Chapter 133: The Penitent's Rite [bonus]
Arnold Belmont's name hung in the silence of the common room like smoke that refused to dissipate.
Everyone held their breath. The younger students shrank back until their spines pressed against cold stone, eyes wide, staring at the empty stretch of floor in front of the fireplace.
The upper-years stayed seated, gazes flicking between Regulus and Arnold, waiting for what came next.
The sharper ones were already running calculations.
They understood Arnold's play. Pressure through consensus, coercion through collective will, forcing Regulus into a public declaration. It was an old trick in Pure-blood circles. Someone always fell for it.
What they hadn't expected was this counterattack.
Regulus had taken a disagreement over ideology, a simple matter of whether to endorse the purge, and twisted it into a question of the Belmont family disrespecting the House of Black.
That single pivot changed everything.
Pure-blood society had a hierarchy.