Chapter 41: The King of Slytherin
Cassius sat back down in the silver serpent chair.
He picked up the book on the armrest and flipped to the page he had just been reading.
Chapter 17: "Resonance Threshold of magic Circuits."
He continued reading.
No one in the common room spoke.
No one moved.
Even their breathing was kept very low.
Every Slytherin student present—from first years to seventh years—had completed a reconstruction of their perception at this moment.
The silver serpent chair was not Cassius's seat.
The silver serpent chair was Cassius's throne.
The stone wall opened with a rumble.
Snape walked in.
His black robes billowed behind him.
His pace was fast—much faster than when he usually patrolled the common room.
He had come after receiving news.
It didn't matter who notified him—any anomaly occurring in the Slytherin common room would reach his ears within five minutes at most.
Snape stood at the doorway for a second.
His gaze swept across the common room—the students sitting normally, the lower years huddled by the wall, Draco behind the sofa—and then landed in front of the fireplace.
Three fifth-year students were sprawled at Cassius's feet.
There were bloodstains on the floor.
Flint's wand had rolled three meters away.
A strange smell lingered in the air—like the metallic scent produced after a sudden change in air pressure.
Snape understood everything.
He didn't need to ask what had happened.
The traces at the scene had already told him everything—three upperclassmen had provoked Cassius and were then pinned to the ground in a way he had never seen before.
There were no traces of spells.
No residue of magical confrontation.
Only three fifth-years suffocated half to death and one first-year reading a book.
No one in the common room dared to speak.
Snape walked toward the front of the fireplace.
The hem of his robes brushed over the top of Flint's head.
Flint was still sprawled there, his breathing rattling like a broken bellows.
"Can anyone explain to me," Snape's voice echoed between the stone walls, cold enough to freeze, "why my Quidditch captain is sprawled on the carpet like an idiot?"
Flint struggled to lift his head.
His throat was hoarse and swollen from suffocation, and his voice sounded like it had been ground out with sandpaper:
"Professor... Malfoy, he... he attacked us..."
Snape looked down at Flint.
His expression—if it could be called an expression—was one of pure, undisguised disgust.
Not disgust for violence.
It was disgust for idiots.
"Five upperclassmen," Snape said, enunciating every word, "couldn't even touch the hem of a first-year student's robes before being pinned to the ground."
He paused.
"Do you think this is glorious, Flint?"
Flint's mouth opened.
Then closed.
He thought the Dean would stand on his side—he was a fifth-year, he was a pure-blood, he was the team captain, he was the one upholding the rules—
But Snape's gaze told him: You thought wrong.
Snape didn't care who was right or wrong.
He cared about who won and who lost.
Five upperclassmen beaten into begging for mercy by a first-year—if this got out, it would be a disgrace to all of Slytherin.
And the one who lost face was not Cassius—Cassius had won.
The ones who lost face were Flint and his bunch of trash.
Snape turned to look at Cassius.
The two men's gazes met.
Cassius sat in the silver serpent chair, book in hand.
He returned Snape's gaze, exactly the same as during the first Potion Class—calm, unevasive, and devoid of any superfluous emotion.
Snape searched him.
Searching for what?
Searching for signs of magical exhaustion.
Normally, a Wizard—even an adult Wizard—after releasing that level of magical interference, should show signs of magical depletion: pale complexion, heavy breathing, dilated pupils, slight trembling of the fingers.
Cassius's complexion was normal.
His breathing was steady.
His pupils were of equal size.
His fingers turning the pages were as steady as a machine.
He didn't even break a sweat.
This meant that the suppression of the three fifth-year students just now, for Cassius, was negligible in terms of magical consumption.
Snape committed this information to memory.
Then he turned to face Flint.
"Get up. Get back to your dormitory."
Flint struggled to stand up.
His legs were still weak, he couldn't stand the first time and knelt back down.
The second time he held onto the edge of the long table and finally stood straight.
"If I see you making a fool of yourselves in the common room again," Snape's voice didn't rise, but every word was like a nail, "I will personally throw you into the Black Lake."
Flint and the other two fifth-years supported each other as they walked toward the dormitory.
One of them was still coughing, his body bending with every cough.
When Flint reached the doorway, he turned his head back—he glanced at Cassius.
There was no hatred in that glance.
Hatred required an equal relationship to exist.
There was only fear in Flint's eyes.
The upperclassmen's figures disappeared into the corridor.
Snape stood in the center of the common room.
He did not leave.
He looked at Cassius again.
This look lasted about three seconds.
In those three seconds, Snape was making a judgment—whether to say something to Cassius.
A warning?
An admonition?
Remind him to restrain himself?
He said nothing.
Because he remembered what Dumbledore had said half an hour ago: "Keep an eye on him, but whatever you do, don't provoke him."
Snape turned and walked out of the common room.
The stone wall closed behind him.
The common room returned to quiet.
But this quiet was different from before.
Before, it was the daily quiet—students busy with their own things, not disturbing each other.
Now it was a quiet with a sense of order—everyone knew their place in this space.
In front of the fireplace, in the silver serpent chair, Cassiusturned a page of his book.
Draco slowly poked his head out from behind the sofa.
He looked at his younger brother, then at the drops of blood Flint had left on the floor.
He didn't go over.
He quietly sat back on the sofa and picked up the matchstick he was still practicing transfiguration on.
The color of the matchstick was gray.
Not silver.
He needed to work harder.
Farley stood by the stone pillar.
She reopened her copy of Advanced Potion-Making.
Her expression didn't change much—as a prefect, she had long foreseen this result.
But her hand turning the page paused for a moment.
She was thinking about one thing: Snape didn't deduct points from Cassius.
A student attacking three seniors in the common room—regardless of the reason—according to school rules, should at least have twenty points deducted and be given a week of detention.
But Snape did nothing.
He scolded Flint and let Cassius off.
What did this mean?
It meant that in Snape's system of judgment, Cassius's value had already surpassed the "rules" themselves.
The internal hierarchical order of Slytherin had completed an earthquake-level reorganization this afternoon.
From now on, within three meters in front of the silver serpent chair was an absolute forbidden zone.
From now on, Cassius Malfoy was not a first-year student of Slytherin.
He was the King of Slytherin.
Chapter 42: The Awakening of the Useless Older Brother
The next morning.
Cassius woke up at 6:30. The Slytherin dormitory was located beneath the Black Lake and had no windows, making it impossible to distinguish between day and night. But he did not need windows—the biological clock of the [Dual-Soul Furnace] was more accurate than any alarm clock.
He finished washing up, changed into his school uniform, and pushed open the dormitory door.
The corridor was still very quiet. Most Slytherin students would not wake up until after seven o'clock. A few perpetually lit green wall lamps hung on the stone walls of the underground passage, casting dim light, and the air held that cool, fishy scent characteristic of water seeping from the Black Lake.
Draco's dormitory was next door. Cassius knocked on the door twice.
There was no response.
He knocked twice more.
The door opened from the inside. Draco stood behind the door with his platinum-blonde hair in a mess like a bird's nest, his eyelids swollen, and pillow marks still on his face.
"What time is it..."
"Six-forty. Get up. We're going to eat."
Draco let out a groan, but he dared not dawdle. Three minutes later, he had tidied himself up—children of Malfoy Family, even just after waking, could make themselves presentable in the shortest amount of time. His hair was slicked back with gel, combed meticulously, and his tie was perfectly straight.
The two of them walked up along the underground corridor.
Leaving the dungeon area, they turned into the main corridor on the first floor. Sunlight slanted in from the windows on the east side, shining onto the stone floor and dividing the corridor into alternating stripes of light and shadow.
There were not many people in the corridor at this time. Occasionally, a few early-rising Ravenclaws hurried past, arms full of books. An owl flew in through a window, carrying a letter in its beak, and flapped its wings toward the direction of the owlery.
Draco walked half a step ahead of Cassius. This was his habit—in public, he liked to walk in front. Although everyone knew that the one truly worthy of attention was the one behind, Draco felt that the act of "walking in front" itself represented a certain dignity of being the eldest son.
When they reached the staircase leading to the Great Hall, a few people appeared ahead.
Three Gryffindors. Third years.
Cassius recognized one of them—a brown-haired boy who had mocked Draco last time after bumping into his shoulder in the corridor. The other two were his companions, one chubby and one tall and thin, both wearing Gryffindor robes with red trim.
The three of them walked side by side, taking up most of the width of the corridor. They were chatting about Quidditch—their voices were loud, and their laughter was just as loud.
Draco was walking in front. The corridor was not wide enough, and the two groups met head-on.
Under normal circumstances, both groups would yield half a step to pass. But those three Gryffindors did not yield.
The brown-haired boy's shoulder slammed into Draco's shoulder.
It wasn't a brush past. It was a collision. It carried force.
Draco's body swayed from the impact, his right foot missed a step, and he nearly fell onto the stairs. He grabbed the railing to steady himself.
The brown-haired boy stopped, turned around to look at Draco, with a very punchable smirk on his lips.
"Watch where you're going, Malfoy."
His two companions also started laughing. The chubby one added: "Don't think just because your brother is impressive that you can throw your weight around. Without your brother, what are you?"
The tall, thin one didn't speak, but his gaze was nastier than his words—that kind of top-to-bottom appraisal, carrying a contempt that said, "You're nothing special."
Draco's face went pale.
Not pale from anger. It was the kind of bloodless pallor that comes after being struck in one's weak spot.
"Without your brother, what are you?"
The lethality of this sentence was greater than any spell. Because it was true.
Draco's right hand reached into his robe pocket—his wand was inside. Ten inches, hawthorn wood, Unicorn hair core. His fingers touched the wand.
Then he looked back.
Cassius was standing three steps away.
He stood there. He didn't step forward. He didn't speak. He didn't release any magic. There was no sign of intervention.
He was just watching Draco.
In those gray-blue eyes, there was no hint of "handle it yourself," nor any intention of "I'll help you." They expressed nothing. They were just watching.
Waiting.
Waiting for Draco to make a choice.
Draco's fingers gripped the wand inside his pocket. He held it for three seconds.
The three third-years stood there, the brown-haired boy with his hands on his hips, waiting to see his reaction.
Draco let go of the wand.
His hand withdrew from his pocket. It was empty.
He lowered his head and walked around those three Gryffindors.
No backtalk. No drawing his wand. No calling out Cassius's name.
He walked around them.
The brown-haired boy snorted and turned to leave. His two companions followed behind, lowered their voices to say something, and then all three laughed together. The laughter echoed in the corridor for several seconds.
When Cassius passed by them, the laughter of the three Gryffindors stopped. The brown-haired boy's expression changed, but he dared not say a word. They turned sideways to yield the path, and only started breathing again after Cassius had walked past.
Cassius did not look at them.
He caught up to Draco.
The two of them walked into the Great Hall, one after the other.
There were already quite a few students eating breakfast in the Great Hall. The ceiling reflected the weather outside—gray, overcast clouds that looked like it was about to rain. The four long tables were filled with breakfast: toast, fried eggs, bacon, baked beans, oatmeal, and jars of marmalade and honey.
Cassius sat down at the Slytherin long table. Draco sat down next to him.
Draco took a plate. He put two slices of bread and a fried egg on it. Then he picked up his fork and started poking at the fried egg.
Poke. Poke. Poke.
The yolk was punctured. Golden liquid flowed out, soaking the bread.
Draco continued to poke. The fork made a harsh scraping sound against the plate.
He hadn't taken a single bite.
Cassius took a sip of pumpkin juice. He put down his cup and watched Draco's mechanically moving hand.
"Why didn't you draw your wand just now?"
Draco's fork stopped.
He didn't look up. He stared at the mangled fried egg.
"They are third years." Draco's voice was muffled.
"So what?"
"I can't beat them."
"Did you try?"
Draco bit his lip.
"And... weren't you right behind me?"
After these words left his mouth, Draco was stunned himself. He realized what he had said—he was saying: I don't need to fight, because you are here.
Cassius placed his goblet on the table. The sound of the base hitting the wooden table wasn't loud, but Draco's shoulders flinched.
"I cannot follow behind you forever."
Cassius wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin. His movements were slow and refined, just like his style in doing everything else—calm to the point of being infuriating.
"If you don't even have the courage to draw your wand, then you don't deserve the name Malfoy."
Draco jerked his head up.
His eyes were red. Not the red of grievance—it was the red that comes after being stabbed in one's deepest wound by the most direct words from the person closest to him.
"Don't deserve the name Malfoy."
These five words, spoken from Cassius's mouth, hurt a hundred times more than the mockery of those three Gryffindors.
Draco opened his mouth. He wanted to retort. He wanted to say, "I'm not lacking courage," "I was just assessing the situation," "Father said not to have direct conflicts with inferior people."
But he knew these words were all nonsense in front of Cassius.
Cassius didn't listen to explanations. Cassius only looked at results.
"No classes this afternoon. Come with me."
Cassius stood up and pushed back his chair.
Draco was stunned in place. His intuition told him that this afternoon would not be easy.
"Where... where are we going?"
Cassius had already walked two steps away. He didn't look back.
Draco watched his brother's back disappear at the entrance of the Great Hall. He lowered his head, looking at the mangled fried egg on his plate.
He suddenly had no appetite.
But he still stuffed the bread into his mouth, forcing himself to swallow it.
He had a premonition—this afternoon would drain all his energy. He needed to eat his fill.
Chapter 43: The Cruel Special Training in the Dungeon
Two o'clock in the afternoon.
Cassius led Draco toward the bottom of the Castle. It wasn't the Slytherin dormitory area—the dormitories were underground too, but at least they had wall lamps and fireplaces for warmth. The place they were going was deeper than the dormitory area.
Following a side staircase that rarely saw any foot traffic, they went down, turned past two moss-covered corners, and passed through a half-open iron gate. The hinges of the iron gate were rusted shut, and when they pushed it open, it let out a sharp metallic screech that echoed in the empty stone passage for several seconds.
This was the abandoned dungeon corridor at the bottom of the Castle.
A long time ago, this might have been a place for detentions or perhaps a private laboratory for some Professor. Now, there was nothing left. There were only two rows of stone walls, a corridor less than two meters wide, cobwebs covering the ceiling, and clusters of gray-green mold growing in the corners.
The air was so damp it felt like being submerged in water. With every breath, one could taste a moldy, earthy stench.
There were no wall lamps. The only light came from a fist-sized air vent at the end of the corridor—the light leaking in from that small hole barely illuminated the distance within ten steps.
Draco shrank his neck. He had never been to this part of the Castle before.
"This place—"
"Quiet. Stand over here."
Cassius stopped in the middle of the corridor. He took something out of his pocket.
A white feather.
It was identical to the kind used for practicing the Levitation Charm in Charms Class. It was light and fluffy, likely a goose or swan feather.
He threw the feather onto the damp stone floor.
The feather landed on the ground, absorbed some moisture, and looked a bit wilted.
"Make it float," Cassius said.
Draco looked at the feather, then at Cassius. His right hand reached into his pocket and touched the handle of his wand.
"Wingardium—"
Cassius grabbed his wrist.
Before Draco could react, the wand was snatched from his hand. Cassius flicked his wrist, and the wand traced an arc in the air, landing with a "click" at the other end of the corridor—about twenty meters away. In this light, one could barely make out a small white dot lying on the ground.
Draco was stunned.
"No wand," Cassius released his wrist. "Use your hand. Use your perception. Make it float."
"You—you threw my wand away?!"
Cassius did not respond to this nonsense. He pointed at the feather on the ground.
"Float."
Draco's mind buzzed. He looked at the wilted white feather on the ground, then looked at his empty hands.
"I can't do it."
Draco's voice bounced back and forth between the stone walls of the abandoned corridor twice, sounding even more desperate than he felt.
"Wandless Magic isn't taught until the sixth year!" Dracospoke quickly, getting more anxious as he went on, "I haven't even learned all the first-year spells! Professor Flitwick said that most adult Wizards never manage to do it wandlessly—"
"Flitwick was talking about 'most Wizards'. You are not most Wizards. You are a Malfoy."
"Just being a Malfoy allows for Wandless Magic? Then why doesn't Father—"
Draco swallowed the second half of his sentence. He had almost said "Then why doesn't Father know how," but he realized in time that questioning Lucius Malfoy's abilities in front of Cassius was not a wise choice.
"If you can't do it, stay here." Cassius walked to the stone wall on one side of the corridor, leaned his back against it, and crossed his arms over his chest. He closed his eyes. "Before dinner, if it doesn't move even a little, you'll go hungry."
Draco stood in the middle of the corridor, his two empty hands hanging at his sides.
He looked at the feather on the ground.
The feather was stuck wetly to the stone slab, motionless.
Draco crouched down.
He reached his right hand out over the feather. His five fingers were spread, palm facing down.
He tried to recall Cassius's movements in Charms Class—lifting the index finger, a gentle flick, and the feather flew up. It looked so simple. So easy. As natural as breathing.
Draco imitated that movement. He flicked his index finger upward.
The feather did not react.
He tried again. This time he silently recited the spell in his mind—"Wingardium Leviosa"—while flicking his finger upward.
The feather still did not react.
The third time. The fourth time. The fifth time.
Ten minutes passed.
Draco's arm began to ache. It wasn't the kind of ache from using magic—it was pure muscle fatigue. He had been keeping his arm extended with his palm facing down; for an eleven-year-old child, ten minutes was already the limit.
He put his hand down and shook it out. Then he reached it out again. He continued.
Half an hour.
One hour.
Draco's knees were kneeling on the damp stone slab, and the knee area of his trousers had been soaked through by the seeping water. A layer of cold sweat broke out on his forehead. His right hand remained pointed at the feather.
Nothing happened.
He began to doubt if he had any magic at all. Although he had successfully cast the Levitation Charm with his wand in Charms Class, a wand and Wandless Magic were two different things. A wand was an amplifier, a conduit—it helped you gather the chaotic magic within your body and release it along a preset path. Without a wand, it was like asking someone who had just learned to ride a bicycle to drive a race car.
No. It was harder than that. It was like making someone who had just learned to ride a bicycle run at the speed of a race car without a bike.
Two hours passed.
Draco shifted from kneeling to sitting. He sat on the cold stone slab with his legs crossed in front of him, his right hand still pointed at the feather. His wrist was shaking—not from the fluctuation of magic, but from muscle spasms.
He looked back at Cassius.
Cassius was leaning against the wall, eyes closed. His breathing was steady. He looked like he was asleep.
Draco did not dare to ask, "Can I take a break?" He knew the answer.
Three hours.
There was no clock in the abandoned corridor. Dracoestimated the time by the changes in the light leaking in from the air vent—when they first arrived, the light was whitish, but now it had turned orange. The afternoon was almost over.
His wrist had absolutely no strength left. The soreness spread from his wrist to his forearm, and then from his forearm to his shoulder. His back was soaked through with cold sweat, sticking to his shirt, and mixing with the damp air of the dungeon, making him shiver uncontrollably.
His emotions began to collapse.
It wasn't a sudden collapse—it was that slowly accumulating, layer-upon-layer despair that finally snapped the string of maintaining composure.
Draco's eyes turned red.
He did not cry out. A Malfoy does not cry. At least, not in front of others. But his tears were already swirling in his eyes.
He began to struggle recklessly.
It was no longer the attempt to "concentrate and feel the magic" as before. He began to squeeze desperately toward his palm—as if he wanted to wring all the energy in his body out through his palm. His face flushed bright red, and the veins on his temples bulged.
magic darted chaotically at his fingertips.
It wasn't a controlled flow—it was an uncontrolled explosion. No direction, no target, no form. It was like a water pipe being turned on, but with nothing attached to the nozzle, so the water splashed everywhere recklessly.
"Hiss!"
Draco let out a scream.
The nail of his right index finger split open from the root. Fresh blood seeped out from under the nail.
magic backlash.
When a Wizard forcibly releases magic without the guidance of a wand, the magic will dart chaotically inside the body. If you are lucky, the magic will dissipate on its own, at most giving you a headache for a while. If you are unlucky—it will burst out from the weakest point.
The nail is one of the weakest parts of the finger.
Draco's index fingernail was shattered from the inside by the magic bursting out from within. It was like a door having its hinges kicked off from the inside.
It hurt.
It wasn't the kind of pain from being stung. It was a piercing, burning agony that rose from deep within the bones.
Chapter 44: Magic is an Extension of Will
Draco fell.
He tumbled backward onto the stone floor, clutching his left wrist tightly with his right hand, curling into a ball.
Blood dripped from his index finger, landing on the gray stone and spreading into a small, dark red stain.
He gasped for air, staring at the feather.
The feather remained motionless.
Draco's tears finally fell.
It was not a wail; it was silent, scalding, the kind of tears he had held back for three hours and could no longer suppress.
They slid from the corners of his eyes, flowed past his temples, and dripped onto the cold stone floor.
"I can't do it..."
His voice was very soft, so soft it was almost inaudible in the empty corridor.
"I can't do it... Cassius... I'm not you..."
Cassius opened his eyes.
He looked at Draco, who was lying on the ground.
He looked at his bleeding finger, at the tears and cold sweat on his face, at his soaked school uniform and his dust-covered, platinum-blonde hair.
He walked over from the wall.
His footsteps echoed in the corridor, one by one.
Draco thought Cassius would offer a bottle of healing potion, or say, "That's enough for today," or at least—at least express some sympathy.
Cassius stood before him, looking down at him.
"Magic is not water you squeeze out," Cassius said. "It is an extension of your will."
No potion. No comfort.
"You were just exerting force earlier. You weren't using your brain."
Draco gritted his teeth as blood continued to drip from his finger.
He pushed himself up to a sitting position, covering his bleeding right hand with his left.
"I'm not you." Draco's voice was hoarse; after three hours of silence and the screams from earlier, his throat was half-ruined. "I don't have your monstrous talent."
"You certainly don't."
Cassius crouched down in front of Draco, level with his gaze; his grey-blue eyes appeared very bright in the dim light.
"But you are a pureblood. Your magic circuits are much more fluid than those of a half-blood Wizard. You don't lack magic—what you lack is the ability to focus your scattered attention onto a single point."
He glanced at Draco's bleeding finger.
"Pain will help you focus. So, don't waste this wound."
Draco stared at Cassius.
He searched his brother's eyes for a long time—searching for sympathy, for concern, for any sliver of concession like "Forget it, you're not cut out for this."
There was none.
In those grey-blue eyes, there was only one thing: waiting.
Cassius was waiting for him to stand up.
Draco wiped the tears from his face, smearing the blood from the back of his hand across his cheek, leaving a red trail.
He stood up.
His legs were shaking, and his knees made a "crack" sound from kneeling for too long; the hem of his school robe was soaked, clinging to his calves.
He did not flinch.
He extended his right hand again—that bleeding right hand—and aimed it at the white feather on the ground.
The dungeon corridor was so quiet that only the sound of water seeping through the stone walls could be heard.
"Drip." One drop.
"Drip." Another drop.
The rhythm was very slow, like some kind of ancient, tireless timer.
Draco forced himself to forget the pain in his finger; he stopped thinking, stopped feeling, and pulled all his attention away from that split fingernail to focus on—
Focus on what?
Cassius said, "Magic is an extension of will."
Then what was his will?
He wanted that feather to fly—not to fulfill Cassius's command, though that was one of the reasons, but to prove that he was not a failure who only knew how to hide behind his brother.
This morning, in the corridor, three Gryffindor third-years had said, "Without your brother, what are you?"
Those words came back to him.
Draco's teeth ground together.
Not because of the pain, but because of the hatred—hatred for himself.
He didn't want to take detours anymore; he didn't want to look back to see if his brother was there after someone bumped his shoulder; he didn't want to be "the other one of Malfoy Family" anymore.
"Move."
He said in his heart.
"Move for me."
He stopped thinking about the syllables of the Wingardium Leviosa spell, stopped thinking about the standard wand movements taught by Professor Flitwick, and stopped thinking about the theoretical paragraphs in the textbook regarding the Levitation Charm.
He only thought about one thing—
That feather had to fly.
Fresh blood dripped from his index finger, landing right on the edge of the feather.
A tiny red spot appeared on the white feather.
Then, the feather moved.
It wasn't blown by the wind—there was no wind in the dungeon corridor.
It wasn't pushed by the impact of the blood drop—the weight of a single drop of blood wasn't enough to displace a feather.
It was pushed.
An extremely weak, extremely unstable, and seemingly ready-to-snap magic spilled out from Draco's fingertips.
That magic had no direction, no form, and not even visible light—it was more like an invisible breeze that gently, wobblily touched the feather.
The feather jumped once.
Just once; it left the ground by about two centimeters, then fell back down.
Just like that.
Draco was stunned.
He looked at his hand, then at the feather with the bloodstain.
His breathing stopped.
"It moved."
His voice was trembling, not because of the cold or the pain.
"Cassius. It moved."
Draco turned his head to look at Cassius; the expression on his face was complex—there was ecstasy, disbelief, and a sense of collapse after three hours of accumulated grievances and exhaustion surged up in this moment.
His tears fell again, but this time, they were different.
Cassius did not smile, nor did he clap.
He walked to the end of the corridor, bent down, and picked up Draco's wand—ten inches, hawthorn, Unicornhair core—and tossed it back to Draco.
Draco reached out with his left hand—he didn't dare move his right—and caught the wand; it was covered in a bit of dust from the corridor floor, but it was undamaged.
"Hold onto it," Cassius said. "You pass for today."
Draco gripped the wand; his fingers were trembling, but he held it very tightly.
"Remember this feeling of magic being squeezed out from within your body," Cassius said, turning to walk toward the exit of the corridor. "It will be easier next time."
Draco stood in place; he looked down at his right hand—his index finger, with its split nail, was still oozing blood, and the other four fingers were slightly curled from prolonged tension, as if they were cramping and couldn't straighten.
He switched the wand to his right hand; blood flowed from between his fingers and ran down the length of the wand.
Draco took a deep breath; the damp, moldy air of the dungeon filled his lungs, a hundred times worse-smelling than the fresh air in the Great Hall.
But he felt this was the most satisfying breath he had taken since coming to Hogwarts.
He caught up with Cassius.
The two of them walked up the side stairs, leaving the darkness of the dungeon behind layer by layer.
As they ascended, the light from the wall lamps grew brighter, the moss on the stone walls became sparser, and the musty smell in the air was slowly replaced by the smoky scent of fireplaces.
Draco walked behind Cassius, looking at his brother's back.
That back was not broad; an eleven-year-old boy did not yet have the shoulder width of an adult male; Cassius's build was well-proportioned among his peers, perhaps even on the thin side.
But that back felt thicker to Draco than any wall in Malfoy Manor.
"Cassius."
"Hmm."
"Are we coming back tomorrow?"
Cassius took two steps.
"Every afternoon. Until you can make it float without needing to bleed."
Draco did not speak.
He gripped the blood-stained wand and followed Cassiusout of the Castle's lower levels.
The sky outside the air vent had turned orange-red; the sun was about to set.
It was time for dinner.
Chapter 45: Enemies on a Narrow Road
The two of them emerged from the abandoned dungeon on the lowest level of the Castle and began walking up the side stairs.
Draco had wrapped his right hand several times with his silk pocket handkerchief.
Several dark red bloodstains had already seeped through the white handkerchief—not many, and the wound on his index finger wasn't large, but with every step he took, his finger throbbed with pain as his blood circulation accelerated.
His footsteps were a bit unsteady.
Three hours of kneeling had left his knees stiff and numb, and his thigh muscles were not quite obeying him as he climbed the stairs.
The bottom half of his school robes was covered in the dust and water stains from the dungeon floor, and there was a noticeable patch of moss on the left knee.
His platinum-blonde hair was no longer the meticulous style it had been when he left in the morning.
Most of the hair gel had been dissolved by sweat, and a few stray locks hung over his forehead, mixed with dried sweat stains.
No matter how you looked at it, he was a picture of disheveled misery, like someone who had just crawled out of a trash can.
But Draco's eyes were different.
They hadn't become brighter, nor had they become fiercer.
There was something more—a kind of sediment, difficult to describe in words, that only appears after experiencing pain.
The difference between the Draco from three hours ago and the Draco from three hours later lay in his eyes.
Walking out of the side stairs, they entered the main corridor on the first floor.
The warm light of the wall lamps shone upon the two of them.
Compared to the gloom of the dungeon, this light was already quite dazzling.
Draco narrowed his eyes to adjust.
There were not many people in the corridor.
At this time, most students were either in class for their last lesson or already in the Great Hall waiting for dinner.
The air was filled with the aroma of food wafting from the kitchen—roast chicken, stew, and the wheaty scent of bread.
Draco's stomach gave a rumble.
He had only eaten two slices of bread for breakfast and hadn't eaten lunch at all—Cassius had dragged him into the dungeon during lunch hour—and now he was starving.
As the two of them turned the corner at the stairs, voices came from ahead.
It was more than one person.
Two or three voices were mixed together, one of them particularly loud, carrying that typical, unrefined English country accent.
"—I'm telling you, Harry, that broomstick was definitely tampered with! Did you see it? A cleansweep seven flying like that? I bet Cassius did something to it—"
Ron Weasley.
The two groups bumped into each other right at the corner of the stairs.
Ron was walking on the left, and Harry was on the right.
Both were carrying school bags, looking as if they had just come out of a classroom.
Ron's robes were covered in a few cat hairs—he had probably just finished Professor McGonagall's class, and had been startled by the Professor's Animagus form again.
Harry's school bag zipper wasn't closed properly, revealing half the spine of the standard book of spells.
He was wearing those round-rimmed glasses wrapped with several layers of tape, with a small fingerprint on the lens.
The two groups were less than five meters apart.
Ron's words stopped mid-sentence.
His gaze swept over Cassius—he instinctively shrank back—and then landed on Draco.
What did he see?
A filthy Draco Malfoy with hair like a bird's nest, his right hand wrapped in a blood-stained handkerchief.
The contrast between this image and the Draco Malfoy in Ron's memory—who always had his hair slicked back, chest puffed out, and was always going on about "my father"—was simply too great.
The corners of Ron's mouth twitched.
Then he laughed.
"Blimey, Malfoy, did you fall into a sewer?"
Ron's laughter echoed twice in the corridor.
It wasn't that he was intentionally raising his volume; he was just naturally incapable of controlling it—the seven Weasley children had grown up fighting for food at the dinner table, and whoever was quiet went hungry.
Harry tugged on Ron's sleeve.
It wasn't much force, but the meaning was clear—shut up, Cassius is right there.
Harry remembered what happened in Flying Class.
He remembered that figure who had jumped twenty meters into the air from the ground with a single bound.
He remembered those gray-blue eyes that expressed no emotion whatsoever.
He didn't want to cause trouble.
At least not in front of Cassius.
But Ron didn't receive the signal.
Or rather, he had received it, but his mouth's movement speed was always faster than his brain's processing speed.
"Look at his hand."
Ron pointed at Draco's handkerchief-wrapped right hand and laughed even louder, "What? Has Malfoy Family taken up juggling now? Can't afford a wand, so you've started catching rats with your bare hands?"
He winked at Harry, waiting for Harry to laugh along with him.
Harry didn't laugh.
His gaze lingered on Cassius for a moment.
Cassius was standing two steps behind Draco, one hand in his robe pocket, his posture very relaxed.
But it was precisely this relaxation that made Harryuneasy.
He couldn't say why.
It was just an intuition—a visceral wariness towards Cassius Malfoy that he'd had since their first meeting.
Cassius indeed did not move.
He had stopped, but not because Ron's mockery had angered him.
He stopped because he was watching Draco.
This was a litmus test.
Three hours ago, in the dungeon corridor, Draco had been drained of his last ounce of strength and pride.
He had traded blood and tears for that single jump of the feather.
What did that jump represent?
It represented that he was starting to stop relying on external forces.
But that was only the first step.
The second step was—when he faced mockery again, what would he do?
Look back at Cassius?
Push his younger brother to the front as a shield?
Or solve it himself?
If he looked back, then the three hours this afternoon would have been wasted.
The trembling of that feather would just be a coincidence.
Deep down, he would still be the same Draco who only knew how to hide in his brother's shadow.
If he didn't look back—
Cassius waited.
The air in the corridor became subtle in those few seconds.
Ron was still laughing, Harry was nervously observing the situation, while Draco stood in place, his right hand hanging at his side, the bloodstains on the handkerchief looking particularly glaring under the light of the wall lamps.
Draco did not look back.
The back of his head was facing Cassius.
His shoulder blades were tensed—not the stiffness caused by fear, but because he was suppressing something.
He clenched his right hand.
A sharp, stinging pain came from the split nail under the handkerchief, but he didn't let go.
Instead, he gripped even tighter.
The sensation of pain helped him focus.
Cassius's words echoed in his mind:
"Pain will help you focus. So, don't waste this wound."
Draco stared at Ron.
Ron's smile had not yet faded.
Red hair, freckled face, a piece of something stuck to one of his front teeth—probably a snack he'd stolen during class in the afternoon.
His school robes were faded to white, and the trim on his cuffs was frayed.
In the past, if Draco had seen this, he would have retorted with mean-spirited words like, "Is your Weasley family so poor that you can't even afford new robes?"
Shrill and high-pitched, like a ferret whose tail had been stepped on—loud, but with little lethality.
The current Draco did not scream at the top of his lungs.
"Weasley."
He spoke.
His voice was very low.
Three hours of silence plus one scream meant his throat hadn't fully recovered.
The voice that came out was hoarse, deep, and carried a texture like sandpaper rubbing together.
It was like a completely different person from the blustering Draco of before.
"Will you never learn what it means to shut up in your entire life?"
Ron's laughter stopped.
It wasn't stopped by fear.
It was because he was bewildered by Draco's tone.
This Draco was not the one he knew.
The old Draco spoke as if he were performing—volume maxed out, exaggerated expressions, ensuring everyone within ten meters could hear every word.
This Draco spoke as if he were stating a fact.
A statement without emotion.
His voice was so low that only the person in front of him could hear clearly.
Ron wasn't used to this kind of Draco.
He didn't know how to respond.
So he chose the most Ron Weasley way of reacting—stubbornly charging ahead.
"What, want a fight?"
Ron reached into his robes and pulled out his wand.
That old wand inherited from Charlie—the Unicorn hair was almost poking out from the end of the wand.
"Come on then!"
Harry took a step forward.
He wanted to grab Ron.
But before his hand could touch Ron's arm, he saw Draco's reaction.
Draco did not pull out his wand.
His left hand did not reach into his pocket.
His right hand—that right hand wrapped in a blood-stained handkerchief—slowly clenched into a fist.
It was not the posture for holding a wand.
It was the posture for making a fist.
Three hours in the dungeon.
Kneeling on the cold stone floor.
Cold sweat on his forehead.
Magic that wouldn't obey.
Cracked nails.
Blood seeping from between his fingers.
The silhouette of Cassius leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.
"If you can't do it, stay here. If it doesn't move even an inch before dinner, you'll go hungry."
"You were just using force earlier. You didn't use your brain."
"I can't follow behind you forever."
"If you don't even have the courage to draw your wand, you don't deserve the name Malfoy."
Every sentence was like a red-hot iron bar, branded into his memory.
Then there were those three Gryffindors in the corridor this morning.
"Without your brother, what are you?"
Draco's pupils constricted.
Three hours of pent-up frustration.
The excruciating pain in his finger.
The feeling of magic being forcibly squeezed out of his body.
An empty stomach.
Aching knees.
A shirt soaked with sweat sticking to his back.
These things churned into a ball in his chest.
It wasn't sadness, it wasn't grievance.
It was anger.
Pure, raw anger, unfiltered by any reason.
Ron stood three steps away, holding his wand, with a "just try coming over" expression on his face.
Draco's foot moved.