What is a Friend

"Thank you for your help, Grandmother."

Damon followed Augusta out of Dumbledore's office and thanked the elderly woman again.

"You don't need to thank me; I should be thanking you. From now on, make sure to spend time with Neville. Can you do that, child?"

"I will."

"Good. If you ever need any help, have Neville write to me, or go to the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley and find the owner, Tom.

Though the Longbottom family has declined among the Sacred Twenty-Eight, we haven't lost the honor and power of pure blood."

"Thank you for your promise; I'll remember it. Would you like to come see Neville with me?"

Damon didn't dwell on the old woman's talk of pure blood and half-blood, simply treating her like a somewhat stern old lady.

"I'll head back directly. Tell him for me—he did well in this matter, and I'm proud of him."

With that, the iron-willed old woman left without a pause, as if she had just heard the news from a friendly professor and immediately rushed to Hogwarts.

"Well then, I should get back to class too."

Damon left in a light mood—though detention didn't really matter to him either way; it just meant losing a bit of fun bickering with Snape.

He wasn't naive enough to think Snape would give him extra lessons during detention. With the Old Bat's temperament, he'd probably just make him handle a pile of disgusting potion ingredients while hurling constant mockery.

Behind Damon, just one door away.

Dumbledore stood silently behind the door, watching Damon's retreating figure with intense focus, his expression as if he were pondering something of utmost importance.

He had a general understanding of the boy's character now. Given time, he could certainly become a powerful ally for Harry against Voldemort, but he still needed to observe more—to see how he would choose when faced with a crisis.

Dumbledore had seen many people who showed great courage in ordinary times, but when faced with life and death, they chose to kneel before Voldemort, revealing their true ugliness.

Would Damon be that kind of person?

The next day, the incident of "The Duelling Prince Strikes Malfoy" began to ferment, with some shifts in the situation.

More and more students cut down on their time in bed, coming early to the Great Hall for breakfast—they were afraid that laziness would make them miss some excitement again.

Meanwhile, the Little Lions' enthusiasm cooled, and they started to come to their senses—they began to fret over their lost House Cup points.

Sure, what Damon did was cool, but losing a hundred and fifty points was a disgrace to them too—Gryffindor had dropped from first place in the House Cup to fourth. Every time they passed the hourglasses on the first floor, their hearts felt empty.

Some discordant voices began to circulate within small groups.

The looks they gave Damon were no longer always full of respect; they gradually turned ambiguous. A strange atmosphere spread among the first-years.

Harry and the others clearly sensed this change and secretly worried for Damon, but he remained the same—except for breakfast every day, he was nowhere to be seen. On weekends, he vanished completely, not even showing up for breakfast.

"I really don't get it—aren't you bothered at all?"

Hermione finally couldn't hold back, asking Damon amidst the covert glances around them.

"Bothered by what?"

Today, unusually, he wasn't reading the newspaper. A magical notebook and quill floated beside him, and whenever inspiration struck, he jotted things down—he was experimenting with a theory he'd seen in Transfiguration Today recently, and had already found some clues and a rough outline. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, he'd make a breakthrough.

Just one flash of inspiration away.

"Bothered by what? Every Gryffindor student is talking about the House Cup points we lost, and you ask me what you're bothered by? Do you even know our points are dead last now?

Damon—don't you have—not even a shred of collective pride?"

"What, Hermione, do you think what I did before was wrong?"

"Of course you were right—but couldn't we have done it differently? You could have challenged Malfoy to a midnight duel, why did you have to do it in front of everyone?"

Hermione felt like she must be crazy.

She never thought the words "midnight duel" would come out of her mouth.

At that moment, Ron and Harry were staring at her with wide eyes, as if seeing her for the first time.

What drove Hermione even crazier was that even after all this, Damon still looked completely unconcerned, saying calmly:

"Because at that moment, I wanted to do it that way. I thought it was better that way. That's all."

He finished the last sip of soup, stood up, and said to Hermione:

"Don't worry. I'll earn back the hundred and fifty points we lost before the end of the term. Gryffindor will still be first in the House Cup."

"But—how?"

"You don't need to worry about that."

"Why not? Tell me, I can help—"

"Oh, and if you still haven't found any leads on Nicolas Flamel, try checking Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card."

With that, Damon left directly. As for the House Cup, once his paper was published, he'd win it back naturally.

Damon moved so swiftly that Hermione had only finished the first half of her sentence before his figure was already far away, leaving her fuming alone.

"That's not what I meant at all! Why did he say it like that?"

Ron and Harry watched Damon's carefree retreating figure, wanting to laugh but not daring to. They exchanged a glance and saw admiration in each other's eyes.

As for Hermione?

Damon's actions made it clear to everyone that he didn't care about others' opinions. For Hermione to confront him at this moment was obviously taking the wrong side—Harry and Ron had never thought Damon was in the wrong.

Publicly beating Malfoy to make him lose face and never be arrogant again was far more important than House Cup points. Hermione seemed unable to understand this.

"Take it easy, Hermione. At least we know we've got a clue about Nicolas Flamel, right?"

Ron didn't attack Hermione's stance but instead comforted her gently.

Hermione looked at him with some surprise, then slumped again: "I feel like Damon is drifting further and further away from us. Aren't we friends? Shouldn't friends help each other? If he's the only one solving our problems and we can't do anything for him, is that still friendship? I've never had a friend who said less than ten words in a month."

"Oh—don't take it too hard. Actually, it depends on how you define friends."

Ron comforted Hermione, thinking to himself that she hadn't been like this when she was buried in the library before, but he kept that thought to himself.

As he spoke, he quietly winked at Harry.

Harry caught on instantly and chimed in: "Yeah, Damon told me there are many kinds of friends—" Seeing Hermione turn her gaze to him, Harry suddenly stammered a bit. He'd thought it sounded reasonable at the time, but the details had slipped his mind.

"An-anyway, why don't we hurry up and see what's on the Chocolate Frog card?"