The Last Slytherin - Chapter 23

Finishing his debate, he went to the Talent show to pass time until the games at dungeons start. Many people one by one did tricks with various combinations of spells to impress the judges who are actually the seventh year Prefects of four Houses. Some students sang songs from the Muggle world and did different styles of dances too.

Especially the twins Parvati and Padma did a style of traditional south Indian dance with wearing different kinds of jewelry and their traditional clothes but the judges were very impressed with it and applauded their effort.

Later, other twins Fred and George Weasley did several tricks producing different kinds of sparks along with other genius things but were eliminated unanimously as they pulled out a stunt which made a swamp underneath the Judges and almost made them sink and also made a mess out of the room with other things as well.

After winning all of his Gobstones matches and advancing to finals, he returned to the Great Hall for lunch. Later, with Daphne and Malfoy, he went to the Quidditch stadium to see his teammates. After seeing the names, Daphne and Neal began to laugh so hard while Malfoy is cursing Tracey’s tongue.

In the Mini Quidditch team, by a great coincidence, Ron, Harry, Draco, and Jean from Ravenclaw end up as a team. Meanwhile, for Neal, it’s even more of a coincidence to end up with Wood, Flint and Cho Chang which all of his three teammates are official team players.

Each match was for only 15min since there are like 30 teams playing in the competition. as his match is the next one, he went to the waiting room where he saw all three of them are already there. The atmosphere inside wasn’t good as Flint and Wood are enemies in Quidditch while Cho Chang is also rival to Flint as she caught the snitch last time and eliminated Slytherin.

Flint greeted him as soon as he saw Neal. Neal greeted back everyone. Cho chang raised her hand to handshake, “it’s the second time today as teammates. Let’s do our best, Neal”. Neal smiled, “likewise” and shook her hand.

But then, the atmosphere turned silent as no one was speaking. So, Neal cleared his throat, “can I say something?”. Cho Chang replied, “yes, go on”. Neal replied, “the first team is just mediocre. We can easily defeat them. But we don’t know about future opponents.

Unlike you guys, who are official players, I don’t know how to play it. I know the rules but I never played it. Can I practice with them and you guys let me improve my game?”.

Since Flint was from the same house and the other two are good people, they readily accepted it. Their match soon started. While the stadium is packed, Draco, Daphne, Tracey and the rest were cheering for him by his surname. Although it is unclear whether they are cheering for the House or him, alone as both are the same.

As soon as the match started, the Quaffle rose in the air, Neal flew like a lightning on the Nimbus 2000 which he borrowed for the match temporarily from the Club and caught the ball but as his control is bad, he went a bit a too far and almost collided with the Pillar before he stopped.

While the students in the Gryffindor laughed along with Ron in the audience section, FLint shouted, “careful. You fly too fast”. Neal looked at him, “I’m ok. I’m just lacking control over the broom”. Neal threw the Quaffle to him and he flew towards one of the goalposts.

Flint who easily understood his intention quickly flew towards the keeper while dodging all three of them and threw it to Neal which he caught and threw into one of the Goalposts and scored it. “Good job, Neal”.

Just like that, they took all the 15minutes of the match to train Neal, how to score, dodge them while opponents intercept and how to intercept them and steal the Quaffle. Neal made mistakes a few times which got a chance for them to score four to five times but all were perfectly blocked by Wood and ending the score at 40-0, going into the next round.

While everyone is happy, Wood, on the other hand, frowned, “I guess, we might face a difficult opponent in the future if he ever joins the team”. While everyone just concentrated on the match or mistakes he made, Wood saw how Neal drastically improved from the first time Neal caught the Quaffle to the last goal he made.

Unfortunately for Malfoy, Harry and their team, they were eliminated on the first match as their opponents turned out to be Weasley brothers Fred and George. Unlike others, they weren’t randomly put as they look so identical that teachers get their name wrong every time. That’s why they were put on the same team or so, Neal thinks that way.

Everyone knows in Hogwarts that Weasley’s twins love to bully his brother, every time. So, how can his team win? not to mention, Harry is a seeker. He never trained as a chaser”. They were mercilessly thrashed by the twins to 80-0.

As all the matches are over, the sunset and everyone returned to their dormitories. After he returned to the common room, a Slytherin congratulated him for making into finals in Debate. The next day, after breakfast, while he and his gang were going to return to their dormitories, Cho Chang called him.

He stopped and turned back, “what happened?”. She replied, “can I talk to you for one second?”. Neal nodded, “sure”. Then he looked at others, “you guys go, I’ll come”. As they nodded while Daphne is frowning for some reason, He said, “ok, tell me”.

She replied, “well, the others want to have a meeting to discuss the debate. The topic was just posted”. Neal nodded and went with her. Meanwhile, Daphne asked, “who is that girl? I think I saw her somewhere”.

Malfoy replied, “oh, her? Didn’t you see her during the Quidditch game? She’s his teammate. her name is Cho chang. A 2nd year. She’s also Ravenclaw Quidditch team’s seeker”.

After the discussion was over, he returned to the common room and spent his time there and later went to the Gaming hall and played Gobstones Finals.

Too bad that he lost and end up as a runner up. He can’t do anything but accept his loss as fair because his opponent is a sixth-year Gobstones club captain. While he was invited to join the club, Neal refused as he already has too much on his hand.

Then, he went to the debate classroom where many students are standing outside of the classroom. As he saw the other three teams, he sighed as two of them are complete Ravenclaw teams. He spoke, “no matter who wins, your House will get points, Cho”. Cho Chang smiled but didn’t reply anything and waited for others to arrive.

As everyone sat, prof. McGonagall said, “well, I guess everyone prepared very well. ok, as you know, the topic is about Dark Magic. The time limit is 2 hours. Who wants to start?”.

While one of the opponents began to say about the unforgivable curses, Cho Chang argued, “to kill a person, you don’t need dark magic. Even normal Fire magic can kill someone if used correctly. Forget about magic, if you want to just kill, even with the help of a normal knife, club or some poison, you can kill. There are a lot of ways. So, it isn’t which tool it is or which curse it is, that important, it is the intent that’s very important”.

Then one of the opponents argued, “but, constant use of Dark arts will corrupt your mind. Wouldn’t it? Not to mention, powerful spells of Dark magic also require malicious intent to be successful. So, if one wants to learn that particular spell, then wouldn’t he go down into a dark path eventually to get stronger?”.

Then, Neal stood up and replied, “I think people need to understand the exact definition of Dark Magic and Ministry has to revise it again and split it into two branches as Dark Magic and Dark Arts instead of calling it as Dark Magic/Dark Arts”.