Draco roamed among the various houses' challenges like a lion surveying his territory.
Only he lacked a lion's majesty and looked more like a Norwegian Ridgeback searching for a toilet.
Two walking Kelpies trailed behind him.
Crabbe and Goyle were practically his two guardian generals, standing behind Draco on either side, responsible for finding young wizards who were easy to bully so they could show off their families' glory.
"Draco, look! It's those Gryffindors." Crabbe pointed toward Hufflepuff's challenge area.
"Gryffindor, a bunch of sitting ducks," Draco said, raising his chin proudly. "I came first in Gryffindor's challenge."
"What does that tell you? The quality Gryffindor values most is something I was simply born with."
Goyle chimed in, "Those filthy Mudbloods will never understand the nobility of pure-bloods."
"Let's go." Draco swept his robes aside and turned elegantly. "Let's see how those Gryffindor hooligans make fools of themselves."
Draco had gotten up early that morning and tried every challenge with his two guardian generals. Apart from Draco taking the top spot on Gryffindor's leaderboard, Crabbe and Goyle had achieved little.
They hadn't excelled in anything, which Goyle described as "pure-bloods having no weaknesses."
Inside the challenge area, Harry, Ron, Neville, and Seamus were taking the challenge together.
They had to finish an entire serving of food made from herbs on the table, then guess its ingredients based on the clues. Once they correctly identified any three ingredients, they could try the next dish.
The four sat at the same long table. At the referee's signal, they each lifted the overturned silver plate in front of them.
A rich, sweet fragrance of caramel, roasted nuts, and some peculiar floral scent wafted into their faces.
Their plates all held the same exquisite golden pastry, amber-like in appearance, topped with a few purple petals as thin as cicada wings and giving off an extremely faint, warm glow.
"Merlin's nose hair!" Ron gasped, his eyes instantly lighting up like two light bulbs. "I'm going to spend my whole life doing this challenge!"
The others' spoons were already reaching for their plates.
Harry was the first to scoop up a small piece and put it in his mouth. A mellow sweetness melted across his tongue the moment it touched his lips, and he frowned, racking his brains.
He had only attended one Herbology lesson, and it hadn't covered any edible herbs at all. He couldn't think of a single name even to make a wild guess.
Ron clearly had some grounding in the subject. He moved his tongue around, tasting carefully. "There's pumpkin..."
"And a very distinctive nutty flavor, like roasted hazelnuts." Ron swallowed and took another bite. "And some sort of flower petal? It's faint, but really refreshing."
Seamus hadn't come for points at all. An utterly blissful expression spread over his face as he tucked in.
"Dittany, violets, dahlia root."
Neville had wolfed down his food in a single mouthful as soon as he received it. The moment he swallowed, he raised his hand and answered.
"Correct."
Cedric, the older student sitting in the referee's seat, couldn't help marveling. This younger student had quite a talent for Herbology.
Seamus tried to take a shortcut by repeating Neville's answer.
"Sorry, but although your food looks the same, the ingredients are different."
"Then can I skip this dish if I can't answer?" Ron stretched out his arm. "I'd like to try the next one."
Cedric looked at Ron's hand, which was already resting on the next dish, and couldn't help chuckling. "Go ahead."
And so, what had begun as a challenge for their group of four ended up becoming Neville's solo contest. He even detected wormwood beneath the cloying sweetness of the final dish, earning applause and cheers from Cedric.
Neville was terribly embarrassed. "I can't make sense of the textbooks for the other classes. The Herbology textbook is the only one I can keep reading. I just read it a few extra times."
Ron had eaten his fill. "No, Neville, you're a genius at Herbology. You're the food contest champion now."
Harry and Seamus kept nodding as they picked their teeth.
"All this excitement over a mere eating contest." Draco approached silently and sneered aloud. "Look at how stupid you looked eating just now. You're practically uncivilized savages."
While Draco laid down covering fire, Crabbe handled the precision strikes. "The Weasley family's food really must be awful. Why else would someone grab food with their bare hands as though they'd never eaten before?"
Draco and his two companions exchanged looks, then burst out laughing.
Had Lorne been there, he would definitely have remarked, "Classic American-style bullying."
"But weren't you using your hands when you competed earlier, too?"
Hermione had just finished Slytherin's challenge when she heard that Neville had taken first place in the food contest. She had come straight over to congratulate him, only to catch Crabbe mocking Ron.
"I remember some people couldn't identify a single dish. Perhaps you should ask Professor Snape for some pointers. Herbology and Potions Class are connected, after all."
Harry, Ron, and Seamus, who hadn't identified a single dish either, lowered their eyes and kept quiet.
"Congratulations, Neville. I heard you came first in the food contest."
Hermione ignored Draco and his companions outright, turning to look at Harry and the others.
"What about you? Did you win or lose?"
"...We're full."
Harry hadn't placed in anything.
But he thought that was perfectly fine. He wasn't as knowledgeable as Hermione, nor had he read the Herbology textbook as much as Neville. He was just an ordinary student to begin with.
"Harry, you should try Slytherin's game. Director Lorne is overseeing it in person. It's really fun."
"Slytherin?" Ron said indignantly. "Who wants to play their house's game? Is it a contest to see who's more arrogant?"
Hermione was speechless. "Someone from Slytherin has already taken the top spot in Gryffindor. If we don't take first place in Slytherin, they'll mock us for ages."
"That's only because students competing in their own house's challenge don't count toward the rankings." Ron looked at Harry. "Otherwise, with Harry's skills, he'd absolutely crush Malfoy."
"Let's go take a look first," Harry said, settling the matter. "We're here anyway."