Beneath his stray bangs gleamed the lightning-shaped scar.
Ron stared open-mouthed. "Did You-Know-Who do that?"
"Yes." Harry nodded and leaned forward. "Actually, I'm quite curious. Why do you all call Voldemort You-Know-Who, the Dark Lord, or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
Ron shuddered. "Oh, no. I knew it—I just knew that out of everyone, you'd be the only one who actually dares say his name."
"So, why can't anyone just say Voldemort?" Harry remained genuinely curious.
The books hadn't explained the reason.
Any mention of "Voldemort" was always replaced by "the Dark Lord" or "that man."
Ron froze, his brain momentarily crashing. "I... I don't know either. But my parents have always said it that way since I was little. They said if you speak the Dark Lord's name, bad things will happen."
"A curse?" Harry recalled a passage from *Dark Magic: A Guide to Self-Protection*—"Beware of ancient, wicked words; the words themselves carry the power of a curse."
Ron's expression grew very unnatural, and a pleading tone crept into his voice. "Oh, can we please stop talking about this? How about we talk about which Quidditch team you like?"
Harry didn't press further.
Even though he was indeed quite curious about it.
They shifted to other topics. Viewing this world from the perspective of a young wizard was quite an interesting experience anyway.
Witchers were not known for their conversational skills.
Ron, however, was exceptionally good at it.
Right up until noon, after they had bought some snacks, Ron's stream of chatter never once hit the floor.
*Clatter.*
Just as Ron was debating whether the earwax-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean tasted better than the dirt-flavored one, the compartment door was rudely yanked open.
A girl with prominent front teeth and thick, bushy brown hair thrust her head inside. "Has anyone seen a toad? Neville has lost a toad."
Harry raised his head and looked over, but remained silent.
"What are you looking at? I'm asking you," the girl said, maintaining her haughty tone.
Harry spoke up, sounding sincere and perplexed: "Are you an orphan with no parents, just like me?"
The girl froze.
This question...
Was he insulting her?
It definitely sounded like it.
But how was she supposed to retort when he had just insulted himself in the process? Perhaps this person didn't know how to talk and was simply being genuinely curious?
The girl struggled for a moment. "Oh, no. Sorry, I'm not an orphan."
Harry raised a hand and pointed at Ron. "He has seven children in his family, and his parents taught him to knock before entering someone else's compartment. Why haven't you learned that yet?"
Ron, his mouth stuffed with pumpkin pasty, lifted his head in a daze.
He was just an innocent bystander enjoying the show; why had a stray arrow suddenly struck him in the knee?
He understood the meaning.
Yet why... did it sound so uncomfortable?
The girl's face flushed red. "I'm sorry, I was just too impatient, but Neville's pet is missing."
"We haven't seen it," Harry replied.
The girl backed out, hurriedly pulling the door shut. "Thank you, sorry to bother you."
Ron looked with complicated emotions at the person sitting opposite him. "Harry, I mean no offense, but has anyone ever told you that your way of speaking might have a few problems?"
Harry nodded in brisk agreement. "Yes, plenty of people have said so. I think there are some problems with it too."
"You know what? Whenever I think I'm communicating with someone very gently, it always ends up turning into a fistfight."
"Then you should change that," Ron offered as a thoroughly reliable suggestion.
Harry looked over, bewildered and righteous: "Isn't winning all that matters?"
Ron opened his mouth, speechless.
He stared at Harry with a conflicted expression—that scrawny little frame looked nothing like someone who could actually fight.
*Clatter*—the compartment door was yanked open once more.
Still no knocking.
The number of people entering had even increased to three boys, led by a pale boy with platinum-blond hair. The brown-haired girl wore her arrogance on her tongue, but this boy wore his right on his face.
"I heard Harry Potter is in this compartment," he said, eyeing the two of them. Upon seeing Ron, an obnoxious look of disgust flashed across his face, and he hurriedly turned his attention back to Harry. "So that's you?"
"Are you also..." Harry started, about to ask a question.
Ron hastily cut in, "He has parents, and he's a Malfoy... That sort of attitude is utterly sickening."
Malfoy was baffled.
Everyone had parents, didn't they? Wasn't that common knowledge?
"Then why don't you know how to knock either?" Harry changed his question, asking it very bluntly.
Malfoy raised his chin haughtily and extended a hand toward Harry. "I'm here to make friends with you, but it looks like you've already made a friend ahead of time?"
"Still, Potter, even among wizarding families, some are better than others."
"I've heard my father talk about it—the scum of the pure-bloods, the red-haired Weasley family that spawns a litter of stinking little brats."
"Obviously—"
"Potter, I should think you wouldn't want to make friends with the wrong sort."
Ron clenched his fists, his face flushed red.
Harry didn't reach out his hand. He stared straight at Malfoy.
Those cat-like eyes locked onto him, sending a chilling, creeping dread straight down to his bones.
"We are the wrong sort already, aren't we?" Harry smiled, shook his head, and said.
Malfoy pulled his hand back, his expression turning so cold that it added a sickly tint to his already pale face. "The wrong sort? It seems you've spent too much time in the Mudbloods' world!"
"Potter, if I were you, I'd be extra careful. Hanging around with riffraff like a Weasley, you'll turn into riffraff sooner or later."
Harry sighed and clenched his fists. "I was trying to have a serious conversation with you."
"But the result seems to have blown up."
"Let's just skip all the nonsense, then." He stood up and assumed a combat stance. "Are you all coming together, or one by one? Either way is fine with me."
Malfoy took a step back. "What do you want? Are you trying to start a fight?"
"Isn't that obvious?" Harry retorted.
"Crabbe, Goyle, teach him a lesson!" Malfoy glanced at his two lackeys and sneered. "Let this ungrateful scarhead calm down."
Harry felt not a single ripple in his heart.
He just knew it would come to this.
He sidestepped, threw a straight jab, and caught Goyle square on the bridge of the nose—blood and snot sprayed together, staining Malfoy's platinum hair with a touch of crimson.
Crouching low with a bent waist, he landed a hook to Crabbe's chin.
His strength wasn't enough to lift him off his feet.
Yet the blow to the jaw instantly twisted Crabbe's expression, and Harry seized the opportunity to follow up with a swinging punch.
An eleven-year-old kid, no matter how bulky, how much impact resistance could he possibly have?
The two of them clutched their heads, dropping to their knees and howling in agony.
Malfoy stared at Harry in terror.
"Are you still coming?" Harry asked expressionlessly, shaking out his hand to flick away the blood and snot stuck to it.
Malfoy stumbled, backing away as he fled.
Crabbe and Goyle half-rolled as they scrambled out of the compartment too.
Harry shut the door.
When he sat back down, Ron's expression was peculiar and tinged with excitement. "I believe it now. You really can fight. Those two big hulks, and you took them down in two or three punches."
"They're weak." Harry shook his head, feeling not an ounce of pride. Bullying children even generated a fleeting second or two of guilt. "And as wizards, they didn't even cast any spells."
Of course... he hadn't given them the chance to pull out their wands, either.
"No, young wizards don't know any spells before starting school," Ron immediately shook his head in denial, though halfway through, he remembered Harry's Levitation Charm and added hesitantly, "You're an exception, after all. You're the Savior."
Harry unwrapped a licorice wand and bit down on it. "Was there anything wrong with what I just said?"
Ron blinked. "Which part?"
"Every part." Harry looked somewhat troubled. "And what does 'Mudblood' mean?"
Ron's features twisted up. "It's a bad word—a foul slur used to discriminate against Muggle-born wizards. It's horrible, and only truly evil, hopeless Dark wizards would ever say it."
"Take Malfoy, for instance."
"And that whole lot of naturally wicked sods in Slytherin."
*Crunch*, Harry bit off a piece of the licorice wand. "Aren't Muggles the same, though?"
"Muggles aren't the same?" Ron couldn't quite grasp that statement.
Harry swallowed the food in his mouth. "I mean, doesn't 'Muggle' carry just as heavy a discriminatory meaning as 'Mudblood'?"
"Why would you say that?" Ron asked, completely baffled.
"How is the word 'Muggle' spelled?" Harry traced his finger across the table. "M-U-G-G-L-E."
"Didn't you notice anything wrong with it?"
Ron still looked blank.
"Don't wizards learn vocabulary?" Harry raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised.
Ron's face flushed. "No, we do learn it! Of course we do!"
"I just don't understand what you mean. What's wrong with this word?"
Harry sighed. "The root of Muggle is M-U-G, mug."
Ron countered, "That means a cup."
"It can also be applied to people, meaning a fool," Harry tapped the table.
In truth, he much preferred the term used for non-magical humans in the History of Magic books—"No-Maj."
Ron's brain crashed once more.
He found it rather hard to accept that a word he had used for so long carried such a layer of meaning.
Inside the compartment, an unfamiliar male voice rang out.
"Five minutes until we reach Hogwarts, please change into your school robes and leave your luggage on the train; we will have your belongings delivered to your dormitories."
Harry stood up, flicked his wand to summon his school robes, and patted Ron on the shoulder. "Don't think too much about it. It's just a label."
"If you're used to using it, just keep using it."
Ron looked conflicted. "But you said it means a fool."
"Mug is a fool, but Muggle isn't," Harry shrugged, changing his clothes. "A label doesn't change anything."
Ron nodded. "Oh, well, alright."
"Have you figured out which house you want to go to?"
His mood adjusted quickly; after all, he was a man who insisted he would be in Gryffindor. In almost an instant, he cast his worries to the back of his mind.
Harry thought for a moment. "Maybe Gryffindor."
The heads of all four houses possessed holy relics, and Gryffindor's relic was a sword forged by Goblins—that might be some extraordinary magical item. To a Witcher, nothing was more alluring than a good sword.