It was well past midnight by the time they finally managed to coax Lily to sleep.
All three of them were exhausted.
Witt, utterly carefree, dropped onto his bed and fell asleep within a second.
Dumbledore, meanwhile, took McGonagall to the Headmaster’s office to discuss Witt.
“Could it be that every time the boy disappears, he’s travelling to some unknown point in time and space?” History could not be changed.
There had been countless instances of time travel throughout the history of the wizarding world, and every single one had proven that principle.
Yet what was happening to Witt was undeniably real.
Lily’s sudden appearance had shattered what had always seemed to be an ironclad law.
“Perhaps Witt is simply…
different,” McGonagall suggested.
“The mysteries of magic truly are beyond comprehension.” Dumbledore took a sweet from his pocket and popped it into his mouth.
If Witt continued bringing people back from different points in time, Dumbledore couldn’t begin to imagine what the future of the wizarding world might become.
For the briefest moment, the thought of killing Witt crossed his mind.
Remove the source of the disturbance, and the problem would disappear with him.
But a thought was only a thought.
In the end, Dumbledore couldn’t bring himself to make that decision.
He couldn’t kill a child.
Besides, something else had occurred to him.
Today, Witt had brought Lily back.
Did that mean that one day he might also be able to bring back Ariana?
And Credence?
Dumbledore had no idea how Witt had accomplished what he had, but there was no denying that he had succeeded.
For now, Dumbledore intended to observe him.
If nothing happened to Lily and history itself remained unchanged, then Dumbledore would ask Witt to bring Ariana and Credence back as well.
Until then, absolutely nothing could be allowed to happen to Witt.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Early the next morning, Witt woke precisely on time and opened the System interface to draw a new Quest.
━━━━━ QUEST ━━━━━ [⚪ White – Easy Quest – Honeydukes Needs a Temporary Shop Assistant] Honeydukes is looking for a temporary employee.
Work as a shop assistant at Honeydukes and help sell sweets.
━━━ 🎁 Quest Reward: One Silver Sickle.
⚠️ Abandon Quest: None.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Seeing that the System’s Quest description had returned to normal, Witt began to wonder whether yesterday’s bizarre Quest had actually been some kind of punishment.
Maybe the System had been punishing him because, the day before that, he had not only failed to complete his Quest properly but had also killed the person who issued it.
That was the only explanation Witt could think of for why he had successfully completed yesterday’s Quest yet received no reward.
Maybe I should try doing this one properly.
He accepted the Quest.
Witt vanished from his bed.
Three minutes later, he reappeared.
There was now a Silver Sickle in his hand, along with several sweets.
The owner of Honeydukes was a genuine cheapskate.
No wonder he couldn’t find anyone willing to work for him.
Witt hadn’t understood prices in the wizarding world before.
It was only after working in the shop that he discovered a single Silver Sickle could buy little more than one of the small jars of sweets, perhaps twenty pieces or so.
If it hadn’t been a System Quest, Witt would never have bothered with work like that.
Thanks to his gift of the gab, however, Witt had sold a considerable amount of sweets and even received praise from the owner.
Admittedly, the praise had been purely verbal.
The System, at least, had been more generous.
Along with the Silver Sickle, it rewarded him with several sweets as a bonus.
Wizarding sweets all looked rather strange.
Did making frogs and caterpillars move around somehow make them taste better?
And were sweets shaped like cockroaches really more appetising?
Witt opened a box of Chocolate Frogs and, ignoring the frog’s desperate struggles, bit into it.
The taste was nothing special.
They probably sold so well because of the cards inside.
Witt opened the box fully.
The card showed Dumbledore.
“Tch.
Worthless.” He casually tossed it into the bin.
During his short shift that morning, Witt had already discovered that Dumbledore was the card that appeared most often.
Not rare in the slightest.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ At nine o’clock, McGonagall took Witt and Lily to Diagon Alley to purchase the supplies they would need for school.
“Mr Cress.” McGonagall fixed him with a stern look.
“You are never to use an Unforgivable Curse on another person again.
Nor are you to teach those curses to anyone else.
Is that understood?” “Yes.” Witt nodded obediently.
That morning, McGonagall had finally explained to him exactly what an Unforgivable Curse was.
Come to think of it, he happened to know all three of them.
And those were also the only three curses Grindelwald had taught him.
Whenever Witt tried to learn anything else, Grindelwald simply sent him straight out of the dungeon.
Witt had no idea why.
Diagon Alley wasn’t particularly wide.
Witt estimated that there was barely enough room for a single car to drive through it.
The buildings on either side were strange as well.
Many of them leaned at odd angles, looking thoroughly crooked and unsettling.
Lily, on the other hand, was far more excited than Witt.
“Wow!” She kept turning this way and that, hardly knowing where to look first.
“Owls!” Lily grabbed Witt and dragged him towards Eeylops Owl Emporium.
She boldly reached out, wanting to stroke the owl displayed outside.
The owl clearly didn’t appreciate being touched.
Or perhaps, as the living advertisement sitting outside the shop, it had already suffered at the hands of far too many children.
Human young tended to have no idea how rough they were, and some of them even pulled out its feathers.
The moment Lily reached towards it, the owl whipped its head around and opened its beak threateningly.
Lily immediately snatched her hand back in fright.
The owl’s behaviour annoyed Witt.
Only yesterday, he had promised to look after Lily.
And Witt was fiercely protective of his own.
No one was allowed to bully someone under his protection except him.
Animals weren’t an exception.
Witt narrowed his eyes at the owl.
The cold killing intent in his gaze made every feather on the bird’s body puff up instantly.
“Shh.” Witt raised a finger to his lips, signalling for it to keep quiet.
Thought you could give me trouble, did you?
An orphan didn’t end up owning his own house in London because people had taken pity on him and handed one over for free.
“Lily, don’t worry.
It won’t dare bite you now.” Standing behind her, Witt gently took Lily’s hand and placed it against the owl.
Its feathers were soft, smooth, and wonderfully fluffy.
The owl itself might have gone as rigid as a statue, but Lily was delighted to finally stroke one.
“Come along!” McGonagall waved to them from farther down the street.
“First, you’ll need to exchange some money at Gringotts.” Lily lowered her voice.
“But I don’t have any money.” “I do.” Witt lifted his little suitcase with complete confidence.
“I’ll take care of you.” Lily shyly turned her face away.
They followed McGonagall into Gringotts.
Witt tightened his grip on his wand as he warily surveyed the goblins around them.
The hairless creatures, with their sharp teeth, looked extremely dangerous.
Their eyes were cold.
Among all the people Witt had encountered in London, everyone he’d met with eyes like that had blood on their hands.
He couldn’t shake the fear that the goblins might suddenly leap over their counters and attack him.
“Currency exchange for new students,” McGonagall said quietly as she approached one of the goblins.
“Acceptance letters.” McGonagall handed over Witt’s and Lily’s letters.
The goblin carefully inspected both Hogwarts acceptance letters, and its expression softened slightly.
“How much?” Witt opened his suitcase, took out the money inside, and handed it over.
“All of it.” The goblin selected some of the newer banknotes and examined them carefully before returning the rest to Witt.
“This year, each new student may exchange Muggle currency for no more than forty-three Galleons, twelve Sickles, and seven Knuts.” “…” The absurdly specific number left Witt with no idea what to say.
Working in the dungeon that morning had already introduced him to the wizarding world’s ridiculous currency system.
He hadn’t expected exchanging money at Gringotts to be even worse.
McGonagall explained out of habit, “Every year, the wizarding world calculates an exchange allowance based on what students are expected to need for their school supplies.
Muggle currency has no practical use within the wizarding world.” “That is why the permitted exchange amount is calculated rather precisely.” “All right.” Witt accepted the explanation.
Once the exchange was complete, Witt found himself holding an impressive handful of wizarding coins.
Suddenly feeling very wealthy, he declared grandly, “Come on, Lily!
I’ll take you to Madam Malkin’s and buy you some new clothes.” He had noticed earlier that Lily kept looking back at Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions whenever they passed it.
She had probably seen something in the window she liked.
Now that he had money in his pocket, naturally the first thing Witt intended to do was take Lily shopping.