Harry cast a subtle side-glance at Dumbledore standing beside him.
“…Very well, Professor. I understand,” he replied, a strange note in his voice.
“I had simply thought that since the school scheduled us to purchase these books before term starts, we would at least be given some time to familiarize ourselves with a few basic spells.”
“After all, coming from a Muggle family, I’ve never been exposed to magic before.”
“Once school starts, I might fall behind, so I…”
Snape’s voice rose sharply.
“Silence!”
He glared at Harry.
“I know what you are playing at. Do not address me in that absurd, manipulative tone. Listen well: whatever clever thoughts you are nursing, I see right through them. I said no! You hold no secrets from me, Potter!”
Harry spread his hands.
As expected, the two of them were going to get along swimmingly in the days to come.
Splendidly, in fact.
“Then I leave him in your care, Severus,” Dumbledore said softly.
“Look after him. We owe this child a great deal, as you well know.”
Snape said nothing, standing rooted to the spot with a dark, thunderous expression.
Harry made a mental note of that statement.
“I shall head to the Dursleys’ to collect the rest of your belongings,” Dumbledore said.
“Wait here peacefully for the term to begin, child.”
With that, he opened the front door and departed.
Sunlight cut slanting through the narrow windowpanes, falling upon the cover of the stack of textbooks at the foot of the bed.
On the bed, Harry stretched, stood up, and ambled into the bathroom to brush his teeth, wash his face, and change his clothes.
A wizard’s home was indeed extraordinarily mysterious.
Pushing open different bookshelves led to entirely different places.
Currently, the only areas Harry was permitted to access—aside from the bathroom—were the kitchen and his own bedroom.
Oh, and the main sitting room.
However, since yesterday afternoon, he hadn’t seen Snape even once.
They hadn’t even met for dinner.
He was certain that Snape’s home was vastly larger than it appeared on the outside.
It was likely that Snape had applied a charm to this house similar to the one Dumbledore had put on that bag, making the interior far more spacious. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
A house bought with the square footage of thirty square meters actually possessed three hundred square meters of living space—if this were sold in the Muggle world, who knew how many pounds it would fetch!
Well, that was Muggle thinking.
Why would wizards care about such things?
Gurgle, gurgle…
Spitting out the toothpaste foam and rinsing his mouth, Harry dressed and headed downstairs to the kitchen.
Upon the long table, a meal that had clearly been prepared since last night’s dinner had already appeared.
Two steamed potatoes, milk, some vegetables, and a generous slab of beef.
Harry sat at the dining table, looking all around, but saw no trace of anyone.
In this home, he didn’t need to cook, wash clothes, or do household chores like he had at the Dursleys’.
Because in this house, someone else was responsible for those duties.
“Bobo,” he called out, and then waited.
There was no reply in the house.
“I’d like lamb chops for lunch,” Harry said to the empty kitchen after waiting a moment, taking his fork and spearing a piece of potato.
“Steam five more potatoes, and add a few cherry tomatoes.”
He knew that come lunchtime, the plate on this table would hold exactly what he had requested.
This was the wizarding world.
Professor Snape’s house-elf, Bobo—a creature that looked quite similar to a Gringotts goblin—would arrange all of it for him.
In a wizarding household, house-elves filled the role of servants, managing every aspect of a wizard’s daily life, including cooking and laundry.
They served for generations without a single knut of pay.
It sounded like slavery, but they were legally considered a wizard’s property.
Harry hadn’t spoken much with him; the elf was almost a carbon copy of Snape—taciturn, rigid, and strictly obeying every instruction.
Though perhaps he might act differently in front of his master, Professor Snape.
I like the wizarding world.
As Harry ate his breakfast, he looked forward to his upcoming reading, eager to understand this novel new world.
However, a few newspapers resting on the dining table nearby caught his attention.
Wizards read newspapers too?
Curious, Harry stood up and picked up a few of them.
Moments later, his expression turned odd.
These were nothing like the Muggle newspapers Mr. Dursley frequently read, such as The Daily Telegraph.
A wizarding newspaper was alive.
And what astonished him even more was that the person reported in the news was none other than himself!
[YESTERDAY, OUR REPORTER WITNESSED AN ASTONISHING SCENE IN DIAGON ALLEY. ALBUS DUMBLEDORE, THE CURRENT HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS AND A WIDELY RESPECTED WIZARD, CONDESCENDED TO PERSONALLY ACCOMPANY A SLENDER, BLACK-HAIRED BOY IN AND OUT OF VARIOUS SHOPS. THE TWO FIRST REMAINED AT GRINGOTTS FOR A LENGTHY PERIOD BEFORE MAKING PURCHASES AT OLLIVANDERS WAND SHOP, MADAM MALKIN’S ROBES FOR ALL OCCASIONS, AND FLOURISH AND BLOTTS…]
[ACCORDING TO RELIABLE SOURCES, THE BOY IS NONE OTHER THAN THE ‘BOY WHO LIVED,’ HARRY JAMES POTTER.]
[SOURCES CLOSE TO THE MATTER REVEAL THAT OUR LITTLE SAVIOR SHOWED NOT THE SLIGHTEST SHYNESS BEFORE THE CAMERA, EVEN GREETING THE CROWD WITH A MATURITY UNBECOMING OF HIS AGE. WHAT IS PARTICULARLY WORTH PONDERING IS THAT THIS VERY BOY WHO ONCE DEFEATED THE YOU-KNOW-WHO DID NOT SET FOOT INTO THE WIZARDING WORLD UNTIL TODAY. WHILE HE MAY BE THE FIRST STUDENT TO RECEIVE AN ADMISSION LETTER TO HOGWARTS THIS YEAR, THAT IS ONLY TO BE EXPECTED. AFTER ALL, HE IS…]
— The Daily Prophet
Harry munched on a soft, steamed potato while reading the paper.
The front-page news featured a moving picture of him and Dumbledore walking through Diagon Alley.
Though it was black and white, they were moving—right on the paper!
[DEAR READERS, YOU WILL NEVER GUESS THE MOST EXPLOSIVE NEWS ON THE EVE OF THE NEW TERM! OUR LITTLE SAVIOR, HARRY POTTER, ACTUALLY CLAIMED IN PUBLIC IN DIAGON ALLEY THAT HE IS A PARSELMOUTH!]
[AS WE ALL KNOW, PARSELTONGUE IS THE SIGNATURE ABILITY OF SALAZAR SLYTHERIN HIMSELF. IN TODAY’S MAGICAL WORLD, IT HAS BECOME ALL BUT AN IDENTITY LABEL FOR A ‘DARK WIZARD IN TRAINING’!]
[EVEN MORE THOUGHT-PROVOKING IS THE FACT THAT POTTER HIMSELF ONCE DEFEATED YOU-KNOW-WHO, WHICH INEVITABLY RAISES THE QUESTION: COULD HE GROW INTO A DARK LORD EVEN DARKER THAN YOU-KNOW-WHO HIMSELF? DEAR READERS, WHAT DO YOU THINK?]
— The Leaky Tabloid
Parseltongue?
Harry’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Dark wizard?
Due to his lack of background knowledge, he genuinely hadn’t known.
Was that why Dumbledore’s expression had changed so drastically yesterday after he revealed he could speak Parseltongue, and why the crowd in Diagon Alley had gone completely silent?
Come to think of it, the voodoo curses and necromancy magic he had learned from Blackbeard would probably be classified as Dark Magic as well, wouldn’t they?
Well, calculating it like that, he really did seem quite like a Dark Lord.
[THIS JOURNAL HAS RECEIVED A RELIABLE REPORT FROM OLLIVANDERS WAND SHOP IN DIAGON ALLEY. IT IS UNDERSTOOD THAT WHILE TRYING OUT WANDS, THE LITTLE SAVIOR, HARRY POTTER, PERFORMED A HIGHLY ACCOMPLISHED LEVITATION CHARM WITHOUT ANY PRIOR INSTRUCTION ON SPELLCASTING.]
[ACCORDING TO THE SHOP OWNER, GARRICK OLLIVANDER, THE BOY WAS NOT MERELY PRACTICING, BUT CASUALLY DIRECTED SCATTERED WOODEN BOXES IN THE SHOP BACK ONTO THE SHELVES WITH EXTREME EASE AND CONTROL. CONSIDERING THAT MR. POTTER WAS PREVIOUSLY RECORDED AS BEING ‘RAISED IN A MUGGLE HOUSEHOLD,’ WE SPECIALLY INVITED PROFESSOR FILIUS FLITWICK, HEAD OF CHARMS AT HOGWARTS, AS A SPECIAL OBSERVER.]
[ACCORDING TO PROFESSOR FLITWICK’S ANALYSIS, MR. POTTER MAY POSSESS AN INNATE TALENT FOR CASTING NON-VERBAL LEVITATION CHARMS. THIS ACT ALONE IS ENOUGH TO PROMPT THE CHARMS COMMUNITY TO RE-EXAMINE THE RELATIVE WEIGHT OF ‘ACQUIRED ENVIRONMENT VERSUS INNATE BLOODLINE’ IN CASTING INSTINCTS…]
— Charms Today
In truth, it wasn’t an innate talent at all.
In that dream of his, Harry had spent a long time training this capability while wielding the Sword of Triton—all without knowing any incantations.
“Are there papers like these every day?”
Harry spoke to the empty kitchen, placing a gold Galleon onto the table.
“Bobo, perhaps you could help me subscribe to a newspaper? Is one Galleon enough? If not, I can add more.”