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After the Sorting Ceremony, Headmaster Dippet didn't give any long-winded speech.
Instead, he simply stood up and declared loudly, "Welcome! Let the feast begin!"
Such a straightforward announcement was met with thunderous applause from everyone.
The food at the Welcome Feast looked quite lavish.
But after tasting it, Wade found it good. He didn't know why many fanfics bashed the food. It was the Hogwarts food, and the house-elves at Hogwarts weren't bad cooks.
I mean, how can an MC who reincarnated and lived a year or two in an orphanage, eating the orphanage food for literally two years, come to Hogwarts and bash the British food in every other fanfic? That was beyond his understanding.
Make it make sense~ Well, Toby's food is still better lol.
Everyone chatted as they ate, and before long, they were all full and satisfied.
True to form, Headmaster Dippet remained brisk and efficient.
Once the tableware at the head table magically returned to its spotless state, he once again gave a crisp announcement: "Dismissed! Off to rest! Follow your prefects and don't go the wrong way."
Wade and the dazed-looking Tom followed the Slytherin group as they moved forward.
Soon, the 1st years realized they were heading down into the dungeons beneath the castle.
A few minutes later, the first-years arrived at a stone wall carved with serpent statues, led there by their prefect.
"Pure-blood!" the male prefect said as he stepped up to the wall.
Immediately, the two serpent carvings sprang to life.
As the snakes slithered aside, the stone wall split open with a rumble, revealing a doorway.
"Remember, the password for this week is 'Pure-blood.' Don't forget it. If you do, you won't be able to get back in."
Pure-blood? Wade couldn't help but think—how perfectly Slytherin.
People in Slytherin always had a particular obsession with marrying their own cousins and in some cases... ehm..
And sure enough, after they entered the common room, that proud-looking prefect launched into a half-hour speech directed at the new students…
It wasn't until many of them were on the verge of falling asleep where they stood from sheer exhaustion that he finally waved them off, satisfied, and told them to go find their rooms and get some rest.
Only then did he saunter off toward his own dorm at a leisurely pace.
"Tch… that guy's speech was even longer than the headmaster's, and not a single useful thing in it," Anne said impatiently.
She was clearly annoyed that the prefect had cut into her rest time.
"Alright, we should go find our rooms too. See you tomorrow…"
After saying goodnight to each other, they all went their separate ways.
Anne headed toward the girls' dormitory, while Wade and the others made their way to the boys' side.
Soon, Wade found his room.
The dorm was a hexagonal room with four beds arranged along the walls. Each bed had its own wardrobe and bedside table.
In the center of the room stood a large round table, seemingly meant to accommodate four people working on homework at the same time.
Their luggage had already been brought in and placed neatly at the foot of their beds.
Fortunately, Wade and Tom had been assigned to the same dormitory.
And besides Wade and Tom, their two other roommates were Alphard Black and a boy named Henry Avery.
As soon as Alphard found his bed, he flopped down on it without even taking off his coat and immediately began snoring. No one knew why, but he looked especially exhausted.
"Ha! So you're the famous little Prince of Azkaban! I can't believe we're in the same dorm! I'm Henry Avery," Henry said excitedly as he reached out his right hand toward Tom.
The moment he heard the title Prince of Azkaban, Tom shot Henry a death glare, clearly not intending to shake hands.
Wade stepped in and shook Henry's hand instead, rescuing him from the awkward silence.
"I'm the friend of our little Azkaban prince here—name's Wade. Oh, and he's—"
"I know! He's Tom Riddle!" Henry grinned. "By now, I bet there are hardly any students or even ghosts in the school who haven't heard his name!"
Hearing the exchange between Henry and Wade, Tom's face turned green.
That humiliating moment he had just barely started to forget was now dragged back into his memory thanks to these two bastards.
"I'm going to sleep!" Tom snapped, throwing himself onto his bed and yanking the covers over himself until he was completely hidden underneath.
Wade and Henry simply stood there in silence, watching the lump under the blanket gradually curl tighter and smaller...
"Hm, I think I can relate to that feeling… gotta admit, it's not great. Yeah… really awkward," Henry said with a shrug. "I was only eight at the time, and I got caught by my mum while sneaking a peek at my sister taking a bath…"
What the...
Wade stared at Henry in shock—so there were even more chaotic experts out there?
…
Night fell.
But since the Slytherin dormitories were located beneath the Black Lake, Wade couldn't see any moonlight through the windows—only the fish swimming lazily past in the dark water.
Still, the underwater view had a certain charm to it.
After quietly admiring the scene for a while, Wade pulled the covers over himself and lay down.
After a full day of riding the train, he was feeling a bit tired.
And since he wasn't yet familiar with the layout of Hogwarts Castle, he didn't plan on sneaking out tonight to search for his senior's notebook.
Before entering the dream realm to meet with his senior, Wade glanced at his system interface.
He was planning to check, as usual, if anything good had refreshed in the shop tonight.
Ding! Detected that the host has accumulated a certain amount of merit points. System upgrade function unlocked. The host can now upgrade the system at any time.
Ding! Upgrading the system requires 20,000 merit points. Once upgraded, the shop will offer four items instead of two, and the chance of refreshing high-quality items will be significantly increased.
Wade instantly perked up.
A system upgrade—originally, the shop only refreshed two items per day, but after upgrading, it would show four.
More importantly, the odds of high-quality items appearing would be greatly improved!
That was something Wade simply couldn't resist.
He'd been putting up with that flood of useless junk in the shop for far too long.
However, 20,000 merit points was a steep price.
Aside from the 5,000 points he'd received for bonding with Nagini, Wade had only saved up a few others here and there.
He had around 6,000 points total—not even close to what was needed for an upgrade.
Still, Wade wasn't in a hurry.
Now that he had successfully blended into what would become the future base of the Death Eaters, there would be plenty of opportunities to rack up merit points.
Hehehe~
Wade happily rolled over in bed and, without even bothering to check the newly refreshed shop items, dove straight into the dream realm to continue studying with his senior...
…
The next morning, Wade was the first to wake up, feeling completely refreshed. He cheerfully woke up Tom and the others as well.
After all, according to the class schedule they had received the night before, they had two periods of Transfiguration first thing in the morning.
Once the four of them were ready, they planned to head to the Great Hall together for breakfast.
In the common room, they ran into Anne, who had just gotten up as well.
"Good morning. Shall we go together?" Anne asked Wade.
"Sure," Wade replied with a smile.
At this point, it was becoming increasingly clear that Anne's attention was focused specifically on him, not Tom.
This realization made Wade quietly raise his guard once again.
After all, Wade still didn't know whether Anne had been given orders to do something to him—or if she was simply trying to uncover some kind of secret from him.
The morning Transfiguration class was a bit dull.
Since it was the first class for the new students, the young Professor McGonagall focused mainly on the foundational theory of Transfiguration.
Perhaps because she was still new to teaching and lacked experience, she didn't manage the class time very well.
As a result, by the end of the double period, she still hadn't finished all the key points she'd planned to cover.
She had originally intended to leave some time for the students to try practicing basic Transfiguration, but in the end, that had to be scrapped.
Due to the unexpected overrun, the homework also changed—from practical exercises to submitting a written essay.
After class, Tom decided that after lunch, he'd head straight to the library to get his Transfiguration essay done.
That afternoon happened to be completely free of classes, according to the schedule.
For Tom, that was the perfect time to study.
As for Henry and Alphard, both of them had their own plans for the afternoon and had no intention of going to the library.
"Are you coming?" Tom asked Wade.
"Um.." Wade replied, "I'll pass. I want to walk around the castle and get familiar with it. Those shifting staircases are a real pain—I need to spend some time figuring out how they work."
He planned to use the opportunity to learn the layout of Hogwarts, so that when he went exploring at night, he wouldn't be completely lost in the dark.
After all, he didn't have a Marauder's Map or anything like it… tsk!
In fact, he didn't even have a regular, non-moving map of Hogwarts.
As expected, Anne immediately volunteered to go with Wade.
It was clear now—her focus was entirely on him.
Wade didn't really mind. He was only planning to scout locations during the day anyway, so there was no harm in letting Anne tag along.
Tom gave Anne a long, thoughtful look, then glanced at Wade.
Seeing that he seemed completely confident and unfazed, Tom turned and quickly walked off.
The three groups then went their separate ways in the corridor.
…
Tom made his way quickly toward the library, his eyes full of anticipation.
He had heard that the Hogwarts Library was the largest magical library in all of Europe!
No one was going to stop him from studying—not even Wade!
What happened the night before had indeed made Tom infamous.
As he walked through the corridors, the students—and even the ghosts—pointed and whispered as he passed.
Who could blame them? He was the first student in Hogwarts history to have the Sorting Hat joke about sending him to Azkaban.
Still, Tom ignored all the whispers and pointing. His eyes burned with a singular passion—for knowledge!
However, just as he entered a corridor near the library…
"Well, well! If it isn't the famous little Prince of Azkaban. Where's that dear friend of yours?"
A mocking voice rang out from ahead.
Tom abruptly stopped, his face turning ashen as he looked up at the group of seven or eight Slytherin students in front of him.
Leading them was none other than Abraxas Malfoy.
Ever since they had been frightened off by Wade the day before, the more they thought about it, the more something had felt off.
In the end, when they saw Wade and Tom chatting and laughing together at the Slytherin table, they finally realized—the guy who had gone out of his way to convince them to pick a fight with Wade had been on Wade's side all along!
Abraxas felt like he'd been used—like he'd been nothing more than a toy in some twisted game they were playing...
The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, and he decided he had to save face.
Thanks to a tip-off from a classmate, he learned that Tom was on his way to the library.
So Abraxas waited a long time along the only route there, planning to ambush both Wade and Tom.
Out of caution toward Wade, he had even asked several older students to help.
Tom, staying calm, pulled out his wand and tossed his bag aside.
"I started this. No need to involve anyone else—if you're here for payback, then take it out on me."
(2069 Words💀)
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Read ahead: P^treon: Captain69
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