You'll Regret This, Dumbledore!

"That boy should never have been admitted, Dumbledore!"

Severus Snape, who had recently suffered a run of bad luck, spoke in a low voice to the old man who had come to visit him.

"Has your wound still not healed, Severus?" Dumbledore asked, ignoring Snape's complaint. His voice held a trace of concern.

"More or less." Snape gave a cold snort. "That boy's weapon must have been a Dark Magic artifact carrying a curse. If it had been a simple puncture wound, my hand would have healed a month and a half ago. But after the wound heals, it slowly splits open again. You think someone who can use such a vicious thing can be saved?"

"Malicious and cruel by nature. You ought to take a good look at those eyes!"

Even his breathing sounded furious. For the past month and a half, Snape had been tormented by the injury. At night, he would wake from sleep with pain in his pierced arm. The Broken Spear that had stabbed into his arm had left behind a lingering force, like a maggot burrowing into bone, and it had tormented him for a long time.

"I have looked into those eyes, Severus," Dumbledore reassured him. "He cares deeply about his father's death, but I could also see that he hasn't been blinded by hatred. He's a level-headed boy who won't act rashly."

"And what about my injury? I hadn't even had time to knock before he attacked me. Do I have to pull out my memories and show them to you before you'll believe that he was trying to cut my head off?!"

The angrier Snape got, the more he brooded over it.

"He mistook you for the man who killed his father and was now coming to kill him," Dumbledore said with a shrug. He believed most of Snape's explanation. After all, with Snape's gloomy looks and greasy black clothes, anyone would have thought he'd come with bad intentions.

Appearance matters, Severus. You should have realized that by now.

"We should try to understand a boy who has just lost his father and is consumed by grief. He didn't mean to do it, and afterward, didn't he come forward to explain the misunderstanding?"

"Yes! The misunderstanding!" Mentioning it made Snape want to vent his anger. His hand had started hurting again. The wound had nearly healed, but it still split open into a gap two fingers wide, as if the flesh had been sliced away. It wasn't as deep as before, though, and now it was only a minor flesh wound.

"It was all the fault of bloody magic and owls, wasn't it!"

With practiced ease, Snape rolled up his sleeve and dripped a few drops of Potion onto the blood-soaked wound. It healed in an instant. This should be the last time it reopened.

"You'll regret this, Dumbledore!"

Snape swished his robes and said coolly, "If you came here just to ask after my wound, you can leave now."

"Actually, I came here because..." Dumbledore looked at Snape for a few seconds, then continued slowly, "You know Harry will be attending Hogwarts this year. I want you to remember our agreement."

Snape paused for a moment.

"Of course. I remember."

A complicated emotion flashed in his eyes, one that was difficult to describe in words.

On the Hogwarts Express, Ezio and Harry had spent their time pleasantly enough. They talked about all sorts of things related to Hogwarts and tried out plenty of interesting magic. Harry had also generously bought one of every kind of snack from the trolley.

"You should try Honeydukes' sweets. They're a little too sweet for me, but you might like them."

Ezio handed him a packet of Fizzing Whizzbees. They weren't sold on the trolley.

"Oh, thanks!" Harry happily took the sweets, then turned to the girl beside him. "Hermione, would you like some?"

Not long ago, a girl with prominent front teeth had arrived at their compartment with a round-faced boy who was on the verge of tears. She said the boy had lost his toad, so Ezio had used Accio to find Neville's toad for him. The spell had made Hermione exclaim in astonishment, but Ezio's next words had silenced her chatter.

"I've already learned all the spells through fifth year. Are they really that difficult?"

Hermione, who prided herself on being a top student, had fallen silent. She suddenly felt she didn't have much to be proud of, especially after learning that Ezio didn't come from a wizarding family and, like her, had only just encountered magic for the first time.

"No, thanks. I don't really like sweets," Hermione said without turning around. "Earlier, you said the key to Accio was having a clear idea of the object you wanted to summon. But you'd never even seen Neville's toad."

"Does Neville's toad have eight legs?" Ezio asked, chewing on a Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean. He loved these treats that offered a new experience with every bite. Assassin's Perception let him avoid the foul-tasting ones when choosing his beans, so he could enjoy himself without a care.

"No, it doesn't." Hermione shook her head, though a trace of confusion remained on her face.

"Exactly. I haven't seen Neville's toad, so does that mean I don't know what a toad looks like?" Ezio spread his hands, then grinned at Harry. "See? That's what happens when you only study from books. Ravenclaw would suit you, Hermione."

"Being called a bookworm doesn't make me happy, Ezio, even if I do like reading." Hermione snapped her fourth-year textbook shut and rubbed her slightly dizzy temples. She couldn't feel the least bit proud in front of a top student more capable than herself. "It seems I need to go back and study some more. Blindly learning advanced spells isn't something I should be doing."

She returned the textbook to Ezio and took her leave.

"She doesn't seem too happy about that," Harry said thoughtfully, chewing on a sweet.

"Competition is a good thing. It helps people improve faster. You wouldn't want people pointing at you and calling you an idiot, would you?"

"Of course not." Harry nodded firmly. "But I've already learned a few spells. I shouldn't embarrass myself too badly, right?" He sounded uncertain. Never mind comparing himself to Ezio; during their conversation, he'd learned that Hermione had already read all the first-year textbooks. That put a lot of pressure on him.

"Help me eat this Chocolate Frog. I think I should go and learn another spell." After hesitating for a moment, Harry put down his snacks. It felt as though something was poking him in the backside, warning him that if he didn't work hard, he'd turn into a dim-witted idiot.

Just as Harry opened his spellbook and prepared to find a new spell to learn, the compartment door opened again. It wasn't Neville or Hermione, but a trio of boys of different heights and builds.

One of them looked familiar to Harry. He'd seen the boy when he went to buy his robes; he was the one standing at the front.

"Is it true?" asked the pale-faced boy at the front, speaking as if no one else mattered. "Everyone on the train is talking about how Harry Potter is in this compartment. So that means you're him, right?"

Harry lifted his head slightly and looked at the boy with a strange expression, as if he were looking at some dim-witted idiot.