"What an unusual Weasley."
A voice sounded in Tris's mind.
Huh?
Tris froze.
Was this the Sorting Hat talking to him?
In the films, only Harry had spoken with the Sorting Hat, but experiencing the Sorting Ceremony himself, Tris discovered that wasn't really the case.
The Sorting Hat had hesitated for quite some time with Seamus Finnigan, Hermione, Neville, and several other students. They had probably all spoken with it.
Tris had originally assumed that the Sorting Hat would send him straight to Gryffindor upon hearing the surname Weasley. But that wasn't how things had gone.
"Can you hear me? I can't see your thoughts, though." The Sorting Hat's voice sounded in his mind again. "How strange. Has a child who hasn't even started at Hogwarts already mastered Occlumency?"
So that really was how it worked.
Tris raised an eyebrow slightly.
He had wondered before how the Sorting Hat communicated with young wizards. Now it seemed his guess had been right: a built-in form of Legilimency. It probably wasn't ordinary mind-reading, though, but something more like emotional analysis.
It also came with a basic ability to communicate.
If someone had mental defenses such as Occlumency, the Sorting Hat couldn't communicate with them directly.
Of course, Tris didn't know an obscure branch of magic like Occlumency. It wasn't covered in either the O.W.L. or N.E.W.T. curriculum.
Even at Hogwarts, few professors were proficient in it, or had even studied it.
Otherwise, when Harry had needed Occlumency, he wouldn't have had to turn to Snape, the person he got along with least.
What kept the Sorting Hat from reading his thoughts was a reward he had received when the system activated: the Thought Maze, an advanced version of the Memory Palace.
Besides retaining the Memory Palace's extraordinary recall, the Thought Maze also provided mental protection. Any outside force attempting to probe his mind would become lost in the maze.
That was only what the system's reward description had claimed, though. Tris had never had an opportunity to try it in practice. This was his first time experiencing its effects.
Hmm. Not bad, apparently.
The Thought Maze was a passive skill and couldn't be switched off. But if Tris made a conscious effort, he should still be able to send his thoughts out.
"Hello?" he tried saying to the Sorting Hat.
"Merlin's beard, how remarkable." The Sorting Hat replied immediately. "I haven't seen a child like you in a hundred years."
"Oh? So there was someone like me a hundred years ago?" Tris asked curiously.
He didn't think anyone else could possess a Thought Maze, but Occlumency was certainly possible.
"Yes. He's sitting up there right now, watching us. Choosing a house for him took quite some effort back then, too."
Up there? At the staff table?
Tris realized almost instantly who the Sorting Hat meant.
Among Hogwarts' teachers, two could be considered over a hundred years old. One was the ghost who taught History of Magic, but he wasn't at the staff table just then.
The other was the current headmaster, Dumbledore.
Tris didn't know Dumbledore's exact age, but he was definitely over a hundred.
"You mean Dumbledore?" Tris asked, even though he was already certain.
"Yes, our esteemed headmaster himself. Now, enough of these irrelevant matters. Let's talk about which house you intend to join."
"Do we really need to discuss that? My surname's Weasley," Tris said matter-of-factly.
Wasn't a Weasley supposed to go to Gryffindor?
"Yes, Weasley. That does make things a little tricky..."
"Huh?" Tris froze. Tricky? What was tricky about it?
"If it's tricky, don't bother. Just do what you always do."
"Hmm... you're right. It isn't actually difficult. Exceptional talent, an unfathomable mind, pure blood. Then, beyond any doubt..."
Hearing that, Tris suddenly felt something was off. Sure enough, the next moment...
"Slytherin!" the Sorting Hat shouted.
The Gryffindors, who had already been getting ready to stand and applaud, all froze.
What the hell? Slytherin?
It wasn't just Gryffindor. At that moment, the students of all four houses froze. Even Professor McGonagall beside him and the professors at the staff table wore expressions of astonishment.
A Weasley had gone into Slytherin?
Members of the Weasley family were certainly eligible for Slytherin. Despite the criticism they received, the Weasleys were still listed among the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
From that perspective, there was nothing wrong with blood-conscious Slytherin accepting a child of the Weasley family.
But for at least the past two hundred years, every Weasley had been a Gryffindor. There were even four Weasleys in Gryffindor right now!
"Fuck!" Tris burst out in his native language. Wondering whether he had misheard, he looked at Professor McGonagall beside him.
"Slytherin." Though Professor McGonagall had been surprised at first, she had already regained her earlier composure. Her calm eyes rested on Tris.
"Mr. Weasley, you should go to your house table now."
"But..." Tris felt as if the world had gone a little mad.
How could he possibly go to Slytherin?
Was this right?
"No buts," Professor McGonagall said, her tone still calm. "The Sorting Hat's decision cannot be changed. Go on. There are still students waiting behind you."
Wasn't there only one person left?
Tris glanced at the last student, a black boy who was watching him in astonishment.
When he noticed Tris looking over, the boy immediately resumed his earlier arrogant expression.
If you were a pretty girl, that expression might be called playing hard to get. But you're a guy, and not even a good-looking one. Making that face just makes you an ugly attention-seeker.
Didn't he understand that looks mattered in this world?
Confident that he held an enormous advantage in looks, Tris rolled his eyes at the black boy, stood, and headed toward the Slytherin table.
Silence.
An eerie silence.
Unlike the applause that had welcomed the previous arrivals, every Slytherin watched Tris with a strange expression as he approached.
"What are you staring at, you little punks? Never seen a handsome guy before?" Tris had never been the mild-mannered type. Otherwise, the chess pieces he had given Harry wouldn't have been so foul-mouthed and uninhibited.
At home, Molly would give him a dressing-down if she overheard him going even slightly too far, so he had kept himself relatively restrained.
Now, faced with a bunch of people he considered mere brats staring at him as though he were some freak, he had no reason to be polite.
The moment he said that, the Slytherin students bristled.
Practically every Slytherin student came from a wizarding family, and a substantial proportion came from pure-blood families or long-established wizarding lineages.
Pure-blood families in particular often took great pride in their lineage and blood, and people like that were the most likely to enter Slytherin.
Not one of them had a gentle temper.
"Who are you calling little punks, you pauper?" someone leaped up and demanded.
Yes, there was no doubt about it. The only person who would dare call the Weasley family paupers was the Malfoy family's Little Dragon.
"Whoever answers, obviously." Tris chuckled and walked straight up to Draco, ignoring his furious stare. "Scoot over!"
When Draco failed to react, Tris simply reached out and shoved him aside.
Draco tried to resist, only to discover that he couldn't match Tris's strength at all. One shove sent him sliding helplessly out of the way.
"You!" Humiliated and furious, Draco slapped the table and tried to stand.
"Stay put." Tris pressed one hand onto his shoulder. Draco tried to rise, straining his waist and legs twice, but couldn't get up either time.
The corner of Tris's mouth lifted in a satisfied smile.
The body he had worked so hard to build with the system wasn't just good-looking. Its strength was real, too. Granted, Tris still wasn't as strong as an ordinary adult.
But holding down Draco, a skinny eleven-year-old, was more than within his abilities.
After struggling twice without managing to get up, Draco looked at Tris with a trace of fear.
"Weasley, Malfoy, don't cause trouble at the feast." An indifferent voice sounded beside them.
Tris looked toward it.
The speaker was a tall, black-haired girl who looked to be in her sixth or seventh year. A small badge rested on her chest.
It was a Prefect's badge. Percy had spent more than a month of the holidays showing his off while pretending it was unintentional.
Slytherin's female Prefect?
Tris didn't remember who Slytherin's Prefects were. The ones he remembered were Draco and Pansy in their fifth year.
Still, as a newcomer, Tris felt he shouldn't draw too much attention. Picking a fight with a Prefect clearly wasn't a good choice, so he nodded at once. "All right, Prefect, as long as he doesn't provoke me."
Tris showed a willingness to cooperate, but Draco beside him did not.
As soon as Tris removed his hand from his shoulder, Draco jumped up. He didn't go after Tris straight away, though. Tris's freakish strength had frightened him a little.
Instead, he vented his anger on the girl who had spoken.
"Who are you? What gives you the right to boss me around? Do you know who I am? Do you know who my father is?"
The girl's eyes narrowed slightly, but her voice remained level. "Of course I know who you are, Draco Malfoy. I also know who your father is: Mr. Lucius Malfoy.
"I don't care how you behave at home. Now that you've come to Hogwarts and been sorted into Slytherin, you must follow the rules here. I'll let today pass since it's your first day, but starting tomorrow, you'll serve three hours of detention every afternoon for a week. That's the price of making a scene at the feast and talking back to a Prefect."
A huge question mark seemed to appear above Draco's head.
This wasn't quite how he'd expected things to go.
This woman knew who he was and knew who his father was, yet she wasn't afraid of him at all? What was going on?
And...
Draco also noticed that, while the girl spoke, all the Slytherin students who had been so friendly upon hearing his name and welcoming him into their house now avoided his gaze, not daring to look at him.
Though his mother had spoiled him from childhood until he had become rather full of himself, Draco wasn't actually stupid.
By now, he had realized that this girl was definitely no ordinary student!
Draco wasn't the only one. Tris also looked at the girl with some surprise.
Slytherin actually had someone like her?