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"Get up! Get up! Hurry!"

Urgent knocking sounded at the door, and Harry Potter groggily opened his eyes.

He instinctively reached beneath his pillow for his wand, but grabbed nothing.

His green eyes narrowed. He raised an arm, only to find it thin and frail.

What was going on?

Alarmed, he looked around and found himself in a cramped, confined space.

The cupboard under the stairs...

The Dursley family's cupboard under the stairs—what a distant memory.

Could it be that he had returned to 1991?

"Get up!"

Another shriek rang out, and Harry came back to himself. At the same time, he remembered that it was Aunt Petunia's voice.

He had not heard that voice for six years. He had nearly forgotten the Dursley family entirely.

Harry sat up and looked around the cramped little space.

This was much smaller than the Hogwarts dormitories, he thought.

Ever since he had found that acceptance letter in this tiny cupboard, he had somehow ended up at a school called Hogwarts, where he had studied and lived for six years.

He had even begun to feel as if he were blending into that Victorian era. Yet for some reason, he had suddenly returned to the Elizabethan era.

Harry picked up his glasses from beside his pillow. Looking at the arms wrapped over and over with tape, he curled a finger and gave one a light flick.

The tape crackled, spun once around the glasses arm, and flew into the glasses. At the same time, the arm returned to normal.

He put on his glasses and pushed open the door. His aunt had long since left, and an indescribable stench hit him in the face. Following the sound, he went to the Kitchen and discovered that the smell seemed to be coming from a large iron basin in the sink.

His aunt's family was already seated at the Dining Table. It was a wonder they could stand that disgusting smell—but given Dudley's pig-like temperament... and build, it would be stranger if he lost his appetite.

At the sight of Harry, Uncle Vernon instinctively frowned.

Before he could say anything, the mailbox clicked, followed by the sound of several letters falling onto the doormat by the front door.

"What are you standing there for?" Uncle Vernon's tone was unpleasant. He turned to Dudley. "Use your Smelting Stick and make him fetch them."

Seeing Dudley reach for the stick with ill intent, Harry gave him a deep look before turning and leaving.

Three letters lay scattered across the mat. One was from Aunt Marge, one appeared to be a bill, and the last was addressed: "Mr. Harry Potter, Cupboard Under the Stairs, Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, County Surrey."

The envelope was made of thick Parchment. The address had been written in emerald-green ink, and there was no stamp.

Harry took a deep breath and turned the letter over. Sure enough, it bore a wax seal with the Hogwarts crest.

A letter like this, yesterday—

No, to be precise, six years ago, he had also found one in the cupboard under the stairs. Then he had gone to the Victorian era, more than a hundred years in the past.

Holding the letter, he slowly returned to the Kitchen amid Uncle Vernon's irritable urging. He placed the other two letters on the table, then opened the one addressed to him.

"Father!" Dudley suddenly shouted. "Father! Harry seems to have received something!"

The instant he spoke, Harry felt someone pounce toward him. He instinctively raised a hand, and Uncle Vernon, who had lunged at him, floated gently into the air before suddenly crashing toward the floor.

Wandless magic, silent casting.

This was Harry Potter, champion of Hogwarts' Dueling Club.

Winguardium Leviosa, the standard Levitation Charm.

Paired with it was Descendo. This combination had been taught to him by Sebastian Saru of Slytherin House.

Considering that the Uncle before him was built as fat as a troll, he might actually die if he hit the ground like that. So after instinctively following up with Descendo, Harry stopped the spell halfway through the fall.

Uncle Vernon's nose hovered only inches above the floor. Harry fanned himself with the letter. Hearing Uncle Vernon still shouting curses, Harry snapped his fingers, and Uncle Vernon's mouth, continuously opening and closing to spew obscenities, sealed shut as if a zipper had been pulled across it.

"Do you mind?" Harry raised an eyebrow and asked politely.

Aunt Petunia let out a piercing shriek at the sight.

"You... you haven't even gone to Hogwar... that freak school yet. Why can you do magic?"

Harry sharply caught the detail in Aunt Petunia's words. He raised his head, his Emerald Eyes meeting Petunia's. "That is not important. What matters is, how do you know about Hogwarts? How do you know about magic?"

As he spoke, he waved the letter in his hand.

"I..."

Petunia's mouth went dry.

"It seems you have been hiding quite a lot from me, Aunt." Harry smiled lightly. Under Dudley's stunned gaze and Aunt Petunia's terrified one, he said casually, "Then would you mind telling me?"

"No, impossible!" Aunt Petunia became hysterical.

Harry set down the thick Parchment letter. Looking at his aunt's expression, and at Uncle Vernon—with his mouth sealed and body suspended in midair, yet still struggling to swim toward him—memories surged over him like a tide.

Years of abuse were not something six years at a magic school could wash away. Instead, they became even clearer at this moment, though he did not bear a grudge against his aunt's family because of them.

But with Aunt Petunia acting like this, Harry did not mind frightening her a little.

"Aunt should know that wizards have a spell called Legilimency—just as its name suggests, it can read another person's memories." Harry spoke politely and elegantly. "I do not think we have reached the point of using that Charm yet, have we?"

Petunia looked at the nephew before her with fear and unfamiliarity. Why had he become so... refined overnight?

She and Vernon had once attended high-society banquets. Harry's manner was exactly like that of the "important people" she had met there!

What she did not know was that, thanks to that neurotic Headmaster Phineas Black, all Hogwarts students had to learn etiquette—damned etiquette of the so-called "pure-blood aristocracy"!

Even a stone would have absorbed it after six years, let alone Harry, a young wizard who had always been clever.

"All right, all right." Aunt Petunia surrendered beneath Harry's "polite" threat. "Your parents were both wizards. They were killed after offending a powerful Dark Wizard. Is that enough? I do not know what your parents learned at that freak—trick school. That is all I know!"

"So you are not a wizard?"

The moment Harry said that, Aunt Petunia's face turned incomparably ugly.

"Thank you for telling me, Aunt. I suppose I will not need to go to Stonewall High School, will I?"

Harry rose with a light smile, wiggled a finger to undo the spell on Uncle Vernon, and quietly returned to the cupboard under the stairs without even looking at the family of three as they watched him fearfully.

After returning to the cupboard, Harry opened the envelope. With only one glance at the first line, he spotted the problem.

Albus Dumbledore?

Harry frowned, recalling the Headmaster at Hogwarts during his years there, a man named Phineas Black.

Could Phineas Black be dead?

Harry's mood, which had not been very pleasant because of his aunt's family, was immediately lifted by this good news.

Merlin's puffed sleeves...

This truly was something worth celebrating!