The Great Hall was bathed in the warm, golden glow of thousands of floating candles, the enchanted ceiling mirroring a cloudy, starless night that reflected the mood of most first-years by Thursday evening: exhaustion.
Orion sat at the Slytherin table, methodically dissecting a lamb chop with the precision of a surgeon. Beside him, Draco was complaining about the amount of homework Professor Binns had assigned (twelve inches on gargoyle strikes), while Crabbe and Goyle were engaged in a contest to see who could fit more bread rolls into their pockets for later.
"You're awfully quiet," Sparkle's voice buzzed in his ear, her interface hovering near the rim of his pumpkin juice goblet. "It's been four days. You have the map. You have the sneaking skills. Why haven't we raided the Room of Requirement yet? The Diadem of Ravenclaw is just sitting there, gathering dust."
Orion took a sip of juice, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin. "Patience, Sparkle. You think like a gamer. You see a loot box, you want to open it. I think like an engineer in hostile territory."
"Hostile?"
"Dumbledore," Orion murmured, barely moving his lips. "The man is practically omniscient within these walls. The portraits talk. The ghosts gossip. The house-elves report. If a first-year student, within his first week or even his first month itself, manages to locate the most secretive room in the castle—a room even the Headmaster barely understands—it raises red flags. It screams 'Dark Lord Reincarnate' or 'Time Traveler'."
"So what? We claim we got lost," Sparkle suggested.
"Once is an accident. Twice is a pattern. I have seven years, Sparkle. Seven years to dismantle this castle's secrets. I am not going to burn my anonymity in the first week just to look at a tiara I can't touch yet. I need to establish a baseline. I need them to see me as Orion Malfoy: The Studious, The Charming, The Slightly eccentric but harmless scholar."
"Boring," Sparkle yawned. "Effective, but boring."
"Effective wins wars," Orion countered.
And indeed, Orion had spent the week crafting a masterpiece of a persona. In class, he was the model student. He didn't wave his hand in the air like Hermione Granger, desperate for validation. When he was called upon, he answered concisely, correctly, and sat back down. He was polite to the teachers, helpful to his peers, and terrifyingly competent.
He was becoming the beacon of sanity in the snake pit.
This strategic benevolence extended to the Slytherin Common Room.
It was Thursday night. The fire was crackling green in the grate, casting long, dancing shadows across the rough stone floor. The common room was a hive of activity; older students were hunched over complex charts or finishing essays, while the younger years occupied the tables near the warmth, trading Chocolate Frog cards or complaining about the damp.
Orion sat at a large circular table near the fire, a bastion of patience in a sea of incompetence. He wasn't alone. Crabbe and Goyle were sitting opposite him, looking like two boulders trying to decipher quantum physics.
"No, Vincent," Orion said, his voice calm but firm, pointing at the parchment with the feather of his quill. "You cannot use 'Big Light' as the incantation description. It's *Lumos*. And the wand movement is a loop and flick, not a stab."
"But stabbing works," Crabbe grunted, gripping his wand like a dagger.
"Stabbing pokes someone in the eye. Magic requires finesse," Orion corrected, sketching the movement on a scrap piece of parchment. "Try again. Wrist loose."
"You're wasting your time, you know."
The voice was cool, cultured, and dripped with mild amusement.
Orion didn't look up immediately. He finished correcting Goyle's grip before turning to see the "Slytherin Intelligentsia" standing nearby. Blaise Zabini was leaning against a high-backed leather chair, looking effortlessly elegant. Daphne Greengrass stood beside him, arms crossed, her expression unreadable. Theodore Nott was hovering slightly behind them, clutching a book, while Tracey Davis peered around Daphne's shoulder with blatant curiosity.
"Am I?" Orion asked, setting down his quill.
"They're henchmen, Orion," Blaise drawled, gesturing lazily to Crabbe and Goyle, who were now glaring at their textbooks as if the paper had insulted their mothers. "They are designed for lifting heavy objects and looking menacing. You don't teach a troll to play chess. It's... beneath a Malfoy to play tutor to the help."
"That's what we're all wondering," Daphne added, her ice-blue eyes sharp. "You've been doing this all week. Helping them. Helping Millicent. Even helping Parkinson with her Astronomy chart. It's very... Hufflepuff of you."
"And in Slytherin," Theo Nott murmured softly, "altruism usually implies a hidden agenda. Or madness."
The conversation had attracted attention. While the older students didn't approach—fifth-year Prefects like Gemma Farley and Marcus Flint had better things to do than interrogate a first-year—the volume in the immediate area dropped. Heads turned. Flint, polishing his broomstick by the fire, paused and tilted his head, listening.
Orion looked at his peers. He saw the skepticism in their eyes. They thought he was soft. They thought he was wasting his capital.
"The agenda," Orion said smoothly, standing up, "is mathematics."
"Mathematics?" Tracey blinked. "I thought we dropped muggle subjects."
Orion walked over to the notice board where the daily tracking of the House Point hourglasses was posted. Currently, Slytherin was leading Ravenclaw by a meager ten points. Gryffindor was trailing in third.
"We want to win the House Cup," Orion stated, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet lull of the room. "We've won it six years in a row. It is our birthright. Correct?"
"Obviously," Draco piped up from a nearby sofa, where he had been recounting his 'victory' on the train to anyone who would listen. "And we'll win it again."
"Will we?" Orion turned, facing the group. His expression was serious, stripping away the charm to reveal the cold calculation underneath. "This year is different. This year, we have a variable we have not had before."
"Potter," Daphne whispered, understanding dawning in her eyes.
"Harry Potter," Orion confirmed. "The Boy Who Lived. Dumbledore's golden boy. He is in Gryffindor."
Orion began to pace slowly in front of the fire. He wasn't shouting, but he projected his voice just enough so that Flint and Farley, sitting ten feet away, could hear every word.
"Let us be realistic. Dumbledore plays favorites. We all know it. Gryffindor is his old house. Potter is his hero. Do you really think, even if we are ahead by fifty points in June, that the Headmaster won't find a reason to award Gryffindor sixty points at the last minute? 'For moral fiber'? 'For the shiniest shoes'? 'For breathing with exceptional bravery'?"
A ripple of dark amusement went through the room. Even Marcus Flint snorted, looking up from his broom. They all knew the bias existed. It was the bitter pill they swallowed every year.
"So," Orion continued, stopping to look Blaise in the eye. "Winning is not enough. A narrow victory is a defeat waiting to happen. If we want the Cup, we cannot just beat them. We have to bury them."
He held up three fingers.
"Three hundred points," Orion declared. "That is the margin. I want us to end the year three hundred points ahead of Gryffindor. I want the gap to be so insurmountable, so embarrassing, that even if Dumbledore throws points at Potter like confetti, it won't matter. I want the mathematics to be undeniable."
He gestured back to Crabbe and Goyle.
"That is why I help them. Not out of charity, Blaise. Out of necessity. If Vincent fails Charms, we lose points. If Gregory blows up a cauldron, we lose points. If Millicent gets detention for a bad essay, we lose points. Every point lost by the bottom of the class is a crack in our armor. Every detention is a leak in the ship."
Orion looked around the circle—at Daphne, at Theo, at Draco, and finally glancing toward the Prefects in the background.
"Snape told us to be a phalanx. A unit. That means we lift the bottom to secure the top. We ensure that *every* Slytherin, from the smartest to the dullest, is passing, is behaving, and is earning. We don't just win the Cup. We monopolize it."
The silence stretched for a moment.
Blaise Zabini looked at Crabbe and Goyle, then back to Orion. A slow, impressed smile spread across his face. "A weaponized study group. I stand corrected, Orion. It's not charity. It's logistics."
"Three hundred points," Daphne mused, a competitive glint entering her eyes. "It would be humiliating for them. I like it."
From the fireplace, Marcus Flint exchanged a look with Gemma Farley. The burly Quidditch captain nodded once, a sign of silent approval. A first-year with that kind of strategic foresight was rare.
"So," Orion sat back down, picking up his quill and tapping the parchment in front of Crabbe. "Unless you want Potter to steal our trophy with a smile and a handshake, I suggest we get to work. Vincent, pick up your wand. We are doing this until you get it right."
From across the room, Draco looked at his brother. For once, the jealousy was absent, replaced by something akin to awe.
"Achievement Progress: The Serpent's Tongue," Sparkle whispered. "You just radicalized a study group. Impressive."
"I just gave them a common enemy," Orion thought back. "Nothing unites people like the fear of a rigged system."
Friday morning brought the event everyone had been waiting for—and dreading.
Double Potions with Gryffindor.
The dungeons were colder than usual, the pickled animals floating in their jars seeming to watch the students as they filed in. The air smelled of sulfur, bitter roots, and fear.
Snape was already there, prowling the front of the classroom like a caged panther.
Orion took a seat in the front row, partnering with Draco. He set up his station with practiced efficiency: cauldron polished, brass scales calibrated, knife sharpened.
On the other side of the aisle, Harry Potter sat next to Ron Weasley. Harry looked nervous. Ron looked defiant.
Snape started the class with roll call, pausing, as expected, at Harry's name.
"Ah, yes," Snape purred softly. "Harry Potter. Our new—celebrity."
Then came the theatre of cruelty that everyone had been dreading.
Snape didn't just ask questions; he weaponized them. He prowled toward Harry's desk, his black robes billowing like smoke, his voice dropping to a silky, dangerous whisper that echoed off the damp stone walls.
"Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
The silence in the dungeon was suffocating. Harry looked blank, panic rising in his green eyes. Beside him, Hermione Granger's hand shot into the air with the hydraulic force of a piston, waving frantically, desperate to prove her worth.
Snape didn't even blink at her. His black eyes remained locked on Harry, boring into him with a mixture of loathing and something unreadable.
"Where, Potter, would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
Orion didn't look up. He didn't cringe. He kept his head bowed over his workspace, methodically polishing the inside of his pewter cauldron with a lint-free cloth. He knew the answers—any Slytherin worth their salt did—but he also knew the subtext. This wasn't an academic assessment; it was a personal exorcism of ghosts Orion had no business interrupting. To intervene would be to step between a man and his oldest grief.
Finally, after ensuring Harry was thoroughly humiliated, Snape dismissed the boy with a sneer and turned to the chalkboard, instructions for a Cure for Boils appearing in jagged white chalk.
Orion shifted gears instantly. The social observer vanished; the engineer took over.
He worked with a quiet, terrifying intensity. While other students were frantically flipping through pages or dropping ingredients, Orion moved with an economy of motion that bordered on mechanical. He weighed his dried nettles to the exact milligram. He crushed his snake fangs not with a pestle, but with the flat of his silver knife—a technique that released more of the binding enzymes—just as he had seen Snape do in private.
His potion began to simmer, releasing a perfect, consistent turquoise steam that spiraled straight up, undisturbed by unnecessary stirring.
Beside him, Draco was also working well, his hands deft from years of private tutoring. But his mind was elsewhere. Every few seconds, his grey eyes darted across the dungeon to the Gryffindor tables, a gleeful, cruel smirk twisting his lips.
"Look at them," Draco whispered, leaning in close to Orion and gesturing vaguely with his glass stirring rod. "Potter's potion is the consistency of cement. And Weasley looks like he's about to melt his boots. Pathetic."
"That may be true," Orion murmured, his voice low and devoid of humor. He didn't look up. He was currently counting the clockwise stirs, his focus absolute. "But the more pertinent question, Draco, is why you are fascinated by them?"
Draco blinked, his smirk faltering. "Because they're idiots, Orion. It's amusing."
"It is a waste of mental bandwidth," Orion corrected sharply, finally glancing sideways. His blue eyes were cold. "Your potion is simmering two degrees too hot because you were too busy gloating to adjust your flame. You are letting them live rent-free in your head."
He reached over and tapped Draco's burner, lowering the heat with a quick flick of his wand.
"They are worthless, Draco. Their failure is expected; it does not enhance your success. If you spend your time watching the bottom of the class, you belong there. Focus on your own cauldron, or you will be the one explaining to Snape why you've created a semi-sentient paste instead of a cure."
Draco's pale face flushed a deep pink. He opened his mouth to argue, saw the perfect turquoise sheen of Orion's potion compared to his own slightly bubbling concoction, and snapped his mouth shut. He turned back to his work with renewed, frantic focus.
Orion finished five minutes before the bell. He decanted a sample into a crystal phial, corked it, and labeled it in his sharp, angular handwriting: O. Malfoy.
He walked to the front of the room. The dungeon was chaotic—Seamus Finnigan had managed to set his table smoking, and Neville Longbottom was currently whimpering as boils erupted on his nose—but Orion moved through the mayhem like a ghost.
He placed the phial on Snape's desk.
Snape paused in his rounds. He picked up the phial, held it against the torchlight, inspecting the viscosity and the color. He looked at Orion. There was no smile, no praise, just a single, curt nod of acknowledgment.
That was all the validation Orion needed.
The bell rang, signaling the end of the ordeal. Orion packed his kit with practiced speed. He saw Draco lingering near the door, his mouth opening to hurl a parting insult at a soot-covered Harry and Ron.
Orion didn't wait for him. He slung his bag over his shoulder and walked straight out of the dungeon, his robes billowing slightly in his wake. He had no time for playground insults. He had an essay to outline, house points to calculate, and a war to win—one perfect potion at a time.