"Big sister, do you still have some dittany?" In the common room, Astoria had already finished tending to Rhys's wound, but now she needed a little dittany to speed up the healing.
Such a small injury, Rhys could easily heal it with just a flick of his wand. However, considering the thing that had just happened on the Quidditch pitch, he thought it best to let Astoria and Daphne keep themselves occupied.
Flustered, Daphne fumbled out a small vial of dittany and poured two drops onto Rhys's hand.
The moment the dittany touched the wound, thin wisps of green smoke rose up. When the smoke dispersed, the wound was already covered with a layer of fresh, tender skin, as though it had been healing for several days.
While the two sisters busied themselves with treating his wound, Rhys was already considering what he ought to say next.
Revealing his true identity was out of the question, so he might as well tell them the truth about the situation. Rhys made up his mind.
"Did I scare you just now?" Rhys glanced around the noisy common room, saw that everyone was still wrapped up in discussing the match and no one was paying attention to them in the corner, then took the initiative to speak.
"Actually, it's alright. Clearly something serious happened, right?" Daphne set the dittany bottle on the table and replied softly, "I wouldn't say I was frightened—what I regret is not being able to help you."
Astoria shot her sister a look: not frightened? Didn't you see what Rhys looked like when he was unleashing his magic?
But since her sister chose not to break that thin layer of pretense, Astoria wasn't foolish enough to point it out herself.
From her perspective, Rhys was absolutely not an ordinary student. He must have some hidden purpose in attending Hogwarts, but exposing him would bring her no benefit at all.
She knew that Rhys definitely hoped they wouldn't expose his abnormality, so it was best to just go along with him. After all, no matter what his true identity was, he was still imparting extremely valuable knowledge to her and her sister.
By choosing to pretend ignorance for now, until the day he decided to reveal himself, she and Daphne could continue to benefit from that precious knowledge. But if they chose to expose the tacit understanding between them, Astoria felt it would only bring her harm and no benefit—what then, report him to Professor Dumbledore to have him arrested?
And if he were caught, who would continue teaching her?
Astoria had always thought the children in fairy tales who exposed the true faces of spirits and monsters were particularly foolish—she would never do something like that.
Rhys glanced at the obedient-looking Daphne and Astoria, letting out a quiet sigh.
"You don't need to worry, I won't harm you."
After all, they were descendants of the Greengrass family. These two girls really did stir up memories of that silly old companion of his, and he truly did regard them as his students.
Daphne and Astoria really ought to thank Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Marcus, and the other Slytherin students. Their stark contrast made the sisters stand out in Rhys's eyes, and so his impression of them had always been very favorable.
Hearing Rhys's words, Daphne widened her eyes in confusion: why was he saying something so pointless? He'd always treated her and her sister quite well, hadn't he?
Astoria, however, understood clearly: Rhys was sending them a signal, reassuring her and her sister that they didn't need to be overly worried. At least for now, he bore them no ill will.
Even so, she couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
What exactly was the relationship between her, her sister, and Rhys? Why was he treating them so well? A faint sense of bargaining with a tiger crept into her heart.
Astoria knew that every gift bestowed by fate came with its price already marked. What stake would she and her sister be expected to pay?
What she didn't know was that some of those gifts of fate had already been paid for long ago by her family's elders…
After feeding the two girls this reassurance, Rhys began telling them about the unseen events that had taken place outside the pitch during the match.
"Dementors?!" Daphne couldn't help but exclaim once Rhys finished speaking. She quickly lowered her voice, afraid the other students in the common room might hear. Fortunately, the room was noisy enough that no one noticed.
"It makes sense," Astoria reasoned. "But then, where are those Dementors now?" Given their nature, she found their intrusion unsurprising, but their whereabouts were a far more pressing concern.
"They were buried underground, and then the ground sank, becoming part of the Black Lake," Rhys answered, leaving out the role he had played in the matter.
Astoria nodded. She wisely refrained from asking how exactly the Dementors had been buried—such a question would have been a waste of time.
"Eh? How did over a hundred Dementors end up buried underground?" After listening carefully to Rhys's account, Daphne immediately spotted the missing piece in the story.
Rhys: "…"
Astoria: "…"
"Just think of it as the school's defensive mechanisms being triggered," Rhys replied in a slightly weary tone, already beginning to consider whether he should teach this girl some of the combat methods Godric had once developed.
With that, Rhys felt he had explained enough to the two little ones. He stood up, went to the washroom to wash up, and prepared to sleep.
After Rhys left, Daphne and Astoria no longer had the heart to linger in the common room either. They had no desire to talk about the Quidditch match with their classmates—what they wanted most was a hot bath.
The two quickly walked to the girls' washroom, and as they opened the door, a wave of fragrant steam billowed out.
Every house's common room bore a strong mark of its founder's personal style. Gryffindor's was all about "functionality," Hufflepuff's about "warmth," Ravenclaw focused on "convenience for study," while Slytherin concentrated on "comfort" and "indulgence."
In Slytherin, even though the dormitories were shared, each student had more personal space than in any other house. Every bed was set far enough apart to ensure privacy—though, of course, if a roommate talked in their sleep, others could still hear it.
Back when Rhys designed the accommodations, he had considered setting up single rooms, but his old friends argued that such arrangements weren't good for a child's growth. Children should share a room with their peers.
Rhys eventually gave in, but quietly expanded the dormitory size to make it more comfortable.
The living conditions were already quite good, and the bathing facilities were even better. Rhys himself believed that Slytherin's student baths were the finest in the school.
He had made sure that every student could enjoy a bath pool. Although each pool was only a few square meters wide, it was still a real bath—something that, in other houses, only prefects were privileged enough to have.
Of course, Daphne and Astoria didn't know this "obscure detail."
At this moment, the two sisters were standing at the edges of neighboring pools, chatting about something.
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