White Fresh and Hufflepuff

If you want to deal with a stranger who doesn't have a good impression of you, the best way is to do something together.

For example, Professor Sinistra's Astronomy class.

As the only course at Hogwarts taught exclusively at night, students all found this class a headache.

Except for astronomy enthusiasts, no one liked a class that took up their free evening time.

Glen was an exception.

Of course, he wasn't an astronomy enthusiast.

The reason he looked forward to this Astronomy class was that, in this lesson, Slytherin and Hufflepuff would be taking it together.

This was a very hard-won opportunity.

From Glen's observations, unlike the other two houses, Slytherin's entire first-year schedule only had this one class per week shared with Hufflepuff.

And according to some professors, even this single class was the result of the heads of houses barely managing to negotiate it.

If it weren't for the fact that Professor Sinistra's class was so difficult to schedule, the school probably wouldn't have placed Hufflepuff and Slytherin in the same lesson.

The reason was simple: the educational philosophies of these two houses had the most fundamental conflict in all of Hogwarts.

One valued bloodline and honor, the other pursued equality and pragmatism.

If Gryffindor weren't braver, and Hufflepuff students weren't more inclined to be easygoing and tolerant, then the two houses with the fiercest rivalry at Hogwarts would definitely be Hufflepuff and Slytherin.

So under these circumstances, this Astronomy class shared with Hufflepuff students was all the more precious.

"Next, you'll form groups of three and record the names and positions of the planets I just covered..." After the theory portion ended, Professor Sinistra told them.

After that, Glen turned down almost all group invitations from Slytherins.

He ended up teaming with two Hufflepuff boys named Justin Finch-Fletchley and Ernie Macmillan.

It was worth mentioning that Glen was originally grouped with Justin and Blaise, but Ernie, worried about Justin—a Muggle-born wizard—teaming up with two Slytherins, couldn't rest easy.

So he voluntarily swapped with Blaise, sending him to Pansy and Theodore's group.

After discussing it with Glen, Blaise gladly agreed.

In fact, if it weren't for Glen's sake, he would have done it long ago.

For him, forming an all-Slytherin group was far better than staying with those who hoped to accomplish nothing.

"Justin." "Ernie."

"Glen."

"You're Glen?!" Justin said, somewhat surprised.

Though he'd never actually met Glen, that name had been mentioned frequently by professors in various classes lately.

Even their Hufflepuff head of house, Professor Sprout, had been unstinting in her praise.

For instance, in the last Herbology assignment, the example she showed was from this Glen Howard.

So among the current Hogwarts first-years, the most famous names, aside from The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, were this Slytherin, Glen.

"I think, if there's no second Glen at school, then I must be him," Glen said in a rather witty tone.

Hearing this, Justin realized his earlier words were a bit inappropriate and blushed slightly.

The other Hufflepuff, however, looked a bit unconvinced.

"I heard you Slytherins take Herbology with Ravenclaw," Ernie said dismissively.

"And Ravenclaw's Anthony also got full marks, completing Professor Sprout's bonus question the same way. That's a bit too coincidental..."

As soon as he said this, the atmosphere turned subtly tense. Justin looked at his good friend with some worry.

He knew that for a Muggle-born wizard like himself, the bar might not be set high.

But Ernie came from a wizarding family, even a nine-generation pureblood one. Immersed in that environment, becoming a leading figure in Hufflepuff had been Ernie's biggest goal since entering Hogwarts.

Ever since he learned that both Slytherin and Ravenclaw had turned in Herbology answers exceeding full marks while he hadn't, he'd felt uncomfortable.

Of course, due to preconceptions, he had no issue with Ravenclaw.

After all, those guys spent most of their lives on books, even building a library in their common room. Losing to them wasn't shameful.

But Slytherin was different.

Again, due to preconceptions, Ernie believed Slytherin students weren't the type to study hard.

In his view, if an unavoidable exam paper were placed before them, rather than consulting books, Slytherins would prefer to find the person who wrote the paper and use Dark Arts to force the answers out of them...

Honestly, from a certain perspective, that idea wasn't entirely unlikely.

But that didn't stop Justin's palms from sweating.

As the atmosphere grew suffocatingly tense, he was already preparing to break up a fight and call a professor.

And Ernie, who had spoken those words, actually regretted them a bit too.

Not that he thought he was wrong—he had only come over to help Justin out of a tight spot.

But hearing the name Glen had made him blurt out what was on his mind without thinking.

Thinking this, he shot an apologetic glance at Justin beside him, gritted his teeth, and wondered if he ought to take the initiative to apologize.

After a few seconds, Glen suddenly laughed, melting the frozen air like snow under sunlight.

"It seems you have some misunderstandings about me, but that's alright—thanks to Vold—" He paused, seeing the sudden terror on Justin and Ernie's faces, "—thanks to You-Know-Who, people always have some prejudice against Slytherin."

With that, he shifted half a step aside, revealing the telescope behind him.

"If you don't mind, you can take a look over there." Glen pointed at a tower not far away, slightly shorter than the observatory.

Hearing this, Ernie and Justin exchanged glances, both seeing confusion in each other's eyes.

This Slytherin... seemed unexpectedly friendly?

But even so, wariness still filled their hearts.

"If something happens to me later, remember to call Professor Sinistra," Ernie whispered to Justin in an extremely low voice.

Then, with suspicion, he walked up to the telescope. Before bending down, he didn't forget to glance at Glen beside him, as if trying to figure out what this Slytherin was up to.

"Focus..." Ernie, already pressing his eye to the lens, muttered the instructions Professor Sinistra had just given.

After some effort, he finally made out the tower's window.

"That's..." he said in a surprised tone, "a White Fresh plant, thriving, surrounded by faint specks of light... no, that's moonlight—it's absorbing it... just like Anthony wrote on his paper..."

At that moment, Ernie wanted nothing more than to stand up straight and denounce this Slytherin's despicable plagiarism.

In his view, Glen must have seen this beforehand through some means.

How else could he know, without even touching a telescope, that there was a ready-made White Fresh on Ravenclaw Tower for reference?!

"Try focusing again, zoom in until you can see the flowerpot." Glen's voice came again. Ernie frowned but still followed his instruction, twisting the telescope's focus knob.

"Glen Howard!" he blurted out, drawing the attention of nearby group members.

On the flowerpot, clearly written, was "Slytherin—Glen Howard."

After confirming several times that he wasn't mistaken, Ernie lowered the telescope with an unusually complicated feeling.

"Maybe I was wrong," he said, taking a deep breath and putting on an expression ready for a formal apology.

But before he could get the next words out, Professor Sinistra walked over to them.

"Children, how are you doing with the task?"

At these words, Ernie and Justin fell silent as cicadas in winter.

The classmates who had just looked over also tacitly averted their gazes, pretending to focus on the stars in the night sky, afraid of catching Professor Sinistra's attention.

After a moment of silence, Glen cleared his throat and pulled out a parchment filled with writing, handing it over.

"Professor, I'm just about done."

Sinistra took the parchment, somewhat surprised.

After carefully examining its contents, she nodded with satisfaction. "Not bad. One point each for Slytherin and Hufflepuff. Keep it up."

Seeing this, Ernie and Justin stood with mouths slightly agape, staring blankly at the composed Glen until Professor Sinistra left.

"I had nothing to do in class earlier, so I wrote it on the side," Glen said with a smile.

Though the data was a hundred years old, at least the stars covered in this lesson hadn't changed much compared to a century ago.