"They're here."
His lips curved upward. Manus had been admiring the stained-glass windows, though most of his attention had been elsewhere. Now he drew some of that attention back, turned his upper body slightly, and looked over his shoulder.
Slytherin's lineup was honestly a little disappointing, though hardly unexpected. Leading them were the Carrow siblings, now in their seventh year. Their family's place among the Sacred Twenty-Eight, their bond as siblings, and their age and strength as seventh-years gave them considerable dominance within Slytherin house.
That was not to say the two were pushovers. Judging by the record of past brawls between the two houses, they certainly knew how to fight.
But in the previous two years, Slytherin had been led by people like Corban Yaxley and Lucius Malfoy, who had brains as well as fighting ability. And now...
"King, I thought we would be kindred spirits."
Amycus, the elder of the Carrow siblings, spoke in an affected tone of mournful lament:
"Though your family isn't among the Sacred Twenty-Eight, we all know you're pure-bloods too. Compared with traitors like the Weasleys, you're unquestionably more worthy of being our friends."
"Really?"
Manus looked him up and down, then glanced at his younger sister beside him and shook his head:
"Unfortunately, my standards for choosing friends aren't that low..."
Pure-bloods were something that could easily be mass-produced. Just grab a few and breed them like pigs, morning till night, adding a little medication if necessary.
And if he wanted, he could create them with the Black Earth Technique. Even thousands or tens of thousands would take very little time.
Thousands upon thousands of people, potentially hundreds of millions at any moment, with the only real limit being the amount of dead matter available... was he supposed to call all of them