Who Was Slytherin?

After November began, the weather turned much colder.

The mountains around the school were shrouded in gray and covered in snow and ice, while the lake was as cold and hard as quenched steel.

Every morning, frost covered the ground.

From an upstairs window, they could see a burly man clearing frost from the brooms on the Quidditch Pitch.

His name was Hagrid. He was the man who had accompanied Harry Potter to Diagon Alley to buy school supplies before the start of term. He was also Hogwarts' gamekeeper, guarding the entrance from Hogwarts to the Forbidden Forest and keeping people out.

Since he got along well with Harry, Glenn had visited the little hut where Hagrid lived a few times.

Perhaps because he didn't care much for Slytherins, and because he didn't live in Hogwarts Castle, he mostly judged the students by their houses.

So even though Harry had personally invited Glenn, Hagrid was only friendly toward him, nowhere near as warm as he was with Ron or Hermione.

At that moment, Hagrid was bundled up in a long mole-skin coat, wearing rabbit-fur gloves and enormous beaver-fur boots as he cleared frost from the brooms on the Quidditch Pitch—because the Quidditch season was about to begin.

Just as in the Slytherin Common Room, the students passing Glenn were chattering away about the Quidditch Match scheduled for Saturday.

After all, the first match of the school year was the most exciting one at Hogwarts: Gryffindor against Slytherin, who had won the Quidditch Cup for seven years running.

With that much at stake, even Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were following the match closely, hoping Gryffindor would break Slytherin's undefeated streak.

Glenn wasn't very interested.

It wasn't that the history of the sport's origins had offended the Golden Snidget species... though, of course, that had something to do with it.

The main reason was that he simply wasn't interested, especially after reading the rules and learning how Quidditch was played.

Still, that was beside the point. He respected other people's passions.

It was a few nights before Saturday, and still early in the evening.

Seeing Harry standing with his back to him in the corridor, looking furtive and tense, Glenn decided to offer him a word of encouragement.

Encouraging a player from the opposing house wasn't exactly appropriate, but as he'd just said, the match hadn't started yet. As a friend, saying, "Don't be nervous," shouldn't have crossed a line.

"Don't be nervous, Harry. The match hasn't even started yet."

Harry had his head bowed and looked guilty. The encouragement from behind him nearly stopped his heart. He spun around.

"Phew—Glenn, don't scare me like that." Harry let out a long breath, still shaken.

Glenn smiled. "What are you doing downstairs so late?"

"I'm going to see Snape and ask if he'll give my book back..."

That morning, with the match drawing near and this being his first time playing—especially as Gryffindor's secret player—Harry had been under enormous pressure.

To ease his nerves, he'd borrowed Quidditch Through the Ages from Hermione, even though he'd usually thought it was a pretty useless book.

The trouble started when he'd finally begun to find the book interesting and had calmed down a little. Snape had limped out of nowhere and confiscated it, claiming that "library books aren't allowed to be taken out of the school."

"And he took five points from me while he was at it!"

Hearing this, Glenn's smile faded. He considered it for a moment.

"From the way you tell it, that does sound unfair. Have you done anything to upset him before?"

"No. I'd never even met him before coming to Hogwarts." Harry's teeth clenched as he said it.

His aunt and uncle hadn't treated him well while he'd lived with them, but at least he could understand why. Snape's hostility, though, made no sense to him.

Harry had never seen a professor hate him as much as Snape did, and there seemed to be no reason for it.

"Hmm... Maybe he has a problem with something you did as a child, or with your parents?" Glenn joked. "Or perhaps he just can't stand the scar on your face."

"Who knows? If he has a problem with something I did as a child, they should arrest him before Voldemort comes back." Harry played along with the joke, and couldn't help grinning as he imagined Snape being dragged away.

He could only mention Voldemort so casually when talking to Glenn. If he'd been with Ron or anyone else, they would have cut him off in horror before he could finish the joke.

After laughing, Harry asked curiously, "What about you? Why aren't you in the Common Room? Where are you going?"

"I'm going to see Professor Snape too," Glenn replied.

The reason was simple: he needed a little investment from Professor Snape—perhaps a bit of Horklump Juice.

"I hope there are other professors in there," Harry whispered.

Harry and Glenn had reached the staff room door. Under normal circumstances, Snape would usually be inside at this hour.

Harry hoped another professor would be there because he thought Snape wouldn't refuse to return Quidditch Through the Ages with another teacher listening.

But his hopes were probably about to be dashed.

With Glenn's Revelio, there were only two people in the staff room.

One glowed bright blue; the other glowed an extremely dim blue.

If Glenn's guess was right, the only people inside were Professor Snape and Filch, the caretaker.

"It really is those two." Harry secretly opened the door a crack and whispered in surprise, "How did you do that?"

"Just a guess," Glenn replied casually.

To be precise, only Snape had been a guess.

An extremely dim blue glow meant the person was a Squib—born to wizarding parents but unable to use magic, just like a Muggle.

And at Hogwarts, finding a second Squib besides Filch would have been no easy feat.

Harry wanted to make a few remarks about Glenn's answer, but the next moment, he saw the awful scene inside and his pupils contracted. For a moment, he couldn't speak.

Snape had pulled his robes up above his knees. One leg was covered in blood, the flesh mangled.

Filch was handing him bandages, but the wound was too deep to stop the bleeding.

When Harry had seen Snape limping that morning, he'd hoped the Slytherin Head of House had been hurt as badly as possible.

But seeing it with his own eyes still made him feel an ache in his own leg, and he couldn't help feeling a little sorry for him.

"Good. Looks like we arrived just in time."

Hearing that, Harry looked back at Glenn, bewildered.

Which of them was the Slytherin?