A World with Me Can Only Get Better

"Too slow, Roger!" Mr. Borgin's voice called out.

"Sorry, it was a little more troublesome than I expected," Roger said apologetically.

Today was the day Hogwarts started. Since Roger was going to Hogwarts, the books in his room naturally had to be dealt with. That was a room at the tavern, not Roger's personal library.

After checking out, Roger had to clear all the books out.

These were important books that nearly documented the entire evolutionary path of magical civilization. Professor McGonagall had lent them to Roger, not given them to him, so Roger's solution was simple.

Aside from a few he had not finished reading yet, as well as those especially worth revisiting again and again, he would simply mail the rest back to Professor McGonagall.

Roger had thought it would be a simple process, but Wizarding World mail turned out to be more troublesome than expected. He had wasted an extra twenty minutes filling out the information required by the post office.

...Although Roger had bought himself a magical pet owl, in order for magical pets to remain with their wizards for a long time, the pets sold to first-year young wizards were generally adolescents, rather than full-grown birds of prey capable of carrying dozens of books by mail.

It would have been possible to make more than a dozen trips back and forth, but Roger could not bear to put his magical pet through that.

Now that he had bought it, it was family. There was no need to torment it over such a trivial matter.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." Roger spoke as he left the post office and got into the back seat of the car.

"Nothing else, right? Any more delays, and we'll really be late," Mr. Borgin said.

Roger shook his head. "No."

"And what about you, Hannah?" As he spoke, Mr. Borgin's gaze drifted toward the fair-faced blonde girl beside him.

The girl's name was Hannah Borgin, a member of Tom Borgin's family. She was also eleven this year, and likewise a young wizard about to start school.

Since Mr. Borgin was taking his child anyway, taking one or two made little difference, so he gave Roger a ride as well.

"Neither do I," Hannah, seated in the front passenger seat, answered.

With that answer, Mr. Borgin stepped on the accelerator and drove toward King's Cross Station, where Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was located.

During the drive, the idle Mr. Borgin sometimes chatted with Hannah and sometimes exchanged a few words with Roger, but Hannah and Roger hardly spoke to each other.

It was not that there was any conflict between them. In fact, they got along well enough; they simply had no interest in one another.

To Roger, Hannah was just a child. She was not mature enough mentally and had no interest in magic, so he truly had nothing in common with her.

Rather than spend that time entertaining a child, he might as well read two more magic books. That was more important to his growth.

Hannah had initially been somewhat interested in Roger. After all, once the tavern's customers had a couple of drinks in them, they loved to boast, and lately there had been only two main topics of discussion.

One was the legendary The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, who would be starting school this year. The other was the equally legendary seer among the new students, Roger Virgil.

In the mouths of the tavern patrons, the two were always talked up as if they were practically divine.

Especially some of the older patrons. They always linked these two children to the two figures who had stood above all others in their own era... After all, there were quite a few similarities, weren't there?

But after spending more time around Roger, Hannah discovered that he did not seem remarkable at all. Every day, all he did was read, read, and read some more, like a complete bookworm.

He was absolutely not the type little girls liked.

Sometimes, she even thought to herself, Could The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, be like this too? Completely different from the rumors?

Watching the two children show absolutely no intention of paying attention to each other, Mr. Borgin sighed inwardly.

As a tavern owner who had seen all kinds of people, he could tell that someone like Roger, capable of pouring all his energy into one thing without distraction, would surely achieve no small measure of success in the future even if he were not a seer, barring any accidents.

On top of that, Mr. Borgin already thought Roger was a fine person, so naturally he hoped his own child could become friends with him.

The Wizarding World had never been a peaceful place. Wherever there were people, there were rivalries and conflicts.

Even though the vast majority of wizards in the United Kingdom came from Hogwarts and were, strictly speaking, fellow schoolmates, the conflicts that should arise still did.

Conflicts from the previous generation could even be passed down to the children in school through words and example.

At Hogwarts, a place of closed education, disputes and mutual suppression between students had never stopped.

Whether at school or in society, having a big shot willing to look out for you was never a bad thing.

Powerful wizards and resource-holding Pure-blood families were the true rulers of wizarding society. Being on good terms with a powerful wizard could even produce effects like, "A photo with a big shot can drive off enemies."

But unfortunately, his hopes came to nothing. The two had no intention of becoming friends at all. Mr. Borgin could only hope that, for his sake, if Hannah encountered trouble at school and he was too far away to help, Roger might lend her a hand.

"Spatial transportation, precise cognitive distortion... Impressive." Pushing a trolley loaded with school uniforms, a cauldron, an owl cage, and other items through Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at King's Cross Station, Roger murmured softly as he looked at the deep-red Hogwarts Express before him.

Just now at King's Cross Station, parents of young wizards had been openly talking about Muggles, and one young wizard after another had passed through the platform and vanished, yet none of the ordinary passersby had noticed. Thinking about it, it was absurd.

"Was it a regional spell? Once someone entered this area, their will was automatically muddled?" Roger pondered the scene he had just witnessed.

"Roger, we should go." A voice from behind interrupted his thoughts.

"We already lost some time. If we don't board now, all the seats will be taken. You don't want to stand the whole way, do you?" Hannah urged.

"Of course not." Roger answered as he walked forward.

The two squeezed together toward the overcrowded platform. The noisy crowd, the incessant cries of all kinds of magical pets, and the thick plumes of smoke billowing from the steam train blended together, making them frown as they pushed onward.

From time to time, children who had already boarded would lean out of the windows to say goodbye to their families. The chaotic sounds were truly disturbing.

Hannah's worries had been justified. By the time Roger boarded, the front carriages of the train were already completely full.

The middle and rear carriages were much the same. Though not every seat was occupied, there were people in nearly every compartment; none were entirely empty.

"Looks like I'll have to share a compartment with someone." Just as that thought crossed Roger's mind—

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a toad pawing at the door of a compartment.

After scratching at it for a while without getting any response from the tightly shut door, it turned its vacant eyes toward the approaching Roger.

Then it warily hopped two steps away in another direction.

This was...

When Roger came within two meters of it—

A boy's voice, sounding somewhat simple and honest, reached his ears.

"Gran, I've lost Trevor again!"

The boy pressed himself against the train window and called out helplessly, his voice tinged with tears.

"Ah, Neville..." On the platform, the old woman looked at her grandson's miserable face with utter helplessness.

Bang.

The latch was pulled open.

"Excuse me, is this the Trevor you mentioned?"

Neville turned around to see a kind-looking boy with smooth blond hair standing there.

In front of him floated a toad, frantically kicking its legs as though swimming through the air, looking rather panicked.

"Trevor!" Neville's eyes widened instantly in delight.

Then he scooped the toad into his arms.

Seeing his reaction, Roger naturally asked, "A lot of the compartments outside are full. Would it be alright if I shared this one?"

Compared to going through the remaining compartments one by one, asking whether he could come in, only to be turned away by young wizards who had arranged to sit together or preferred a quiet environment, this was far less trouble.

"Of course!" Neville was incredibly warm and welcoming toward the good person who had helped him find Trevor.

...Of course Roger knew that this lost toad was the opportunity for Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley—the original Iron Triangle of destiny—to first meet.

His actions might very well disturb the future he knew.

But he did not care about that.

So-called plot was merely what might happen over the next seven years.

A butterfly's slightest flap of its wings could stir up a storm a thousand miles away. So long as he existed, he was bound to affect others and bring about unknown consequences.

But was he supposed to waste his energy considering how every single action might affect the plot? If he spent every day thinking about such nonsense, would he still have time to learn magic? What a joke.

As a prophet, Roger had always believed there was no such thing as destiny.

Roger also did not believe that a world with him in it could possibly be worse than one without him! If he were not currently too weak to withstand any contingencies Voldemort might have left behind, as well as retaliation from the scattered Death Eaters—and if he had not failed to watch the later Order of the Phoenix films, leaving much of his information as vague hearsay from short videos—he would have reported all the information about Voldemort's Horcruxes directly to Dumbledore.

Though Roger did not care much about anything beyond his path to eternal life... at the very least, he owed Dumbledore a considerable debt of gratitude. He absolutely would not let Dumbledore end up lying in a grave a few years from now.

Nor would he let Dumbledore lose one beloved student after another, weeping bitterly in his old age.

Wouldn't that make Roger's debt of gratitude seem cheap?!