Banquet

When Tierra climbed down from the four-legged stool, he greeted Hagrid on the teachers' dais.

He also glanced at the other teachers' reactions.

They were either talking with other teachers or eating silently.

Hagrid returned the greeting with a smile, while Dumbledore was focused on cutting the steak in front of him.

Tierra received an enthusiastic welcome when he reached the Gryffindor table. These straightforward, passionate little lions were intensely interested in Tierra daring to threaten the Sorting Hat with a knitting needle during the Sorting Ceremony.

"How did you think of that? Poking the Sorting Hat with a knitting needle?" George, seated to Tierra's left, asked.

"That was absolutely genius!" Fred, seated to Tierra's right, said.

When Tierra came down from the dais, the Weasley Twins, who had been sitting together, made an empty space between them and pulled him in.

"I heard you beat up Malfoy on the train?"

"That's so cool. Our dad always says the Malfoy family are cowards, pathetic losers, and spider scum."

"Are you really Muggle-born?"

"How did you get a knitting needle?"

"Is the Muggle World fun?"

"I heard Muggles have wizards too. Is that true?"

The moment Tierra sat down, the twins' questions hit him like cannonballs, catching him completely off guard.

Fortunately, Harry was soon sorted into Gryffindor as well, and the twins pulled him into their little circle.

Their only biological brother, Ron, was instead squeezed out of the circle.

Ron did not care, though. He held a drumstick in each hand and gnawed on them from side to side, his elbows occasionally bumping Hermione, who sat beside him.

"Won't you try this cream? Hogwarts cream is really delicious!" George looked at Tierra strangely when, after eating only a little steak, chicken, and vegetable salad, he began silently eating fruit.

"No, it's too sweet." Tierra only cut off the cake part of the dessert as his carbohydrate intake for the day, leaving the cream untouched.

As a biology nerd, Tierra still paid attention to his diet. It was fine to eat this kind of high-sugar, high-calorie food occasionally, but if he ate it often, Tierra was certain he would soon develop a spare tire around his waist.

After all, he was growing up all over again. He knew his own body best.

In his previous life, he had fallen and broken his leg while climbing a tree to catch sparrows in middle school. He lay at home for three months, and his heartbroken parents fed him rich food every day to help him recover. He ended up with two spare tires and an enlarged appetite, growing fatter and fatter until college, when he started working out and swimming with his roommates and gradually got his body back into shape.

Losing weight was painful. Tierra had no desire to go through it again. Better to start from the beginning and maintain strict self-discipline.

Besides, British food... eating too much of it made your hair fall out easily.

"No, too much sugar gives me diarrhea." Tierra could not possibly explain high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar to these little wizards from the magical side, so he casually made up an excuse.

"Eating too many sweets is bad for your health," Hermione suddenly cut in. "Too much sugar can easily cause fatty liver disease and diabetes."

"We should eat more vegetables and fruit. They're important sources of vitamins."

The Little Witch spoke seriously, then, wearing the expression of a little adult, copied Tierra and took a bite of salad without dressing.

But Hermione was not Tierra and was not used to raw vegetables without salad dressing. The hard, dry texture felt like chewing paper.

After swallowing with difficulty, the Little Witch began cutting the steak on her plate.

"Fatty liver disease? Diabetes? Vitamins?" George and Fred looked utterly confused. "What are those?"

"Muggle illnesses," Tierra said. To stop the Weasley Twins from asking further questions, he added, "Wizards can't get them."

Before taking his seat, he had asked the House-elves, hidden somewhere unknown, for a vegetable salad without dressing and a fruit salad without dressing.

Although they found the little wizard's request very strange, the House-elves still complied. Before long, a bowl of vegetables and fruit without salad dressing appeared on the table.

Hearing that wizards could not catch such illnesses, the Weasley Twins immediately lost interest and turned to asking about other things in the Muggle World.

Things like rubber ducks, Muggle cars, Muggle food, clothing, housing, travel, and so on.

Hermione and Harry occasionally chimed in with a word or two, but most of the time, they simply let Tierra spin outrageous tales.

For example, rubber ducks were created by Muggles to commemorate a hero who had died in a bathroom. His name was Robodaken. He had ultimately been assassinated in a bathroom while resisting the brutal rule of a Muggle dictator. By Muggle custom, whenever we entered a bathroom, we had to hold a rubber duck and shout, "Robodaken!"

Or Muggle cars could be captured in the wild. When a car reached the end of its life, its four tires... sometimes five tires... would fall off. We Muggles piled those tires together, and young cars would hatch from the tire piles. These cars needed to be trained before they could be sold.

"Cool..." the Weasley Twins said, their faces filled with longing, just as Tierra had once longed for Hogwarts—as though Muggles belonged to another magical world.

Only Hermione and Harry trembled all over as they struggled not to laugh.

"Cough... ah." Harry suddenly clutched his forehead. His lightning-shaped scar abruptly burned with pain.

"What's wrong?" Tierra, seated beside Harry, was the first to notice something was off, though he knowingly asked anyway.

Everyone else turned to look at Harry too.

"N-no, it's nothing." The burning pain in Harry's forehead vanished as quickly as it had come.

"Who is that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" Harry asked Percy, who sat across from him.

He had noticed that while he was in pain, the teacher with the hooked nose and greasy black hair had been staring at him with an unfriendly gaze.

"Oh, you already know Professor Quirrell. It's no surprise he's so nervous. That other one is Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, though he doesn't want to teach that subject... but everyone knows he's after Professor Quirrell's job. Snape is very skilled at Dark Magic."

Harry watched Snape for a while, but Snape did not look at him again.

Soon, as the little wizards present finished eating, the leftovers and plates on the tables were cleared away.

Just as they had appeared out of nowhere, they vanished without warning.

After the last plate disappeared, Professor Dumbledore rose solemnly, tapped his glass, and silence returned to the Great Hall.

"Now that everyone has eaten and drunk their fill, I have a few more words to say. At the start of term, I would like to give everyone a few reminders."

"First-years should note that the forest on the school grounds is strictly off-limits to all students. Some of our older students should remember this as well."

Dumbledore's bright eyes gave the Weasley Twins a particularly pointed glance.

"Also, Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to remind everyone that magic is not to be used in the corridors between classes." Dumbledore glanced at the Weasley Twins again.

"Quidditch team trials will be held in the second week of this term. Any students interested in joining their House team should contact Madam Hooch."

"Finally, I must tell you that anyone who does not wish to suffer an accident and die a painful death should avoid the corridor on the right-hand side of the fourth floor."

Harry burst out laughing, though only a few others laughed with him.

Tierra gave Harry a strange look.

What are you laughing at? He's talking about you.