"Poor Boy" Harry

"Hey, Tierra, are you asleep?" Harry, hiding under the covers, gently nudged Tierra beside him.

"No. What is it, Harry?" Tierra replied softly.

How could I possibly fall asleep when you've been tossing and turning beside me this whole time? Tierra silently thought.

"No, it's nothing. I just can't sleep. Um... I'm not disturbing you, am I?"

"No, it's fine, Harry. I can't sleep either," Tierra replied.

"It's simply incredible, like a dream. I never thought magic really existed, or that there was even a magic school," Harry sighed.

"Hehe, just like a dream—you're still moved long after waking up," Tierra teased. Unfortunately, Harry did not understand the ahead-of-its-time reference. "By the way, Harry, you don't have to speak so quietly. Hagrid lives on the first floor, and we're in the attic. You can speak as loudly as you want. You won't wake Hagrid."

"Oh, okay." Harry raised his voice considerably, though it was still soft, like a kitten mewling.

Habits formed from years of living under someone else's roof were not so easily changed. Although Harry was now far from that cupboard at Uncle Dursley's house, before seeing the heaps of Galleons in the Gringotts vault, he was still that little boy who had lived in a cupboard.

Faced with Tierra, who had a similar background, Harry quickly opened his heart and poured out everything Hagrid had just told him about the Magical World and his parents.

As well as the miserable life Harry had lived at his aunt and uncle's house over the past ten years.

Tierra had long known all this through the Harry Potter books and films, but he still put on an attentive, interested expression.

"There are quite a lot of things to buy for school..." Tierra remarked.

"Yeah. Hagrid will take us shopping tomorrow morning. I can't wait," Harry said excitedly.

"Harry, do you... have any money?"

"Money, money... I—I don't." Harry's face immediately fell. "Uncle Dursley definitely won't give me money to attend a magic school."

"Don't worry, Harry." With that, Tierra jumped out of bed, pulled open the third drawer of his desk in the darkness, and took out an old leather pouch. By the moonlight spilling in through the skylight, he placed it before Harry.

"What's this?" Harry hefted it and heard metal clinking inside.

"Money." As Tierra spoke, he opened the leather pouch and poured out a thick stack of banknotes neatly arranged from smallest to largest denomination, along with several glittering gold coins.

Harry's eyes seemed to go blank. He had never seen so much money in his life, whether it was that thick stack of banknotes or those slightly old but gleaming gold coins.

"Tierra... this is..."

"Money, Harry. It's what I've saved from working ever since I ran away from the orphanage when I was six," Tierra said.

The pouch held about eleven hundred pounds in banknotes, a thick bundle of ten-, twenty-, and fifty-pound notes. It was money he had saved over the years not only from working in restaurants, but also from performing "magic tricks" on the streets.

He had originally saved it for a plane ticket once he turned twelve, the age when he could fly alone.

If this world and the world he had transmigrated from were parallel worlds, then he still had plenty of relatives back in his homeland, as well as a house. Even if he had to live off the charity of many households after returning, it would still be better than drifting alone in a foreign land.

But Hogwarts' letter of acceptance had given him another choice.

"I hope this money will be enough for our tuition," Tierra said.

"Wait, Tierra, our tuition?" Harry asked in shock.

"Yes, Harry, our tuition. If you don't have money, I can help pay your tuition. I've earned a little savings from working outside these past few years. Um... I'm much better off than you. If it isn't enough... if it isn't enough... then I'll have no choice but to sell these gold coins." A sorrowful expression appeared on Tierra's face, and he added reluctantly, "These gold coins are the only keepsake my parents left me."

"Oh, no, Tierra, I can't take it. This money... this money..." Harry hurriedly refused.

"No, Harry. We're friends, aren't we?" Tierra said. "Friends should help each other."

"But Tierra, this... this is too much. I—I can't pay you back..."

No, you can, Tierra silently thought.

"I don't want you to pay me back," Tierra said. "Ever since I was little, I've wanted a good friend. Since the orphanage..."

Then Tierra embellished his own tragic experiences and told them all over again: losing both parents as a child, being bullied in the orphanage, finally escaping onto the streets only to often go hungry, even fighting stray dogs for food, until he met a kind Chinese Auntie...

Of course, the middle part was fabricated. Although Tierra had only been six when he escaped from the orphanage, with an adult's mind, he had thrived among the small groups of homeless children. Going hungry and fighting stray dogs for food had never happened.

In fact, Tierra had already gathered a dozen or so homeless children from London's streets into a small, organized, disciplined group. They helped gangs and hooligan groups in London's old districts and lower districts pass messages or transport contraband, and occasionally carried out planned scams or thefts.

Driven by necessity, during the first two months when he could not find work, Tierra had had all the scholarly edges from his previous life worn away. This change, this abandonment of conscience, was the only relatively difficult part of Tierra's years of wandering.

But that difficulty came only from mental torment and self-reproach, rather than material hardship.

Those months of homeless life had planted many dark thoughts in Tierra's heart.

Only children clung to their past sorrows and wallowed in self-pity.

Adults had to learn to make enough profit from other people's sympathy.

Harry ultimately did not accept Tierra's pounds or gold coins, but Tierra's open-hearted offer of help was enough to move Harry to tears. Lying in bed in the middle of the night, he kept sniffing, clearly crying silently beneath his blankets.

That left Tierra with a faint sense of guilt.

He did not truly want to help Harry. Even if Harry was the protagonist of Tierra's favorite film and novel series from his previous life, that was not enough to make him help Harry without reservation.

What Tierra wanted was Harry's help.

Not just Harry's money, but also his connections and his fame.

In his previous life, Tierra had read those cultivation novels where wealth, companions, methods, and a place to cultivate were all indispensable.

Learning magic was the same.