boys' and girls' dormitories, along with several basic rules. When Lin Yanqing finally lay down in his own four-poster bed, its deep blue velvet curtains drawn around it, a wave of exhaustion swept over him.
"Host did wonderfully today! You successfully enrolled and even entered the House best suited to you! (??????)??" The little system popped up at just the right moment. "But your bond target's initial favorability is still -50. You have a long way to go! This little one suggests starting with something he is interested in!"
"Potions?" Lin Yanqing replied in his mind.
"Bingo! Correct! (≧?≦)?" The system displayed an emoji scattering flowers. "New mission issued: [Bridge of Knowledge]"
[Mission Description: Within three days, share with Severus Snape a piece of potion-related information that may interest him, or provide a basic potion ingredient.] [Mission Reward: Potion ingredients (random rarity) x3, Galleons x5.] [Failure Penalty: Randomly lock one mastered spell, such as the Levitation Charm, for 24 hours. (????)]
Here it was again. Lin Yanqing sighed as he looked at the mission description. Share information? Provide ingredients? In Snape's eyes, that would probably look more like an ulterior motive.
But he had no way out. He closed his eyes and sensed the soul at the other end of the bond, which had already returned to the Slytherin dungeon dormitory and remained filled with guardedness and distance.
Life at Hogwarts had officially begun in this strange, forced connection.
And his first goal was to find a way to approach the future potion master everyone would fear, and to find an opening in the field Snape knew best without provoking his disgust.
This was undoubtedly an enormous challenge.
Before you continue