Hogwarts: Please, Just Graduate Already!

Fantastic Beasts were an important part of the Wizarding World. Used well, they could even make the Dark Lord suffer.

Don't you agree, Old Gellert?

After paying, Wayne got up and hurried toward the Magical Creatures Shop on the south side of Diagon Alley, eager to test his talent. Meanwhile, at The Leaky Cauldron.

"Who the hell did this?!"

Old Tom stood before the brick wall and howled at the sky. Several wizards stood behind him, all wearing furious expressions.

"That's so damn wicked!"

"Exactly! I searched forever and still couldn't find that brick!"

"Stop talking. I found the right spot, but I didn't dare confirm which brick it was. I didn't dare tap it. What if I got it wrong, summoned the Hit Wizards, and had to pay a fine?"

Facing the freshly repaired wall and that row of identical trash bins, the wizards were grinding their teeth in anger.

This was truly vile!

Red-faced, Old Tom moved away the copied trash bins one by one, leaving only the original.

Looking at the wall, much of his anger faded.

To be fair, the repaired wall did look much more pleasant than the previous battered one.

Old Tom used his wand to turn the original brick red, then ignored the rest of the bricks. This would do.

"Who did this?"

"Who else could it be? It had to be those mischievous little wizards." "Did any of you see someone come in just now?"

The wizards all talked at once, trying to find the culprit, while Old Tom fell into thought.

Wayne's figure instinctively appeared in his mind.

The problem had appeared not long after that little wizard left. Logically speaking, he was the most suspicious.

But Tom quickly ruled out that possibility himself. The reason was simple.

Any little wizard Professor McGonagall personally accompanied had to come from a Muggle family and had never encountered magic before.

How could he have learned such exquisite Mending and Copy Charms in just a few days?

Tom had inspected those trash bins. They would last at least a month. Impossible. Absolutely impossible.

Wayne looked so well-behaved. He was not the mischievous sort of child. Suddenly, someone said,

"I saw the Weasley twins come in while I was drinking just now." The room instantly fell silent, then erupted with indignation.

"That's right! It had to be them! Last time, they moved the trash bins to the other side and made me tap the wrong brick like an idiot!"

"They're awful! Weasley and Molly need to teach them a proper lesson."

Everyone chimed in, directly pinning the blame on a pair of completely innocent twins.

Even Old Tom believed it, because he had indeed seen the twins come by. Though that had been quite a while ago, not many wizards had entered Diagon Alley through this place afterward.

Maybe all those wizards had remembered the location and no longer needed the trash bins to guide them?

The more Old Tom thought about it, the angrier he became. He ran straight to the counter, pulled out a stack of parchment, and began writing a letter.

He was going to complain to Molly!

After the twins secretly slipped out for a day of fun and returned home through the Diagon Alley fireplace.

They were immediately greeted by a loving lesson from their mother.

The two were utterly bewildered. Once they understood what had happened, they cried out that they had been wronged. They really had not pulled any pranks that day. They had merely gone out for a stroll to see whether the joke shop had any new products.

It wasn't them!

Unfortunately, given the twins' usual behavior, Molly did not believe their nonsense.

After each received a thorough beating, she threw them back into their rooms for confinement. The twins looked at each other, their teeth itching with hatred.

They had always been the ones tricking others. How had someone managed to frame them today?

But that was a story for later. At that moment.

The true culprit, Mr. Wayne Lawrence, had already arrived at the Magical Creatures Shop, enjoying the adoration of the little animals.

The moment he entered, he attracted the attention of every Fantastic Beast.

Several owls that had been dozing flew over and began fighting over who could perch on his shoulder.

Even the Kneazles that usually ignored humans strolled over elegantly, narrowed their eyes, and rubbed against Wayne's trouser legs.

Wayne reached out, picked up a short-haired cat, and began stroking it. The clerk was dumbfounded.

This cat was the coldest and most aloof one in the shop. Customers often found it adorable and wanted to buy it.

But the cat could not even be bothered to acknowledge them, leaving them no choice but to give up. Why was it being so cooperative today, even exposing its belly with an expression of pure enjoyment? The clerk stared at Wayne.

What little wizard was this? He was practically a Veela who had wandered in from who knew where.

Lockhart's Purpose for Going to Hogwarts, Miss Know-it-all

After spending a while in the pet shop, Wayne experienced firsthand just how powerful the Magical Creature Affinity talent was.

No matter how difficult or prideful a creature was, it would obediently gather around him. With even slight contact, he could tame it.

Not only that, he could vaguely sense the animals' emotions and understand what they were expressing through their cries.

Even though the Fantastic Beasts here had all been domesticated to serve as wizarding pets.

Wayne believed that even against wild or more dangerous Fantastic Beasts, this talent would still have excellent effects.

"Uncle Newt probably had a similar talent. Otherwise, how could he run around with an entire suitcase full of dangerous creatures?"

Wayne thought to himself.

If he wanted, he could carry around a zoo like Newt in the future.

But he would never do that.

Not one of those magical creatures was easy to handle. Even a seemingly harmless Niffler could cause enormous trouble.

Newt had spent his entire life either serving as Dumbledore's tool or cleaning up after those magical creatures.

He had already been blacklisted from entering by the Ministries of Magic of dozens of countries. Even in the United States, where he now lived, the Magical Congress of the United States of America was extremely nervous about him. If Newt had not once saved the American Wizarding World and helped them capture Grindelwald.

They truly would not want that walking natural disaster settling there. Wayne had no desire to become as universally despised as Newt.

Under the reluctant gazes of the pets, Wayne tugged at his trousers, turned, and left without the slightest mercy.

Even the clerk was left in a mess. What the hell?

He had not bought a pet or pet supplies, so what was the point of coming in and stirring everything up?

After leaving the pet shop, Wayne, completely unaware that he had nearly been blacklisted, headed to Flourish and Blotts.

At the entrance to the bookstore stood an easel with a large poster. The greasy middle-aged wizard on it kept winking flirtatiously, causing many passing witches to stop and stare. It was very magical indeed.

Seeing Wayne looking at him, he immediately put on a standard professional smile, eight teeth gleaming brightly.

But Wayne was actually looking at the lines of text above his head.

Four-time winner of Wizarding Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award, recipient of the Order of Merlin, Third Class, and honorary member of the Dark Arts League, Mr. Lockhart's latest work—Travels with Trolls—is now available! Wayne fell into thought.

This great fraud of the Wizarding World was currently thriving. He had already published five or six books. Wayne could not understand why he would suddenly decide to go teach at Hogwarts next year.

Did he really believe the events recorded in those books were things he had done himself?

But when Wayne saw the price of Travels with Trolls inside the shop, he immediately understood.

Seven Galleons?

He had bought three Standard Spells books for less than five Galleons. This price was outright robbery.

Could this guy have agreed to become a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor just to sell books?

A full set cost thirty or forty Galleons. Hogwarts had several hundred, nearly a thousand students. That would mean tens of thousands of Galleons.

That was a fortune.

After casually flipping through it, Wayne still decided to buy Lockhart's complete set of books.

Setting aside the flashy, empty wording, the content was actually quite substantial. After all, these were all adapted from real cases.

The people of the Wizarding World were not fools. If it were all fabricated nonsense, Lockhart would have been exposed long ago.

After asking the clerk to wrap up all of Lockhart's books, Wayne began selecting other books.

He was interested in everything about the Wizarding World now. Learning Charms was one thing, but more importantly, he wanted to understand how wizards lived and learn about their unique culture.

Only then could he better integrate into wizarding society, rather than merely becoming a Muggle who knew magic.

As for the Dark Lord.

Honestly, it was not that Wayne looked down on Voldemort, but after fighting for half his life, he had failed to conquer even a single school and had been led around in circles by words.

Wayne truly found it hard to take an interest in him.

It would be different if Grindelwald came out and started causing trouble again. At least that man had ambition.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts," buy. "Encountering Faceless Monsters," buy. The complete Standard Spells set, buy.

In one go, Wayne bought all the textbooks he would need for the next several years. He even picked up Uncle Newt's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

The world's most famous book about Fantastic Beasts cost only one Galleon. Compared to Lockhart's books, it was an incredible bargain.

Seeing Wayne buying books so frantically, even the manager of Flourish and Blotts could not bear to watch.

"Little fellow, you must be a new first-year student, right? You will not need these books at all as a new student. It won't be too late to buy them when you need them."

"Oh." Wayne placed a copy of Advanced Potion-Making into his cart, then looked up and smiled. "I'll be bored during the holidays anyway, so I'll treat them as extracurricular reading. It's fine."

Seeing how insistent he was, the manager stopped trying to persuade him. Wayne casually picked up another book. "The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore." Damn, that was bold.

Once he saw the author's name, Wayne was no longer surprised. Rita Skeeter had never encountered anything she did not dare write about.

His cart was already filled with books, and Wayne finally stopped.

Just as he was about to pay, he spotted another book—the thickest one yet—sitting in an inconspicuous corner. It was a full five inches thick.

When he walked over to look, he found that it was Hogwarts: A History.

Wayne was delighted. He had actually wanted to buy this frequently mentioned reference book from the original story, but he had not been able to find it.

The clerk had said it was out of stock. Who would have thought there was still one in the corner?

Crouching down, Wayne forcefully pulled out the thick book. It looked a little dirty, but it was brand new.

He did not mind. As long as he could read it, that was enough. "Ow!"

Two pained cries rang out at the same time.

Just as he was about to stand and pay, Wayne felt a sharp pain in his head. He had bumped into something hard.

Rubbing his head, he stepped back and finally saw what he had hit. It was a little girl.

Her fluffy head of thick brown hair was wild and messy. She was clutching her chin in pain, baring her large front teeth.

Wayne laughed instead.

With such obvious features, who else could she be but the legendary Miss Know-it-all?

Hermione: Her Emotions Were All Over the Place! "You're still laughing!"

Hermione's voice was somewhat muffled. Wayne had hit her chin just now, making her bite her tongue.

The pain was so intense that tears were nearly spilling from her eyes.

"This little... friend." Wayne looked over the fuming Hermione, and the smile on his face grew even broader.

"I haven't even held you accountable yet, and you're already accusing the victim? Then let's reason this out and see whose fault this really is."