Rice: You have a deep misunderstanding of Slytherin.

Chapter 18 Rice: You have a deep misunderstanding of Slytherin.

Draco Malfoy was certain there was something wrong with his hearing; otherwise, he couldn't explain why anyone would dare say such a thing to his face. Rice's words had such a powerful impact on him that he froze, his mind blank.

After Rice spoke, the entire private room fell silent, with Daphne looking at Rice as if she were crazy. As a core member of a magical family with a thousand-year history, Daphne was well aware of the Malfoy family's secrets; the love letter written by the Malfoy family's ancestor to Queen Elizabeth I was still kept in her family's vault!

But as the saying goes, even if some things are true, you can't just say them everywhere. Rice's words perfectly illustrate this point.

As one of the most powerful and influential families in the wizarding world, the Malfoy family's secrets are not something anyone can easily uncover. If Rice's words got out, it would likely cause a huge uproar and lead to a furious retaliation from the Malfoy family. Thinking of this, Daphne couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat for Rice.

The definition of a pure-blood wizard can be divided into two categories: a broad one and a narrow one. In a broad sense, as long as the recent generations have been wizards and the wizard himself is low-key, he can call himself a pure-blood wizard. In a narrow sense, a pure-blood wizard follows the one-drop rule: if any branch of a family has ever had a Muggle in its family tree and has not been expelled from the family tree for intermarrying with a Muggle, then that family is not a pure-blood family.

The Malfoy family has always prided itself on being a "pure-blood family," so they certainly cannot accept the fact that their ancestors intermarried with Muggles.

Rice's words immediately broke Draco Malfoy's composure.

A few seconds later, his consciousness gradually returned to his mind, along with endless anger.

Blinded by rage, Malfoy roared and lunged at Rice, who was sitting in his seat. He swore in the name of his family name that he would teach this scoundrel a lesson he would never forget.

Having seen all sorts of storms, Rais calmly tapped the table with his wand in the face of the furious Malfoy. Several colorful ribbons flew into the air and tightly bound Malfoy's hands and feet together.

"Damn it! Crabbe, Goyle—" Malfoy, who had lost the ability to move freely, was still not awake. He immediately ordered his two henchmen to attack and turn the tide.

However, Crabbe and Goyle, though seemingly simple-minded and foolish, were not actually stupid. They merely shifted their feet instinctively, then stood still, having lost the courage to confront Rice after witnessing Malfoy's instantaneous defeat.

Seeing that Crabbe and Goyle did not obey his orders, Malfoy's anger intensified, but before he could speak again, a small cake floated up from the table and swished into his mouth, sealing it completely.

"Calm down first." Rice sighed, looking at Draco Malfoy lying on the ground, unable to speak, with pity in his eyes.

These guys have really gone mad.

Rice was a little disappointed that he hadn't brought those old letters with him, otherwise he would definitely have shown Draco how his ancestor had invited him to officiate his wedding with the Muggle nobleman.

"What are you all standing there for? You should go back to your own private rooms—do you expect me to treat you to dessert like him before you'll leave?"

Seeing Malfoy "tasting" the cake, Crabbe and Goyle put Malfoy on their shoulders without saying a word and carried him out of the carriage.

"If you have any doubts about what I'm saying, then write a letter to your father or grandfather, or look through your family genealogy and history, and everything will become clear."

Before Malfoy was carried out, Rice shouted something at his back, making Malfoy tremble with anger.

After easily dismissing Malfoy and his two companions, Rice was greeted by Hermione's admiring gaze and Daphne's concerned questioning.

"Are you crazy? You've really offended the Malfoy family!" Daphne's eyes were filled with anxiety. "Draco's father, Lucius Malfoy, is a close confidant of Minister Fudge and a member of the Hogwarts Board of Governors. If he wants to retaliate against you..."

"He won't," Rice said with absolute certainty.

Daphne was shocked. She couldn't understand why Lucius Malfoy, the current head of the Malfoy family, would ignore Rice's words that challenged the Malfoy family's bottom line.

"It's a very simple principle. I'm saying this here, and only the three of us—you, me, and Malfoy—know it. But if Lucius were to investigate this openly, it wouldn't just be the six of us who would know. Judging from your expression, you should know I'm telling the truth, right?"

"Of course, but—"

"That settles it then? Does Lucius not know the true nature of the Malfoy family?"

For Lucius, the best way to handle this was to pretend he hadn't heard it and ignore it as a child's joke. Otherwise, if things escalated, he would only end up looking foolish, since the Malfoy family had indeed intermarried with quite a few Muggle nobles.

After listening to Rice's explanation, Daphne suddenly felt that what he said seemed to make a lot of sense.

She felt somewhat relieved, but still instructed Rice to be vigilant and wary of any retaliation from Malfoy.

Rice nodded repeatedly, thanking her for her kindness, and then picked up the dessert to continue enjoying it.

Cool and delicious ice cream, soft and sweet cakes, cream puffs filled with delicate cream... Rice indulged in the delicious desserts without restraint.

As for Malfoy, perhaps because he calmed down on the way back to the box, he did not return to cause trouble for Rice.

Around midnight, amidst a loud commotion coming from the corridor, a smiling woman with dimples pushed open the stall door and asked, "Honey, would you like to buy some food?"

Although he had eaten a lot of desserts, firstly, as the saying goes, "desserts are in another stomach," and secondly, Rice also wanted to see the food of the current magical world. So he jumped up and went to the corridor with Hermione and Daphne.

Bibi-Flavor Beans, Bubble Gum, Chocolate Frog, Pumpkin Pie, Pot-Shaped Cake, Licorice Magic Wand...

The train had a wide variety of snacks, and Rice took a little of everything, but in the end Daphne paid the bill—she insisted on treating, saying that she had just enjoyed Rice's ice cream and desserts.

Hermione took out several boxes of washed fruit from her backpack as a way of repaying Daphne and Rice.

After dumping all the snacks on the table, a simple yet varied lunch begins.

The first bag of snacks Rice opened was called Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. This snack was quite interesting. The first one tasted ordinary, similar to the chocolate beans that Muggles eat. However, the second one changed flavor to mint, the third one was lemon, and the fourth one was beef...

Each one tastes different!

This unassuming little snack amazed Rice.

"What's this?" Hermione picked up a small box and examined it curiously. "Chocolate frogs? Are they frog snacks?"

She was worried that she would find a chocolate-flavored dried frog when she opened the box.

"What are you thinking about!" Hermione's words immediately conjured up a picture in Daphne's mind. She quickly shook her head, banishing the terrifying image from her mind.

"Chocolate Frog is a frog-shaped chocolate that comes with pictures of famous male and female wizards. Many wizards like to collect Chocolate Frog pictures."

Daphne's words reassured Hermione. She casually picked up a box of chocolate frogs and opened it; inside was a card and a lifelike chocolate frog.

Just as she was about to pick up the card to read it, the frog stretched out its hind legs, and Hermione's eyes widened instantly, followed by a scream:

"How can this frog move?!"

Screams couldn't stop the chocolate frog. Once it saw the light of day again, the chocolate frog curled up its hind legs and then leaped with all its might—

Just as it was about to gain its freedom, a slender hand reached out and intercepted it midway.

"That's how chocolate frogs are. Once you open the box, remember to hold on tight, or they'll run away." Daphne caught the chocolate frog that was trying to "escape" for Hermione. When she was about to return it to Hermione, Hermione refused Daphne's offer.

The chocolate frog was so realistic that it was hard for her to accept at first; she needed to mentally prepare herself.

"Let me see?" Rice also showed great interest in the chocolate frog. It wasn't difficult for him to make chocolate frogs move, but he was also well aware of the difficulty this spell presented to ordinary wizards; it required a high level of transfiguration.

How does the company that produces Chocolate Frogs manage to mass-produce this product? Is there some kind of Transfiguration master willing to work for them?

After receiving the chocolate frog from Daphne, Rice discovered that the spell on it hadn't changed its essential nature as chocolate; the warmth of Daphne's fingers had even melted part of it. But the magic had also endowed the chocolate frog with instincts; it could kick its legs, move, and possessed the survival instincts of a living frog.

Rice could sense very faint magical fluctuations emanating from this chocolate frog.

Based on his experience, he judged that the chocolate frog could only hop around for a minute at most, after which it would turn into a hard lump of chocolate, no different from the chocolate candies sold on Muggle shelves.

Rice pinched the chocolate frog's hind legs and put it in his mouth. The chocolate frog struggled a couple of times, then stopped moving. As for the taste, it was just ordinary milk chocolate, not much different from the chocolates he had bought before.

While Rice was enjoying the chocolate frog, Hermione picked up a picture card from the box and stared at the characters on it.

Salazar Slytherin, medieval (exact date unknown), one of the four famous founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was one of the earliest recorded Parsleyans and was skilled in a variety of spells.

Upon hearing Hermione's words, Rice looked up immediately: What? There's a picture of me in Chocolate Frog? Remembering Daphne's earlier statement that only famous wizards and witches could appear on Chocolate Frog pictures, Rice suddenly felt a little happy.

"You drew a Slytherin picture? Let me see." Daphne immediately put down her snacks and borrowed the picture from Hermione after seeing that Hermione had drawn a Slytherin picture.

She glanced at it once and returned it with a look of disappointment.

"It's just a regular gold card, not a reward card, what a pity."

From Daphne, Rice was surprised to learn that Chocolate Frog cards were divided into gold, silver, and bronze versions, as well as some rare hidden versions. His own card was a gold card, and there were also hidden cards known as "reward cards."

Rice was even happier after hearing the news.

"That's natural. As one of the four founders of Hogwarts, it's quite normal to be listed as a Gold Card and also have a hidden version."

Rice opened a box of chocolate frogs himself.

Perhaps it was fate, but the picture card inside this box of Chocolate Frogs was actually Salazar Slytherin, and according to Daphne's analysis, it was even a reward card!

"Look, this is the difference between a regular gold card and a reward card. The description of the reward card will include this sentence: He is also a supporter of pure-blood supremacy." Daphne patiently explained the difference between the regular card and the reward card to Rhys and Hermione.

Rice: ...

"I don't quite understand why Slytherins are called proponents of pure-blood supremacy?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Because he only accepts pure-blood wizards as students."

Even Hermione knows the answer to this question.

Rice felt as if something was stuck in his throat, making him choke and his vision go black.

"You have a deep misunderstanding about Slytherin. The idea that they only admit pure-blood students is a misconception. There are half-blood wizards among Slytherin students too..." He tried hard to defend himself, but to little avail.

He discovered that after a thousand years, the perception of him by later generations had been severely distorted by those with ulterior motives, and the Slytherin in the eyes of modern wizards was not himself at all!

They simply sculpted a statue of Salazar Slytherin according to their own preferences and then enshrined it. What the statue looked like and what clothes it wore were left to posterity to decide. They used Slytherin's voice to speak their own words.

Hearing Rice's explanation, Hermione shook her head and simply said to him: That's how it's recorded in the book.

Daphne also found Rice's argument somewhat unacceptable.

In her view, the name Slytherin was synonymous with pure-blood.

Rice himself had no way of expressing his suffering.

"You need to consider the circumstances surrounding the founding of Hogwarts. Is it possible that Slytherin wanted to admit pure-blood students because they were more reliable?"

This idea was so novel that it successfully piqued the interest of Hermione and Daphne, who asked Rice to elaborate, as it was the first time they had ever heard of such a concept.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

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(End of this chapter)