A Family Tradition

The little wizards gathered around listened, dumbfounded. Then it dawned on them: Malfoy wasn't a coward—his family had a long tradition of being underhanded!

The girl grew more excited as she dug up more dirt. "The Malfoys are nothing but scandals! They're always bragging about being Pure-blood paragons."

"But their ancestors only got their lands—and the ancestral home they live in now—after William the Conqueror granted them a fief!"

"Lucius I, back in the sixteenth century, tried to court Elizabeth I and failed. He was even suspected of cursing the queen! He could get close to a Muggle queen, and they still have the nerve to brag about being Pure-bloods?"

Some things seemed insignificant until you put them on the scales; then they weighed a thousand pounds.

With the little wizards working together, the Malfoy family's history of scandal was laid bare. They even dug up embarrassing stories from eight hundred years ago.

Armed with the dirt, the little wizards gleefully mocked the Slytherins to their faces, roaming the castle to "educate" any they found alone.

Now the Slytherin students understood what was going on, too. Their faces darkened, and they couldn't even hold their heads up when they went out.

On Monday morning, the Slytherin students went to the Great Hall for breakfast, enduring the other three houses' mocking stares the whole time. They wished they could bury their faces in their plates.

Only Tom seemed unaffected. He spread butter on his bread at his leisure, occasionally passing Daphne the jam, looking utterly serene.

Then Malfoy walked into the Great Hall, and the entire room erupted in boos and laughter. Even the teachers at the High Table were startled.

Malfoy's face went deathly pale and his lips trembled. He grabbed two pieces of bread and fled the Great Hall without looking back, so wretchedly that it was hard not to laugh.

The teachers looked baffled. Albus Dumbledore glanced at Snape, whose face had turned livid. Snape grabbed a Slytherin Prefect and hurried out of the Great Hall.

Outside the Entrance Hall, the Prefect stammered out the whole story.

When Snape heard it, his vision went black and he nearly lost his balance. It was over. Malfoy had ruined Slytherin's centuries-old reputation!

Snape regretted it bitterly. He had never imagined that a bunch of first-years could cause him such a colossal headache.

Malfoy was the one who'd embarrassed himself, but the other three houses had already made it an issue for the whole house.

Malfoy was the face of Slytherin. His humiliation wasn't just his own—it reflected on the entire house.

Honestly, this wasn't one rotten apple spoiling the barrel. The whole barrel was rotten to the core.

No wonder his students had all been hanging their heads and swallowing their anger just now.

Normally, they would have argued back. So that was why they'd been so dejected: they had neither dignity nor a leg to stand on, and not even the nerve to argue.

Snape wanted nothing more than to crawl into a crack in the floor. He dreaded Professor McGonagall finding out. She would definitely give him a sarcastic look, and that would feel worse than drinking spoiled Wolfsbane Potion.

But he couldn't run. Albus Dumbledore was still waiting for him to report back at the High Table.

Impatiently, he sent the Prefect who had brought him the news packing, then returned to the High Table and sat down with a scowl. He leaned toward Dumbledore and murmured in his ear.

Before long, even Dumbledore's ever-smiling face took on a strange expression. The corner of his mouth twitched. Clearly, the absurdity of it had left him stunned, too.

Snape might have been whispering, but he couldn't exactly press his face against Dumbledore's and speak. The heads of the other houses nearby had been straining to listen, and their expressions were each more spectacular than the last.

Professor Sprout stood with her arms folded, grinning away. She was clearly enjoying the show.

Professor Flitwick laughed even as he frowned. He had been a dueling champion in his youth, and to him, dueling was a sacred art.

Malfoy's cowardice was an insult to the very word "dueling." Professor McGonagall, meanwhile, looked utterly at a loss for words. Her lips moved, but for a long moment she couldn't manage to say anything.

Dumbledore was speechless, too. He'd thought something deadly serious had happened, but this was it?

And yet the matter was serious enough to demand a response, but not serious enough to warrant intervention. They couldn't exactly gag every little wizard and stop them from talking about it.

Seeing this, Snape quickly turned his attention to McGonagall.

"Professor McGonagall, leaving everything else aside, Potter and Weasley roamed the castle at night and broke the rules. That much is beyond dispute. Surely something has to be done?"

He was obviously taking his anger out on them. His own student had brought shame on the house, so now he wanted to vent his frustration on Gryffindor students.

Professor McGonagall wasn't one to back down, and she immediately shot back.

"Snape, why don't you tell me why Potter and Weasley were roaming the castle at night? Shouldn't we ask Mr. Malfoy what he did first? If anyone's going to be punished, shouldn't it be the one who started all this?"

She put heavy emphasis on "the one who started all this," making it clear she meant Malfoy.

Snape's face twitched with anger, but he couldn't find a word to counter her.

Dumbledore hurriedly stepped in to smooth things over. "All right, all right. Let's bring everyone involved here and hear the story from them directly."

The two gave a cold snort and turned away, refusing to speak to each other.

Fifteen minutes later, Harry, Ron, Malfoy, Crabbe, Filch, and Filch's fat cat were all brought to a small room off the corridor.

Dumbledore didn't come. Only the two heads of house, McGonagall and Snape, were there. He trusted McGonagall to handle things impartially.

Snape knew perfectly well that McGonagall might be protective of her students, but she never wavered on matters of principle. She wouldn't show favoritism to her own students.

That was McGonagall's integrity—a quality Snape would never learn in his lifetime.

Professor McGonagall fixed Harry and Ron with a stern look.

"Potter, tell me the truth. Did you go roaming the castle at midnight on Thursday, as the rumors say, and go to the Trophy Room?"

"It was them!" Filch immediately piped up, eager to take credit. "I almost caught them that night. It was all that blasted Peeves's fault—he deliberately caused a disturbance and got in my way!"

"Filch, quiet." Professor McGonagall's tone was calm, but her authority brooked no argument. She turned back to Harry. "Go on. Is that what happened?"

At this point, Harry had nothing left to hide. He decided to come clean and admit it.

"That's right, Professor. Ron and I did go to the Trophy Room at midnight on Thursday."

"But we'd barely arrived when Mr. Filch came looking for us with his cat. He knew exactly where to go—he was coming straight for us."

He was clearly trying to drag Malfoy down with him. After all, nobody was getting off scot-free.

Professor McGonagall didn't criticize Harry. Instead, she turned to Malfoy, who was deathly pale and trembling all over. "Mr. Malfoy, do you have anything to explain?"

Malfoy opened his mouth, but he stammered for ages without managing to say a word.

Snape glared at him from the side, as if he wanted to petrify the fool on the spot. That idiot had thoroughly disgraced Slytherin.

Professor McGonagall turned to Filch. "Filch, was it Mr. Malfoy who told you someone would be going to the Trophy Room?"

"No, it was that big fellow who's always with him. He's not here today," Filch replied quickly.