Repeated verbal blows left the Slytherin team in dead silence.
Eda's words had ripped away their last fig leaf, exposing them bare beneath the sunlight.
The sun was already high in the sky. Though September's weather carried a bit of chill, the Slytherin players only felt an oppressive heat. They wanted to refute Eda's words, opened their mouths—but found nothing they could say.
Once, there had been someone who led the pure-bloods back to glory. But after that brief glory, what was left was only a wreckage. Pure-blood families were forced to give up more and more benefits, just to keep themselves from being thrown into Azkaban.
Just as Eda had said, Muggle-born wizards and half-bloods had survived tenaciously, while one pure-blood family after another vanished into the river of history.
Even the Gaunts, descendants of Slytherin himself, had disappeared. Which pure-blood family would be next to vanish?
The so-called "Noble and Most Ancient House of Black"? When families themselves faded into extinction, could pure-bloods still call themselves "born noble, forever pure"?
In the hearts of those young Slytherins, Eda had planted a seed. With time, it might never sprout, or it might grow into a towering tree.
They had expected this to end in fists and blows, or perhaps Eda using her wand to teach Malfoy a lesson in humility. But unexpectedly, Eda did no such thing. Instead, she waged a war of thought with words alone—a kind of "verbal therapy" she had learned from Grindelwald.
Perhaps it lacked the quick satisfaction of a beating, but it cut deeper, leaving a longer-lasting impact, offering the Slytherins a choice unlike any they'd had before.
This was the first time Eda tried to solve a problem with words rather than violence—and the results were not bad.
Although her words were still a bit immature—easy for the old foxes to find flaws in, and sure to be laughed at by the adult members of pure-blood families—they were more than enough to deal with a group of inexperienced students.
The Gryffindor team stared at Eda in astonishment. She was clearly a violent brawler by nature, yet she hadn't thrown a punch or raised her wand—she'd actually used her brain and her tongue.
They almost wanted to say: Eda, your role as Gryffindor's number one hothead has completely collapsed!
Angelina, Alicia, and Katie thought it must be because she'd been woken up too early that morning and hadn't gotten enough sleep—that was why Eda was acting so strangely.
Fred and George glanced at the sun, confirmed it hadn't risen in the west, and their imaginations ran wild: Could it be that Eda actually has a twin sister?
Watching Eda's back, Hermione found yet another reason to admire her.
She vowed that she too would become someone like that!
Ron, however, didn't dare look at Eda. He was too scared. He thought that the punches which hadn't landed on Malfoy just now might all come crashing down on him instead.
And Harry—Harry had an epiphany. New skill unlocked!
Just when everyone thought the conflict had come to an end, Eda made yet another shocking move. She stepped right up to Malfoy—who was still reeling from the blows to his worldview—and landed a clean straight punch to his left eye.
Smach!
After the blow to his worldview, the physical blow finally came. Malfoy let out an "Oww!" as he clutched his eye and squatted down. He realized he had been hit, but he had no idea how it had even happened.
Malfoy's cry of pain snapped everyone else out of their daze. They saw Malfoy crouched on the ground holding his eye, and they saw Eda calmly straightening her robes.
"As I thought, I still prefer more direct methods. This so-called 'talk therapy' really doesn't suit me," Eda said to herself, completely ignoring the stunned looks around her.
The Gryffindor and Slytherin students immediately filled in the blanks on their own. Yes—that's the flavor, that's the scene they had expected, that's the Esmeralda Twist they knew: a girl who acts with her fists before her brain.
Someone once said: Don't care about what others think of you.
Eda had always lived by that rule. She walked straight over to Ron and said, with pointed meaning, "The sunlight's nice today, isn't it, Ronald Weasley?"
There's a rule in this world: when someone calls you by your full name, it's never a good thing—especially when it's your parents, or a terrifyingly powerful sister.
Ron Weasley trembled like a leaf.
He had lost all the swagger he'd shown earlier when he was waving the "nunchucks" at Malfoy. In fact, his performance was even worse than Malfoy's.
On one hand, he felt guilty for breaking his wand. On the other, he was terrified of Eda's anger.
At this moment, Ron would rather face a scarlet Howler. He even wanted to ask Malfoy: Did that punch hurt?
Malfoy, still crouched on the ground, obviously couldn't answer Ron's question—but the dark bruise forming around his left eye stood out starkly against his pale face. That was answer enough.
Ron tilted his head back and looked up at the sky. Yes.. The weather's nice… perfect day to set off on a journey.
As it turned out, Eda wasn't really someone who glorified violence, and Ron wasn't going to die young. She merely asked how exactly his wand had been broken and whether he needed her to help him order a new one.
The craft of wandmaking was complicated; it wasn't as simple as stuffing a core into a stick of wood. That was why wands were so expensive.
New students at Hogwarts could buy one from Ollivander at a relatively low price only because the Ministry of Magic offered subsidies. But if someone needed a second wand, they had to pay the full price.
If Ron had to buy a replacement wand, it wouldn't just cost the ten Galleons it had last year. On top of that, after making such a huge mistake, he didn't dare tell his family about snapping his wand in two.
A wand was essential to any wizard—whether an adult or a Hogwarts student. A wand held together with spellotape could never truly function; it would inevitably affect Ron's studies and daily life.
So, although Eda was furious with Ron's recklessness and wanted to give him a good beating, her first reaction was still to ask if he needed a new wand.
As they walked down the path toward Hagrid's hut, Ron kept his head hung low. He refused Eda's offer, because inside he was weighed down by guilt toward her.
Ten Galleons might not be much to many students, but for Eda it meant working long days at the Leaky Cauldron. He couldn't let her pay the price for his mistake.
There was no blood relation between them, so nothing between them was "obligated" or "owed." If she hadn't met Fred and George, if the Weasley couple hadn't taken her in, Eda might never even have known Ron—she would have treated him like everyone else did, just as Harry's tag-along.
But Eda not only met Fred and George, she was taken in by Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and treated as their own daughter. That made her Ron's sister without blood ties, someone who always looked after him and cared about his feelings.
In other people's eyes, Ron was merely Harry's sidekick. In Eda's eyes, Ron was her younger brother—and Harry was just that brother's friend, the so-called savior.
Eda cherished and cared for this brother without blood ties. And how could Ron not cherish and care for this sister as well?
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