"You'll regret this blind optimism."
Malfoy straightened, his eyes dark.
"When the rules of two completely different civilizations begin to collide, far more than one or two prisons will be crushed."
"Don't think you've grasped the truth, Potter."
Leaving them with those loaded words, Malfoy turned and strode toward the Slytherin table.
Though he still held his head high as he walked, Harry saw a frantic quality in his retreating figure, as though the times were catching up with him.
"He's scared."
Watching Malfoy walk away, Neville offered the most accurate assessment.
"Everyone who still blindly believes a wand can do anything will be scared this morning."
"But he reminded us of something."
Harry folded the newspaper and tucked it beneath his plate.
He felt the cold metal weight around his wrist.
Just half an hour earlier, he had thought it was a pointless form of Muggle-style torture.
But now, the cold touch of the metal gave him a sense of reassurance.
"The nature of warfare has changed."
There was no longer any teenage complaint in Harry's voice.
Only a cold severity honed by reality.
"If Voldemort saw this newspaper too."
"If he also realized that traditional rule by terror no longer worked."
"What do you think that madman would do? Attack that place, or learn from it?"
The atmosphere at the table turned cold at once.
Ron stopped chewing.
Hermione looked a little pale.
"He wouldn't necessarily attack. He'd most likely learn."
Hermione clasped her hands tightly together beneath the table.
"Someone who craves power that desperately would never pass up any new knowledge that could make up for his weaknesses."
"No one had ever told the Wizarding World before that Muggle power could, to a certain extent, surpass magic."
"So that's why the professor makes us run with