The mystery of the ring

"Welcome!" After the Sorting Hat finished selecting all the first year students into their respective houses, Headmaster Dumbledore stood in front of his large golden chair and with open arms shouted, "Welcome to Hogwarts to begin a new school year! Before the feast begins, I'd like to say a few words - fools! Baca! Milk! Poop! Thank you all and enjoy your dinner!" 

"Fools? Baca? Milk? Poop?" 

The hall was flooded with applause and, immediately, countless foods appeared on the table, including roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops, lamb chops, sausages, steaks, boiled potatoes, baked potatoes, French fries, vanilla pudding, pea shoots, carrots, gravy, ketchup and, for some strange reason, peppermint candy. 

But even such a sumptuous dinner could not divert Alex's attention from his thoughts, who was dumbfounded and kept thinking about the four strange words Dumbledore said in his mind, and after a while discovered that there was no clue at all. 

"Could it be an anagram? No, you can't reform any sentence if you separate these letters and combine them. Or was it another language? Definitely someone so extraordinary wouldn't say something so simple, there must be something hidden that I'm not realizing." 

Alex clenched his hands unconsciously as he thought, and Ron, who was sitting right next to him, saw that Alex looked slightly disoriented, so he quickly waved his greasy hand that was holding a chicken leg in front of his sight. "Why are you so pensive? Hurry up and eat, these chicken legs are delicious." 

Alex nodded, as he couldn't immediately understand, he simply decided not to think about it anymore so that the others wouldn't look at him as a weird kid, he touched his somewhat empty stomach and gradually joined the hungry lions, striving to eliminate all the delicacies on the table. 

Unnoticed by anyone, Ron and Alex began to have a silent battle of seeing who could eat the most food and the two occasionally glanced at each other. 

"Wow, this food looks really good." Off to the side, a ghost watched Harry Potter cut into the steak on his plate and said in a tone where sadness spilled out of his words. 

"Won't you eat some?" 

Alex was surprised to hear Harry ask such a silly question. Shaking his head, he tucked into another chicken leg and Ron, who had a lot of chicken leg bones, was surprised to see that there were no more chicken legs in front of him. 

"I haven't eaten for almost five hundred years." Said the ghost as he flew near the Gryffindor table and remarked, "Not necessary of course, but one misses it. I don't think I've introduced myself? Sir Nicholas of Mimsy-Porpington resident ghost of Gryffindor tower!" 

"I know who you are!" Ron said after awkwardly swallowing the food in his mouth and pointed out, "My two brothers told me about you, you're that 'Nick Nearly Headless'!" 

"I think I would prefer the title of Sir Nicholas, to being called  Nearly Headless." The ghost Sir Nicholas flew back and forth looking unhappy with that famous title he was known for, but a light brown-haired boy named Seamus Finnigan interjected, "Almost headless? How come you're almost headless if it's attached to your neck right now?" 

Sir Nicholas looked annoyed, and at first you could tell he didn't want to talk about it, but seeing the curious looks on the faces of these first year boys, he decided to scare them a little. 

"It's because of this!" Said Sir Nicholas with a smile. He grabbed his left ear and pulled it down. His head was then that it slid off his neck and rested on his shoulders, as if it were a spring. It appeared that the way he died was by decapitation, but this task was not done well at all. 

Sir Nick was very happy to see the expressions of these stunned children. He moved his head back, cleared his throat and said, "Alright, new Gryffindor students! I hope you'll help us win the Cup of Houses this year, won't you Gryffindor? The Bloody Baron is really annoying, that old ghost from Slytherin." 

"A Hogwarts house has a resident ghost...? Why... Could it be an inheritance? Wait, I'm going to have to sleep with ghosts, do ghosts sleep?" 

Alex looked over to the Slytherin dining table curiously, and saw a ghost sitting next to the table, very scary, staring at the first years, looking haggard and with silver blood stains on his robes. 

Coincidentally, Malfoy was sitting next to the Bloody Baron. When Alex looked in his direction, Malfoy looked as well. Their eyes locked and Malfoy pursed his lips in disdain. 

It was then that Alex withdrew his gaze, a little pensive of all these things that have happened to him in less than a day. 

"Why does he have blood all over his body?" On the other hand, a nearby student seemed to be interested in ghost stories. 

"I never asked him." Sir Nick replied. 

After everyone opened their mouths and filled their stomachs, the rest of the food disappeared from the plates all at once. The plates and forks were as clean as ever. After a while, out came the dessert. There are all kinds, apple pie, syrup pie, chocolate sponge cake, fried jam doughnuts, jam pudding, strawberry pudding, marmalade pudding, rice pudding and of course vanilla... 

Alex after that silent battle with Ron could no longer eat, so he had no choice but to look at Harry and Ron who were still eating, making them uncomfortable. 

But what can Alex do? This action of his watching people eat causes him a sense of reassurance, so seeing that it made his friends uncomfortable he averted his gaze to Hermione and watched her eat silently. 

At that point, the topic of dinner turned to their respective families. 

"I'm half and half." Seamus said as he finished his dessert on his plate, "My dad is a Muggle and Mum didn't tell my dad she was a witch until they were married. That, I can tell you for sure, scared the hell out of him." 

Everyone at the table laughed. 

"What about you, Neville?" Ron asked as he ate Alex's dessert. 

"Oh, I was raised by my grandmother, she's a witch." Said Neville, "But my family has treated me like a Muggle all these years. My uncle is always trying to take me out of my non-magical surroundings and at the time everyone thought I wouldn't awaken my talent for magic. Until I was eight years old when my uncle came for tea one day and threw me out of the window. The amazing thing about it was that I flew." 

"It was amazing, everyone was amazed. I remember my aunt even cried. If only you could see the expressions on their faces when I got my Hogwarts admission letter. You see, they all secretly thought I had no magical abilities. Not enough to get into this school. My uncle even gave me his toad when he found out I had magic." 

"It turns out that the squibs Malfoy is referring to are people who were born into wizarding families but don't know magic...?" Alex thought silently as he fiddled with the dark green ring on his thumb and listened to others talk happily about their families. 

No matter how indifferent he looked at it, a sense of loneliness would inevitably arise. Many continued to talk about unimportant things, Alex then twirled the ring on his thumb hoping it would distract him. 

"Um, I'm getting more and more worried about this feeling of loneliness, at least I'm strong enough for no one to notice..." Alex felt that the coating of this green ring was too strange and at this moment curiosity arose to observe it. 

"Ouch!" 

At this moment, Harry suddenly covered his forehead and let out a scream. 

"What's wrong!" Percy, Ron's older brother who was sitting near them, asked hurriedly. 

"It's... it's nothing." Harry had a strange expression on his face, rubbed his forehead and asked Percy, "Who's the professor talking to Professor Quirrell?" 

"Oh, you know Professor Quirrell. No wonder he's so nervous right now. That's Professor Snape, he teaches Potions, but he always seems like he doesn't want to, everyone knows he's envious of Professor Quirrell's, Snape is good after all at the Dark Arts." 

Alex looked in the direction they were looking. At the professor's table, a professor with a ridiculous headscarf on his head was talking to a professor with greasy black hair, an aquiline nose and sallow skin. 

"Potions teacher?" Thought Alex wordlessly. 

Although Percy didn't clearly point out which Potions teacher it was to the others, Alex could tell who it was just by looking at him. 

"Why do I feel like he's so hard to get along with? But... Forget it, it's good to learn knowledge from him and maybe see he only looks like that on the outside, it's really hard now to feel what he feels inside." Alex withdrew his gaze, from this distance he can't use his secret ability to look into that person's feelings. 

Then everyone had another interesting exchange of words and when it seemed like this would last a while longer, Dumbledore stood up and the whole auditorium slowly fell silent.

"Oh, now that everyone has had enough to eat and drink, I want to say a few more words to everyone. At the beginning of the term, I want to mention a few things to pay attention to." 

"Attention, first-year freshmen, students are not allowed to enter the Forbidden Forest for any reason. Some of our previous classmates should also remember this well." 

Dumbledore's glowing eyes moved in the direction of the Weasley twins.

"Also, Mr. Filch, the janitor, asked me to remind everyone not to do magic in the corridors or between classes." 

"Quidditch tryouts will take place in the second week of term. Those of you who are interested in playing for their house teams should contact Mrs Hooch." 

"And lastly, I want to tell you that this year the third floor corridor on the right side is off limits to all who do not wish for a very painful death." 

"Oh, there's something strange about the third floor corridor, could it be that there's something magical or some sort of dragon hiding?" Alex thought with a mischievous look and then heard Harry whisper after a chuckle, "Is it true what he says?"

"Not necessarily..." Percy frowned in Dumbledore's direction, "The strange thing is that wherever we're not allowed to go, he usually explains the reason, for example, there are many dangerous beasts in the forbidden forest, everyone knows that. I think he should at least make it clear to us prefects." 

After singing the school song, Alex followed the procession of first years into the Gryffindor common room, a comfortable circular room filled with fluffy armchairs. 

Prefect Percy led the girls through one door to their dormitories and then led the boys through another door. 

At the top of a spiral staircase they were evidently in a tower where they finally found their rooms, five canopied beds covered with crimson flannel curtains. 

Alex was a little surprised to discover that he was in the same dormitory with Harry, Ron, Samus and Neville, which made him more interested. After all, all of these people not counting Seamus were on the train. He knew them all and they had a good friendship. 

"Dinner today was too good, wasn't it?" whispered Ron through the curtain, "Help, Scabbers! It's eating my sheets." 

But no one answered the call for help, the bedroom light was off and the five of them had already laid down on the bed and prepared to rest. 

Sleepily, Alex turned the ring on his thumb again. 

"Let's study this ring tomorrow and maybe I can learn something more about my family, uh... tomorrow..."