Chapter 14: Lady Lolise Gets Attacked

After leaving the office, Silven couldn't help but glance back.

He hadn't expected things to be settled so easily; he'd previously assumed Gryffindor dormitories were simply short on rooms, which was why they had to house five people to a room.

Good enough. Silven turned and headed toward the tower.

The corridor was empty, the silence terrifying, and only the sound of his footsteps echoed between the floors.

At some unknown point, a scrawny cat appeared on the path Silven had to take ahead of him.

That cat was truly thin, its fur a dull grey, its eyes bulging out like two lightbulbs.

Wait, a cat?

Silven's footsteps paused.

He'd had the nagging feeling he'd forgotten something earlier, and now he finally remembered.

Where was Tom?

Before the Sorting he'd tossed Tom onto the ground, and then hadn't seen him since.

However, a moment later, Silven stopped thinking about it and calmly continued walking forward.

If it was Tom, the ones who should be worried were other students' pets. He felt that even if that cat were in the Forbidden Forest, it would thrive.

It was just that Silven wanted to leave, but some people were unwilling.

That skinny cat kept following him, letting out a howl every now and then. A few minutes later, an equally emaciated person leapt out from the end of the corridor ahead.

"Aha, a student not in bed…"

"I just came from Professor McGonagall's office," Silven said, cutting him off. "If you don't believe me, you can go ask her right now. And one more thing—your cat can't read a clock, but can you? Curfew is still ten minutes away!"

The words he'd barely had time to say were swallowed back down, and Filch's face went green.

But Silven didn't care about any of that. He walked around him and kept going.

"Don't let me catch you…" A threatening voice came from behind.

Silven's footsteps didn't pause. "Thanks for the reminder."

……

The new dormitory was also in the first-year area, and it was very clean inside, not a speck of dust.

Although sitting on the train for a whole day had already made him very tired, Silven still decided to write a letter to his grandfather first, reporting on his current situation.

The letter wasn't long. It mainly described the Sorting, and that he'd applied for a single-occupancy dormitory so he could continue making wands.

At the end of the letter, he also asked his grandfather to pass along his regards to his parents, and to relay the news while he was at it.

They were all abroad at the moment, and Silven wasn't sure whether the school's owls could fly that far across the sea, so he'd better leave it to the Owl Post.

After all that, Silven had originally wanted to finish a half-finished product wand he had on hand, but he was simply too sleepy, his whole head was dizzy, so he just found the nearest bed, collapsed, and slept.

The next day.

Silven got up early, went to the owlery to send off last night's letter, and grabbed breakfast in the Great Hall along the way.

Hermione and Neville were both there. Hermione looked perfectly normal, just like yesterday, but Neville was a bit strange—when greeting him his voice was very quiet, and afterward he kept his head turned the whole time, deliberately refusing to look at him.

Even Hermione noticed something was off.

"What's wrong with you?" she couldn't help but ask.

"N-nothing." Neville first shook his head, then wrestled with himself for a few minutes before finally looking at Silven, mustering his courage to ask: "Do you… look down on us?"

Those words seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. After asking, Neville's breathing grew noticeably more rapid, but his expression was firm—red-eyed, neck stiff—he just looked at Silven like that.

"What do you mean by that?"

"We all heard. You applied for a single room yesterday—it's just because you don't want to live with us, right?"

"You guys… wait, so my roommate is you? Who else?"

"Harry, Ron, Seamus…" Neville listed three names.

"Oh, it's you guys." Silven raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't know?" Neville was stunned.

"I didn't." Silven spread a layer of butter on his bread. "I never even went into that dormitory. I took one look at the door and went to find Professor McGonagall. How would I know who my roommates were?"

"Why did you want to switch dormitories?"

"Mm, hard to explain in a word or two." Silven thought for a moment. "If you really want to know, come to my place tonight at seven, and you'll understand."

"Okay, we'll be there."

That line wasn't spoken by Neville, but by Harry and Ron behind him. They'd come for breakfast and happened to overhear Silven.

Judging by their expressions, they were also very unhappy with Silven switching dormitories for no reason—especially Ron, who muttered a long string of things to Harry, things like "purebloods are like that…" and so on.

Silven didn't care about any of it.

Hermione tried to help ease the atmosphere, actively changing the subject: "Oh, um, how do you guys deal with those staircases?"

"The easiest way is to follow an upper-year student." Silven said, "Or you can ask the ghosts for help—Nearly Headless Nick and the Fat Friar both work."

Interestingly, in every class that day, Neville, Harry, Ron, and Seamus acted as if they'd agreed on it beforehand—none of them paid any attention to Silven.

Harry did want to, but before he could open his mouth, Ron dragged him away.

Fine then.

Silven just found it a little funny.

And so it went on until evening. After finishing their stargazing with the telescope, the group returned to the common room together from the Astronomy Tower.

As they passed through the entrance, Fred and George were saying something loudly, and judging by their animated expressions, it seemed to be good news.

"Hey, did you hear?"

Seeing the first-years, one of the Weasleys immediately came over, laughing loudly: "Just last night, Lady Lolise was attacked, hahaha!"

"Who?" Harry blinked, not catching on.

"Lady Lolise."

"Who is she?"

"It's the cat Filch keeps." Ron reminded him.

"Oh." Only then did Harry suddenly recall.

He remembered now — that morning when he and Ron had gotten lost on the fourth floor, they had run into the caretaker, Filch.

But they hadn't seen that cat.

"What happened to that cat?" someone asked excitedly. "Come on, tell us."

That cat, called Mrs. Norris, often patrolled the corridors together with Filch, hunting down students who broke school rules, and her record was quite impressive.

Among the curses echoing through the detention room, Mrs. Norris's name came second only to Filch's — many people wanted to get rid of her once and for all.

But they didn't dare.

Because in a certain sense, Filch represented the school too.

Who would have thought that this year the school actually produced a real hero.

Truly amazing!

"Don't know." One of the Weasleys said — Silven saw his wand… it was Fred.

"But it probably wasn't done by a person." George added: "We snuck into the school hospital wing. One of Mrs. Norris's legs was broken, her whole body was covered in claw marks, and a patch of fur had been torn out."

"Judging from these injuries, the hero who rid us of the scourge should also be a… cat? Probably, but definitely not a student."

As though no one had expected such an answer, the usually lively common room actually fell silent for a moment.

But that silence was soon broken.

"Come on, no matter what, today is a day worth celebrating!" Fred raised a hand.

George followed right after, "To the hero of Hogwarts!"

"I really hope it gave Filch one too!"

Fred and George stepped aside, revealing the biscuits, cake, and butterbeer they had been hiding behind them.

"Oh, where did these come from?" Ron's eyes lit up.

"The school kitchens."

"I was asking about the butterbeer."

"That, ah… secret." George winked.

Everyone began to celebrate wildly. Silven was also handed a bottle of butterbeer, but he had no mood to drink it.

Mrs. Norris had been beaten up, and the culprit was very likely another cat.

This domineering style… how to put it, it just feels a bit familiar.

(End of chapter)