Carlotta watched the three Gryffindors greet Leo warmly, then stepped forward and waved.
"Hello. I'm Carlotta Peregrine."
As she spoke, she patted Leo on the shoulder, then turned toward Hermione with a smile that looked far too pleased with itself.
"Not Leo's childhood sweetheart, I promise. I know you, Miss Hermione Granger, so don't worry."
Then she looked back at Leo with an expression that clearly said, See how considerate I am?
Hermione froze.
"Um… I'm not worried?" she said blankly. "I'm just Leo's friend."
She seemed completely confused for a moment, as though she had been dropped into the middle of a conversation from another book. Still, she quickly recovered her manners and nodded politely.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Carlotta Peregrine."
Draco, Harry, and Ron stood nearby with equally strange expressions.
Had they missed a chapter?
Or several hundred?
"All right, Carlotta, stop messing around," Leo said.
He interrupted before her imagination could run any further, then introduced her properly.
"Carlotta is someone I knew from school before. I only found out last night that she's also a witch."
After hearing Leo's explanation, Ron relaxed and introduced himself with a shy wave.
"Hello. I'm Ron Weasley, Leo's friend. Nice to meet you."
"Hello, I'm Harry—"
"You don't need to say it," Carlotta interrupted. "Oh, I mean I know you."
She studied the boy with messy hair and round glasses, which were similar to Leo's except for the frame colour.
"You're the saviour boy who survived Voldemort's attack and killed him instead. Harry Potter."
Harry swallowed.
"It… should be me, right?"
His small wave became slightly stiff.
Ron immediately looked horrified.
"Carlotta, can I call you that?" he asked carefully. "You can't say… his name. They say he can sense it and curse you."
After speaking, Ron looked around nervously and rubbed his arms.
Hermione and Draco both nodded, also visibly uneasy.
"Please, Voldemort—"
The moment Carlotta began saying the name again, all three tried to stop her at once.
She sighed and changed course.
"Fine. If that Void—if the mysterious man really had that kind of power, the magical world would've been wiped out ages ago."
Carlotta clearly thought the whole taboo was just a foolish rumour. Her family didn't believe it, and neither did she.
"I think Carlotta is right," Leo said.
If Voldemort had truly been powerful enough to curse anyone anywhere just for speaking his name, he would already have conquered the wizarding world. In fact, he probably wouldn't even need to care about the wizarding world at all.
That kind of power belonged to gods or unspeakable beings, not a failed dark wizard stuck haunting the back of someone's head.
Harry agreed completely in his heart. Voldemort had murdered his parents, after all.
Still, out of consideration for Ron, he accepted using "You-Know-Who" for now.
"So," Hermione said, wisely changing the subject, "what was your first lesson today?"
"Oh, ours was Herbology," Carlotta said immediately. "Hermione, let me tell you…"
Carlotta seemed to possess the same social energy as Hermione, and soon the two girls began chatting enthusiastically.
Leo checked his pocket watch.
"It's nearly lunchtime. Let's go."
The group walked toward the Great Hall together. Hermione talked. Carlotta talked.
The two of them talking at the same time somehow made perfect sense.
"Draco, what's wrong?"
Leo glanced at Hermione and Carlotta walking ahead, then at Ron and Harry whispering on the other side. Draco had been unusually quiet since the conversation began.
"It's nothing," Draco said.
He looked at the four students ahead, then at himself and Leo. After hesitating, he finally spoke.
"Leo, we're Slytherins. Ron and the others are Gryffindors. I don't think we should associate with them too much."
On the Hogwarts Express, before the Sorting, everyone could still talk freely. But after last night, things had changed.
Slytherin and Gryffindor had always been opposed. Slytherins looked down on Gryffindor recklessness, while Gryffindors disliked Slytherin arrogance and blood prejudice.
Draco felt he should no longer get too close to them.
Leo stopped and turned toward him.
"Draco, they're my friends. They're also our classmates."
Draco looked at him quietly.
"You are my friend," Leo continued. "Hermione, Ron, and Harry are also my friends. But a friend's friend doesn't have to become your friend. If you force yourself because of me, Draco Malfoy, I'll feel pressured."
Before Draco could fully respond, Leo turned and entered the bustling Great Hall.
In truth, Leo understood Draco better than Draco realized.
Whether it was the future Draco who had been pushed down a path he couldn't escape, or the current Draco who was simply spoiled, lonely, and lacking real friends, both were still Draco Malfoy.
He had met someone he wanted to be friends with but didn't know how to handle it, so he clumsily tried to please them. That was not the true arrogant little dragon Leo knew.
As long as Draco didn't go astray, whether he became friends with Harry and the others didn't matter. Only genuine friendship had meaning.
Anything forced would only become exhausting.
When Leo entered the Great Hall, he saw Hermione, Carlotta, Harry, and Ron already eating lunch at the table.
For some reason, he felt as if he were surrounded by children with psychological issues.
Then he remembered that they were all truly around eleven years old.
The age even dogs avoided.
Leo sighed, feeling as though his breath alone had contributed to global warming.
Forget it.
Every time he said he wouldn't interfere, he seemed to end up doing the opposite. At this rate, he sounded more like a child psychologist than a student.
One step at a time.
He deliberately sat two seats away from the chattering group.
"Leo, I understand," Draco said as he sat opposite him. "I'm hungry, so I'll eat first."
His expression suggested that he had figured things out, though there was still confusion in his eyes.
"Mm."
Leo gave a soft response, then looked down at the cheese sandwich on his plate. He began seriously considering whether he should visit the kitchens and ask the house-elves to prepare proper home-style food.
A while later, Hermione was practising that day's Transfiguration spell on a matchstick while Carlotta watched with curiosity. Ron and Harry were whispering again, and Draco was eating lunch absent-mindedly.
"I'm going now. See you tonight."
Leo left without waiting for anyone's reaction.
He headed toward the kitchens, declaring only that he didn't like today's lunch.
Half an hour later, after attempting to teach the house-elves how to make beef stew with potatoes, Leo returned to the Slytherin common room with the face of a defeated man.
Why defeated?
Because he had first tried teaching them how to make flatbread, and they turned it into something suspiciously close to pizza. Then he tried steamed buns, and they stuffed random fillings inside them. Finally, beef stew with potatoes suffered because there was no star anise or the proper spices.
At best, they produced a semi-finished version using pepper and substitutions.
Leo had no choice but to ask whether they could go to Chinatown and buy proper spices.
Still thinking about the failed beef stew, he entered Dongtian.
"Hey, Nicholas! Caw! Why are you back so early?"
Hei Si flew over the moment Leo appeared at the manor gate.
"Don't talk. Later."
Leo hurried toward the open space outside the manor.
Suddenly, his black wizard robes began to flutter. Then his entire body slowly rose into the air.
"Caw! Leo can fly!"
Hei Si circled him excitedly.
"Wonderful! Nicholas can fly now!"
"Yes, Hei Si," Leo said, floating like a small Superman. "I succeeded."
Strictly speaking, he wasn't truly flying.
When he saw Hermione practising magic in the Great Hall, he had suddenly remembered a certain doctor's flying cloak. He wasn't yet skilled enough in alchemical magic to create a real Cloak of Levitation, but he could already cast the Levitation Charm silently and wandlessly.
The Levitation Charm could not make a living person fly.
But clothes and shoes were not living things.
The important part was figuring out which parts of his clothing to make float and how much force to use. His first attempt had worked, but his clothes had pulled too tightly against his body, making the experience uncomfortable.
So Leo began testing.
He selectively levitated different parts of his outfit: shoes, shoulders of his robes, wrists, even his belt. The belt worked well in theory, but it pulled too unpleasantly in practice, so he abandoned that idea quickly.
Half an hour later, Leo landed, exhausted but satisfied.
"I'm tired, but this feels great. I burned through most of my energy."
After several tests, he had found a few usable control points: his shoes, the shoulders of his wizard robes, and his wrists. They weren't perfect, but with practice, this method might allow short-distance aerial movement.
Leo checked the time.
It was already around two in the afternoon. He still had about an hour before afternoon classes, enough time to rest.
He went into the manor washroom, quickly showered, then prepared to leave Dongtian. Before returning, he told Hei Si to check whether anyone was in the dormitory and whether Draco had returned.
After Hei Si found nothing wrong, the blanket on Leo's bed in the Slytherin dormitory slowly rose, forming the shape of a person.
Leo pulled the covers aside and stuck his head out.
Soft light filtered through the room, reflected by the lamps on the stone walls. A strange feeling entered his mind through his vision, and drowsiness washed over him.
Still, he set an alarm before letting himself relax.
Soon, he drifted into sleep beneath the comfortable dim light.
As Leo sank deeper into sleep, a faint wisp of wind stirred around the bed curtains. One or two of the curtains began slowly circling him.
Then Dongtian, hanging from his neck, twisted and flashed.
A raven flew out.
Hei Si landed at the foot of Draco's bed and fixed its eyes on Leo. It sensed the powerful, mysterious force hidden in the faint breeze around him, and for one fleeting moment, greed flashed through its eyes.
"Caw."
The raven spread its wings and swooped toward Leo.
Just as it was about to reach him, silver light flashed from Leo's neck.
Hei Si vanished into the light.
At that exact moment, a white figure suddenly appeared in Leo's bedroom.
....
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