HP: Pure-Blood Glory

The next day.

Yawning, Luke walked from his dormitory to the common room. He had stayed up late the previous night, so he woke up later than usual. Fortunately, there were no morning classes, sparing him the pain of having to wake up early.

When he arrived in the common room, he was a bit stunned.

Draco Malfoy was still telling stories… and his stories were getting more and more exaggerated.

Hiding himself on the staircase, Luke listened closely for a moment.

"Of course, I don't discriminate against him. Even though he's a Muggle-born and not of much use, under my leadership, we still worked together to defeat a dragon! And that's just the beginning..."

Malfoy's voice was loud and triumphant. Luke tried to keep his face straight, but when Malfoy got to the part about "defeating a dragon," he couldn't help it—his mouth twitched uncontrollably.

Luke had anticipated Malfoy would take the bait. What he hadn't expected was that Malfoy would jump into the trap with such enthusiasm, not even needing Luke to reel him in.

Peeking over, Luke saw Malfoy speaking with great excitement while the younger students listened with glee. Not wanting to interrupt Malfoy's moment of glory, Luke cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself and quietly made his way to the door.

Thanks to Malfoy's "speech" and the noise of the crowd, Luke's movements went unnoticed as he easily slipped out the door.

Once outside, Luke didn't hesitate and headed straight for the great hall. Although it wasn't breakfast time anymore, lunch would be served soon, so arriving early to claim a spot wasn't a bad idea.

He found a seat at the Slytherin table, a few spaces from the center. Just as he sat down, he heard a voice behind him calling out excitedly.

"Luke!"

Turning around, he saw Harry waving at him, with a sleepy-looking Ron and a very anxious Neville following behind.

"Good afternoon, Harry"

Luke smiled as he greeted them. Although the great hall wasn't crowded, there were still a few people present. Some looked surprised to see Harry walking toward the Slytherin table, unsure of how to react.

A Gryffindor lion heading into the Slytherin snake pit?

Neville, the moment he saw Luke, became excited and quickly sped up to reach Luke's side.

Ron, who should have been more aware of certain taboos, was too tired to care. It was their first night at Hogwarts, and they had stayed up late, too excited to sleep. He had dreamt that he became the Gryffindor Quidditch captain and a prefect, managing Percy and the twins perfectly. This was probably influenced by Luke's speech the previous night.

This meant that Harry had to abandon his original plan of exploring Hogwarts that morning and instead joined Ron in sleeping until noon.

With no mom around to wake him, Ron had slept until now and was still half-asleep, not remembering any taboos, let alone reminding Harry or Neville about them.

"Luke! I've lost Trevor again!"

Neville blurted out urgently as he sat down next to Luke, beating Harry to the spot.

Luke's smile remained calm as he reassured Neville, "Don't worry, Neville. Trevor is a smart toad. Just like last night, he'll show up when he's supposed to."

Neville, though still anxious, looked noticeably relieved after hearing Luke's words. He wasn't actually scared that something bad had happened to Trevor—it was more likely that he had forgotten where he put him. He just tended to panic easily, and as long as someone reassured him, he would calm down significantly.

At home, Neville's grandmother might have filled this comforting role, but here at Hogwarts, it seemed that Luke had taken over.

"Luke, where's Booker?"

Harry asked as he sat on Luke's other side, looking down at Luke's feet with some confusion.

"He went out to play early this morning, but there's no need to worry—Booker is pretty smart," Luke replied, a bit impolitely thinking of Malfoy and Neville. To be honest, he felt that Booker was sometimes even smarter than those two… at least Booker had a good memory and wasn't so easily fooled.

Harry nodded. Although he didn't know much about Booker, from Hagrid's reaction yesterday, it was clear that Booker wasn't like the usual cats Harry had encountered. It wasn't surprising that Booker was a little smarter.

Ron yawned as he walked around to sit across from Luke.

"By the way, Luke, how many people are in your dorm? We were up late chatting last night, all five of us..."

"Five people in your dorm?" Luke was surprised. He hadn't paid attention to those details when watching the movies back then, especially since many details from the books were cut.

"Yeah, how many are in yours?"

Harry quickly followed up, curious.

Luke shook his head. "There are fewer students in Slytherin, and we have more dorms, so I have my own room. At most, there are two people per room in my house. I guess you can request to join another dorm, but I'm not really sure."

He hadn't expected Gryffindor's dorms to be like that. He had thought four to a room would be the limit.

"How big are your rooms?"

Harry wasn't too surprised, instead asking another question.

"I haven't measured exactly, but they're not small, especially since they've been expanded with an Undetectable Extension Charm."

"Then they must be pretty big," Ron chimed in. "With that charm, the room would definitely be bigger than ours."

As Ron gradually woke up, he seemed to realize something felt off about their current seating arrangement.

Harry, on the other hand, looked at Luke with yearning. While he enjoyed sharing a room with friends, having grown up in a cupboard under the stairs, the idea of a large, private bedroom sounded pretty appealing.

"Hey, Luke!"

Just as their conversation was getting lively, Hermione's voice called out from nearby.

The group turned to see Hermione walking over, carrying a thick book in one hand and holding a small black cat in the other.

The cat had an oily little fish dangling from its mouth.

"Aren't you worried about getting your robes dirty?"

Luke said to Hermione helplessly, before calling out, "Come here, Booker!"

In response, Booker quickly shifted from lying in Hermione's arms to a leaping position, his legs powering off as he jumped onto the table in front of Luke.

Hermione looked at the kitten that abandoned her like trash, before sitting directly across from Luke, nudging Ron aside by half a seat.

Though Ron wasn't too pleased, he didn't want to seem rude in front of Luke. Luke's constant polite demeanor put a bit of pressure on him.

By this time, more and more students were filtering into the Great Hall. Many of the older students couldn't help but cast surprised glances toward the group of five, seemingly astonished by what they were seeing.

It was as if, in that moment, some door deep inside them had creaked open ever so slightly.

*****

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