The Ravenclaw leader saw the four Gryffindors and changed course directly for them, his team following loyally like a flock of migrating geese. He greeted Jack and his companions as if he was welcoming unexpected guests.

“My my, the Gryffindors!” he exclaimed. “And their new American! He looks as if he’s already fitting in splendidly.”

"Hello there, Montfort" Henry said, leaning on his broom casually. "We were just leaving.”

“So soon?” Montfort gave a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’d just come up with a rhyme for you!” His voice took on a mocking singsong quality:

> "Marshwiggle, Brackenby, and Ravenhurst,

> Who do you think they be?

> A peat-thief, a pig-scraper, and beggar-knight.

> Turn ‘em out, knaves all three!”

He paused for applause. The Ravenclaw team obliged him, laughing unpleasantly.

"That’s a new one," Henry's voice was light, but Jack could see his cheek muscle twitch. "Did your house-elf write that for you, or did you manage it yourself?"

Montfort’s grin grew wider, "Better borrowed wit than a dissolute’s fate, O Ravenhurst, with your pawned estate.” He pronounced the couplet like a stage actor. “The Yanks come to put their shoe on our neck and just like our foolish Muggles you line up to lick.” His gaze settled on Jack. ”So this is Semmes. Washington’s clumsy infiltrator. No surprise the hat put you with the lions, no decent house would have taken you..."

Jack blinked, completely thrown by this unexpected line of attack. "Hey now, I'm just here to-"

"Spread discord?” Montfort interrupted. “Ensure magical Britain remains on a leash? We know what you want, to keep us weak, divided, and dependent on your protection against manufactured threats of Grindlewalders hiding in the shadows."

“I-I-,” Jack blustered. “That’s not what-”

"I wouldn't expect an Ilvermorny boy to understand," Montfort made a dismissive gesture. "Your whole society is built on magical and racial segregation-"

“That’s not true-!”

“-to say nothing of systemic exploitation.” Montfort continued.

"Look," Jack tried again, "I don't know what you think MACUSA is doing, but I'm just here to study-"

"To study us? Report back? Ha!" Montfort's laugh was like the bark of a coyote. "Your timing is apropos! The very month that the Ministry debates closer ties with MACUSA, along comes their young representative..."

"Bugger off Montfort," Teddy cut in. "Save it for History of Magic."

"Keep your head in the sand then, Gryffindors," Montfort adjusted his silk Quidditch robes. "Your benighted den has always been this way. No self-awareness. No sense of responsibility. Too busy with sophomoric mischief while the world turns around you. Change is coming to Hogwarts. You’ll all see, soon enough."

"That's enough," Henry pulled on Jack’s robes. “We’re leaving.”

"Run along," Montfort dismissed them. "Remember, Semmes: Hogwarts is not Ilvermorny’s puppet."

The two groups parted. The Ravenclaws strode off towards the end of the pitch. Jack stared after them as the Gryffindors walked the opposite direction, completely flummoxed.

"Who," he managed finally, "was that?"

“Caeso Montfort," Henry explained grimly. "Sixth-year Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, all-around rotter.”

“You didn’t have to explain that last bit,” Jack replied, fixing his wind-blown hair. “What the heck is his problem? Acting high-hat like that…I've never even met the guy before.”

"He hates most Yanks on principle," Oliver explained. "Says that you lot export America along with your magic."

"You’re in good company, because he really hates us," Teddy added cheerfully. "Says we lack the capacity to understand our own oppression."

Henry huffed, “Let’s go old boy, we’ll walk back up to the castle and show you the north road to Hogsmeade.” They shouldered their brooms and started up the muddy trail, feet slipping occasionally on wet leaves. The late summer wind whipped Teddy’s scarlet and gold scarf. Jack was still reeling from the encounter. His good humor had evaporated. After about two minutes of silence, Jack had enough.

"If he had said that kind of stuff back home someone would have dropped him on the spot," Jack kicked a stone, sending it skittering off the path into the underbrush.

“Well you’re not ‘at home’, now are you, old boy?” Henry grunted, adjusting his broom. "Montfort’s always been a toff, we've had our share of run-ins… But I thought that he’d just ignore you. Something about you has really gotten under his skin."

“He’s a bloody bookworm Harry Flashman¹,” Teddy said, pulling out a pack of Ignis Fatuus cigarettes and passing them around.

"He must have caught wind of your tiffs with Hightower." Henry shot Jack a sideways glance, his brow furrowed. "The Montforts and the Hightowers go way back. Old families. Stuck-up and stuck together, like glue."

"Great," Jack muttered, taking one of Teddy’s cigarettes. His appreciation for Cassandra’s lenient punishment faded. "Miss Perfect Prefect writes me up and now I'm public enemy number one. Is that how things work around here?" He lit up his cigarette off of Teddy’s proffered wand.

Oliver let out a chuckle along with a cloud of smoke. "Welcome to Hogwarts, Yank."

"Montfort is not a boy to take lightly," Henry's voice was serious, shooting Oliver a quelling look. "His family has connections everywhere, the Ministry, school governors, the papers, you name it. And he's got a nasty habit of arranging accidents for people who cross him."

Stolen story; please report.

Jack felt slightly sick. Montfort’s mocking jingle resurfaced in his mind, “That stupid little song he sang: “The peat-thief, the pig-scraper, and the beggar-knight,” what did that all mean?”

"That rubbish.” Henry's face darkened further. "It's a Montfort thing. He loves writing little lines about other pure-bloods here that don’t see eye to eye with him. He really goes after the Slytherins. Calls them the ruling class. For us and any Huffles that cross him, its families who've fallen from grace…or were never there to begin with. Calls us riff-raff. Makes him feel good about himself."

"My family is from the fenlands," Teddy explained after a drag of his cigarette. "You don’t have them in America, I assume. It’s a giant swamp. Hence 'peat-thief.'" He looked over to Oliver.

"We Brackenbys are Cumbrians, neither Scot nor English," Oliver said after a few moments. "'Pig-scraper.'"

"And the Ravenhursts?" Jack asked, looking at Henry.

“The most pathetic of them all,” Henry let out a bitter laugh. "Used to be proper nobility, actually. Collected rent from half of the North. Then my great-grandfather got on the wrong side of the Goblin Banking Crisis of 1873. Lost everything. The demesne, the servants, the estate. Now we grow corn. I grew up in a dirt floored cottage within eyeshot of the Ravenhurst manor. It’s owned by a cadet branch of the Malfoys now. They’ve done dreadful garish things to the interior, so I’ve been told. All we have left is a title. When my father dies I’ll be Sir Henry, 9th Earl Ravenhurst - the 'beggar-knight.'"

“Merlin…” Jack breathed, “That’s awful.”

“It’s actually quite liberating, Semmes.” Henry grinned, “Do you think that I’d be able to tweak Hightower like that from the carriage or be out hobnobbing with these two reprobates if I was still a ‘proper noble’?”

He reached out with both arms and pulled Teddy and Oliver into a Falstaffian embrace, broomsticks clattering together. “What’s all that harness good for? Personal house elves spying on me? Gold plated sinks? Being betrothed to some rich no-chinned bint on my fourteenth birthday? I'll have none of it. Thus ends my catechism.”²

“Say what you want about the English wizarding nobility, they are consummate survivors,” Teddy declared. “Unfortunately most of them are not like Prince Hal here,” he slapped Henry on the back.

“More Shakespeare,” Oliver supplied for Jack’s literary appreciation.

"Does everyone here judge people by their parents?" Jack asked, amused at his friends’ impressive verbosity.

"Not everyone," Henry replied savagely. "Just the ones who have nothing else to be proud of.”

"Suffice to say, Semmes, you're basically everything Montfort’s afraid of," Oliver concluded.

"So what, we just let Montfort maraude around and insult everyone?" Jack asked.

"No," Henry's grim aspect shifted to something more calculating. "We need to be wise in the way we handle him. Picking our battles. Caeso Montfort prefers direct confrontation, it's how his kind operates, it’s where he has the advantage. Don’t even try to debate him. He’ll eviscerate you. But there are other ways to fight. Revenge is a dish best served cold, after all. And preferably with multiple witnesses and an ironclad alibi. That’s the road down to Hogsmeade, by the way.” Henry pointed down the left fork in the road with his broom. “We’ll take you once you’re a free man again." The boys took the right fork up towards the North Gate and Bell Tower, heading through the outer curtain wall.

Jack looked back toward the now-distant pitch, where Montfort was putting his team through their paces like a No-Maj drill sergeant.

“If Montfort’s so progressive and forward-thinking,” Jack wondered, “Why is he the captain of their Quidditch team? Isn't that a bit contradictory?”

“Ask him yourself,” Henry replied with a shrug. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Is he any good?”

“They’ve won the Cup for five years running. Helps that two of our best players got killed in ‘44.” Teddy said darkly.

“Is this a Ravenclaw thing?” Jack asked, “They all carry themselves like they own the place.”

"Not always," Henry said, “The houses go through cycles. Each one has its time in the sun.”

“Fortune's furious fickle wheel,” Teddy waxed unexpectedly philosophical, “She can only be constant by being perpetually inconstant.”³

Henry stretched his arms over his head to shake out any residual broom stiffness. “Slytherin used to rule the school fifty years ago, with Headmaster Black and one of their students stopping the Great Goblin Uprising.4 Then a whole bunch of students hopped in with Grindelwald when he kicked off and quit school to go fight-"

“-they’re all dead or in Azkaban now.” Teddy added parenthetically.

“Then it was between Hufflepuff and the Ravenclaws for a bit. During the next twenty years most of the half-bloods and muggle-born fled the country or were killed. Practically everyone left in school now are purebloods.”

Jack reflected back on the gaps in the house benches during the Sorting Ceremony. Empty spaces where students should have been.

"Slytherin and Gryffindor took the worst losses," Henry continued. "Mostly the conservative families, but some revolutionaries too."

"Wait a sec," Jack interrupted. "Slytherin? I read they were all for Grindelwald. You know, ambition, pureblood supremacy, magical dominance..."

"Not that simple old sport," Henry shook his head. "Slytherin split hard over Grindelwald. The traditionalists - ancient families like the Selwyns, Greengrasses, and the Venges - want absolute separation from Muggles. Splendid magical isolation. Grindelwald's 'for the greater good' meant actively controlling Muggles, which they saw as tainting wizarding society. They fought back. But then you had the radicals, from the upper middle-class, or younger sons of noble houses, people with something to prove. They bought into Grindelwald's vision of wizard supremacy. Saw it as their chance to reshape the world and seize power."

"Both sides hated each other more than they hated anyone else," Teddy nodded. "Family against family, brother against brother...proper Grecian tragedy. Ripped Slytherin apart."

Jack thought of Cyprian Venge sitting alone in the club car.

The great North Gate of Hogwarts loomed ahead, winged boars watching their approach with impassive stone eyes.

“The upshot is that the headmaster and all of the teachers now are Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs except for Professor MacLeod, and he’s missing a hand. And Vale too.” Henry added as an afterthought. “You’ve got to have a Slytherin potions master, it’s tradition.”

Jack thought about this as they passed under the outer gate and into the northern bailey. "What about Gryffindor?"

"Lots of open seats in the common room.” A shadow passed over Henry's face. “Gryffindors tend to pick sides and fight for them. We’re not fence sitters."

"Must have been terrible," Jack said quietly, thinking of the soldiers in the common room portrait and the enchanted mirror. He realized now there were fewer students in Gryffindor compared to the other houses. Coming from Ilvermorny he was somehow outside all this. No history, no baggage. He had no idea what his housemates had gone through for the past decade of their lives…

"Why'd you think the houses keep to themselves so much?” Teddy asked rhetorically. “Everyone remembers who supported who. You’re the odd duck crashing in here and upsetting the tea cart."

Literally. Jack thought ruefully about Cassandra’s blouse.

They walked in silence for a moment, their footsteps muffled. The northern courtyard sprawled before them, its manicured grass still wet with morning dew. To their right, the Care of Magical Creatures paddock stood empty except for a large, solitary, and very mundane milk cow. Ahead, second-years wobbled through basic flying drills over the lawn, their uncertain movements making Jack feel like a very expert flier indeed.

"Ravenclaw’s won the House Cup eight years running now, on top of the Quidditch Cup.” Oliver said. “Gone to their heads, if you ask me. Made them think they're untouchable."

"But they're not," Teddy chimed in, his narrow face set in a determined scowl. "Gryffindor's due for a surprise."

"Speaking of surprises," Henry stated, suddenly staring ahead.

A small figure in Ravenclaw robes had emerged from the Bell Tower, clearly intent on intercepting them. Even from a distance, her red hair blazed like a signal fire.