Send a textHogwarts is back, but the Great Hall feels different this year. From the staff table, Severus Snape is forced to endure Gilderoy Lockhart’s grating self-mythology while his attention keeps drifting to something that actually matters: Harry Potter.Harry looks healthier. Calmer. Still guarded, still sharp, but no longer like a child bracing for impact every second. And then Snape watches Potter’s little circle form at the Slytherin table in open defiance of tradition, with Susan Bones leading the charge and Hermione and Neville backing her up. It’s petty, clever, and annoyingly effective. Snape tries to shut it down and gets beaten on technicalities, in public, by second years.As the feast rolls on, Snape can’t ignore what the room is telling him. Harry’s alliances are hardening into something deliberate. Susan Bones is closer than anyone. Even the teachers notice, speculate, and misunderstand in all the usual ways.And when the night ends, Harry corners Snape with a request for a “favor”, delivered with far too much confidence for a twelve-year-old. Snape agrees to hear him out, only to discover that Potter’s newest weapon is not a spell at all. It is a name.Support the show

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