At night, in the dungeons of Hogwarts Castle, the Slytherin common room was dimly lit.
Draco Malfoy sat in the prime spot by the fireplace.
For the past two days, he'd been bundled up, hood tightly drawn. But now, surprisingly, he wasn't wearing it.
The flickering flames cast a warm, reddish glow on Malfoy's smooth, bald head.
His face was dark, practically dripping with gloom, his gray eyes fixed on a golden wig sitting on the low table in front of him.
Every shimmering strand of that fancy wig seemed to mock his weakness and stupidity.
Malfoy could feel the subtle glances from all around him.
Those looks—judgmental, scornful, mocking—seemed to carry words no one dared say to his face.
Yesterday, Malfoy had dreaded the attention, terrified his undignified appearance would invite cruel taunts.
Until this afternoon, he'd cared deeply about the eyes onOSCILLATION on him. For the first time in his life, the usually arrogant Malfoy had felt inferior.
But now? He didn't care about such trivial things anymore.
A burning rage, like a fire in his bones, consumed his soul.
Before today, Malfoy had merely disliked Leon Green—maybe a bit more than he disliked Harry Potter.
But now? It was hatred.
He, Draco Malfoy, swore on Merlin's name to avenge his hair loss!
…
Malfoy sat there, glaring at the wig.
The other Slytherin students in the common room were quietly grumbling.
Malfoy had claimed the best spot by the fire and wasn't even doing anything—just sitting there, ordering his two bodyguards, Crabbe and Goyle, to keep everyone else away.
The coziest spot in the room was off-limits tonight.
The Slytherin common room and dorms extended deep under the Black Lake.
This gave every room a sophisticated, dark green hue.
Combined with Slytherin's lavish decor, it had a certain elegance.
But it also came with a constant damp chill and dimness.
The spots far from the fireplace were too cold and clammy to Leon in.
So, one by one, the students trickled back to their dorms.
Malfoy kept glaring at the wig, with Crabbe and Goyle standing like statues, guarding him.
Then Pansy Parkinson, seeing the room nearly empty, slipped over to talk to Malfoy.
Crabbe moved to stop her, but Malfoy waved her through.
"What do you want, Pansy? Come to laugh at me too?" he snapped.
Malfoy hadn't forgotten how, after Green showed up yesterday, Pansy—who'd always fawned over him—had dropped to the floor, playing dead.
Pansy looked awkward, a little guilty.
She clung to Draco partly because her family wanted her to cozy up to the Malfoy name, but also because she genuinely liked him.
But after writing home about Draco's clash with Green, she'd received multiple warnings from her family: stay out of their fight, and if you can't, play dead.
Pansy might not know the phrase "when gods fight, mortals suffer," but she knew she was a small fish in this pond.
Following her family's advice would at least keep her from becoming collateral damage.
Now, though, she'd heard something that might help Draco, and despite everything, her old feelings for him pushed her to share it quietly.
"Draco, don't be mad. I overheard something about that person and came to tell you right away."
Yup, Leon Green had officially become "You-Know-Who" in her mind.
Malfoy gave her a skeptical look, doubting she'd know anything he couldn't find out himself.
But he didn't stop her from talking.
Pansy leaned closer, lowering her voice. "This afternoon, Daphne said her sister Astoria mentioned that Green looks really familiar. She asked Daphne if he might be related to the Greengrass family. Daphne got the same vibe but couldn't place it. She wrote home to ask her mom, and today she got a reply telling them not to meddle or ask questions."
Malfoy's mind, clouded with thoughts of revenge, didn't quite catch her meaning at first.
Noticing his confusion, Pansy pressed on. "I think something's up. I asked Theodore Nott about it. He doesn't talk much, but he said Green looked familiar too, like he'd seen him somewhere before. Nott said it's normal—pure-blood families are all tangled up with each other, so it could be some distant relation."
Malfoy started to get it. A faint idea sparked in his mind, but it was too slippery to grasp.
He forced himself to calm down, thinking back to the first time he saw Leon Green.
It was during the Sorting Ceremony, when everyone was seated in the Great Hall.
Malfoy had been griping to Crabbe and Goyle about missing a chance to mess with Potter and Weasley on the train.
Then McGonagall led in the first-years, and a buzz of excitement from the girls made Malfoy turn his head.
There he was.
Black curly hair, handsome, tall, and lanky.
But it was his vibe—so distinct, standing there casually with no expression, yet radiating this I'm-better-than-everyone arrogance.
Merlin's beard, it was the exact vibe Malfoy always tried to project!
It was perfect, that je ne sais quoi!
And it was on someone else!
Why wasn't it Draco Malfoy?
Recalling that moment from over a week ago, Malfoy cringed at his intense jealousy. Now, it had all turned to hate.
Pushing past the emotions, he focused on his first impression of Green's face.
Familiar. Like he'd seen it before.
Malfoy realized he'd had the same thought as Theodore and the Greengrass sisters.
They were outsiders, seeing things more clearly than he had, caught up in his drama.
The Greengrasses, Nott, and Malfoy were all from the Sacred Twenty-Eight pure-blood families.
Could that mean tracing their family trees might reveal Green's origins?
Draco, like his father Lucius, knew that to take someone down, you first find their roots and hit them where it hurts.
He was determined to figure out Green's background—especially since his father had been so secretive, even when his own son was humiliated.
"Good work, Pansy," Malfoy said, tossing her a casual compliment before turning to his next task. "Now, help me figure out how to get Daphne and Theodore to sneak out their family trees for me to look at."
Pansy couldn't hold back anymore. She gave Malfoy a subtle are-you-serious look before saying, "Draco, don't you have that huge photo album with all your relatives' pictures? Maybe start there…"
"…"
Over an hour later, Malfoy was sprawled on his four-poster bed in the dorm, a thick photo album open in front of him.
By candlelight, he carefully studied every face in every picture.
Finally, in a section labeled "Bellatrix's Wedding," he found a group photo.
The bride and groom—his aunt Bellatrix Lestrange and her new husband—stood in the center.
His mother, Narcissa, dressed as a bridesmaid, was next to Bellatrix.
Beside Narcissa was his other aunt, Andromeda Tonks, long since disowned by the family.
In the photo, Andromeda was tugging on a teenage boy who looked thoroughly annoyed.
The boy had elegant black curly hair, tall and thin.
His sour expression didn't hide his good looks—it gave him a wild, untamed edge.
This boy looked almost exactly like Leon Green.
Malfoy's hand trembled as he pulled the photo out and flipped it over.
There, in his mother's neat handwriting, were the names of everyone in the picture.
In the corner, he found a single abbreviation—
SB.
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