“Leon!
Are you looking at the stars again?” The summer evening breeze blew through the girl’s bushy, cotton-soft brown hair.
The playful strands tickled her face, making her blink, but she still looked curiously toward the black-haired boy gazing up at the starry sky from the roof opposite her window.
“No, I’m just enjoying the cool air,” the boy named Leon replied dismissively with a lazy expression.
After all, he couldn’t exactly tell the girl that he was trying to figure out how to give a reasonable explanation to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry staff member who would soon be arriving at his door.
Before seeing the letter clutched in the owl’s talons, Leon had thought the oblivious, feathered pest was targeting his vegetable garden, so he had instinctively shot it down with an arrow.
You couldn’t blame Leon for overreacting; the vegetable garden he had started was a crucial component of his future well-being.
Because he had a system—one that allowed him to grow stronger simply by eating.
However, this empowerment only took effect if he harvested or prepared the food with his own two hands.
Therefore, growing vegetables was a must.
For plant-based ingredients to count as “valid ingredients,” Leon had to cultivate them himself.
Similarly, meat required Leon to complete the hunt personally before the system would recognize it.
The arrow shot at the owl was part of Leon’s preparations for acquiring valid meat ingredients in the future.
However, he hadn’t had the time to practice deeply yet, so his archery skills were mostly just for show.
But this time, things went differently.
The arrow—which usually lacked precision and often missed its target completely—proved surprisingly reliable today.
It cleanly pierced the owl’s chest cavity, taking the unlucky creature’s life almost instantly.
Once the falling owl hit the ground, Leon caught the envelope that drifted down right after it.
But when he clearly saw the crest on the wax seal—a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a central crest—he felt like his world was crashing down.
Perhaps he would be the first prospective wizarding student in Hogwarts history to have his admission offer rescinded for hunting an owl messenger.
That was what Leon thought at the time, but that was all.
After all, it was his first proper, successful hunt.
Not wanting this unlucky owl to die in vain, Leon cooked and ate it using the recipe for Beggar’s Chicken.
Although his attributes didn’t increase by much, it tasted surprisingly decent.
But now that the messenger owl was gone, leaving behind nothing but a pile of feathers and bones buried in the vegetable plot as fertilizer, a consequential problem arose.
That was the requirement mentioned in the letter: “Term begins on September 1.
We await your owl by no later than July 31.” Leon seemingly had no way of fulfilling this requirement on his own now.
But it wasn’t a complete dead end.
Leon had another way to send his reply, though it would require bothering the little girl who had just spoken to him.
That girl was Hermione Granger, the young girl living next door to Leon.
Upon learning the name of this neighboring girl who attended the same primary school as him, along with her parents’ professions and her signature large front teeth, Leon had long since confirmed that he had been reincarnated into the world of Harry Potter.
After excitedly realizing this, he had started trying various methods—such as putting himself in danger, attempting to communicate with animals and plants, and triggering intense emotional swings.
Yet after years of continuous effort without finding anything special about himself or witnessing any supernatural phenomena occur around him, Leon had reluctantly accepted reality.
Therefore, he had consciously kept his distance from Hermione, doing his best to maintain their relationship as mere nodding acquaintances.
They weren’t on bad terms, but he never appeared overly enthusiastic either.
Because Hermione was destined to become a bright young witch, and the chasm between wizards and Muggles, along with constraints like the Statute of Secrecy, would inevitably act as a barrier that would turn them into strangers in the future.
Not to mention, this girl was a member of the main trio.
He didn’t want to get dragged into trouble and end up being Obliviated.
Heaven knew if those Ministry of Magic employees with varying skill levels might use too much force and wipe away other memories that didn’t even need to be hidden.
Although he had a system, it wasn’t overly powerful.
Even if he could grow stronger by eating, Leon estimated that the boost provided by ordinary food would, at most, raise his physical fitness to the level of an elite athlete.
Compared to a wizard who could subdue an enemy from afar just by waving a little wooden stick and chanting a couple of spells, it fell far short.
After all, no matter how fast an athlete could run, jump, or fight, wouldn’t they still drop instantly when hit by a bullet?
Yet, he never expected the ultimate outcome to be so dramatic.
He actually possessed the talent to become a wizard.
This was something to be happy about, but it was also something to be wary of.
After all, he had the entire future trajectory of this world mapped out in his head, and there were plenty of Legilimens masters inside Hogwarts.
If he accidentally let his guard down and exposed his secrets, who knew if Dumbledore might use a high-level Obliviate spell on him after reading his mind, wiping out all his memories of his past life to ensure he wouldn’t cause trouble?
And don’t say the great Dumbledore would never do such a thing—the old bumblebee wasn’t exactly a saint in his youth, either.
But Leon didn’t want to give up eating just for fear of choking.
After all, no matter how you looked at it, the plants and magical creatures of the wizarding world had to be far more potent than the fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, and milk of the Muggle world, right?
Besides, that was a school that taught magic!
What child who grew up watching or reading the Harry Potter series hadn’t yearned for the day an owl would tap on their window and deliver a Hogwarts acceptance letter right to them?
Leon had essentially fulfilled his childhood dream, even if the process hadn’t been particularly graceful.
He still had to go to Hogwarts.
Even if there were risks, they weren’t guaranteed.
At worst, he could just keep a low profile and play the part of an insignificant background character.
As long as he stayed away from Harry Potter and avoided Gryffindor and Slytherin, there was a high probability that Leon wouldn’t catch the attention of big figures like Dumbledore and the noseless Tom.
When the time came, he could figure out a way to leverage his knowledge of future events to gain a few minor advantages: learn Occlumency, cultivate some magical plants, secretly hunt a few magical creatures in the Forbidden Forest, and rely on the system’s eating enhancement effects to smoothly coast until graduation.
That shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Having sorted through his thoughts, Leon turned his head to look at Hermione and offered her a kind smile, only to freeze when he saw Hermione immediately shut her window and draw her curtains the moment she saw his smile.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.
Reasonably speaking, shouldn’t Hermione smile back, allowing them to strike up a conversation naturally from there?
But the young witch had already raised a barrier between herself and Leon.
Since Leon couldn’t very well shout across the gap to tell Hermione to open her window, he could only slip back down the roof in frustration and return to his second-floor bedroom.
“I’ll sleep first and wait for a second owl.
Harry Potter got bombarded with owls because he didn’t reply.
If I don’t reply either, I should get the same treatment…
probably.” Comforting himself with these thoughts, Leon relaxed considerably.
He then changed into thin pajamas, lay down, and quietly awaited the arrival of dawn.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Hermione, who had closed her window and drawn her curtains, watched Leon leave through a crack in the corner.
Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief.
Turning around, she looked at the acceptance letter resting on her pillow—its contents absurd yet clearly extraordinary—and muttered to herself.
“I’m sorry, Leon.
I probably won’t be able to go to the same school as you in the future.
I hope you’ll be alright.” Hermione and Leon had received their Hogwarts acceptance letters on nearly the exact same day.
However, unlike Leon’s bumpy experience, she had already sent her reply after discussing it with her parents and had received a definitive confirmation.
Furthermore, to prove to Hermione, a young witch born into a Muggle family, that magic truly existed, the words on the reply letter had lifted themselves from the parchment after she finished reading.
They assembled in midair to form the same Hogwarts crest found on the envelope, and the four animals representing the four houses actually began to move around.
This was what convinced Hermione that it wasn’t a prank.
Hogwarts was a real school of magic, and in the future, she would likely become a witch.
She and Leon, ultimately, were no longer destined to walk the same path.
Though she was reluctant to let go, the studious Hermione had read about the various tragic plights medieval witches had endured.
She didn’t want to bring trouble to Leon.
As one of her few friends, this was the final thing Hermione could do for him.