White Fresh and Slytherin

Soon, the news of defeating the troll spread throughout Hogwarts.

Almost everyone would chase down the people involved and pester them with endless questions.

In this regard, Ron was quite enthusiastic about facing the attention of his classmates, often boasting about the incident and embellishing it.

He even described the troll as a monster the size of a castle, with claws bared and teeth gnashing!

Harry, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He was already frequently targeted for attention due to his title of "The Boy Who Lived," and this incident only added to the scrutiny, making him feel somewhat troubled.

The most direct manifestation of this occurred during Potions class.

It seemed that Professor Snape took issue with the fact that they had done nothing yet still earned points for Gryffindor.

So during class, he paid even more attention to Harry.

Whenever a difficult question came up, he would bypass Hermione, who had her hand eagerly raised, and throw it all at Harry.

If Harry failed to answer correctly, there would inevitably be a sarcastic remark, accompanied by the snickering of Malfoy and his two cronies.

As for Hermione, she became much more open-minded after that day.

She adjusted her position appropriately, no longer being so eager to teach others, and stopped caring so much about breaking school rules—this change made her slightly more popular.

And as one of the parties involved in the troll incident, her relationship with Harry and Ron was no longer so strained; they could now be considered friends.

From time to time, in the library, one could hear Hermione complaining: "There's so much time, but you always leave it until the last day to say—'Hermione, please let me borrow your homework for reference...'"

In this regard, Glenn had to admit he admired her.

Because Hermione wouldn't let others copy her homework; instead, she made them write it first, then checked it for them.

Clearly, not everyone had the ability or patience to take a piece of scrap paper full of mistakes and mark every correction one by one.

Glenn took one look at Ron's essay and felt the urge to throw it in the trash.

If he hadn't known that the author of this essay had finished this gibberish in just ten minutes, he would have immediately expressed respect for every patient's right to write and contacted St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries to come pick up the patient...

Of course, that was just a joke; Glenn wouldn't actually do that.

After all, Ron took the brunt of the pressure for him. Whenever someone wanted to ask about the troll incident in detail, Glenn would tell them to go find Ron Weasley—since Ron was happy to oblige.

Aside from that, there was another noteworthy matter.

That was—White Fresh had bloomed!

On an ordinary morning, Anthony from Ravenclaw came looking for him with a delighted expression.

"Goldstein, I don't think it's polite to bring a flowerpot to the dining hall early in the morning. Is this how all Ravenclaws behave?" Malfoy snorted coldly.

"Sorry, that's mine."

"Oh, but come to think of it, the flower smells quite nice," Malfoy said naturally.

This didn't mean Draco Malfoy had accepted Glenn.

But before the Quidditch player selection, all personal grudges could be set aside for now.

He was just one step away from being admitted as an exception to the Slytherin Quidditch team—he was already very close to surpassing the previous Slytherin Seeker's level.

He absolutely couldn't let Glenn participate in the selection, especially after seeing Glenn's flying skills during the Flying Lesson.

Seeing such a quick change of attitude, Anthony barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes and placed the flowerpot on an empty table with nothing on it.

"I saw it when I got up this morning."

In the pot was a plant with lush, dark green leaves, about eight inches tall.

At the top were several clusters of small, light purple flowers. Leaning in to smell them, there was a crisp, cool scent, like crushed fresh mint wrapped in the dry sharpness of rosemary.

Glenn rubbed a leaf—it was soft and cool.

"It's mature."

Anthony grinned, looking even happier than Glenn, the owner of the White Fresh.

This meant that all those nights of moonlight bathing had paid off!

It had matured a full two weeks earlier than the time stated in the books!

This proved that even without a full moon, bathing in ordinary moonlight could speed up the growth of White Fresh.

At that point, he could write a paper about this discovery, and Professor Sprout would definitely give them points... ahem, would be very pleased.

"When I write the paper, I'll put both our names on it."

But unexpectedly, Glenn waved his hand and rejected the proposal.

"No need, just put your name on it."

Anthony was a bit confused.

"I've been getting too many points lately, time to take a break." Glenn said in a flat tone, uttering words that were hard to understand.

So much so that Anthony couldn't quite grasp what he meant for a moment.

"Just kidding." Glenn said with a smile. After all, the score for a paper was fixed; if Professor Sprout wanted to give points to two people, she'd have to split them in half.

"I didn't do much, just lent you this White Fresh for research. More work, more reward—this is what you deserve."

Upon hearing this, Anthony instinctively wanted to refuse.

But then he recalled the house scores he had seen in the Great Hall—Ravenclaw was far too far behind.

"Alright, I appreciate the kindness," Anthony said sincerely.

"If there's ever anything you need help with, just say the word."

With that, under the beckoning of Padma and the others not far away, he returned to the Ravenclaw table.

"'If there's ever anything you need help with, just say the word~'" Malfoy mimicked with a sneer. "But I wonder what Slytherin couldn't handle that would require help from another house."

"Plenty of things, Draco." Glen rubbed the leaves of the White Fresh, in good spirits.

"Like this pot of White Fresh of mine."

Malfoy, suddenly called by name, couldn't help but frown.

"But I could just buy a few pots."

To that, Glen merely smiled. Professor Sprout wouldn't let him keep dangerous plants at Hogwarts just because he bought a few pots of White Fresh.

Even setting aside whether a regulated dangerous magical plant like the Biting Cabbage could be smuggled into Hogwarts at all.

If Malfoy were to ask his father to buy a few pots of Biting Cabbage, his father would probably worry more about him losing his head to the Biting Cabbage than about the exorbitant price...

"What a shame. If it were me, I'd have made them put their name on it..." Pansy said from the next seat.

At this, the surrounding Slytherins expressed regret, all believing Glen should have taken Anthony up on his offer and added his name to the essay.

Blaise, who had watched the whole thing, set down his coffee cup, as usual offering no opinion.

But he cast a deep glance at Glen, who was fiddling with the White Fresh.

Unlike his still somewhat naive classmates, under his mother's influence, he had long since learned to keep himself safe within complex social networks.

He didn't voice his views, didn't take any stance.

In his view, taking sides might win more, but by not stepping into the arena, there was naturally no winning or losing.

With this bystander's mindset, Blaise could see through many people.

But... so far, like a thick fog, he still couldn't figure out what this Glen Howard was thinking.

"Could it be to turn the points added to Slytherin into a favor owed?" he mused inwardly.

Glen paid no attention to the others' increasingly heated discussion—it was nothing, just human nature.

If this were the start of term, what they'd be discussing now would probably be how to force Anthony to cross his name off and hog the points... That was already progress.

Still, there was nothing to regret. After all, others had put in both time and effort; once results were achieved, they deserved fair compensation. Otherwise, why would anyone help you?

So in this regard, Glen's thinking was quite clear.

More than this matter, what he needed to consider was how many viable seeds this White Fresh could produce—after all, if he could grow multiple pots at once, it would be much faster than planting them one by one.

"The dormitory probably can't hold any more. It's time to find a spot to plant them," Glen thought, looking at the vivid purple flowers atop the White Fresh.