Malfoy, Save Me

It went quiet.

The entire classroom went quiet.

Harry and Ron, who had known what was going to happen, had already covered their eyes. They simply could not bear to watch.

Hermione was the same, though she had an extra trace of shock.

She knew Hogwarts was not scientific; this was a place that valued magic. But this was a little too magical, wasn't it?

She looked at the innocent-faced Kane and seemed to understand why neither Harry nor Ron sat at the same table as him.

Everyone else in the classroom was the same. Whether they were Gryffindors or Slytherins, the young wizards looked at Kane as though they were looking at some sort of deity.

"This..." Snape's lips slowly twitched. He had been Hogwarts's Potions professor for ten years and could responsibly say that he had seen plenty of bizarre things. But what Kane had just done...

He had truly never seen anything like it.

"Professor, perhaps you could give me another chance?" Kane turned back to look at Snape pitifully. It would have been better if he had not looked. The moment he did, he saw Snape's face had gone pale, his lips trembling uncontrollably.

Snape stared fixedly at Kane and the frog-leg sandwich in the cauldron. In the end, he had to use Occlumency, the magic that forcibly cleared all stray thoughts from one's mind, before he barely recovered.

That gave Kane quite a fright as well. If Snape, the dignified head of Slytherin House, got angered to death by him during class, that would probably create quite a grudge.

"Professor, are you all right?" he asked softly.

"Gryffindor loses twenty points. And you... get out," Snape said through gritted teeth, doing his utmost to suppress his emotions.

"OK!" Kane immediately left his seat and headed out of the classroom.

"Take your sandwich with you!"

Kane turned back, picked up the frog-leg sandwich, and stuffed it into his mouth in two or three bites.

Then, under everyone's watchful eyes, he left the classroom and spat two frog bones at the suit of armor standing guard by the door.

"I really don't know whether that's lucky or unlucky," Harry remarked as he watched the scene. Though he called it a remark, he was still a little envious.

"How about we pull some tricks too and get Snape to throw us out?" Harry whispered.

"If that is what you two are planning, then naturally I will not grant your wish. On the contrary, perhaps I will give you both detention? I imagine you would be delighted to come to my office and deal with leeches, assuming those brains of yours, barely bigger than walnuts, are capable of letting you use a knife." Snape had somehow appeared behind them like a ghost.

After Snape deducted another five points from Gryffindor, Hermione completely ran out of strength and options.

Helplessly, she looked at the empty cauldron in front of her, cleaner than if it had been licked dry.

There was certainly not enough time to brew the potion again.

Sure enough, just before class ended, Hermione also experienced the novel sensation known as having points deducted. It was rather strange.

After class, Harry and Ron found Kane squatting outside the classroom door, looking utterly dejected.

The three stood facing one another in silence for a while. In the end, Hermione walked over and broke the silence. "So, was that some kind of special magic or bloodline ability?"

"Mm-hmm. An essential skill for the head chef of the Eternal Realm," Kane casually said, figuring that they would not understand anyway, so he might as well say whatever came to mind and let them think he was crazy.

"All right, it seems you don't want to say... This class of mine certainly had an unforgettable and absurd ending..." Hermione ultimately did not blame Kane. After all, she had brought it upon herself.

They said that when others were afraid, you should not be greedy. Today, she had failed to realize the wisdom in those golden words. Even Harry and Ron, Kane's best friends, would not sit at the same table as him, yet she had gone over to join the fun. There were only two strokes' difference between that and courting death.

Just as Kane was feeling depressed, an unrestrained laugh sounded from nearby.

Kane looked over and saw a very familiar Slytherin boy, staring at him and laughing without restraint.

"Sir, I remember that two days ago, I scared you so badly in the entrance hall that you nearly wet yourself. Are you really that forgetful?"

Bole Anrera stopped laughing and slowly walked over. "Before, I was simply not skilled enough. But I have looked it up now. Those shadows of yours were merely remnants of a young wizard's magical outburst. Once a young wizard has undergone magical training with more than five spells, the remnants of the outburst disappear. I also asked my father to investigate your background. Without those outburst remnants, you're just a Mudblood. And speaking of being forgetful? Kane Hiss, you can't even remember my name. You're the forgetful one!"

"Actually, I never remembered it in the first place." Kane sighed helplessly, took out the note Professor Quirrell had given him from his pocket, read a couple of lines, then struck without warning. His wand slashed fiercely upward, and a crystalline blue light shot straight toward Bole Anrera.

Everyone in the corridor saw something flash past. When they looked again, Bole Anrera had already been slammed against the wall by the Knockback Jinx.

In that instant, Bole Anrera only thought that he had been careless and failed to dodge. He should have learned a few more spells and prepared himself before coming. Fortunately, Kane was only a little stronger than him now.

As long as he went back and studied spells diligently, raised troops and trained horses while waiting for the right opportunity...?

Anrera got halfway through raising troops and training horses before he no longer knew how to continue, because he saw that Kane's shadow on the wall had somehow crawled toward him with claws and fangs bared.

"What did you just say? Something about remnants of a magical outburst?" Kane continued threatening him silently, wanting to scare Anrera completely out of his wits. Then he probably would not come bother him again in the future.

Probably.

The shock Bole Anrera felt when he saw that Kane could still use those bizarre shadows was no less than the shock Xiao Ming felt when he searched online for an elementary school essay and his browser replied that Ah Bin's high school grades had not been ideal. It was that utterly outrageous.

"I remember this guy already suffered at Kane's hands on the day we started school. Why is he still stupidly coming to cause trouble now?" Harry frowned and asked Ron, unable to understand yet deeply shocked.

"Pure-blood families, you know how it is. Inbreeding, breeding and breeding until they become idiots. Look at those Slytherins over there, all of them look strange and grotesque. Is there even one who looks human? Only Malfoy looks decent," Ron said without the slightest reservation, as though he wanted to strip the entire pure-blood class bare.

Malfoy, who had somehow been insulted without quite being insulted, had only been watching the excitement in the corridor. Then he suddenly heard Ron's evaluation of him...

Well, he had to admit it. Weasley must have brushed his teeth before leaving home that morning. His words sounded remarkably pleasant.

Unlike Harry and Ron, who were adjusting Slytherin's average intelligence, Kane was laying a solid foundation for his future peaceful life.

For instance, frightening this fellow so badly that he would never dare come make trouble for him again.

And as Bole Anrera watched Kane draw closer, he instinctively shouted for the big brother figure in their year's pure-blood circle who was best at handling trouble.

"Malfoy, save me!"