indianbanksassociation Chapter 173, Section 172: The Sorting of Schools and the Unexpected Changes!
Chapter 173, Section 172: The Sorting of Schools and the Unexpected Changes!
Chapter 173, Section 172: The Sorting of Schools and the Unexpected Changes!
An unexpected turn of events.
It left Draco Malfoy feeling bewildered, as if his brain's CPU had been burned out.
His two henchmen were both faster than him.
"This has nothing to do with us! We don't know Draco!"
"Yeah, yeah, we didn't say a word after we came in. It's all Draco's fault for causing trouble!" Goyle and Crabbe demonstrated what a fake friendship really is.
"No! I didn't!"
Draco Malfoy instinctively wanted to retort, but his gaze met Ian's eyes, the same color as the Killing Curse, and he felt as if an invisible hand was gripping his throat. This was Ian Prince—the terrifying Dark Lord his father disdained, yet whom all the Slytherin students trembled at the mere mention of his name!
That's really scary!
Draco Malfoy felt his calves trembling.
He didn't even dare mention his glorious family, because based on the information he received from relatives and friends,
The family's honor couldn't save him even a little bit.
"Relax a bit, junior."
Ian saw Draco Malfoy's Adam's apple bobbing up and down.
He chuckled softly.
The three freshmen who were destined to join Slytherin House looked even paler.
Are we going to die?
Gore and Crabbe were almost in tears.
Draco Malfoy's performance wasn't much better.
"It's Daphne! It's all Daphne who's smearing you! Really! I've always respected you! I even call you Mr. Prince, who's greater than great, in private!" As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together, and he betrayed his family's "loyal" friends just as quickly as Gao Er and Crabbe.
of course.
What makes this little dragon man better than Goyle and Crabbe is that when he shifts the blame, he also knows how to add a few words of flattery. He remembers that many house-elves call the Hogwarts Dark Lord in the same way.
"Daphne continues to perform consistently well."
Ian's expression was not surprised.
And then he opened his mouth to judge.
Draco Malfoy immediately began trying to divert Ian's "hatred".
"She has a diary! It's filled with bad things about you! That diary even makes up its own despicable lies! Even the one I found in my house—well, anyway, it's all her fault!"
Draco Malfoy displayed his talent for tattling, but he abruptly stopped halfway through his sentence, as if realizing he shouldn't be talking about things that even his parents couldn't know.
After seeing Daphne's magical diary, Draco Malfoy also wanted something similar.
After searching through all the shops to no avail, he had a strange encounter in his own house.
"I have no interest in listening to you two tearing each other apart, Mr. Malfoy. Could you please apologize to me and my friend?" Ian's wand was already pressed against Draco Malfoy's chin.
What else could he choose? Of course, he could only choose to follow his heart. After Draco Malfoy's "deep reflection," Ian did not choose to continue to make things difficult for his junior. He simply gave him a small punishment to satisfy his own mischievous pleasure before releasing the Slytherin trio from the box.
"See? That's the benefit of being good at magic. It allows others to reason with you properly." Ian shook his wand and sat back down in his seat.
"Magic is power."
Ririm offered his comments.
"That's so satisfying! They were acting so strangely just now! It reminds me of my cousin!" Harry Potter exclaimed excitedly with a smug expression.
"What kind of magic did you just use?"
Hermione's focus is quite different from others.
"Would you like to learn?"
Ian raised an eyebrow.
Seeing the little witch nod with anticipation on her face.
"The professors at school will teach you."
His answer did indeed fall short of Hermione's expectations—and the atmosphere became harmonious again.
The train sped along, finally reaching its destination as darkness fell.
One after another, people crowded off the train.
Amidst the cheers and applause, people cheered.
Ian finally saw the red-haired, freckled boy—Ron Weasley, the boy the twins had claimed to have survived "hundreds" of times in their hands.
The youngest brother of the Weasley family, it seems, ended up in a box with Neville Longbottom, and the two of them searched for him in the carriage for almost several hours.
not only that.
There were also some unexpected little incidents.
"That damned Spotted! It bit your toad! It even bit your ankle! I'm going to write to my mother and get her permission to euthanize that stinky rat!"
Ron helped Neville carry a small bag, looking apologetic.
"N-nothing—"
Neville was holding his traveling toad in his arms, and he was limping as if he had injured his ankle.
"Do you need help?"
As Ian passed Neville, he pulled out a bottle of potion and handed it to him—who says Neville isn't brave enough? This guy's ankle veins were bitten through, yet he still insisted on walking, as if afraid the bleeding wouldn't be enough!
"Thank you, thank you, Ian."
Neville was a simple-minded chubby boy. After receiving the potion, he didn't ask about its effects or even worry about being pranked. He simply opened the lid and sprinkled it on his ankle.
"Um... I think this is an oral liquid."
Ian corrected Neville's misuse.
The chubby boy's face immediately turned bright red. He quickly stopped what he was doing and put the potion in his mouth. After drinking it, he even tried to collect the spilled potion from the ground.
"You've already drunk enough."
Ian quickly stopped Neville's thrifty behavior.
"It's all my fault for wasting so many precious potions—" Neville noticed that his ankle was visibly healing, and he realized that the potions Ian had given him were definitely not ordinary.
"It's not that precious."
Ian was telling the truth.
After all, the main ingredient in this potion is the bathwater from the black-robed skeleton.
"This is amazing! Look! Your foot is completely fine now!" Ron seemed a little slow to realize, just like his twin brother, and was quite surprised.
"I can finally walk again."
Neville was also delighted.
And at that very moment.
"I think what you need to worry about isn't whether you can walk or not. As far as I know, rats have been a source of plague since ancient times. They may carry Yersinia pestis, Hantavirus, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, and rabies virus," Hermione, who had followed behind, immediately began to explain.
Her words instantly turned Neville's flushed face pale.
"Spotty is a domesticated rat—not as dirty as you say!" Ron immediately retorted, finding the girl he was meeting for the first time rather annoying.
"Ha, how can you guarantee that? It's a rat! I happen to know of several cases where the spread of viruses has been linked to domestic rats."
"Take, for example, that poor sixteen-year-old girl on Fried Street in London—" Hermione accurately recounted five or six cases with her exceptional memory and knowledge.
Her voice grew louder and louder.
Correspondingly, Neville's face grew even paler.
"I'm going to die too!"
He came to a conclusion that filled him with despair.
"Don't worry, the cases Hermione mentioned are all low-probability events. Most people won't be that unlucky—and in my opinion, the probability of you getting AIDS is greater than the probability of you getting the plague—" Ian was extremely helpless. He glanced at Ron, who was also pale and wanted to throw the sleeping mouse out.
"Anyway, as long as there is a possibility, we cannot completely rule it out."
Hermione wanted to recommend Neville get vaccinated.
"So, am I still going to die?"
Neville, however, was still preoccupied with the idea of a complete funeral service.
Ian glanced at Hermione again. He felt that Hermione at this moment was like a real-life version of Baidu, while Neville was like one of those poor netizens who started to have a nervous breakdown after consulting Baidu.
"There is a school doctor at the school, you can go and ask the school doctor for his opinion." Rirem and Harry, who were walking at the back, caught up at this time.
"Oh my god! You're Harry Potter!"
under night.
Ron saw Harry.
He immediately let out an incredulous exclamation.
Who knows how he has such sharp eyesight?
"What?! It's Harry Potter!"
Neville was also very surprised. Harry Potter, who had briefly put aside his "internal injury" and was now receiving the savior treatment again, was a little at a loss in the face of the two enthusiastic people.
He wasn't used to this kind of exciting, satisfying plot.
Fortunately, our savior has arrived.
"Students! Come this way!"
Hagrid's booming voice rang out outside the train station. He waved a lantern above his head and began to gather the young wizards getting on and off the Hogwarts Express.
He led everyone onto a long road lit by streetlights.
There was still some distance to Hogwarts, so at least a hundred carriages were waiting at the end of the streetlights, each pulled by a magical creature that was invisible to ordinary people.
"Do these horseless carriages move automatically?" Hermione happened to be one of the ordinary people who couldn't see them.
Her exclamation immediately puzzled Harry Potter.
"Isn't there a strange animal up ahead?"
In his eyes.
The appearance of the magical creatures is incredibly clear.
"what?"
Hermione was immediately stunned.
"It is Thestral."
Ririm stepped forward and provided an answer.
"Only those who have seen death can see them." His gaze was also drawn to those strange creatures, with a purebred Thestral positioned in front of each carriage.
They have no flesh on their bodies, and their black fur clings tightly to their skeletons, with every bone clearly visible, exuding true skeletal beauty.
"By Merlin! It's a Thestrals!" Ron couldn't see anything, but that didn't stop him from widening his eyes and eagerly wanting to go up and try to touch these legendary creatures.
The little wizard was also eager to try.
But what he wanted was not just to touch these animals that symbolized death.
"Thestral tail feathers are excellent material for making wands. I really want to take ten or eight bundles back and study wand making intensively." Ian could, of course, also see these magical creatures.
Thestrals have heads like dragons, and their pupil-less eyes are filled with pure white. They stare unblinkingly ahead, and they have bat-like wings on their shoulder bones.
It was as if it sensed the "offensive" thoughts in the little wizard's heart.
The Thestrals all turned their heads.
He looked at Ian, who was still pondering what kind of wood would be best to match the Thestral's tail feathers.
"Fainting"
The Thestrals emitted strange and shrill sounds, resembling the calls of giant birds, and were very synchronized. The sudden commotion startled many of the young wizards.
"Strange, what's wrong with these usually taciturn guys today?!" Hagrid, who was guiding the young wizards onto the vehicle, immediately tried to calm the Thestrals down.
"Perhaps it is a form of audience."
Ririm had already arrived beside Hagrid, slipped into the carriage from which the passengers had already fled in a panic, and waved to Ian and the others with a smile.
"How come you're more skilled than me, your senior!" Ian complained as he climbed into the carriage and pulled Harry and Hermione onto the Thestrals.
Neville and Ron also wanted to climb in.
"For safety reasons, only four people can sit in one car, and you have other entrance experiences to complete." Hagrid stopped the two of them and pulled Harry and Hermione down.
Harry and Hermione, who were already seated, looked completely speechless.
The rest of the journey was familiar to Ian.
The Thestrals took them to the path outside Hogwarts Castle, where the first-year students crossed the river by boat, while professors were already waiting at the castle gates.
"It's you again this year, Professor Snape."
Hagrid saw the same figure he had seen once before last year.
"Oh."
Snape just gave a cold laugh.
Under the torchlight.
His gaze fell on Ian and the two people beside him.
Harry and Hermione were filled with unknown fear and tension about the wizarding world, so after disembarking, they immediately went to find Ian's side, led by Harry.
"This professor will take you to the Great Hall, while we upperclassmen will go back to our dorms to rest first," Ian explained the enrollment process to Harry and Hermione.
Before he could even begin the school's usual rituals of "Sorting," Snape was already standing in front of him. The professor's gloomy expression made Harry and Hermione very nervous.
"I heard you didn't have a moment's peace during your vacation."
Snape first glared fiercely at Ian, then his gaze fell on Harry and Hermione, though he lingered on Harry the longest.
His swaying pupils held extremely complex emotions.
"Like I said, he will lead you on the rest of the journey." Ian, not wanting to be interrogated by Snape, immediately threw down those words and made a hasty retreat.
At this moment, Snape, who was in a very heavy mood, did not stop it.
"Come with me, you two eleven-year-old giant babies." Snape sneered, his tone laced with sarcasm. His gaze then fell on Hermione, who had seemed uneasy since Ian left.
If I didn't misread it just now.
This little witch stayed close to her damned school bully nephew...
"If I were you, I would stay away from that boy. That's a piece of advice," Snape said coldly to Hermione, enunciating each word clearly.
"Huh?"
Hermione was a little confused.
at this time.
Another freshman from a pure-blooded family whispered a reminder to her.
"The headmistress of Hogwarts won't like you getting close to that Ravenclaw." This is probably the standard training many pure-blood freshmen who enrolled this year received at home.
I don't know if the technical advisor was Ms. Daphne.
"Shut your mouth, Miss Prewitt!" Snape glared at the freshman who had spoken, clearly displeased. The freshman immediately shrank back and hid in the crowd.
"I've already said what I needed to say. Whether you listen or not is up to you. I rarely offer such well-intentioned advice to others." Snape looked at the thin and timid Harry Potter.
His gaze toward Hermione became somewhat complicated.
It has a certain sense of déjà vu.
This made him somewhat upset.
"Follow me!"
Snape tossed out a sentence, flicked his sleeve, and walked to the front of the line—he skillfully led a group of new students to the Great Hall, where the Hogwarts students' dreams began.
Professor McGonagall was already waiting there.
The upperclassmen from each house were also looking curiously towards the entrance of the Great Hall. Harry spotted Ian chatting away with a girl at a long table with the serpent logo.
"Strange...isn't the symbol of Ravenclaw an eagle?"
He was somewhat confused.
"Is that the Hogwarts leader that student was talking about?" Hermione was somewhat surprised. She felt that the girl with Ian was completely different from the "cheerleader captain" she had imagined.
She seems rather quiet?
"Now line up, we're about to begin the sorting process." Professor McGonagall's voice was as serious as ever as she walked to her usual spot and began the preparations.
The freshmen, on the other hand, were all curiously looking around.
In the magnificent hall, the professors, all adults, sat in the chairman's seat, along with the legendary principal, who was dressed in a white robe and smiling as he watched them.
Welcome everyone!
suddenly.
The Sorting Hat, which tirelessly disguises itself as an ordinary hat every year, suddenly opened its mouth, first enjoying the waves of surprise from the new students.
immediately.
His hoarse voice began to recite the lyrics he had prepared for this year. They still rhymed beautifully.
His singing voice has become more and more soulful with each passing year.
Many young wizards covered their ears. After a full five minutes of agonizing waiting, the Sorting Hat finally finished its performance, and Professor McGonagall promptly produced the parchment.
"I will call your name now, and you will come up and put on this hat. It will lead you to the college that is best suited for you and entrust you to the dean who is best suited for you."
Professor McGonagall looked down at the parchment in her hand.
"Hannah Abbott!"
She called out the first name.
The ever-present hat king finally arrived. A girl with rosy cheeks, two golden braids, and freckles stumbled forward, looking nervous.
After some thought, the Sorting Hat...
"Hufflepuff!"
It proclaimed the unchanging destiny of the Iron-Hat Kings across countless timelines. Everyone witnessed the Sorting Ceremony, so many of the frightened young wizards breathed a sigh of relief.
Hermione and Harry were the same. Harry noticed that sometimes the hat would immediately call out the name of one of the houses, while other times it would take a little longer to make a decision.
"Looks like all we need to do is wear that hat," Ron whispered to Harry, rejoining the group. "That damn Fred told me we're going to wrestle with giants!"
What happens if I'm not assigned a job?
Harry had new worries.
And at that very moment.
The Sorting Hat has made decisions for many young wizards.
"Hermione Granger!"
"This is a really tough decision. You want to go to Ravenclaw? No! You don't! You belong in Gryffindor!"
"Neville Longbottom!"
"Gryffindor!"
"Ron Weasley!"
"Gryffindor!"
Seeing his friends sorting into their houses one after another, Harry became increasingly nervous. He wondered why his name hadn't been called yet.
"Draco Malfoy!"
Where are they?
"Draco Malfoy!"
The Sorting Hat called out another name Harry had heard before. He glanced at the boy not far behind him with some surprise, not expecting that this arrogant boy was just as insecure as he was.
Draco Malfoy's expression did look extremely awkward.
"Mr. Malfoy, are you daydreaming?"
Professor McGonagall couldn't help but ask Draco Malfoy directly.
Draco Malfoy looked rather awkward.
"Professor—I—…I changed my name—I'm now called Draco Malfoy—." Draco Malfoy's face was flushed, and his voice, barely audible, was filled with shame and humiliation.
however.
He dared not go against the Great Demon King's wicked tastes, and he didn't even dare to complain to the professor.
"??????"
Professor McGonagall looked completely bewildered, while Snape immediately glared displeasedly at his own long table—where sat a student who did not belong to Slytherin.
"Get up here right now! Your joke isn't funny at all!"
Professor McGonagall urged him on.
Draco Malfoy, who wished he could disappear into a crack in the ground, breathed a sigh of relief and jogged up.
"Perhaps you should go to Ravenclaw?"
The Sorting Hat played a trick on him.
This turned the arrogant, light-haired boy's face deathly pale.
Fortunately, the Sorting Hat was just a joke.
"Slytherin!"
It finally announced Draco Malfoy's fate in a loud voice. As the little dragon ran towards the Slytherin table, he hesitated and wavered upon seeing Ian's figure.
Applause and cheers.
It didn't make him happy.
This, on the contrary, made him feel very frustrated.
They chose a location furthest away from Ian and Aurora.
"Harry Potter!"
Professor McGonagall continued with the division.
after a while.
She finally uttered the renowned name.
Everyone's attention was drawn to the name he pronounced.
"Was she talking about Potter just now?"
"That Harry Potter?"
Before his eyes were completely obscured by the hat, Harry saw the people in the audience craning their necks to see him clearly. Then, all he could see was darkness inside the hat.
Mr. Savior, feeling nervous, waited patiently.
He might be communicating with the Sorting Hat.
No one knows this.
A long time has passed.
Professor McGonagall was puzzled as to why the Sorting Hat had not yet made a decision.
"Slytherin!"
The Sorting Hat made its decision.
"Um?"
It wasn't just Ian, who had been eating the food at the Slytherin table, who was stunned.
Even on the teachers' table.
Albus Dumbledore, who had been smiling, suddenly leaned forward, his emotions hidden behind his crescent-shaped glasses.
Ian discovered it.
The old headmaster, whose origins are unknown, kept his gaze, almost imperceptible, fixed on the scar on Harry Potter's forehead.