The next morning, Zhang Xiao was woken by low, rumbling snores. He sat in bed in a daze for a while, then saw the unfamiliar bed and curtains and remembered that he was already at Hogwarts.
It had been converted from a dungeon, after all. Though the furnishings were elegant and luxurious, the exposed walls were still rough masonry, giving the place a rugged beauty.
Four beds were arranged symmetrically in the square dormitory, each with a small, dark, square table beside it for personal belongings.
Beyond the narrow windows lay the lake, its water a deep, shadowy black-green in the lamplight.
Perhaps the sound of him getting up had woken the occupant of the next bed. The green curtains embroidered with silver snakes twitched twice, and a tousled, bleary-eyed head poked through the gap.
"Malfoy???" For a moment, Zhang Xiao had no idea what to say. Then the other two beds...
He walked around to the foot of the beds and looked. Sure enough, they belonged to Crabbe and Goyle, whose alternating snores sounded like a symphony.
Zhang Xiao pinched the bridge of his nose. Building a harmonious dormitory was clearly going to be a long, hard road.
Malfoy stared groggily at Zhang Xiao for a while, then yawned and asked:
"Morning. Is it time for class?"
Hmm? His attitude was much better than before. At least he wasn't nearly as obnoxious. Zhang Xiao gave it no further thought. He began taking his luggage out of the Heaven and Earth Bag, intending to tidy up a little, and said casually:
"It's still early. I'm unpacking a bit. All my toiletries are in here."
Malfoy said nothing, but he did not go back to sleep either. Instead, he watched Zhang Xiao pull one thing after another from the little bag like a magician performing tricks.
Only after Zhang Xiao put the cloth bag away did he ask, feigning indifference:
"What's that? A cloth bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm? It looks handy. Where did you buy it? My family has something similar, but ours is a high-end tent."
Zhang Xiao picked up his toiletries. "You mean this bag? It's not for sale. My family gave it to me. Oh, do you know the class timetable?...
"Thanks."
Taking the timetable Malfoy handed him, Zhang Xiao left, humming a tune.
Malfoy watched him go, then lay back down, hoping to get a little more sleep. But he could not stop thinking about what his cousin Gemma had said the night before, or the precious magical item he had just seen.
As a child from one of the wealthiest families in the wizarding world, Malfoy undoubtedly knew far more than an ordinary child.
Of course he knew the value of such a small cloth bag enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm. His own family, at least, did not have one. For the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy felt utterly defeated in the very thing he took the greatest pride in: his family's wealth.
The strange feeling left him at a loss and deeply uncomfortable, like the time he had eaten unripe grapes on the estate as a child-painfully sour and astringent.
He climbed out of bed without even taking the time to change out of his velvet pajamas, found his gold-tipped quill, and wrote on a sheet of parchment:
"Dear Father:
"As you instructed, I have become the first years' 'king.' Just as you said, neither the younger daughter of the Greengrass Family nor the Zabini family objected. Cousin Gemma has also given me a great deal of support. It seems your visits to the other pure-blood families over the summer were very effective.
"Is Mother well? Please tell her that I miss her."
Malfoy paused, dipped his quill in the ink, thought for a moment, and continued:
"By the way, there is something else on which I would like your guidance. A new student from China has been sorted into Slytherin House, and he is now sharing my dormitory. I cannot be certain whether he comes from a pure-blood family.
"But Cousin Gemma told me that his wand's handle is made of something called 'yusui,' which is very expensive. Does our family have any?
"He also has a cloth bag..."
Malfoy wrote down everything he had learned, then ended with his question:
"Father, how should I get along with him? Should I welcome him into our great circle of pure-blood families?
"I trust that you will tell me the right thing to do, and I eagerly await your reply."
He sealed the letter and solemnly stamped the Malfoy family crest into the sealing wax. After inspecting it, he nodded in satisfaction. The noble Malfoy family never did things carelessly!
With all that done, Malfoy could no longer sleep. He simply took out his own toiletries-a gold-plated cup and an ivory-handled toothbrush. As he passed Crabbe's and Goyle's beds, he gave the bed legs a vicious kick, and the snoring stopped abruptly.
"Has anyone ever told you two that you snore louder than Yorkshire pigs?"
After washing up, Zhang Xiao performed his morning practice as usual. According to his father, cultivating the Taoist arts was not merely about techniques; the spiritual aspect was even more important. Learning them required a calm mind and a peaceful spirit, which was precisely the purpose of morning practice.
His parents had drawn up a detailed, rigorous study plan for him. Learning the Taoist arts was a lengthy undertaking, not something that could be accomplished overnight. Zhang Xiao decided to wait until he had settled into life at Hogwarts before beginning.
Strangely, Malfoy seemed quite familiar with Hogwarts. Before Zhang Xiao could even ask, he revealed during his usual boasting that his father had brought him to visit Hogwarts many times.
Right. "My School Governor father."
At first, the new students were constantly running about. Compared with attending classes, learning their way around the castle seemed to be the most important task.
Hogwarts had no fewer than a hundred and forty-two staircases. Some led somewhere different every Friday; on others, a step would suddenly vanish halfway up.
There were also plenty of doors that would not open unless you politely asked them to, or poked exactly the right spot;
Other doors were not doors at all, but solid walls that merely looked like doors. This was thanks to Lady Hufflepuff, whose superb Never-Restoring Charm had added a great deal of fun to the castle.
It also meant that many older students enjoyed standing in the connecting corridors during their free periods, chuckling as they watched the first years scurry around like headless chickens.
Zhang Xiao was quite happy to have Draco serve as a human navigation system. The paths were there beneath his feet, after all; once he had walked them enough, he would remember them.
There were not many people at Hogwarts altogether, with probably only a few hundred students. The incoming class of 1991, for instance, had barely more than forty. The Four Houses sounded grand, but Zhang Xiao thought they were more like four study groups.
Regular classes paired two houses together, while larger classes such as Herbology, Flying, and Care of Magical Creatures brought all the houses together.
Peeves was a major obstacle to first years getting to class on time. He would tip wastepaper baskets over their heads, pull rugs out from under their feet, throw chalk at them, or sneak up behind them and, when they could not see him, grab their noses and shriek, "Got your nose!"
This did not trouble Zhang Xiao, however. His wand intimidated Peeves even more than the Bloody Baron did, and it had already become famous within the school. Sometimes, as he walked along, he could hear other students whispering:
"Over there. Look!"
"Where?"
"That really handsome, tall boy with black hair."
"It's that wand. See it? The one with the white handle?"
"What kind of wand is that? Why is Peeves so scared of him?"
"I don't know. They say it's worth over ten thousand Galleons!"
"Wow!!!"
The conversation always ended up turning to Galleons, followed by a chorus of gasps. Zhang Xiao found it rather baffling.
I don't even know how much the wand costs. How do you know?
This also had a consequence that troubled him.
Some first years who had suffered at Peeves's hands would rather wait a little longer in the dining hall just to walk with Zhang Xiao. That way, they would neither get lost nor have to fear Peeves.
And so, only a few days into term, Zhang Xiao inexplicably found himself with a whole crowd of little followers-even more than Harry Potter had!
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