With Professor Cat

The enormous tentacle slipped back into the water.

By now, all the little boats had entered the pitch-black tunnel.

Yet Hagrid's lantern lit up everything on his boat.

Wrapped in a moleskin coat, shivering from cold and fright, and dripping nonstop, Malfoy became the only source of light in the darkness.

Everyone's eyes turned toward him.

Harry and Ron were no exception.

All around them came a buzz of mosquito-like murmurs.

"Don't talk to me." Ron's voice trembled.

Yet Harry was the only one who paid him any attention.

He asked curiously, "Why?"

Hermione glanced over, then turned her attention back to Basil's profile.

Basil hummed "Hedwig's Theme," his eyes closed in contentment.

Ron did not care. He closed his eyes, his face filled with delight. "Because I want to etch this moment into my memory forever. Baby Malfoy in Hagrid's arms."

Harry obligingly burst out laughing.

"I still remember him badmouthing Hagrid in front of me: 'I've heard of him. He's a servant, isn't he? He's rough, lives in a little hut on the school grounds, gets drunk now and then, messes around with magic, and ends up setting his own bed on fire.'"

"And now? He's in the arms of someone he looked down on."

Ron's smile faded. "Wasn't I the first wizard our age you met?"

Harry looked confused. "It was you. I only exchanged a few words with him at Madam Malkin's robe shop. We didn't even trade names."

Basil opened his eyes and turned his head.

Ron seemed dissatisfied with Harry's answer.

Harry also thought Ron was acting rather strangely.

The atmosphere between them abruptly changed. They sat back-to-back on opposite sides of the boat and fell silent.

"Ugh, why do you two look like a pair of squabbling lovebirds?"

Basil could not help edging a little closer to Hermione.

Hermione beamed in delight.

Of the four of them, Hermione alone had emerged victorious!

Not until they got off the boats and stepped onto ground covered in gravel and small pebbles.

Harry and Ron still did not speak.

Not even Malfoy remaining in Hagrid's arms, or Neville finding his Toad and calling Trevor "Fletcher," caught their attention.

At that moment, Basil also wore a troubled expression.

Before him was a bumpy tunnel carved through the mountain rock.

Even more despairing, judging from the Hogwarts in his mind, after climbing up and crossing a flat, damp stretch of grass, there would be another long flight of stone steps.

Only then would they reach the castle gates.

If only no one knew him.

Then he could sneak around and, once the main group reached the stone steps, simply teleport over.

He cast a heavy glance at Hermione, who for some reason had become much more enthusiastic.

Clearly, that was impossible.

If he had known, he should have thrown himself into the water.

That way, he could have slept like a baby in Hagrid's arms without having to walk.

By the time Basil had finished the whole journey and arrived before the castle gates, he still had not changed his mind.

He watched Hagrid clench his right hand into a fist and pound on the door.

Malfoy was tucked under Hagrid's left arm, and the envy in Basil's eyes had yet to fully fade.

Until the great doors swung open.

A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes emerged from within and appeared before him.

"Gasp!" Basil nudged Ron, the wizarding world's know-it-all, with his elbow. "Who is she? I need every piece of information about her within one second!"

"Her?" Ron looked baffled. "Who else could she be? Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts' deputy headmistress, head of Gryffindor House, and head of the Transfiguration Department."

"How could that be?" Basil murmured as if in a dream. "How old is she?"

The Professor Cat before him had black hair and square-framed glasses.

Her skin was smooth and fair, with barely any wrinkles.

She had a lovely face, an elegant figure beneath her fitted emerald robes,

and there had been a trace of gentleness in her expression when she cast warming and drying spells on Malfoy.

Could this really be that kind old lady, Professor Cat!!!

Ron actually answered him. "Hmm, let me think. My mum is forty-one. She once said Professor McGonagall was nearly thirty years older than her."

"So she's nearly seventy?" Basil felt as though his worldview had collapsed.

The last time he had felt this way was when he learned that his grandmother had given birth to his father at the age of eighty.

Meanwhile, Ron continued chattering away, quietly recounting Professor McGonagall's personal history.

At that moment, he realized that besides chess, he had other talents too!

Ron Rita Skeeter II Weasley was born!

"My mum said Professor McGonagall is an incredible legend."

"As a baby, she could control the family cat, summon toys into her crib, and even make her father's bagpipes play by themselves."

"She received the highest marks in both her O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, was chosen as a prefect and Head Girl, and won Today's Transfiguration's Most Promising Newcomer Award."

(Hermione whispered into Basil's ear, "I know that too. It's in Modern Wizarding Masters.")

"Right after graduation, she joined the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"In just two years, she was offered a promotion."

"But she turned it down and chose Hogwarts. She took a position in the Transfiguration Department, whose head at the time was Albus Dumbledore."

Basil, upon hearing all this: Ron, what other surprises do you have that I don't know about!

Yet Ron stopped there.

Because by then, they had followed Professor McGonagall into the entrance hall, passed the closed doors of the Great Hall, and entered a very small empty room at the far end of the hall.

Professor Cat was standing before the group of first-year students, explaining things they already knew.

They would be sorted, there were different Houses, the Sorting Ceremony was important, Houses were their homes, House points represented honor, and there were rules for gaining and losing House points.

"The House is our home? Not the school?" Having experienced twenty-first-century education in Dragon Country, Basil immediately spotted the issue.

Everything that followed was merely more introduction and emphasis on the Houses.

Basil, who regarded Hogwarts as his personal property, immediately lost his curiosity about Professor McGonagall.

Instead, he frowned as he listened to words that divided up his Hogwarts.

The Houses belonged to the school, yet they were being told to love their Houses.

Wasn't this just another version of, "My vassal's vassal is not my vassal; my lord's lord is not my lord"?

He seriously asked Ron, "That department head you mentioned?"

Ron said, "You don't think students from all seven years only have one teacher for each subject, do you? In fact, apart from Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts, all our major subjects have staff in their own departments."

"However, they mainly handle seventh-year students, as well as behind-the-scenes work like grading assignments. They usually stay in the staff room and do not attend feasts either."

"So we almost never see them. Some people jokingly call them House-elf professors."

"That's ridiculous." Basil's frown deepened.

The school was divided into Houses, and every subject even had assistant teachers working like laborers.

Muggle-born little wizards came to Hogwarts solely to learn magic.

Yet Hogwarts insisted on creating factional divisions.

Before transmigration: Sorting was so fun.

After transmigration, once he owned Hogwarts: You've ruined my school like this?

With that thought, Basil abruptly raised his right hand.

"Professor, I think you're wrong to put it that way!"