Eric? Hohenzollern dragged a suitcase on wheels through the narrow aisles of the train, its grunt sliding across the ground with a "wheeping" sound like the echo of a train wheels passing over the tracks.

The rainy weather outside did not affect his good mood, which was a rare time in his good mood since the beginning of last semester.

The newspaper he carried in his arms showed the reason for his good mood, the daily newspaper of the Prophet two weeks ago, which contained the best news he had read in a year.

The fact that the man had returned—his presence in England could not help but excite Eric, proved that his insistence on the Snake Letter was not meaningless, and seemed to indicate that a difficult period of low tide seemed to be coming to an end, and if it were not for the sense of order that characterised a part of the Germans, he would have been bouncing up in the carriage long ago.

Eric is not English, Hohenzollern is a wizarding family from Germany, with a very long history, once comparable to the twenty-eight pure-blood families in England, but now it is a world of difference.

When the shadow of the dark wizard Grindelwald loomed over the continent, many wizarding families took refuge in this terrifying and powerful wizard.

Grindelwald also built his own wizards' prison in Nuremberg, Newmontard, to imprison those who did not listen to him, and used this as his base camp, so that no wizards in Europe were more affected by him than in Germany.

At that time, almost all pure-blood wizards gathered under the banner of Grindelwald, and it was also their most glorious period, breaking the rules, ignoring the law, and no one could restrict them, and the Hohenzollerns were no exception.

But then it's all over, Arbus? Dumbledore defeated the illustrious Grindelwald, and with him the unstoppable army of wizards.

Numerous arrests, the International Federation of Wizards and the Ministry of Magic of various countries purged the remnants of Grindelwald, and even the Magical Congress of the United States was involved, and the German pure-blood wizarding families as the base camp were not spared, a result that dealt a heavy blow to the German wizarding world, and since then, the German wizarding community has begun to decay and die.

Ironically, in order to revive the family, or even just prevent it from decaying, Eric went to the school of Dumbledore, the wizard who defeated Grindelwald, not out of his own wishes, but by his father's arrangement.

"Hogwarts is one of the best schools of witchcraft and wizardry in the world, go there and you can befriend those truly powerful wizards, take up your responsibilities, Eric, the German wizarding world is a pool of stagnant water, and the future of the Hohenzollerns is in your hands."

This was his father's admonition to him before he came to England, and Eric took it to heart, and left his hometown alone for the island of Great Britain beyond the Channel.

Then he met the wizard who made him feel incredible, Ning An, whose great talent amazed Eric and was completely impressed when he witnessed Ning An turning a senior student into a ferret in the Great Hall.

Even his own father couldn't use such a brilliant malicious transfiguration, and Ning An was only in the second year at the time, Eric firmly believed that Ning An was the person he wanted to meet, he had no doubt that this boy would already make a big difference in the wizarding world in the future, and he even applauded his father's foresight for countless nights, what better investment than to meet a powerful wizard when he was a student?

Luckily, Eric was also in Slytherin, so when he secretly heard that Ning An had formed a small organization called Snake Letter, he didn't hesitate to join.

He was honored and proud, and when he wrote back home, his father praised him for it

"If that boy is as gifted as you say, I'm proud of you, Eric, and the revival of the family is in your hands."

But just when Eric was full of ambition, the sky was changing, and before the end of the semester, there was shocking news that Ning An had snatched Gryffindor's treasure, attacked the professor and another seventh-year student of Serpent, and defected from Hogwarts.

The wheels of the trunk slid past the threshold connecting the two compartments with a "pop", but this did not wake Eric from his memories, and the front compartments were filled and he had to walk backwards.

Last year's school life made him feel physically and mentally exhausted, and unlike many students who made "wise" choices, he chose to be a "fool".

Although he tried his best to express his innocence in front of the Aurors who came to investigate, saying that he just wanted to gain fame, he didn't do anything bad at all, but he was just blind.

But after the Aurors left, the whole thing came to an end for a while, and Eric still secretly rallied with the other members who were unwilling to quit, but unfortunately, because there was no strong leader, the rest of the people were always scattered, plus those pure-blood students who had broken away from Serpent and prided themselves as noble, and they even more bullied those who were unwilling to break away from Serpent, just because many of them were mixed-race.

So in the past year, Eric has had a hard time, because he tries to protect those bullied colleagues as much as possible, even though he has good strength, but the power of one person is limited after all, and when the professors and deans are in a state of uproar, no one dares to reorganize the snake letter in the open, so they are always in a passive situation.

"But the future will be different!"

Eric clenched his fists in high spirits, that person is back, and everyone can see the news of his appearance again, which is undoubtedly a dose of strength for the panicked snake letter, last semester there were many people who said that Ning An had been secretly arrested, and even occasionally someone said that they had been abandoned, and Ning An had already run away somewhere in South America and would not come back.

"But now he's back!"

Eric couldn't wait, he was even wondering whether to graduate from Hogwarts early, and the exams were likely to be approved due to the special reasons of different national conditions, and the boy couldn't wait to go to Ning An and rejoin him.

"If I can, I may be able to invite him to Germany first, and if the Hohenzollern family has the help of that lord, they may be able to unite the other families, and then the German wizarding community will be a whole whole-"

Just as Eric was carefully considering the plan for the future, several figures vaguely appeared in the aisle of the carriage in front of him, and as he got closer and closer, he could see who it was.

There were four people in total, three of them blocked a boy in the corner of the aisle, and the four of them blocked the entire aisle, and the others couldn't get through.

Cassius? Warrington, the tall Slytherin chaser, was a sixth-grader, and next to him stood his fellow party Graham? Montay was also a Slytherin Quidditch chaser last year and was the captain of the team.

Standing behind the two of them was a short, thin monkey-like figure, Archibald? McLeish, once a member of the Snake Letter, now a lackey of the two, stood behind them rubbing his hands together with a flattering expression and a hippie smile.

The three of them, Eric, are so familiar with each other, one of the most aggressive people to bully the remaining members of the Serpent Letter, and of course there was originally a Laurel? Lanz's, but now—Eric couldn't help but smirk at the thought of her, I don't know why these idiots dared to be so arrogant after learning what happened to Laurel.

Eric shook his head silently and sighed.

Stuck in the corner of the aisle by the three men was a thin boy, probably taller than Archibald, but as thin as he was, and was now looking timidly at the vicious Cassius and Graham.

Dominica? Walker, Eric knew, one year younger than him, only in his third year this year, and the same member who was still reluctant to quit Serpent, worse than half-blood, he was a Muggle-born wizard - in English parlance, yes - Mudblood.

God knows why this poor guy was sorted into Slytherin, maybe the Sorting Hat accidentally got the wrong one by taking a nap while sorting it? In short, as the only wizard from a Muggle family in the whole house, he made a lot of jokes and aroused suspicion at the beginning of the school year, and then after Dominic's identity was discovered, he had a very miserable life.

In fact, Eric didn't care about blood, he didn't understand why the British were so obsessed with blood, at least in Germany, no one cared about that, the only thing everyone did was to keep their family's bloodline from being severed, I don't know how many families faded out of the wizarding world because there were no more wizard descendants and became ordinary Muggle families.

If combining with Muggles would produce magically gifted offspring, Eric thought that mixing might become a popular trend - of course, nothing would be one-sided, and naturally there were a small number of pure-blood extremists who desperately resisted bonding with Muggles.

But Eric didn't care about that, and he wondered how long it would be before the pedantic and stubborn ones would perish because they had no heirs.

Anyway, although Eric didn't care, the rest of the Slytherins basically cared about it, so Dominic's life in his first year was horrific and outrageous, he told Eric in a conversation last year

"When I first started school, I really wanted to learn a magic and kill myself, you know, not to kill others, but to kill myself — to end this pain."

But as if arranged by fate, the news that Ning An created the snake letter came, and I don't know who told Dominic the news, this is an extremely bad move, and everyone takes it for granted to see how Ning An will punish this little mudblood.

Dominic was probably also driven crazy, maybe he thought that Ning An could give him a good time, so he really went to Ning An and asked to join the snake letter - to everyone's surprise, Ning An actually agreed.

Dominic later said to Eric:

"It was the best time I've ever had at Hogwarts, the first time I woke up naturally in the middle of the night without having to be taken out of bed in the middle of the night and hung on a chandelier, the first time I didn't eat slugs or slugs or winged cockroaches for breakfast, and the first day was spent without any extortion or robbing of the textbooks I needed for tomorrow."

Later, when Ning An leaves, everything is back to the way it was, but with the help of Eric and several other members of the Snake Letter, either explicitly or implicitly, Dominic is not so miserable that he commits suicide, and now he is obviously being bullied again.

Eric dragged the box two steps forward, and the sound of the wheels of the train "clicking" and the sound of wind and rain whistling outside the window overshadowed the sliding of the box wheels, and Eric vaguely heard several people talking.

Strong-bodied Cassius? Warrington was grabbing Dominic's collar with the sturdy arms of a weightlifter, two large handprints on the white collar, crumpled and torn a little bit, and he was pressed against the wall of the aisle, his feet slightly off the ground.

"Hey, listen to me, stinky boy, don't play tricks on me - I said thirty Galleons is thirty Galleons, you have to give it to me whether you have it or not, if you can't get it, even if you steal it, I want to see the money, understand?"

Dominic's face was bloodless, and Cassius's large, pincer-like hand pressed him to the point where he could barely breathe, and the voice squeezed out of his throat

"I don't have any money—I've already given you all my pocket money this semester—my parents—"

"Come on, don't mention your Muggle parents, two big fools give birth to a little fool."

Cassius interrupted Dominic forcefully and thrust him hard against the carriage, causing the boy to let out a painful "hmm".

"Please stop, Mr. Cassius—"

Eric sighed and dragged the box forward, this is the current situation of the snake letter members, he can almost guess what is going on, it is nothing more than Cassius forcing Dominic to "borrow" money from them again, it has happened many times, but I don't know how much the "interest" will be this time.

"Hey, look, isn't this our "good guy" Eric? What, a good friend who came to help you again? ”

Cassius slowly let go of his hand and let Dominic slide off the wall naturally, turned around and stared at Eric with a mocking expression, and said in an exaggerated tone:

"I'm just trying to get my money back, what's wrong with that—Mr. Eric? ”

"How much he owes you, I'll pay it back."

Eric stared at Cassius without blinking, as if to imprint the face in his mind, and without looking down, he took out a small bag from his pocket and weighed it, and the bag jingled.

Cassius turned back to exchange glances with his fellow party Graham, but he didn't even look at Archibald, who was looking at them, swallowed and turned to Eric again:

"No more, no less, sixty gold Galleons."

Doubling in the blink of an eye, Eric nodded, knowing what was going on, and without saying anything, he counted from the bag, took out a few gold coins, and then plunged into the mouth of the bag and threw it over:

"Count, sixty, if nothing else does, we'll go first."

Seeing the money, Cassius immediately poured out Garon, and divided the spoils with Graham with a smile, and no longer cared about the two of them, Eric stepped forward and reached out to pull Dominic up, he had done this many times last year.

This time, however, Dominic was mad, and instead of taking Eric's hand, he pulled out a shiny silver dagger from his bosom, which was the tool used to cut grass roots in Potions class.

In Eric? Before Hohenzollern could react, Dominic plunged the knife into Cassius's muscular calf—

With a scream and blood on the ground, Eric secretly said that it was bad, and hurriedly pulled up Dominic and ran to the back of the carriage, and from behind him came Cassius a painful and angry yell:

"Catch them, damn it—the stinky mudbloods would dare to stab me with a knife—catch them both!"

Eric ran wildly with Dominic, leaving his suitcase behind, and he complained to Dominic, who was still smirking on the side:

"Please, you're a wizard, even giving him a curse or something is better than being rude like this."

"I like to be direct—"

Dominic smirked back, and Eric was stunned, this was the first time the boy had said such a thing.