Harry was obviously not interested in Hermione.
He was all about looks—a fact obvious from the moment he met Tris, having taken a slightly better first impression of him than the rest of the Weasleys.
If the future Hermione actually fixed herself up, she would be quite pretty.
The problem was that most of the time she didn’t bother.
Just like now—bushy hair and school robes—she didn’t measure up to Harry’s aesthetic tastes at all.
Harry offering to help was purely out of good intentions.
Besides, sitting in the compartment was getting a bit tiring, and he wanted to stretch his legs.
Since Harry had offered, Ron naturally tagged along as well.
Tris thought about it for a second and decided to join them too.
Hermione certainly didn’t mind having extra hands.
Her eyes swept over the three of them, lingering briefly on Tris.
At first, Tris assumed his looks had caught her attention, but he quickly realized something was off.
Hermione wasn’t looking at his face—she was looking at the Charms textbook in his hand.
“What year are you in?” Hermione asked Tris, her brow furrowed.
“First year,” Tris answered with a grin.
“Then why is your book different from the one I bought?” Hermione pointed at the worn textbook in Tris’s hands.
“Oh, because this isn’t the latest edition.” Tris gave the book a slight shake.
“It’s my brother’s old textbook.
He wrote some notes and study tips in it, so I brought it along to read.
“This edition is from ten years ago. They switched to a new version the following year, so what we’re using now is a bit different.”
Tris spoke completely truthfully.
The book in his hands belonged to Bill.
Bill was on par with Percy Weasley, perhaps even more naturally talented.
He possessed an exceptional flair for Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts.
That was precisely why Gringotts had actively recruited him.
His textbook was filled with his insights and study notes from his school years.
While it couldn’t quite rival Severus Snape’s old Potions textbook, it served much the same purpose.
Tris had asked for the book, had his parents use a Mending Charm to fix up the damaged cover and pages, and then packed it in his trunk.
When reading, he spent far more time studying this than the current required textbook.
“I see!” Hermione’s eyes lit up.
“That’s a fantastic idea. Maybe next time I go to Diagon Alley, I can try buying a few secondhand books to see if there are notes inside.”
“That’s going to be tough,” Tris shook his head.
Before he helped improve his family’s financial situation, Percy Weasley, Fred, and George had mostly used secondhand books.
But well-preserved secondhand books belonging to top students were virtually impossible to come by.
Most well-preserved old books belonged to terrible students—the kind who rarely opened them outside of class, which was why they were in decent shape.
And those were the lucky finds.
More often than not, old textbooks were filled with mindless doodles.
Fred had once gotten a secondhand History of Magic book that turned out to contain an erotic short story written by the previous owner…
Hermione was sharp enough to grasp Tris’s point almost immediately.
“I suppose it isn’t easy. But that’s fine—I might not be able to buy a book like that, but I can produce one.”
As she said this, Hermione raised her chin slightly.
The gesture made both Harry and Ron frown.
Because it reminded them of Draco Malfoy and Pansy.
Although Hermione’s posture and tone were quite different from Draco and Pansy’s, it still gave them an uneasy, off-putting feeling.
“Oh, I forgot to introduce myself,” Hermione said, completely oblivious to the subtle shifts on their faces as she realized she hadn’t introduced herself yet.
“I’m Granger—Hermione Granger. And this is Neville Longbottom.”
“Hello,” Neville murmured, having cowered behind Hermione in an apparent attempt to stay unnoticed.
Hearing her introduce him, he was forced to poke his head out and offer a shy greeting.
“Hi, Neville. I’m Tris Weasley,” Tris greeted him with a friendly nod.
Neville and Luna had been two of his favorite characters back when he watched the movies.
Toward the end of the final film, it seemed like a spark had flown between them, which had made him quite excited at the time.
Only later, through short videos online, did he learn that they didn’t end up together in the end, which had felt like a bit of a disappointment.
“I’m Ron—Ron Weasley,” Ron chimed in with his own introduction.
After Hermione introduced herself, Ron felt that while she possessed a similar sense of pride that made him somewhat uncomfortable, it wasn’t quite the same as Draco’s or Pansy’s.
It was still off-putting, but at least within tolerable limits.
“I’m Harry—Harry Potter,” Harry introduced himself last, waiting to see their reaction.
Sure enough.
“Ah! You—are you really…” Hermione’s eyes, already quite large, widened even further.
Her mouth hung open slightly in total disbelief.
Looking at Hermione’s bewildered expression, Tris was inexplicably reminded of a Siberian flying squirrel.
The resemblance was striking!
Both were cute creatures with big eyes and little buck teeth.
The thought made him chuckle to himself.
No one noticed his reaction because Hermione and Neville were completely absorbed by the name “Harry Potter.”
“You… you’re that…” Hermione stammered.
Neville was even more direct, staring straight at Harry’s forehead.
“Yeah, if you mean this,” Harry said with a slight smile, brushing back his bangs to reveal the legendary lightning-bolt scar.
“My goodness! Oh, wait—I’m a wizard now, I should say ‘Merlin’s beard!'” Hermione gasped.
“No, it’s ‘Merlin’s kneecap,'” Ron muttered softly under his breath.
By now, the entire Weasley family had gotten used to Tris swearing by various anatomy of Merlin, and they even caught themselves using those expressions subconsciously.
“Huh?” Hermione looked at Ron in utter confusion, as though she had just stumbled into a whole new world.
As a future top student at Hogwarts, Hermione had devoured plenty of wizarding books over the summer, including material on long-established wizarding families.
So upon hearing the name Weasley, and having heard Tris mention that his secondhand book had been passed down from his brother, she instantly connected them to the ancient Weasley family.
This was an old wizarding family with deep historical roots—so was that some kind of wizarding slang?
As a complete newcomer to the wizarding world, Hermione certainly didn’t dare question whether a young wizard from an established family was using slang correctly.
She simply nodded and made a mental note to remember the phrase.
Of course, if she had paid a bit more attention to Neville standing beside her—who looked just as bewildered despite coming from the equally ancient Longbottom family—she might have realized something was off.
“Did you know, Harry? I’ve read so many books about you! Really, I never expected to run into you here!” Hermione said excitedly.
“Yeah, I’m really not as great as you think,” Harry replied indifferently. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Having spent a month with the Weasleys, he now understood just how famous he was in the wizarding world, as well as the reason behind it.
He had even read quite a few articles about himself in old newspapers Tris had collected.
So he didn’t feel anything special in response to Hermione’s excitement.
“Honestly, I have no idea what happened ten years ago. Reading those kinds of articles actually makes me kind of embarrassed.”
“Huh?” Before Hermione could respond, Neville behind her was already staring with a mix of shock and regret.
“You… don’t remember anything at all?” Hermione asked, unwilling to give up.
“I was only one year old,” Harry shrugged.
“If I had to say anything, sometimes in my dreams at night I hear screaming and see a green light, but I’m not sure if it’s just a dream or something else.”
“A green light?” Hermione narrowed her eyes slightly, seemingly searching her memory.
However, as a first-year student who had merely devoured books over the summer, she obviously hadn’t come across spells on the level of Avada Kedavra yet.
“Anyway, weren’t we going to help Neville look for his toad?” Harry clearly didn’t want to dwell on the topic, changing the subject to Neville’s lost toad.
“If I had a toad and lost it, I definitely wouldn’t go looking for it. What do you think, Tris?” Ron whispered into Tris’s ear.
Tris nodded in agreement.
In his past life, he had seen reptile influencers online, and some geckos were genuinely pretty.
Keeping those as pets was something Tris could almost understand.
But a toad…
He could only conclude that people in the wizarding world were pretty wild.
Not just toads—rats were something Tris found hard to get behind too.
At the thought, he couldn’t help stealing a glance at Scabbers, the fat rat lazily napping on the seat.
Hermione and Neville’s compartment was in the same carriage as Harry’s, so coming over, they had only checked three compartments so far.
The next one on their list was right across from Harry’s—the compartment where Fred and George were sitting.
The moment she opened the door, Hermione saw a spider the size of a washbasin sitting on the table, and her words caught right in her throat.
Ron shivered uncontrollably and ducked behind Tris.
“Hm? Can we help you?” Seeing Hermione standing at the door with a pale face, the three inside showed no awareness whatsoever that they had terrified someone—in fact, scaring people was the whole reason they were messing with the spider in the first place—and all wore mischievous grins.
Hermione took a deep breath, trying hard to compose herself.
“Right… this is probably completely normal in the wizarding world. Don’t make a fuss, Hermione. Don’t let them look down on you,” Hermione muttered under her breath in a tiny voice.
Muffled by the clatter of train wheels against the iron rails, her muttering was nearly impossible to hear.
However, Tris happened to be standing right next to her.
Coupled with his unusually sharp hearing—whether thanks to the System or not—he caught every word.
Unable to help himself, Tris burst out laughing.
Was young pre-Hogwarts Hermione really this cute?
“What are you laughing at?” Hermione heard Tris’s chuckle, turned her head, and caught the slightly amused look on his face.
Realizing he had overheard her quiet mumbling, she instantly glared at him, puffing out her cheeks.
“Haha,” her adorable reaction made it impossible for Tris to stop himself from laughing again.
Before Hermione could respond, he called out to Fred and George inside, “Hey, you two, watch it! A spider that big is going to scare people out of their wits.”
“That’s the whole point!” Fred said matter-of-factly.
“See?” Tris turned to Hermione with a smile.
“Even in the wizarding world, these two are far from normal. Please don’t use them as the benchmark for most wizards.”
“Oh… is that so?” Hermione nodded blankly.
Whatever thought crossed her mind, a faint blush crept onto her cheeks.