Anthony had to go down and catch this blatant night wanderer. "Miss Parkinson, what are you doing?"
Pansy looked impatient. She seemed unaware that "Anthony who took all Slytherin's points" held the power to punish her and said loudly, "I need to find Davis!"
Anthony said, "Hmm?"
"She did it on purpose!" Pansy shouted. "She... she deliberately didn't return to the dormitory to get back at me!"
Anthony completely missed the logic.
"That filthy half-breed! If she gets caught... if she loses points... those points will be my fault!" Pansy said. "She deliberately made me forget. Good thing Draco reminded me..."
The Muggle Studies professor who could still take points watched this foolish girl quietly. Meeting Anthony's gaze, Pansy seemed to suddenly notice she was also wandering at night and had just revealed another student outside the dormitory after curfew.
Her face instantly turned terrible.
"Professor... Professor Anthony..." she said nervously. The pug-like face showed human thought for the first time.
Anthony asked, "If I understand correctly, there's another student wandering outside?"
"No, no one, Professor," Pansy said firmly.
"Then why are you outside? I heard you say you were going to find someone?"
Pansy thought hard for a while and shook her head. "No, Professor. I'm wandering at night. Just me alone."
Anthony sighed. "One week's detention, Miss Parkinson. Details tomorrow. Too late now. Go back to your dormitory. Don't say those insulting things again, or I'll take points next time."
"Yes, Professor," Pansy said and ran back toward the dungeons with loud footsteps.
Anthony didn't remind her to walk quietly. If she got caught and lost points by someone else, that wasn't his business.
He returned to the Hospital Wing. Miss Davis still sat on the bed, head full of steam, books she'd brought stacked neatly on the bedside table. She stared at the air before her, deep in thought. Anthony knocked on the open door.
"Professor?" She looked at Anthony in the doorway, somewhat surprised.
Anthony got straight to the point. "I just encountered Miss Pansy Parkinson on the stairs. She wanted to go to the Astronomy Tower to find you."
Tracey pressed her lips together and said calmly, "Then she's unlucky." The small child gripped her hands tightly, upper body rigid, staring hard at Anthony.
"Did you take points?" After a while, she asked quietly.
Anthony shook his head. "Detention."
"Oh."
Anthony watched her for a moment and nodded. "Rest well, Miss Davis." He emphasized again, "If you need help, remember to find your Head of House."
Tracey laughed coldly through the white smoke, then nodded meekly. "Yes, Professor."
Pansy's stupidity amazed Anthony.
He encountered the girl again on his way back.
This time she remembered to hide her footsteps. She carried her shoes in her hands, walking barefoot carefully upward, vigilantly observing her surroundings—then met eyes with Anthony, who was watching her thoughtfully.
Pansy's face went deathly pale. She said, "Professor, I'm lost."
Anthony nodded. "I believe you, Miss Parkinson. Even though you only need to turn around for the correct direction."
Pansy insisted, "I'm really lost."
Anthony looked at her feet, blue with cold, and said helplessly, "Even when lost, wear shoes. If you're looking for that student on the Astronomy Tower, I've already seen her."
The Slytherin first-year before him gasped. Her eyes suddenly filled with resentment and malice.
"I didn't take points," Anthony said and looked at the sky outside the castle. "But you, Miss Parkinson, lose two points for wandering at night a second time. Go back now."
Pansy said through gritted teeth, "Fine." She roughly put on her shoes and ran back to the dungeons.
Anthony hoped he hadn't made a mistake. He truly didn't understand how Slytherin operated internally. He didn't know how Pansy would handle the points lost from wandering—exactly matching the points Tracey lost in Astronomy class.
But he would find out. After all, Pansy still had a week's detention with him.
When encountering Roger Davies in the library, Anthony specifically stopped him to chat about his sister. This student devoted to studying and Quidditch always believed his sister's life was completely normal—normal in Slytherin terms—completely unaware she'd matured beyond a twelve-year-old child.
"Even when we're home, she's always been rather solitary," Roger recalled. "But last Quidditch match, I had her bring water to our team. Slytherin didn't seem to react?"
His brow furrowed tighter and tighter, desperately recalling any evidence Tracey was bullied in Slytherin.
Sometimes unable to see her at the dining table—Roger assumed she was just studying. Ravenclaw had at least one student per dormitory who relied on roommates to remind them to eat.
She went to the Hospital Wing from time to time—Slytherin was always like that. Some from fighting, some from being beaten, some simply caught in the crossfire.
She always went to and from class alone—but she was half-blood, not valued by her father. This degree of isolation was mild by their house standards.
The "Slytherin conventions" Roger's words painted shocked Anthony. His deepest impression of Slytherin students was Malfoy breaking through ice then filling the hole with Galleons, followed by the Quidditch lunatic jumping off his broom.
He'd overlooked the many marginalized students outside the collective, who formed the main force of house points yet suffered so-called "punishment" for losing even a few points.
Slytherin had managed their house into a rigidly hierarchical, rotten society.
"She always tells me nothing's wrong," Roger said guiltily. "I should've paid more attention. Thank you, Professor."
Anthony shook his head silently.
His office would soon welcome its first detention student. Anthony specifically consulted colleagues and learned most detention content was just having students assist professors, doing work nobody wanted to do as punishment.
But his intention was to solve problems.
He decided to have a good talk with Pansy Parkinson first. Judging by her expression after losing points for wandering, simply "talking" with Anthony would probably be torture for her. But Anthony wouldn't miss this opportunity.
He'd never deeply chatted with a Slytherin student. His students all came from other houses. Everyone hated Slytherin, just to varying degrees.
"Slytherin are like cockroaches," a student had once said bluntly during break. "They hide underground, but they're everywhere. Some people fear them, some hate them, some don't really mind."
Anthony understood neither cockroaches nor Slytherin. He needed information to understand what was happening. In fact, he didn't even understand why Slytherin cared so much about house points—they only concerned a trophy.
Many of his students acted like they didn't care about points at all. Losing points to them was just "bad luck today." But apparently in Slytherin it meant "I'm a sinner."
Anthony wanted to know why.
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