On Saturday morning, the autumn wind sweeping across the Scottish Highlands carried a few yellowed leaves over the calm surface of the Black Lake.
While most of the little witches and wizards were still curled up in their warm beds enjoying a lazy weekend lie-in, Lynn was already fully dressed and walking out through the castle’s heavy oak doors.
His destination was the hut at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Rubeus Hagrid had always been extremely interested in Lynn’s experiences adventuring through the forest. Ever since the opening feast, he had invited Lynn several times to come sit with him at his hut whenever they happened to run into each other around the school.
Lynn, meanwhile, had long intended to go.
The biggest difference between his spell system from Faerûn and the native magic of this world lay in one thing: material components.
Especially for 6th-circle spells and above, the quality, freshness, and rarity of the required materials were directly tied to the final effect of the spell.
And if Lynn remembered correctly, Hagrid was the sort of person who could even get his hands on rare materials like unicorn tail hair in the original story.
"Woof! Woof woof!"
The moment Lynn stepped past the fence around the vegetable patch, a massive black boarhound came charging out from behind the hut, barking furiously at him as though trying to establish its intimidating presence before a stranger.
"Fang! Back off! Don’t do that!"
Hagrid’s voice rang out. The half-giant was holding a dead ferret that had only been half-skinned. Obvious surprise was written all over his large, tangled, beard-covered face.
"Oh! Blimey, Professor Gray!"
Hagrid hurriedly tried to hide the bloody ferret behind his back, then wiped the blood from his hands on his coat in a fluster. "Never thought you’d really come! It’s, er... it’s a bit messy here. And it smells a bit too. Hope you don’t mind."
In Hagrid’s experience, aside from Dumbledore, almost none of the Hogwarts professors ever took the initiative to come near his hut. After all, it was piled high with strange animal carcasses, droppings, and all the "dangerous creatures" everyone else went out of their way to avoid.
"It’s all right, Hagrid."
Lynn smiled and waved it off, but the eyes behind his silver-rimmed glasses had already moved past the slightly awkward half-giant and locked firmly onto a writhing cluster of creatures in the corner of the vegetable patch.
They were a group of enormous orange slugs. Each one was as long as a forearm, greedily devouring Hagrid’s cabbages and leaving behind trails of sizzling slime that smoked white where they passed.
"Those..." Lynn pointed at the slugs, his tone carrying a trace of unmistakable admiration. "Are those mutated carnivorous slugs from Cornwall?"
"Er, yes, Professor," Hagrid said nervously, rubbing his hands together. "I know they’re a bit... er, not exactly popular. They’ve been growing too fast lately. They’ve nearly ruined all the school cabbages... I was just looking for something to kill them with..."
"Kill them? No! Absolutely not!"
Lynn strode forward so quickly he did not even notice the mud getting on the hem of his robe. He crouched down and stared at the fattest slug there with almost fanatical intensity.
"Look at that perfect orange mottling... look at the incredible volume of highly acidic slime it secretes..."
Lynn clicked his tongue in wonder and even took out his wand to lightly poke one of the slugs in the back, making it contract violently. "This is easily the healthiest specimen I’ve ever seen! Hagrid, you’ve raised them beautifully! Acidic slime of this quality..."
...if used as a material component for Melf’s Acid Arrow, the spell might hit with the force of a 4th-circle spell.
Hagrid froze.
He had spent decades at Hogwarts hearing words like "disgusting," "monster," and "dangerous."
This was the first time anyone had ever praised him so sincerely.
"You... you really think they’re all right?" Hagrid’s voice trembled with emotion. "I thought you’d think they were disgusting."
"Disgusting?"
Lynn looked up and refuted that with complete seriousness. "In the eyes of someone who truly knows what they’re looking at, there are no disgusting creatures, only useless ones. Take this carnivorous slug, for example. Its slime and glands can be used as spell components, and its hide could be made into acid-resistant gloves..."
Lynn rose to his feet and dusted off his hands, his gaze fixed on Hagrid with unmistakable enthusiasm.
"Hagrid, if you don’t mind, I’d like to place a long-term order for some materials from you. The glands from slugs like these, tail hair shed naturally by unicorns during seasonal changes, or any strange feathers and scales you happen to find in the Forbidden Forest. I’ll pay you double the highest buying price in Diagon Alley."
"Oh, don’t mention money, Professor Gray! Please, don’t mention money!"
Hagrid was so moved his eyes turned red. He waved a hand the size of a dustbin lid with hearty generosity. "If you need ’em, just take ’em! It’s not like I’ve got much use for the stuff anyway!"
"Excellent. In that case, stop calling me Professor. Just call me Lynn."
"All right, Lynn!"
...
After that, Hagrid warmly invited Lynn inside for tea.
The hut was filled with a strong scent of tea mixed with the smell of animal fur. Hams and pheasants hung from the ceiling, and in one corner sat an enormous egg. Lynn strongly suspected it belonged to some prohibited creature.
"Want a rock cake? Just baked ’em."
Hagrid brought over a plate of biscuits that looked as hard as granite.
Lynn could not bring himself to refuse, so he forced himself to take a bite and nearly cracked a tooth.
They continued talking about magical creatures, and Lynn described all sorts of beasts he had encountered over his ten years in the Albanian forest, leaving Hagrid wondering again and again.
"Blimey, those two-headed fire salamanders sound brilliant!" Hagrid added another spoonful of sugar to Lynn’s tea and let out a regretful sigh. "Shame I’ll probably never get a chance to see a place like that in me life. You know, because of that... old business, me wand got snapped, and I’m forbidden from using magic. If I went somewhere that dangerous, I don’t reckon I’d be able to protect meself."
Hagrid’s eyes unconsciously drifted to the pink umbrella propped in the corner, and his expression dimmed.
Lynn set down the rock cake he truly could not manage a second bite of and looked toward the umbrella. He knew Hagrid’s wand had probably already been repaired by Dumbledore, but because of the Ministry’s ruling, Hagrid could not use it openly.
"Hagrid."
Lynn adjusted his glasses, and his tone suddenly turned serious.
"Do you really think that magic only counts as magic if you’re holding a wand and reciting an incantation?"
"Er... isn’t it?" Hagrid scratched his head in confusion.
"When young witches and wizards first awaken to their magic as children, they don’t have wands either. And yet they still cast magic."
Without drawing the wand tucked behind his waist, Lynn flicked a hand, and a glowing orb flew from his palm and floated before Hagrid.
A cantrip: Dancing Lights.
"How... how d’you do that?"
"The result of many years of research. And I believe you can do it too, Hagrid."
Lynn stood and walked over to him. Though he was tall and lean, he still looked small in front of a half-giant. But the certainty radiating from him made Hagrid sit up straight almost involuntarily.
"I told the students in my first lesson that everyone has a class suited to them. And the moment I first saw you, I knew you’d chosen the wrong path, Hagrid."
Lynn stretched out a hand, pointing first at the lush Forbidden Forest outside the window, then at Fang, who was affectionately rubbing against Hagrid’s trouser leg.
"Because of your bloodline, your physical constitution far surpasses that of ordinary people, and you possess astonishing resistance to poison and fatigue. That means you have excellent Constitution. Years of dealing with all kinds of magical flora and fauna have given you the ability to sense animals’ emotions and hear the breathing of the forest itself. That means your Wisdom is far beyond that of most wizards. And that’s without even mentioning the natural affinity you have that even I envy."
"In my homeland, people like you would never be forced to memorize awkward Latin incantations. We would call someone like you a... druid."
"Dru... druid?" Hagrid repeated the unfamiliar word with effort. "What’s that, then? Another kind of magical creature?"
"No. It’s a spellcaster. A guardian who borrows power through resonance with the natural world rather than through a wand."
Excitement gleamed in Lynn’s eyes.
He had long wanted to find the perfect test subject in this world to prove his "class theory." The students were still too young and would need time. Hagrid, on the other hand, was practically the ideal target.
"No wand?" Hagrid’s eyes widened, and his breathing grew heavier. "Lynn, don’t joke with me... I mean, if there’s no wand, then how’m I supposed to..."
"Do you want to try?"
Lynn cut him off, a mysterious smile curling at the corners of his mouth.
He reached into his robe pocket, took out a prepared sprig of mistletoe, and handed it to Hagrid.
"Close your eyes," Lynn guided him softly. "Don’t think about incantations or casting procedures. Feel the plant with your heart."
"Feel its life force. Take the love you have for this forest, the feeling you get when you care for those magical creatures, and guide that into this sprig of mistletoe."
Hagrid squeezed his eyes shut tightly, his brow furrowing as beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
"I... I just feel like me hand’s tingling..." Hagrid muttered.
"That’s life responding to you! Now imagine it sprouting and bearing fruit, then focus and repeat after me," Lynn called out sharply. "Goodberry!"
"Good... berry..."
Hagrid murmured instinctively.
Then, under Lynn’s watchful gaze, a surge of vivid green natural magic, filled with raw and untamed vitality, burst out from Hagrid’s body and rushed along his arm into his palm.
Crack
A tiny, almost imperceptible sound rang out.
Hagrid’s eyes flew open, and he let out a startled cry.
The sprig of mistletoe had dissolved into tiny points of golden magical light under the influence of his natural magic, then reformed into four fresh berries brimming with magical power, resting in his palm.
"Merlin’s beard..."
Hagrid held those berries as though they were the most precious treasure in the world. Trembling, he looked at Lynn and said with overwhelming emotion,
"I... I did it? I cast magic without using a wand?"
"To be precise, that was a 1st-level druid spell: Goodberry."
Lynn looked at the scene before him with deep satisfaction. The casting process was still rough around the edges, but Hagrid’s talent was astonishing.
He patted Hagrid’s trembling arm.
"This is a gift from the Forbidden Forest, or rather, from the power of nature within it."
Lynn took out a handwritten booklet he had stayed up late to write the previous night, Druid: Nature’s Chosen, and set it solemnly in front of Hagrid together with The Adventurer’s Handbook.
"Congratulations, Hagrid. You are now a Level 1 Druid."
Hagrid looked at the two books, then at the golden berries in his hand, and said loudly, his voice thick with emotion,
"Thank you... thank you, Lynn!"
Looking at the panel clearly displaying [Class: Level 1 Druid], even Lynn had not expected Hagrid to change class so smoothly. He could not help picturing what Hagrid would look like transformed into a bear. That would certainly be quite a sight.
Just then, a rapid knocking sounded at the door.
"Hagrid! Are you in there?"
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