"Slytherin actually won! The Snitch just flew right o Welen Higgs, and all he had to do was reach out and grab it. The puy was so exhausted that he barely moved!"
"Really?" Alex raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued. "He won by sheer luck?"
"Yup!" Vivian grinned. "It ure ce. Everyone was so tired, and the Snitch basically decided the game for them. I didn’t stay until the end, though. I left when it started getting dark."
Alex nodded. He had expected the game to st a while, but he hadn’t thought it would go on that long. "I’m surprised anyone was left standing."
As they ate, a loud cheer rose from the Slytherin table. Alex gnced over and saw Welen Higgs, the hero of the previous night's match, entering the Great Hall.
Higgs was a third-year student, with short bck hair and a solid build. He smiled politely as he passed by, nodding at those who gratuted him. When his eyes met Alex’s, he gave a small nod, which Alex returned with a smile.
It struck Alex that not every Slytherin fit the stereotype of being cruel ant. Spending time in the house had helped him see the more plex qualities of Slytherins—ambition, shrewdness, and a strong sense of self-preservation.
He had read about Sazar Slytherin in one of his history books, noting how the founder valued resourcefulness, intelligence, and strong will, alongside a disregard for following rules blindly. In many ways, Alex had e to realize that he fit Slytherin's mold. The pure-blood supremacists annoyed him, but he uood that the house’s values aligned with his own pragmatic approach to life.
Time flew by, and soon the Christmas holidays were approag. By now, Alex had mastered the basic spells for each grade. He had even dabbled with more advanced magic like the Illusion Charm, though with less success. Some spells, like the Patronus Charm, Apparition, and Occlumency, were still elusive to him, but he made peace with the fact that mastery would e with time.
"Huh... I’ll push those tougher spells to after Christmas," Alex muttered to himself, pnning his steps. He hadn’t heard much from Rozier tely, but he figured the guy would pop up eventually.
Feeliless, Alex decided to head outside and visit Hagrid. The on room was unusually busy that day, as students gathered tister with Professor Slughorn for staying on campus over the holidays.
Since Alex had already made pns to spend Christmas with Sirius, he quickly exged a few words with the professor a.
As he walked through Clock Square, fine snowfkes started drifting down from the sky, c the ground with a light dusting of white.
"It’s snowing," Alex remarked with a small smile.
"Yeah, it is," a soft voice replied.
Alex turo find a familiar-looking girl standing nearby. After a moment, he remembered who she was—Orianna, the girl who had crossed the ke with him on their first day at Hogwarts. She had been sorted into Ravencw.
"Orianna, right?" Alex asked.
She grinned, her breath visible in the cold air. "I’m surprised the 'ghost of Slytherin' remembers my name."
"Ghost of Slytherin?" Alex repeated, fused. "You meahe ghost of Slytherin is the Bloody Baron, not me."
Orianna ughed. "Oh, that’s just a niame you’ve earned among the first-years. People hardly ever see you around. Some of us started w if you eveed, so we started calling you the 'ghost of Slytherin.'"
Alex blinked, surprised. "A ghost, huh? Guess I’ve been ying low for too long."
Orianna, watg him lost in thought, decided to break the silence. With a mischievous grin, she bent down, formed a snowball in her hands, and aimed it at Alex’s head, thinking it would be a funny prank. But just as the snowball was about to hit him, it froze in mid-air. Alex turned his head slowly, gng at the suspended snowball. With a small flick of his fingers, the snowball reversed course and flew straight at Orianna at twice the speed, smag her squarely in the face.
The force of the hit knocked her off her feet, and she nded with a soft thud in the snow. For a moment, she sat there in stunned silence, blinking in disbelief at what had just happened.
"You're too weak," Alex said, his to, before turning and leaving Clock Square without a sed gnce.
Orianna, still on the ground with a face full of snow, finally snapped out of her shock. Her face flushed red with a mix of embarrassment and frustration. "Crazy!" she shouted after him, but Alex was already too far to hear her.
Alex, meanwhile, was entirely oblivious to how his straightforward, no-nonsense rea had left Orianna speechless. He tinued walking through the lightly falling snow, his mind drifting once more. As he walked, the snowfkes around him began to swirl in strange, hypnotic patterns, almost as if responding to his presence.
Without realizing it, Alex had entered a meditative state of heightened awareness. The snowfkes twirled around him like stars in a spiral gaxy, and he felt as though he could trol them effortlessly. His trol over his magic had grown without him realizing, and now, evei particles like snowfkes seemed to bend to his will.
When he came to, he found himself at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, snow still cirg him like a personal nebu. He exhaled slowly, watg the snowfkes scatter and rise into the air. "My Wingardium Leviosa... it feels different," Alex muttered to himself.
He realized that his trol over the spell had evolved. Before, he had to trate to move objects, but now it felt like the magiaturally extended from him, affeg anything within a certain range—snowfkes, air, and even water droplets.
He raised his hand, testing his newfound abilities. "If I move snowfkes like this... I lift myself?"
Fog his magic, Alex felt a surge of energy, and his body began to float, slowly lifting off the ground.
"It worked..." he whispered, a grin spreading across his face. "I fly without a broom."
Though the lift was slow and unsteady, Alex found himself h half a meter above the ground. It wasn’t as fast or trolled as a broomstick, but the fact that he could levitate himself at all was a massive breakthrough. He spent a few miesting his trol, floating up and down, enjoying the newfound freedom.
After a while, Alex lowered himself back to the ground.
