Travers continued to vent his venom as he and Rozier hobbled across the grounds. Every step was an agony of stiff, aching muscles and icy limbs. "I will teach that half-blood bastard a lesson he won't soon forget! To ambush us like that, like some common street thug! He'll regret stepping across a Travers."
Rozier, his entire being still vibrating with fear and the lingering, synthetic calm of the Potion, could only offer strained, weak assent, his inner loathing for Travers now battling his sheer terror of Anduin.
Before they could even reach the warmth of the Slytherin Common Room, their luck evaporated. Rounding a cold stone corridor, they collided almost directly with Professor Slughorn. The Head of Slytherin, noting their miserable, pale, and shivering state, and the alarming pallor of Travers's face, immediately diagnosed them with a severe chill and possible magical exhaustion.
Instead of allowing them to rest, he dragged them, grumbling and protesting, straight to the School Infirmary. This involuntary stay, which lasted nearly a full week, was ironically the only thing that saved Travers from further immediate retaliation, as his confinement gave Anduin an unexpected window of peace.
Meanwhile, the Quidditch match—the absurd spectacle that had triggered the entire confrontation—was still lumbering toward its inevitable conclusion. The score had barely shifted, standing at 290-410 in Gryffindor's favour.
The mathematical calculation remained fixed: Slytherin needed the Golden Snitch's 150 points to seize a razor-thin victory at 440 points. But both teams were utterly broken, fueled only by the grim necessity of pride.
The stadium was a desolate ruin; fully 80-90% of the audience had long since abandoned the cold, the absurdity, and the sheer length of the conflict. Those who remained were hardcore loyalists or morbid spectators waiting for the inevitable crack-up.
Slytherin's Seeker, Viren Higgs, was now so completely exhausted that he had ceased flying and was simply sitting, cross-legged and shivering, on his broom thirty feet above the ground, refusing to move.
Professor McGonagall and Madam Hooch, utterly exasperated, tried to convene a meeting at the center of the pitch to negotiate a settlement, perhaps postponing the rest of the game.
But the Slytherin Captain, fueled by the knowledge that losing the Snitch meant losing the match, defiantly refused, trapping everyone—the remaining crowd, the players, and the officials—in a state of frigid, endless purgatory. McGonagall and Hooch could only watch, their faces frozen with a mixture of helplessness and official responsibility.
None of this drawn-out suffering had touched Anduin. He had enjoyed a massive, quiet supper and was now comfortably seated in his room, meticulously reading the latest edition of The Century of Charms, occasionally giving the forgotten match a passing thought.
"So, the Slytherin Seeker, who was essentially flying like a piece of minced chicken the last time I checked, somehow managed to catch the Golden Snitch, and Slytherin actually won?"
The next day at breakfast, Vivian eagerly recounted the legendary conclusion of the previous night's match.
"Yes! You simply wouldn't believe it," Vivian declared, taking a large bite of toast. "The match lasted so late into the night that every single player was too exhausted to even properly hold their broom anymore. They were barely hovering! But then, the Golden Snitch, as if guided by some cruel fate, just suddenly darted straight toward Viren Higgs, and he just reached out and caught it without moving an inch. Just absolute, pure luck! We won 440 to 410!"
Vivian hadn't actually witnessed the moment—she, like most, had fled when the darkness and cold became unbearable—but she had pieced the story together from the rapturous accounts in the Common Room that morning.
Anduin, who maintained a rigorous, solitary schedule, was already dressed and at the Hall, having completed his morning exercise long before any other students stirred. He saw the movement near the Slytherin table as a sudden, loud cheer erupted. Viren Higgs, the unlikely hero of the night, had just entered the Great Hall.
Anduin casually observed the Seeker. Higgs was a stout, third-year student with close-cropped black hair. He was returning every greeting with a polite, almost bewildered grin. When Higgs noticed Anduin's contemplative gaze, he simply smiled and offered a friendly nod, which Anduin returned with a slight inclination of his head.
Clearly, not everyone in this House is defined by venom or pureblood spite, Anduin mused. His time in Slytherin had given him a deeper understanding of its true, foundational ideology. He knew the traits valued by the founder, Salazar Slytherin, were primarily ambition, cunning, guile, leadership, and a profound instinct for self-preservation.
But most importantly, Anduin recalled reading a historical treatise that emphasized the founder's valuation of "a certain, strategic contempt for the law," viewing rules as obstacles to be overcome by superior intellect and willpower.
Anduin inwardly acknowledged that he fit Slytherin's original standards perfectly. His drive for power, his resourcefulness in setting up the potion business, and his recent ruthless negotiation with Rozier all aligned with the House's core principles.
This intellectual kinship meant he had little resentment about his Sorting; his only true irritations were the petty, unimaginative pureblood supremacists who only understood malice, not strategy.
Time continued its relentless flow, bringing the first term to its conclusion. Anduin had immersed himself entirely in his studies. He had successfully achieved a rudimentary beginner's level proficiency in nearly all the first-year curriculum's basic spells.
However, several complex, high-level charms remained frustratingly out of reach: the Iron-Clad Charm (a complex shielding spell), the protective Patronus Charm (which required a powerful, unshakeable memory of pure happiness), the intricate Ghost Charm (for temporary invisibility), the advanced Warp Charm (a localized spatial displacement spell), and the high-level mental defenses of Occlumency and Legilimency (Thought-Leeching).
He had rigorously attempted the Iron-Clad Charm and the Warp Charm, dedicating hours to the movements and incantations. Yet, the results were consistently inadequate: the shield sputtered and died, and the warp effect merely caused a brief, localized vibration in the air.
He was certain his pronunciation was flawless, but he simply couldn't muster the necessary control or raw magical force required to meet the high standards of these spells.
The rest of the advanced curriculum and my current objectives can wait until the New Year, Anduin decided, setting his textbook aside. I need a change of pace, a shift in environment. Rozier is currently confined and likely bored stiff; the immediate intelligence stream has dried up. I will leave the resolution of the Wilkes information to fate—or perhaps a letter to Sirius. He had planned to go out and meet Hagrid for a relaxed afternoon.
He rose to leave his room, emerging into the Common Room.
Anduin's timing, as always, was impeccable. Standing directly in the crowded Common Room, signing a parchment held by Dean Slughorn, was Sampur Travers.
Travers, pale but recovered from his stint in the hospital wing, noticed Anduin emerge, and his eyes instantly narrowed to furious slits. His fury was twofold: the lingering physical pain, and the sudden, baffling realization that his purse was entirely missing, a humiliation he dared not admit publicly.
However, Travers couldn't act. He was cornered by the genial, portly presence of Slughorn, who was cheerfully recording the names of students planning to stay on campus for the Christmas holidays.
Anduin, having already made his own plans to meet Sirius, James, and Lily off-campus, offered Slughorn a polite, practiced smile. He exchanged a few complimentary remarks about the quality of the recent Potion assignment, signed the list indicating his departure, and slipped out of the Hall, leaving Travers to silently boil in his corner—a strategic victory for Anduin without even having to draw a wand.
Stepping out of the stone entrance of the castle and into the Clock Square, Anduin paused. The air was still, cold, and quiet, save for the gentle, almost soundless descent of the first proper snowfall of the season. The ground was already covered in a delicate, fine white carpet, transforming the oppressive grey grounds into a landscape of pristine, silvery beauty.
"It's snowing," Anduin murmured, unable to suppress a small, genuine smile at the peaceful sight. The world felt clean, reset.
"Yes, it is snowing," a soft, melodious female voice replied from his side.
Anduin turned. Leaning against a column, bundled in a thick, navy-blue scarf, was a girl he recognized from his very first few hours at Hogwarts—the intelligent-looking student who had been Sorted into Ravenclaw.
"Orianna," Anduin said, recalling her name after a brief, internal search. "Is that truly you? I rarely see you outside the library."
Orianna chuckled, a small plume of warm breath dissipating quickly in the cold air. "It is rare for a Slytherin ghost to remember my name, Anduin. I am flattered." She winked playfully.
Anduin frowned, genuinely perplexed by the bizarre epithet. "Slytherin's ghost? Are you referring to me? Or are you perhaps confusing me with some other resident spirit, like the Bloody Mound?"
Orianna laughed again, shaking her head. "No, no. That is the nickname the first-years have given you. Even though we aren't sorted together, the houses generally share classes and the Great Hall. But many students haven't seen you outside of classes—or rather, outside of the Great Hall—for well over a month or two. There's genuine confusion among some of the younger ones as to whether you actually exist, or if you're just some kind of mythological creature haunting the Common Room."
She pulled the scarf higher over her chin. "They say you're not actually a human student, but a silent spirit—a highly ambitious specter. Hence, 'The Slytherin Ghost.' Isn't the ingenuity of children simply magnificent?"
"I am not human," Anduin repeated, a slow, thoughtful realization dawning on him. This was the second time a person had spontaneously applied an unusual descriptor to him. He was taken aback, not by the insult, but by the fact that his chosen lifestyle of intense seclusion had been so effective that his very existence was being debated by his peers.
He had withdrawn so completely into his own routines that he had successfully faded into the background noise of the school—a ghost in his own house. It was, in its own strange way, a profound compliment to his focus.
"It seems my dedication to my studies has been... overly successful," Anduin conceded with a genuine, rare flicker of amusement. "A ghost, indeed. Tell me, Orianna, what brings the famed Ravenclaw to the cold air of the square? Are you perhaps also fleeing the chaos of the castle, or simply admiring the snow?"