"What do you think Hagrid brought out of Gringotts? Could it have something to do with that break-in?"
As they crossed the grounds toward the castle, Harry finally gave in and asked.
Although he had promised Hagrid not to tell anyone about it, he was simply too curious. Gryffindors had always had a powerful sense of curiosity, one that could even surpass Ravenclaws' when it came to anything outside their studies.
Ron and Tris didn't really count as anyone else.
That was what Harry told himself.
"No idea, but it must be something really important," Ron said, offering an opinion that sounded useful but actually said nothing.
Then Harry and Ron both turned to Tris.
With Hermione not yet part of their little group, Tris was the one they thought of as always knowing more than they did, and their best source of help whenever they wanted answers.
"That? I don't know either." Tris shrugged, then added, "I haven't even seen it. Harry, did you see it back then?"
"I didn't actually see what it looked like either." Harry held out his hands to demonstrate. "It was a little package about this big, but I don't know what was inside."
"Small, but extremely valuable. Something someone wanted badly enough to take the enormous risk of breaking into Gringotts. Hmm, there aren't that many things like that, but there aren't exactly that few either." Tris made a show of thinking, then continued,
"For example, an egg from some incredibly powerful magical beast, a very advanced potion, seeds from an extremely rare magical plant, high-grade alchemical materials... there aren't too many candidates, but unless we actually see it, there's no way to know exactly."
"Oh..." Harry looked a little disappointed.
That was as far as the conversation could go. As Tris had said, while there weren't many possibilities, they couldn't narrow them down any further without more clues.
Although Harry was very curious, Hogwarts had no shortage of interesting things worth paying attention to, and something else soon caught his eye.
"Hey, there are people over by the pitch!" Harry looked toward the Quidditch Pitch.
Compared with the original storyline, this Harry knew considerably more about Quidditch. That was mostly thanks to Ron, who was a devoted fan and often talked to Harry about it. Naturally, the more Ron talked, the more Harry learned.
He had even started to like it a little.
Harry had had very little exposure to competitive sports growing up. Few people in Britain disliked football, and the Dursley family was no exception. But whenever they watched a match, they always shut Harry in his cupboard.
The closest thing to sport Harry had encountered throughout his childhood was Dudley's baseball bat.
Now that he had discovered Quidditch, he had immediately fallen in love with it. He had even joined Ron in lamenting the rule that first-years couldn't bring broomsticks-although he didn't own one anyway.
"Oh. Probably a Quidditch team going to practice?" Ron did know more than Harry, after all. One glance was enough for him to explain, "The houses play against each other, and on days when there aren't any matches, each house organizes its own practices. Today it's..."
He took a distant look at the colors worn by the group heading into the pitch. "Ravenclaw."
Harry nodded, intrigued. "When can we join a Quidditch team?"
"You can try out in second year. Someone should tell us about it when the time comes." Ron sighed regretfully. "First-years can only watch."
"Watching's pretty good too. Just getting to see a match in person would be great," Harry said sincerely.
The Dursley family occasionally went to watch football matches in person, but they never took Harry. They even locked him in his cupboard when they went out to a match.
The lock on the cupboard always opened by itself, though. Harry had never understood why before, but now he thought his magic must have been working even then.
"When can we start flying lessons?" This time Ron asked the question, directing it at Tris.
"Late September or early October," Tris said after thinking for a moment. "Our flying instructor, Madam Hooch, was invited to referee league matches. If none of the matches last several days, she'll be back by late September. But..."
Tris left the rest unsaid, but Harry and Ron understood immediately.
Unlike student or youth Quidditch matches, professional matches really were unpredictable.
Sometimes a match was over in minutes, even counting the trash talk at the beginning. If you went to the toilet at the start, you wouldn't make it back in time even if you hurried so much you splashed your shoes.
But sometimes they lasted an absurdly long time. Three or five days was nothing unusual. The longest officially recorded match had lasted three months. Some matches that were voided because nobody had any idea where the Golden Snitch had gone had lasted even longer.
To Tris, this was utterly ridiculous. Only wizards, who were just as unreliable and scatterbrained, could think there was nothing wrong with it.
Most wizards had far too much bloody time on their hands anyway.
Once they returned to the castle, Harry and Ron were still muttering about Quidditch. Tris wasn't interested, so he went ahead to the common room.
There weren't many students in the common room. Friday afternoons and evenings were when most students ground through their homework, and the quiet library was naturally a more efficient place to work than the noisy common room, with people constantly coming and going.
Most students had therefore gone to the library.
As a result, though, the common room had become quiet too.
Tris took two sheets of parchment, found a corner, and started his homework.
An eleven-year-old child already had to write essays. Tris found that interesting, especially since children in the wizarding world had never had proper grammar lessons. Most had only received some education at home. How difficult must this be for them?
Almost all young wizards remained unable to write a coherent essay even by graduation. Most merely listed some information and spouted a few random opinions.
Rather than an essay, it was more like a reading-comprehension exercise.
For Tris, however, essays really were easy.
Although he had been an overworked corporate drudge in his previous life, he had fought his way through the fierce competition of the college entrance exam. He had ultimately only entered a lower-ranked Project 211 university, but it was no exaggeration to say he had beaten more than ninety percent of his peers.
And naturally, he had received training in academic writing at university.
His supervisor had judged his final dissertation to be at the level of "even a dog would shake its head at this," but at least his supervisor had acknowledged that it was a dissertation...
Compared with ninety-nine percent of Hogwarts students, he had an advantage on an entirely different plane.
Even Hermione, the academic prodigy, was still a youngster. When it came to essay writing, she couldn't catch even a whiff of Tris's exhaust, no matter how hard she tried.
Without using any particular techniques, Tris quickly finished an essay that could easily crush anything else in his year. Satisfied, he tucked it into his little bag and went out for a stroll.
He hadn't completed today's system tasks yet. In particular, for that competition task, he still needed to find a few victims to serve as his stepping stones.
By the time Tris returned to the common room, quite a few more people had gathered there.
Among them, Tris spotted Draco, whom he hadn't seen in the common room for quite some time.
Over the past few days, Draco had gone to detention after lessons every day, so Tris had barely seen him. Today, probably because there were no afternoon lessons, he had served his detention early and had only just returned.
Come to think of it, his detention seemed to end today.
Yet young Draco didn't look particularly happy. Instead, his face was full of despair.
Tris glanced over and understood why. In front of Draco lay several hefty tomes thick enough to bludgeon someone to death, along with a brand-new, completely blank roll of parchment.
He clearly hadn't even started his homework.
Tris couldn't help laughing.
"What are you laughing at?"
Although Tris hadn't laughed loudly, Draco had noticed him the moment he entered. When he saw Tris look his way and then smile, he immediately realized Tris was mocking him.
How could their Little Dragon possibly tolerate that?
He slapped the table and stood up. "Are you looking down on the Malfoy family?"
That sentence had never failed Draco in the past.
Many times, he had seen visitors come to his home and get into disagreements with his father. All his father had to do was say those words, and the other person would immediately back down.
Young Draco had therefore committed the phrase to memory, believing it to be an infallible "spell."
And in the few times he had used it since, he had indeed found it effective. Whenever he said it, the other person showed obvious apprehension.
It hadn't worked every time-for example, he had used it on Farley when she wanted to give him detention, and on Snape when he decided to support her. Snape's response then had been a contemptuous smile: "You think you can speak for the Malfoy family?"
But even in that instance, the reason it hadn't worked was that he couldn't represent the Malfoy family, not that the family's name carried no weight.
Draco still felt a strong sense of superiority when it came to the Malfoy family's standing.
Today, however, something beyond his understanding finally happened.
"The Malfoy family is nothing special." Tris shrugged indifferently. "A family that only ever surrenders, and barely manages to survive on the mercy of the powerful, really isn't worth any particular attention.
"Just a bunch of political opportunists. You don't even have the sense to pick the winning side every time. You're simply quick to surrender when you see the wind turning against you.
"If you were in France, people might praise you for it. But this is Britain. What, does the Malfoy family want to compare its heritage with the Weasley family's?"
Draco's mouth fell open. For a moment, he had no idea how to respond.
He could tell that Tris wasn't saying anything nice. The trouble was that he didn't understand much of what Tris had said, or what it meant.
But looking at Tris's faintly contemptuous, dismissive expression and hearing the undisguised scorn and mockery in his tone, Draco felt that if he continued discussing this topic, he would most likely be verbally torn to shreds.
He clearly couldn't win with words, so Draco chose to use his fists!