“Ugh…”
Harry trudged out of the valley with a small wheelbarrow piled high with dragon dung.
His brows were tightly furrowed, and every step required considerable effort.
“Sir?
Mr.
Moriarty?”
When Harry reached the valley entrance and found it deserted, he stopped in confusion.
“Where did everyone go?”
Surrounded by jagged rocks, Harry stood alone beside the wheelbarrow and looked around helplessly.
Mr.
Moriarty had disappeared without leaving so much as a trace.
More importantly, he had never told Harry where to take the dragon dung.
Harry rubbed his aching shoulders without caring whether his hands were still dirty.
As he searched for somewhere to rest, he noticed a scarecrow standing near the entrance and slowly walked toward it, intending to sit against its wooden frame.
“Was that scarecrow here when I went inside?”
He could not remember.
When Harry had entered the valley, his attention had been entirely focused on Opal, who had been following at Moriarty’s feet.
He had barely noticed his surroundings.
Just as he approached, the scarecrow suddenly sprang to life and hopped backward several steps.
Its crudely drawn face consisted of little more than a collection of rough lines, though Harry could just make out its features.
A pipe was clenched between its wooden lips.
“Brat, it looks like you’ve finished cleaning the lair.”
Wisps of grey smoke rose from the pipe, and Calcifer’s fiery face gradually emerged from within them.
“Mr.
Calcifer…”
The sight of someone familiar allowed Harry to breathe a sigh of relief.
“Follow me.”
Calcifer glanced at the heavily loaded wheelbarrow, then directed the scarecrow to hop away along the path.
“Where are we going?”
Harry hurriedly gripped the handles and pushed the wheelbarrow after him.
“To—the—cultivation—area,” Calcifer answered, his flaming body bouncing up and down inside the pipe with every hop of the scarecrow.
“That’s where Hermes grows his magical herbs.”
Only after Harry had delivered all the dragon dung to the cultivation area did they return to the warehouse.
Calcifer watched Harry hang the shovel back on the wall, then narrowed his eyes and studied the boy from head to toe.
“All right, all right.
Before we return, I’d better clean you up.”
He glanced at Harry’s filthy clothes.
“If you walk into the castle looking and smelling like that, Hermes will definitely throw you straight back outside.”
A burst of light resembling scattered starlight erupted from his fingertips.
Every stain on Harry’s skin and clothing instantly disappeared, and even the strange mixture of sulphur and dragon dung clinging to his clothes was replaced by a rich, pleasant fragrance.
Harry looked down at his spotless clothes, and a thoughtful gleam entered his eyes.
He had discovered another important rule for getting along with Mr.
Moriarty: the man was extremely particular about cleanliness.
While shovelling dung in the dragon’s lair, Harry had already decided that he wanted to build a good relationship with his mysterious new neighbour.
Strange and inexplicable things had happened around Harry for as long as he could remember.
They occurred most often when Dudley and his friends bullied him, at which point one of them would suddenly suffer a bizarre stroke of “bad luck.”
That was why Harry was so interested in the magic performed by Mr.
Moriarty.
He also had countless questions he wanted to ask.
…
On the second floor of the Moving Castle, Hermes sat in the study, reading through several books that had come with the castle.
A small stove stood in one corner of the room, connected through the castle’s internal flue system to the fireplace in the main room below.
Without warning, a flame sparked to life upon it.
“Has the dragon dung been taken care of?” Hermes asked before Calcifer had even fully emerged.
“Yep.
The kid is bathing in the bathroom beside the second-floor landing.”
Calcifer’s fiery body swayed lightly above the stove.
Although he had already cleaned Harry with magic, Calcifer understood Hermes’s habits far too well.
Before returning to collect the boy, he had prepared a bath and filled it with hot water.
“Good.”
Hermes nodded, set down the parchment scroll in his hand, and pulled out the pocket watch attached to his waistcoat.
After checking the time, he left the study.
A short while later, Harry emerged from the bathroom near the second-floor landing.
Steam trailed behind him as he rubbed his wet hair with a towel.
The moment he stepped into the corridor, a rich aroma of cooking meat drifted up the stairs and immediately awakened his hunger.
After an entire morning of manual labour, Harry was exhausted and ravenous.
Standing at the top of the staircase, he took another look at the second floor’s layout.
Combined with the warehouse and sprawling sanctuary he had seen earlier, it confirmed beyond any doubt that he was no longer inside the small house on Privet Drive.
Harry descended the stairs and found Hermes standing in the main room with an empty wine bottle in one hand.
At his feet, Opal had buried her head in a metal basin and was drinking noisily, producing a series of enthusiastic gulps.
As Harry drew closer, a sharp alcoholic smell reached his nose.
Opal was drinking alcohol!
Suppressing his astonishment, Harry obediently approached Hermes.
“Mr.
Hermes looked up and acknowledged him with a slight nod.
After tossing the empty bottle into a nearby bin, he turned and walked back toward the kitchen.
Two legs of lamb were sizzling in a large pan above the stove, while a pot beside it released a sweet, savoury fragrance as its contents bubbled.
Pans, knives, and various ingredients floated through the air, moving as though controlled by an enormous invisible hand while they prepared the meal.
Hermes glanced back at Harry.
“Lunch will be ready shortly.
You worked hard today.”
Thanks to Harry, Hermes had finally resolved a problem that had been troubling him for some time.
Otherwise, he would have been forced to send Calcifer into the lair to clean up the dragon dung.
Calcifer, delighted by the rare opportunity to eat Hermes’s cooking, reclined comfortably upon the charcoal in the main room’s fireplace while continuing to supply power to the Moving Castle.
“Hey, brat.”
“Yes, Mr.
Calcifer?”
Harry started and hurriedly pulled his attention away from Hermes.
“Go and sit at the dining table.
Lunch is almost ready,” Calcifer instructed.
“Hermes’s cooking can rival that of a Gourmet Witch.”
His voice carried a mixture of anticipation and regret.
“It’s a shame he’s only using ordinary ingredients this time.”
Gourmet Magic was a branch of magic Hermes had studied for a period in the past.
As one of the few people fortunate enough to sample Hermes’s magical dishes, Calcifer still remembered their flavours vividly.
Lava Bread.
Wildfire Salamander Sauce.
Those meals had been saturated with magical energy, and their taste was nothing short of unforgettable.
Harry waited beside the dining table until Hermes had taken his seat before sitting down across from him.
After sharing breakfast with them earlier, he was noticeably less restrained than he had been at the beginning of the day.
“Sir, are there many sorcerers like you in the world?” Harry asked.
“No.
Calcifer and I are the only two sorcerers.”
Hermes wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin.
Then, under Harry’s expectant gaze, he calmly added, “There are, however, quite a number of wizards.”
“Then…
can you teach me magic?”
Harry did not understand the precise difference between a sorcerer and a wizard.
Nevertheless, if there were many wizards in the world, surely that meant he might also have the chance to learn magic.
He did not need to master anything extraordinary.
As long as he learned a few spells, Dudley and his gang would have to think twice before bullying him again.
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