Harry Potter and the Great Old Ones

Chapter 581 The Half-Blood Prince
“Very well, since we’re going to disregard reality,” Tiera said. “Aren’t you the one who has committed heinous crimes?”

“Me? Why me?” Sarah Palmer shouted. “She started it all! She slandered and insulted Slytherin at the opening banquet!”

Sarah Palmer, with tears in her eyes as if she had suffered a great injustice, pointed at Mercedes Amishitia.

"Heh..." Tierra chuckled coldly. "Aren't you yourselves the ones who are slandering and insulting Slytherin?"

"Aren't you the ones who scheme and form cliques for personal gain?" Tiera retorted. "Aren't you the ones who curry favor with the powerful and sow discord? Aren't you the ones who have no bottom line and betray the country for personal gain? Aren't you the ones who engage in racial discrimination and promote genocide?"

“Which of these incidents has wronged you?” Tierra asked. “How many of those involved in the Dark Lord’s rebellion more than a decade ago, including the Death Eaters now, were from your Slytherin school?”

“These are all excuses! You just don’t like Slytherin House, so you’re deliberately targeting us!” Sarah Palmer said, trying to be unreasonable.

“I’m not the only one who dislikes your Slytherin House,” Tyella sneered. “Salazar Slytherin has been back in the world for so long, and the Ministry of Magic has been coming and going so many times, but have you ever seen him go back to Hogwarts, go back to Slytherin, even once?”

“It’s not just me who looks down on you; your creators, Slytherin, also do.” Tierra said, frowning.

"You, you, you, you're talking nonsense!" Sarah Palmer trembled, seemingly unable to speak, whether because she couldn't argue with Tierra or because she had suddenly heard such shocking news.

"Alright, don't you all have anything else to do? Why are you all crowding around here?" Tiera dismissed the surrounding crowd, then pointed at Mercedes Amishitia—

"Come find me after your next Dark Arts class and choose a school service project." With that, Tiera gracefully flicked her sleeve and followed the flow of people out of the Slytherin girls' dormitory.

Compared to the straightforward Mercedes Amishtia, Sergei Ivanov, Avdegrunia, Lomonrosov Kuragin, and Bakhkaradona were much more well-behaved.

The last one, Bakhkalla Adenauer, was probably already twenty-four years old. He didn't seem to get along well with the other three. Although they lived together, he didn't interact with any of his roommates, including Tierra, except for exchanging greetings every morning and evening.

The other three, Sergei Ivanov, Avdegrunya, and Lomonrosov Kuragin, are still around eighteen or nineteen years old, possessing a certain level of maturity but still exhibiting some immature behavior.

After the initial awkwardness, tension, and wariness, Sergei Ivanov began to gradually get closer to Tiera.

All three of them were expelled from Durmstrang in their fifth year, so after arriving at Hogwarts, they continued to take fifth-year courses. Therefore, they addressed Tyrell, who was in her sixth year, as "senior" and took advantage of their roommate status to ask Tyrell all sorts of questions about dark magic.

Although Tiera disliked the character of Sergei Ivanov, Avdegrunia, and Lomonrosov Kuragin, she wouldn't cause them any trouble in this situation. If they dared to ask a question, Tiera would answer it, and she would do so with genuine knowledge and insight, unlike Tom Riddle, who taught a little, hid some, and even lied about some things.

As for the schemes and plots that person had shown in his eyes when he was asking about dark magic, Tiera saw them too, but simply responded with a cold laugh.

These people really thought they were just naive sixteen-year-old boys who were well protected by Dumbledore.

……

In the following weeks of Potions class, whenever there was any discrepancy between the content in the standard advanced Potions textbook and the one Harry had, he would correct it according to the instructions in the old "Half-Blood Prince" book. He did this for four consecutive classes, and as a result, Horace Slughorn was very impressed with Harry's performance, saying that he had never taught such an outstanding student—except for Tyella.

It is clear that Horace Slaghorn has completely excluded Tiera from the category of "student".

In the first few lessons, Horace Slughorn might have praised Tiera with satisfaction, but after a while...

Even Ron could see the perfunctory tone in Horace Slughorn's praise.

Ron and Hermione, on the contrary, started to get a little unhappy.

Although Harry would lend them the books, Ron clearly had more trouble deciphering the handwritten annotations than Harry, and he didn't dare let Harry explain them aloud for him all the time, otherwise it would arouse suspicion.

Hermione continued to follow what she considered the "standard" instructions to prepare potions, but she was always more annoyed to find that the final result was never as good as the "Prince's" version.

"Sigh, Hermione's still so stubborn," Tierra once complained to Harry during a meal alone with him.

Harry nodded vigorously in agreement.

“Actually, I think she’s just unwilling to admit defeat.” Tiera shook her head helplessly.

Harry sometimes wonders who the "Half-Blood Prince" really is.

Although he was too busy with homework to read the whole book carefully, he still glanced at it and found that the Half-Blood Prince had written something on almost every page, and not all of the writing was related to potion making.

Occasionally, he would utter magical spells that seemed to be of his own making.

Harry would take these spells out to Tyella and ask her about them, and Tyella—

“If you want to learn it on your own, that’s perfectly fine,” Tiera replied. “These spells are safe, but don’t use them on your classmates.”

“Maybe ‘he’ should be replaced with ‘she’,” Hermione said sullenly in the common room one Saturday night, after she had overheard Harry mentioning the symbols written in the book to Ron. “That person might be a girl. I think the handwriting is more like a girl’s than a boy’s.”

“But isn’t he called the ‘Half-Blood Prince’?” Harry said. “What girls are called princes?”

Hermione seemed speechless, and somewhat irritatedly scratched her broom-like hair.

Ron was reading her article about the "principle of object regeneration" upside down when she frowned and snatched the assignment back from his hands.

(End of this chapter)