Hogwarts: Please, Just Graduate Already!

Led by the Iron Hat King, several Hufflepuff girls fidgeted restlessly, but they still hadn't made up their minds.

As class time drew closer and they figured Professor McGonagall would be arriving any moment, Hannah brought Bones, Juliet, and several other girls over. Each of them was holding some snacks.

Damn.

Wayne's eyes widened. Miranda.

Where did you get catnip?!

Just then, the tabby cat surrounded by the girls suddenly revealed a humanlike smile. It leaped backward and transformed back into Professor McGonagall, as stern as ever.

"Miss Abbott, Miss Livingston, in the wizarding world, you mustn't act so recklessly, especially when you can't tell what kind of creature is in front of you."

Professor McGonagall glanced at the catnip, and the corner of her mouth twitched twice almost imperceptibly.

They really are Hufflepuffs. They can get their hands on all kinds of strange plants.

"P-Professor McGonagall." The little witches had clearly been frightened out of their wits, and they all began stammering.

"All right, class is about to begin. Please return to your seats." At those words, the girls fled back to their places as if pardoned, their faces still full of lingering fear.

Even the other students who had been watching for entertainment were startled. They sat up straight and waited for class to begin.

This was one of McGonagall's usual tricks. When little wizards first entered school, she would transform into her Animagus form and frighten them once, establishing her authority. It never failed.

Soon, the bell rang, and Professor McGonagall entered teaching mode. "Transfiguration is the most dangerous and most complex branch of magic among the courses you will study at Hogwarts.

"Anyone who dares to misbehave in my classroom will be sent out and forbidden from ever coming back in."

The deputy headmistress's full presence filled the room, leaving it utterly silent. Malfoy and his two cronies even shrank their necks.

Even with Snape backing Slytherin, no one could protect them once Professor McGonagall lost her temper.

At the lectern, McGonagall waved her hand, and dense writing appeared on the blackboard. It was none other than Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, famous throughout the wizarding world. It was the foundation of all Transfiguration, practically an iron law.

Everyone had to memorize this knowledge before beginning their studies, lest they cause irreversible harm.

The little wizards scribbled away at their notes, and Wayne did the same. However, he only wrote down what he didn't know. He had already mastered much of the material, so there was no need to waste ink.

Once they had finished taking notes, McGonagall took out her wand and tapped the desk, transforming it into a pig.

That move immediately captured the little wizards' attention. Gasps rang out, and their expressions changed from boredom to anticipation.

As a veteran professor who had taught for decades, McGonagall's teaching ability was beyond question. She knew exactly what the little wizards were looking forward to most.

She handed each student a match. The goal of this lesson—and even of the entire month's lessons—was to transform the match into a needle.

Transfiguration was classified by difficulty. From easiest to hardest, the categories were inanimate object to inanimate object, living creature to inanimate object, inanimate object to living creature, and living creature to living creature. The farther one went, the greater the gap in difficulty.

Well, there was no need to talk about the future. Even the very first lesson stumped everyone. Hannah had nearly poked her toothpick to pieces with her wand, but it still hadn't changed at all.

Her deskmate Susan did a little better. In five minutes, she successfully turned her match green.

"Change, change, change! Change for me!"

Malfoy gritted his teeth and thrust his wand again and again. Bang!

A burst of fireworks shot from the tip, nearly blowing up his desk.

"Mr. Malfoy, I told you to concentrate. Anger is meaningless."

McGonagall frowned as she reprimanded him. "Because of your recklessness, Slytherin loses one point."

"Yes, Professor. I understand." Malfoy, now afraid to make another fuss, could only fetch another match.

"This is way too difficult." Toby made his match flash silver. At first, he thought he had succeeded, but then he realized the match hadn't changed at all.

"It isn't that bad. You just need to focus. Put all your attention on the match, and don't think about the consequences of success or failure."

Wayne offered a casual hint. With a tap of his wand, the match transformed into a silver needle, thick at one end and thin at the other.

The thick end was decorated with an exquisite pattern.

As luck would have it, McGonagall passed by at that moment. When she saw that he had succeeded, she was both surprised and delighted. "Perfect, Mr. Lawrence!"

That single feat was something many little wizards couldn't accomplish in an entire term. She looked at Wayne appreciatively. "You have a real talent for Transfiguration. Keep working hard, Mr. Lawrence. Five points to Hufflepuff."

"Thank you, Professor." Wayne thanked her obediently.

Toby and Norman, who sat in front of him, looked at Wayne as if he were a traitor.

"Didn't you say you'd never been exposed to magic before? How did you succeed just like that?"

"Liar!"

Wayne replied righteously, "I previewed the material during the boring parts of summer. What's the problem?"

Toby muttered, "What respectable person previews their lessons? That's a huge insult to the professor's teaching ability!"

Fine, fine. You really know how to talk.

Quite a few students looked at Wayne enviously, while the Slytherins were mostly jealous. They, the pure-bloods, hadn't managed to do something that a little Muggle-born wizard had accomplished.

It was practically a slap in the face. Unfortunately—

Until the end of class, no other student succeeded. The closest anyone came was slightly changing the match's shape while leaving its material completely unchanged.

Still, Professor McGonagall was already delighted that Wayne had succeeded, and she even exempted him from his Transfiguration homework for the week.

That made Toby and Norman's eyes turn red with envy. But nothing could interfere with the little badgers' eating.

As soon as class ended, the little wizards charged toward the dining hall with their bags. Someone as unhurried as Wayne instead became the odd one out.

He lowered his head and slowly walked toward the dining hall, thinking about ways to make money. After last night's probing, he had figured out how much pocket money many of the little wizards had. It was only the beginning of the school year, when their wallets were at their fullest. After a while, they would have spent quite a bit.

I have to move quickly.

Because he was too absorbed in his thoughts while walking with his head down, Wayne didn't notice a girl approaching from around the corner.

The two of them collided. "Ow!"

The girl's crisp voice jolted Wayne awake. "Sorry, are you all right?"

Chapter Twenty-Nine: If Ravenclaw Can Scrape Together Seven People, That's Already Impressive

The dark-haired girl who had fallen onto the floor in front of Wayne rubbed her forehead and stood up, revealing a pretty and delicate face.

"I'm fine. My forehead just hurts a little."

"Sorry. I was thinking about something and wasn't watching where I was going."

Although he would become the future Chaos King, Wayne was still a well-mannered person. This had been his fault to begin with.

Before the girl could say anything, he raised a finger and murmured, "Reparo!" A warm, soothing sensation spread across her forehead. The girl immediately realized that it no longer hurt. Looking through the mirror beside them, she could even see that the swelling that had just appeared was gone.

"Healing Spell, and Wandless Casting too? That's amazing!" She looked at Wayne excitedly. "My name is Cho Chang. What's yours?"

"Wayne. Wayne Lawrence. So this is Cho Chang."

Wayne looked at the girl. She looked completely different from the actress in the films, and was absolutely a standard Chinese beauty.

"I remember now. You're the one from yesterday's Sorting Hat incident!" Cho suddenly realized.

Wayne smiled and nodded. "That's right. If I'd known Ravenclaw had so many beautiful girls, I might as well have gone to Ravenclaw."

He knew how to say nice things when necessary. Sure enough, when Cho heard him praise her like that, she became a little shy and a little happy at the same time.

The distance between them shortened considerably, and they walked toward the Great Hall chatting and laughing.

"Hmph!"

Only after the two of them had left did a soft snort come from the other side of the doorway. Hermione, who had just finished Herbology, had witnessed the entire scene.

Remembering Wayne's attitude when they had first met, the little witch suddenly felt uncomfortable for some reason.

"Quidditch tryouts start next week. I wonder if I'll make the team."

Wayne and Cho got along quite well. Their only disagreement was that Cho thought someone as clever as Wayne should have joined Ravenclaw instead of Hufflepuff.

Wayne, however, believed that Ravenclaw wasn't the only house with intelligent people. Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore, for example, were both students from other houses.

Of course, there was one opinion he kept to himself.

Wayne believed that Ravenclaw's so-called intelligence was, most of the time, merely conceited cleverness or calculating cunning.

Just look at the sort of people Ravenclaw had produced.

This term's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Quirrell, had been fooled into becoming Voldemort's host by a few words from a remnant-like Voldemort.

Next term's Lockhart was a complete and utter fraud.

Barty Crouch was indeed an elite wizard, one of the Ministry of Magic's most capable officials. But he had also been temporarily blinded by obsession and secretly brought Barty Jr. out of Azkaban, triggering a series of disasters afterward.

Seen that way, most Ravenclaws merely possessed a bit of cleverness and had completely missed the essence of it.

But Wayne definitely couldn't tell Cho any of this. Otherwise, the girl who was still smiling sweetly could turn on him in an instant. Hearing her worry about Quidditch tryouts, Wayne offered some reassurance.

"Don't worry. Cedric said that if the Ravenclaw Quidditch team can scrape together seven players, that's already impressive. If you sign up, you'll definitely make it."

Ravenclaw was heavily female-dominated, and it also had plenty of oddballs who weren't enthusiastic about taking part in group activities.

Cedric's words hadn't been wrong at all. They had been very objective. Cho's face darkened.

"Cedric?"

"The third-year top student, Hufflepuff's Seeker?"

"Thanks for the encouragement. I'm going to train. When we face Hufflepuff next time, I will be playing!"

Provoked like that, Cho's competitive spirit was completely ignited.

She had originally wanted to compete for the Seeker position, and she had secretly practiced for a long time at home during the summer.

If she made the team, then when they played Hufflepuff, she would definitely catch the Golden Snitch and show Cedric the consequences of looking down on Ravenclaw.

Wayne smiled as he watched the girl leave.

The system's voice rang out: "Host has driven a wedge between them and damaged the relationship between two houses. Reward: 50 points. Tsk."

Luckily, this system had such an easygoing master. Otherwise, it would have been uninstalled long ago.

What do you mean, driven a wedge between them? I only repeated Cedric's exact words. I didn't embellish anything.

Besides, isn't trash talk before a match perfectly normal? I haven't even said anything harsher yet.

For example, Fred had revealed a secret on the train yesterday.

Every Quidditch match between a house and Ravenclaw lasted a very long time. The reason was simple.

Of the seven players, five were girls, and even the two Beaters were female.

Apart from playing Quidditch, when else would you get the chance to have so many girls play with you, or even chase after you?

When they said this, not only the twins but even Cedric wore a lewd smile, thoroughly enjoying himself.

The afternoon was Charms class, with two periods back-to-back. Professor Flitwick stood atop a tall stack of books and called attendance. When he reached Harry Potter's name, he gave an excited squeal and fell off the books.

It took him quite a while to recover from his excitement before he began the first Charms class.

Charms was the foundation of everything. Studying Charms wasn't merely about mastering spells; it was also about improving one's efficiency at learning other spells and helping little wizards develop their own understanding of magic.

That was why Harry could quickly get the hang of the Disarming Charm and Shield Charm after encountering them.

Once the foundation was solid, learning other spells would also become considerably faster.

"Today we'll learn the most basic spell, Lumos. It's very simple. The incantation is 'Lumos.'"

"What happened? Who made you unhappy?"

Wayne was still sitting with Hermione, but the little witch wasn't giving him a pleasant look.

When Wayne sat down, she said nothing and turned her fair face away. Her expression practically screamed, I'm unhappy. Come and cheer me up.

Wayne thought about it. It definitely wasn't because of what had happened in History of Magic class. Hermione wasn't that petty.

Then what happened?

"Don't talk to me during class, Mr. Lawrence!" Well, she had even started calling him Mr. Lawrence. He had found the culprit.

Wayne couldn't figure out what the little witch was angry about. But he had no experience comforting girls, so he simply decided to give her the cold shoulder.

When Professor Flitwick told everyone to practice freely, the classroom immediately grew noisy. Incantations rose and fell one after another. Wayne raised his wand and murmured, "Lumos!"

Chapter Thirty: A Genius at Explosions, Truly Terrifying