Blake POV
We were leaving the Great Hall together after the duels, the echoes of cheers and lingering tension still clinging to the corridors like static. Badeea walked on my left, Tulip on my right, both of them still buzzing with thoughts that refused to settle.
"It would be good to have somewhere to practice spells properly," Badeea said, tucking a curl behind her ear as we descended the stairs. "Theory only takes you so far. At some point, your magic has to obey you—not the book."
Tulip nodded enthusiastically. "Especially for Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall makes it look effortless, but when I try—"
She stopped herself, shooting me a glare.
I laughed. "—you turn a matchstick into a rubber band instead of a needle?"
"That was one time," Tulip shot back, pouting as she folded her arms. "One. Time."
"Mm-hmm," I hummed, entirely unconvinced. "Still, the training place really is amazing. I was mesmerized the first time I saw it. You don't just practice there—you feel the magic."
Badeea tilted her head, studying me. "You train with Slytherin, don't you?"
"Yes," I replied easily. "Where do you think I go every night before curfew?"
That earned me a look—half amused, half knowing.
"Figures," a voice drawled from behind us. "Half Slytherin anyway. Pretending to be friendly toward muggleborns like the last Black. No matter where you go, you're still a Slytherin."
I stopped.
So did the air around me.
The speaker was a Ravenclaw fifth year—tall, sharp-eyed, wearing that particular brand of smug intelligence that believed itself morally superior simply because it could quote books faster than others. I didn't recognize his name, but I recognized the type.
My hand moved on instinct, fingers brushing my wand.
Tulip grabbed my wrist instantly. Badeea stepped half a pace forward, blocking my line of sight.
"Blake," Tulip said quietly. "Don't."
I clenched my jaw.
First years had been easy. Curious. Open. Willing to judge people by what they did rather than where they sat. Seniors were different. They came preloaded with assumptions, politics, and grudges inherited rather than earned.
The Ravenclaw smirked, clearly pleased he'd struck a nerve.
I forced my hand to relax.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
I turned back to face him, not drawing my wand, not raising my voice.
"Funny," I said coolly, "how Ravenclaw prides itself on intelligence, yet still mistakes prejudice for insight."
His smile faltered, just slightly.
"And for the record," I continued, meeting his gaze head-on, "training hard, valuing skill, and refusing to look down on people for how they were born isn't 'pretending.' It's called thinking for yourself."
There was a beat of silence.
Then Badeea tugged gently at my sleeve. "Come on," she murmured. "Not worth it."
She was right.
I turned away without waiting for a response and resumed walking, my pulse still sharp but controlled. Tulip let go of my wrist only once we'd put some distance between us and the fifth year.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yes," I said after a moment. "Just… reminded."
"Of what?" Badeea asked.
I glanced ahead, toward the dungeons, toward a certain silver-and-green common room that half the castle loved to hate.
"That no matter how much the world changes," I said softly, "some people would rather cling to labels than learn."
We walked on in silence after that.
As we walked, memories from my first two weeks at Hogwarts surfaced—unwanted, uninvited, but persistent.
I had managed to get along well enough with the other first years. That part had come easily. Curiosity bridged gaps faster than bloodlines ever could, and at eleven, most of us were still more interested in spells and secrets than in family histories.
The seniors were different.
From the very first day, the insults had started—not to my face, never openly, but whispered just loudly enough to be heard. Always in groups. Always when they thought themselves clever.
The most common comparison was my uncle.
Sirius Black.
A Gryffindor.
A traitor.
A name they spat like it proved something about me.
At first, I ignored it. I told myself it wasn't worth responding to people who couldn't even confront me directly. Silence, I thought, would bore them.
It didn't.
Instead, the hostility changed shape.
The senior-led review sessions—those informal gatherings Professor Flitwick encouraged, where older Ravenclaws helped younger ones revise Charms—quietly stopped including me. No announcement. No confrontation. I simply stopped being told when and where they were happening.
Badeea and Tulip noticed before I did.
They still came back after each session with notes, carefully written explanations, even small corrections they thought might help me. They were warned for it. Not officially, of course—just a few pointed comments, a few raised brows, a few remarks about priorities and associations.
They didn't leave my side.
So the seniors stopped inviting them too.
That was when it truly sank in.
Before coming to Hogwarts, if anyone had asked me which house was the most divided, the hardest to get along with, I would have answered without hesitation—Slytherin. The reputation was infamous, after all.
Now, sitting in Ravenclaw, living it day after day, I realized how wrong I'd been.
Ravenclaw didn't reject you loudly.
They didn't threaten or curse.
They judged.
Quietly.
Relentlessly.
Anyone who didn't fit their narrow idea of what a Ravenclaw should be—anyone whose curiosity didn't align perfectly with their expectations, whose background complicated their assumptions—was slowly pushed aside.
Not expelled.
Not confronted.
Just… erased.
And for the first time since arriving at Hogwarts, I understood something with uncomfortable clarity.
Ravenclaw wasn't the most united house.
It was the most prejudiced—because it believed itself above such things.
As we approached the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room, the familiar bronze eagle knocker stirred to life, its voice calm and sharp as ever.
"I divide those who stand together and weaken those who are strong.I am born of fear and fed by ignorance.I treat equals as strangers based on a coat they did not choose.What am I?"
For a brief moment, no one spoke.
Then the answer came—from behind me.
"Discrimination," said the same fifth year who had called me half-Slytherin only moments ago. His tone carried a hint of pride, as though he'd solved something clever.
The knocker clicked in approval, the door swinging open smoothly.
The irony hung there—quiet, sharp, undeniable.
A perfect answer delivered by someone who embodied it completely, standing at the threshold of a house that prided itself on wisdom.
I stepped inside without a word, wondering how many Ravenclaws walked past truths every day simply because recognizing them would require looking inward.
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