Harry listened quietly, his feelings a complicated mixture.
On one hand, he was relieved to no longer be the only first-year Quidditch player in the school, the distinction had made him uncomfortable in ways he couldn't entirely articulate.
On the other, knowing that his counterpart was a Slytherin produced a quiet, persistent pressure he hadn't expected.
The Ravenclaw table was equally animated, conducting its own analysis of the situation.
"From a tactical standpoint, the response was sensible," Prefect Penelope Clearwater was telling her friend. "Slytherin needed to answer Gryffindor's move, and Welsh wasn't promoted on the strength of one flying lesson, he proved himself in actual training. That matters."
"I'm more curious about his background," a Ravenclaw boy said, leaning in. "Have there really been no wizards in the royal family all this time? It seems unlikely, unless—"
"Unless the royal family already has wizarding blood, and it's been covered by the Statute of Secrecy," another student suggested. "That would explain why Dumbledore made his arrangements personally."
"Or," Penelope considered, "it's a broader political signal. The relationship between the wizarding world and the Muggle world is shifting, and Welsh may be part of that shift in a more deliberate way than anyone has said."
There was rather less discussion at the Hufflepuff table, most of it confined to the first-years.
"Hannah, you met him on the train, didn't you?" Ernie Macmillan asked, buttering his toast. "What's he actually like?"
Hannah blushed slightly, as she always did when the conversation turned toward her. "He's very elegant. Quiet but warm. Nothing like I expected from a Slytherin."
"He is Slytherin, though," Ernie pointed out, "and now he's a Quidditch prospect. Doesn't that strike you as remarkable? A wizard from a non-magical family, establishing himself in Slytherin of all places and making the team? That's not a small thing."
Justin set his plate down and took a seat. "I've heard that the royal family put their children through all kinds of social training from an early age. That might be why he adapted so quickly."
"I'm more curious about why he went up for Neville at all," Ernie said, more quietly. "Slytherins don't usually do things like that."
Hannah thought about it for a moment. "Maybe he's simply that sort of person. Whatever House he's in."
That simple conclusion drew nods from around the Hufflepuff table. In their view, kindness and integrity transcended House boundaries, and what Henry had done in that flying lesson was evidence enough.
Every House had people like that—even Slytherin, apparently.
At the staff table, Professor McGonagall cut her food with her usual composure, though her gaze moved periodically across the Great Hall and settled on Henry for a moment each time it reached the Slytherin table.
Her lips were pressed together in a thin line. Nobody could have said what she was thinking.
Professor Snape wore his habitual expression of mild displeasure with existence, as though breakfast were something one simply endured.
Only when his eyes crossed Professor McGonagall's rather more complex expression did the faintest trace of something satisfied appear.
Dumbledore sat in the centre of the table, his half-moon spectacles gleaming, his blue eyes bright with a private contentment. He was adding sugar to his porridge—three large spoonfuls, quite deliberately.
Professor McGonagall glanced at him with pointed disapproval. Dumbledore simply winked at her.
"An interesting year, Minerva," he said, in a voice that did not carry beyond the two of them. "Very interesting indeed."
Henry noticed the sugar.
Three spoonfuls, he thought. 'Someone's in an unusually sweet mood. Although, to be fair, your Grindelwald is still perfectly alive in Nurmengard, so I'm not sure what the occasion is.'
He returned to his breakfast.
A small incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon.
"Have you heard?" Draco said, appearing at Henry's side the moment he came through the common room door, visibly pleased with whatever he was about to share. "Hufflepuff and Gryffindor had a row in Charms today."
"Did they?" Henry asked, with genuine interest. "Tell me everything."
Draco sat down beside him and began.
The trouble had started the previous day, when Justin Finch-Fletchley, through an imprecise application of a charm, had accidentally struck his classmate Zacharias Smith with a Softening Charm and sent him to Madam Pomfrey.
Several Gryffindors had apparently found this amusing and made their feelings known. Ernie Macmillan had responded that Gryffindors were happy enough to watch their classmates suffer, and that it had been a Slytherin who had actually done something useful when Neville was in trouble.
From there, the two Houses had argued in earnest.
Draco delivered this account with undisguised satisfaction. In Slytherin eyes, there was no House more reliably irritating than Gryffindor, and a situation in which Gryffindor found itself being criticised by multiple parties at once was simply agreeable.
Henry understood why Dumbledore had looked so pleased at breakfast. A Slytherin student stepping forward to help a Gryffindor at a critical moment, to Dumbledore, that was precisely the kind of thing that suggested the barriers between Houses were more permeable than people assumed.
Henry could have told him that he was over-interpreting the situation, but he didn't particularly see the point.
After tea, it was time for his usual solo practice session.
Eight days into term, his schedule had filled considerably. There was a great deal to do and none of it was optional.
Reading the history of the magical world, building relationships, practising spells—each was essential, and each competed for time with the others.
He had no doubt that his own ability would always be the foundation on which everything else rested.
He was only a first-year, however. He had been handling a wand for a matter of days. For now, the right approach was to consolidate the basics.
This was not to say he lacked longer-term ideas. A duelling club, for instance, had occurred to him as a possibility—genuine combat practice was by far the most effective way to refine what one had learnt and discover its limits.
But he had set the idea aside for the time being. Spellwork was a gradual process, and there was no advantage in reaching before one was ready.
Practising with the first-years around him was also, he had concluded, considerably less useful than working with the dummies in the Room of Requirement. At least the dummies did not yelp at the lightest contact.
For a duelling club to be worth running, it would need experienced upperclassmen involved, people who could actually demonstrate technique and offer useful correction.
And he, as a first-year, did not yet have enough standing in the school to persuade those upperclassmen to give their time to something he had organised.
Not yet.
But if he could help Slytherin win the Quidditch Cup as their Seeker, the situation would look rather different.
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Early chapters: p*treon.com/palevolt100