’ “Come on, you two.
Keep close.” Hagrid was looking rather flustered now.
For all his enormous size, the prospect of Muggle police arriving to find an entire street in ruins clearly made him more nervous than facing a Norwegian Ridgeback.
He kept Harry tucked safely to one side while hovering one huge hand protectively near Morrin, as though terrified the delicate little boy who had just caused a magical explosion might suffer another mishap.
Morrin picked his way through the broken glass.
His steps were still somewhat unsteady, but his back remained perfectly straight.
He glanced over his shoulder at the utterly ruined Rolls Royce and Alfred, who was desperately trying to deal with the gathering crowd, without feeling the slightest pang of regret.
That was merely the price of the old world.
And now, he was walking towards the gates of a new one.
The three of them stopped in front of an establishment called the Leaky Cauldron.
The place was absolutely filthy.
Black paint peeled from its frontage, its windows were coated in dust, and the entire establishment looked as though it were days away from going out of business.
Morrin quickly noticed something even stranger.
The pedestrians hurrying along the street might glance in this direction, but their eyes would slide naturally past the pub without ever truly focusing on it.
It was as though their brains automatically filtered the entire place out of existence.
An advanced psychological suggestion?
Or some kind of spatial folding technology?
Morrin narrowed his eyes.
His [Logical Mind Palace] began operating at tremendous speed, analysing the phenomenon that so flagrantly contradicted common sense.
The sensation of encountering something science could not explain was intoxicating.
“In you go,” Hagrid said, pushing open the creaking door.
Crossing the threshold felt like stepping between two worlds.
The sunlight and clamour of the street vanished at once.
Inside, the pub was dimly lit.
And the instant both of Morrin’s feet touched the Leaky Cauldron’s greasy floorboards, the system that had fallen silent inside his head gave a clear chime.
[Ding!
High Magic Nexus detected] [The Leaky Cauldron (Entrance to the Wizarding World)] [Daily Check-In conditions fulfilled.] [Check in?] Check in.
Morrin answered without hesitation.
[Daily Check-In successful!] [Host has entered the magical world for the first time.
Lucky Critical triggered!] Several gleaming golden reward icons appeared across his vision.
━━━━━ REWARDS ━━━━━ [Currency Acquired] Gringotts Galleons × 1,000 The system has automatically opened Dimensional Storage (Currency Only).
Funds may be withdrawn at any time.
━━━━ [Trait Acquired] 🟢 Green | Basic Potion Identification You can now tell the difference between slug slime and washing up liquid.
━━━━ [Item Acquired] 🎁 Guaranteed Extraction Card (Purple or Below) × 1 Salvation for the catastrophically unlucky.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Morrin raised an eyebrow.
A thousand Galleons?
According to his hazy memories of the original books, that was worth something in the vicinity of five thousand pounds.
Compared with the White family’s fortune, it was less than pocket change.
But in a magical society that seemed to possess nothing resembling a modern financial system, this was unquestionably a respectable amount of starting capital.
“Hagrid!
The usual?” The landlord behind the bar was a hunched old man with no teeth and a head like a shrivelled walnut.
He was polishing a glass with a rag so filthy its original colour was impossible to determine, and greeted Hagrid warmly as soon as he walked in.
“Not today, Tom.” Hagrid clapped Harry on the shoulder with a hand so enormous it nearly drove the skinny boy into the floor.
“Hogwarts business.
Takin’ Harry to buy his school things.” “Oh, and—” Hagrid gestured towards Morrin, whose bespoke suit was expensive despite its current coating of dust and grime.
“This here’s young Mr White.
He’ll be startin’ this year too.” Tom’s gaze had only flicked casually over them at first.
Then his eyes landed on the lightning shaped scar on Harry’s forehead.
The glass in his hand stopped with a clink.
“Good Lord…” Tom’s cloudy eyes bulged.
“Is that…
Are you…?” “Harry Potter!” The name swept through the room like a spell.
The noisy pub fell utterly silent.
A second later came the shriek of chairs scraping across the floor.
Patrons abandoned their drinks and surged towards Harry as though someone had unveiled a priceless treasure, all of them fighting for the chance to shake his hand.
“An honour, Mr Potter!” “Welcome back, Mr Potter!” “Dedalus!
That’s me, Dedalus!” Morrin was squeezed out to the edge of the crowd.
He didn’t seem bothered.
He merely dusted off his suit with elegant little flicks of his hand, found a relatively clean corner, and stood there observing the spectacle of the ‘Saviour’s Return’ with cool detachment.
So this is what fame looks like when given physical form.
Morrin calmly evaluated the scene.
In a closed society like this, fame is the greatest form of leverage.
The name Harry Potter alone has incalculable value.
Harry, meanwhile, was trapped in the middle of the crowd, his face bright red as he looked helplessly towards Hagrid.
Then a stammering voice came from behind the others.
“P-Potter…
I c-can’t tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you.” A pale young man wearing an enormous purple turban squeezed through the crowd.
He looked terribly nervous, and one of his eyes kept twitching.
“Oh, Professor Quirrell!” Hagrid exclaimed, as though he had just spotted a rescuer.
“Harry, Professor Quirrell teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.” “P-pleased to m-meet you, Potter.” Quirrell extended a hand, yet seemed unwilling to actually touch Harry.
It hovered awkwardly in mid-air for a moment before he snatched it back as though he had received an electric shock.
Standing on the outskirts of the crowd, Morrin’s gaze instantly locked onto the man called Quirrell.
His [Logical Mind Palace] activated automatically, magnifying and dissecting countless details.
An enormous turban in the middle of summer?
Even for a wizard, that makes no sense.
And that overpowering smell of garlic.
Is he trying to cover up something else…?
Something rotten?
Then a thought struck him.
Voldemort.
Now there’s something worth extracting from.
Almost instinctively, Morrin activated the system’s Inspection, focusing his attention on Quirrell.
[⚠️ WARNING!
WARNING!
⚠️] [Extremely dangerous parasitic reaction from a high level life form detected!] [Target Danger Level: 🟡 Gold | Remnant Soul] [Recommendation: Host’s current strength is severely insufficient.] [🚨 CONTACT STRICTLY PROHIBITED!] [🚨 CONTACT STRICTLY PROHIBITED!] Gold…
Gold?!
Morrin’s pupils contracted to pinpricks.
Only seconds ago, he had been considering whether he might wander over, shake Quirrell’s hand and steal something useful like ‘Dark Arts Mastery.’ That idea was extinguished immediately.
A single Red Trait had already sent his magic berserk and nearly blown apart an entire street.
If he touched this Gold grade [Remnant Soul], he might simply drop dead on the spot.
I’ve only just entered the beginner village.
Probably best not to poke the boss yet.
Doesn’t seem particularly safe.
Without changing expression, Morrin quietly took one step backwards and concealed himself deeper in the shadows.
Fortunately, Hagrid finally managed to exploit his enormous size and rescue Harry from the crowd.
“All right, all right, we’ve got shoppin’ to do.
Make way.” Hagrid led both boys past the bar and into a tiny enclosed courtyard surrounded by brick walls.
There was nothing there except a dustbin and a few stubborn weeds.
“Right.
Watch closely, Harry.
You too, Mr White.” Hagrid pulled the pink umbrella from inside his coat and pointed it towards the bricks.
“Three up…
two across…” “So striking the correct brick opens it?” Morrin asked suddenly from beside him.
“That’s right.
Stand back a bit, Harry.” Hagrid tapped the brick three times with the tip of his umbrella.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The brick began to tremble.
Then something extraordinary happened.
The bricks shifted and rearranged themselves.
A tiny hole appeared in the centre of the wall and rapidly widened, spreading outwards until, in the blink of an eye, it had become a broad archway.
Beyond it lay a winding cobbled street.
Bright sunlight and vivid colours greeted them, utterly unlike the grey, oppressive London they had just left behind.
Shops on either side displayed cauldrons, broomsticks, cages full of owls, and all manner of strange goods Morrin had never seen before.
Witches and wizards in robes streamed back and forth while the cries of merchants bargaining with customers mingled with the hooting of owls.
“Welcome,” Hagrid said proudly, sounding as though he were showing them his own back garden, “to Diagon Alley.” Harry’s mouth fell open, wonder written across his face.