Chapter 15

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The welcoming feast was quite fruitful for Ethan as there were fruits of great variety on the table, and more importantly, he befriended two fellow Slytherins, Daphne and Theodore.

Theodore was quite introverted, and looked like a loner, but Ethan's enthusiasm was more than enough to cope with it as he forced the boy into talking, and managed to pull a few smiles from him through the feast.

As for Daphne, she looked like a serious, no nonsense person, but as he got to know her more Ethan discovered she could be quite humorous when she wanted to.

After the welcoming feast, they were led to the Slytherin Dungeons, and led to their rooms. After some asking, Ethan had also been delighted to find out that the Slytherin bedrooms were individual.

The Hufflepuffs had rooms of 8, Gryffindors of 5, Ravenclaws of 3, and Slytherins individual bedrooms, matching the values and personalities of each house.

Although being in a dorm would help socialize, Ethan very much preferred having his own personal room.

Once he arrived in his bedroom, Ethan decided not to head to the common room to learn more about his fellow Slytherin, but stay in his room as he went to bed early.

A part of him urged him to leave his room and go to explore the magical castle, but doing so on the first night wasn't the best choice. The Professors and Filch would probably be on high alert as it was the first night.

Besides, the next day was a Monday, and so would be their first day of class.

That morning, Ethan got to the common room early, even earlier than some of the older Slytherin who started classes early in the morning. One common feature though would be that they all avoided him like the plague. It would seem that despite their warm greetings, they still didn't have the guts to talk to him.

At some point though, Ethan was joined by Theodore and Daphne, and together, they left for their first class of the day, Double Transfiguration with Gryffindor.

A few students had already arrived in the class before them, as he glanced around, Ethan found Sophia to be sitting alone. Considering the classes were mostly in pairs, Ethan turned to his two new friends and said, "Go sit together, I've spotted a friend."

The two nodded, being a group of three could be quite annoying in a class where they had to work in pairs.

Sophia had obviously not seen Ethan coming, so with a grin he suddenly grabbed her shoulders, making her jump in her seat as she yelped in surprise.

This sent Ethan into a laughing feat, ignoring the glare from the cat on the professor's table as he sat next to Sophia, who was clenching the front of her robe while panting.

"So, Gryffindor, how are you integrating in your new house?"

Calming her beating heart, Sophia replied, "I… I'm fine, I'm fine. Please don't do that."

Ethan replied, still laughing a bit, "Sorry, I lost myself to the temptation… So, made any friends?"

Sophia nodded slightly, but seeing her lack of oral response, Ethan guessed she was lying. Since she didn't want to talk about it, Ethan took out his wand and asked, "Did you start reading Switch's book?"

Sophia looked confused at his question, so he pointed his wand at her book, titled 'A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration', and below it was the name of the author, Emeric Switch.

Sophia perked up as she saw that, blushing a little as she shook her head, "N-No, I haven't yet. Do you think I'm in trouble?"

Although he felt the temptation of teasing her, Ethan simply shrugged and replied, "I wouldn't say you are in trouble, but it would have helped. Transfiguration is one of the hardest branches of magic to master as it is mostly intentional magic rather than incantationnal spells like in Charms, so reading the theory before coming into class would be a plus."

"I… I have no clue of what you just said. I'm pretty sure you made up a word or two… right? Right? Please?"

Ethan sighed at the clueless witch's questioning, and with a flick of his wand, he articulated, "Wingardium Leviosa."

Sophia's book started floating, and Ethan explained, "This, is what I call an incantationnal spell. There was a clear incantation, being Wingardium Leviosa here, that gave a function to my magic, and a certain wand movement to perform one particular action, here being to make an object levitate."

Lowering slightly his wand, the book fell back to the table, and Ethan continued, "In this case, the incantation and your wand do most of the job. Wingardium Leviosa is a spell we will learn this year in Charms. As for Transfiguration, you will have to manipulate your magic yourself, making the job harder."

Sophia muttered, "So Professor McGonagall's class is the hardest class?"

She looked a little downtrodden as she said that, but what Ethan said next relieved her.

"Not really the hardest. It is relatively more complex, but different wizards will excel in different magical disciplines. For example, I prefer intentional magic because it allows for more freedom in performing magic, so it perfectly suits Transfiguration. However, because I learned not to use Charms through their incantations, it makes learning them much harder."

Sophia nodded, her confidence raised thanks to his words. She looked at Ethan with a thankful gaze, but after a moment commented, "You haven't brought Miyuki with you?"

Ethan grabbed the robe in front of his heart at her words, faking a deeply hurt expression as he nearly toppled over, whispering, "Here I am, sitting next to you and being a helpful friend, and yet you failed to notice something so rudimentary… I'm hurt!"

Sophia panicked, her hands trembling as she didn't know what to do with them.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!"

Ethan abruptedly rose back to a normal position, so swiftly in fact that it almost looked unnatural, and said, "Apologies accepted. To answer your question, I won't be bringing her to class. She will get more frustrated than me to see others fail, and I fear she will decapitate one of them."

Sophia paled, "You-you're joking, right?"

Ethan laughed, "Of course I'm joking, she would only decapitate people if I told her to. She's resting in my room, there's not much for her to do here." Ethan had managed to still get some freedom for Miyuki, the school had probably been convinced that forcing a dangerous animal too much would be more counterproductive than anything.

Sophia's face remained pale as she couldn't believe such a cute animal could kill people.

So Ethan added, "I'm teasing you, Sophia." Actually, he wasn't. Although she only had three tails, if given the opportunity, Miyuki could really kill an adult. If caught unaware, even an adult wizard could fall prey to her claws, and she would only become deadlier as she gained more tails, but Sophia didn't need to know that yet.

After a moment, Sophia finally managed to reign in her emotions, and she asked the question that had been bugging her since the day before.

"Why did you tell me not to enter Slytherin?" She looked hurt as she asked that.

As Ethan was about to reply though, an arrogant voice said, "Fancy hanging with mudbloods, Grindelwald? I expected more from someone with your name."

Turning around, Ethan spotted a pale skinned blond boy of their age snicker, surrounded by his two goons.

Next to Ethan, Sophia had no idea what a mudblood was supposed to be, but she could feel it was a bad name, and so she gripped the hems of her robe tightly, but did not dare to say anything.

Ethan, on the other hand, was clutching his wand hard, but as he felt like cursing the little shit known as Draco Malfoy, he saw a group of people had appeared behind Malfoy and his gang.

"Malfoy, apologize, or else…"

Behind Draco were Harry and Cassia Potter, as well as their childhood friend Neville Longbottom, and their new friend Hermione Granger.

Hermione sported a deep frown, being aware of the signification of the word, while Neville was obviously uncomfortable being part of the confrontation, but he held his ground.

Malfoy merely looked annoyed at Harry's interference, and he said, "Or what, saviour boy?"

Not giving him a second more of his attention, Malfoy turned back to Ethan, and gestured toward Sophia with his wand as he said, "Are you really going to drag your family's name in the mud by talking to…"

Before he could finish though, the ground in front of him suddenly rose in time to stop a deep red light from hitting Malfoy. Meanwhile, the boy looked at Ethan in shock, who was ready to fire another spell.

"Stop at once!"

Ethan suddenly stopped his movement as he sent a glance at the cat, who had turned into Professor McGonagall, who had her wand out, ready to act.