"Very good, Derrick," Lupin said, his tone still gentle. "What is the number of the teammate beside you?"
Derrick glanced disdainfully at the boy beside him.
"T24."
"And his name?" Lupin continued.
Derrick froze. He had never asked, nor had he wanted to.
"I don't know," he answered stiffly.
Lupin turned his gaze to the small, thin boy.
"T24, your name?"
"Stephen Caldwell, sir." The boy immediately straightened his back as he answered.
"Very good." Lupin's gaze returned to Derrick's face.
"Derrick, listen carefully. Here, there is no Flint and no Caldwell, no Slytherin and no Gryffindor.
"Here, you have only numbers and names. You don't even need to remember his surname, but you must remember his first name, because he is your teammate."
"T22 and T24, you are teammates in the Third Group."
"Adjust to your team, and learn to respect your teammates. This is your first training task today, and your most important one."
His voice was quiet, yet it was like a heavy iron hammer, shattering all of Derrick's protests.
Derrick opened his mouth, still wanting to say something, but under the gaze of Lupin's seemingly gentle yet utterly unyielding eyes, he finally swallowed his words. His face merely went from red to ashen, before finally turning a mortified purplish red.
The drawing of lots continued.
No one dared protest openly again.
But that silent resistance hung in the air.
A Gryffindor girl drew a place in a group with two Slytherin boys and nearly burst into tears.
A Hufflepuff boy found himself surrounded by three taciturn Ravenclaws and stood there at a loss, like a rabbit that had strayed into a library.
The teams were finally reorganized.
The four colors, once so sharply divided, had been thoroughly broken apart and mixed together.
They had become a