Addressing People by Their Titles at Work

Harry thought for a moment, then said, "I mean, have you ever thought about adding some offensive capabilities to your Weasley's Wizard Wheezes products?"

"What is the purpose of aggression?" the Twins asked, puzzled.

"It's like..." Harry tried to describe the feeling, "Like a grenade—you know, a Muggle weapon that explodes when thrown... If you could make such a magical gadget, maybe you could find other uses for it besides causing mischief, wouldn't you?"

After a moment's thought, the Twins shook their heads and said, "Sorry, Harry, our intention was simply to add some humor to everyone's stressful lives. Developing weapons is not within our scope of consideration."

But I didn't say anything too definitive.

"Of course," Fred said again. "Perhaps we'll change our minds someday, don't you think, Harry?"

"Oh, of course." Harry didn't think much of it; he was just offering a half-baked idea.

"By the way," he added, "You shouldn't limit yourselves to just one corner of Britain, should you? The Magical World isn't just in Britain; perhaps you could expand to other countries, like France, Germany, and so on."

"That's a very reasonable suggestion, but we're short-handed," Fred said regretfully, spreading his hands. "Maybe we'll find someone to help us later, but right now, it's clear we can't afford to hire anyone."

The Twins left to go outside and market their newly developed Extendable Ears.

The next morning, the weather was just as gloomy as the day before, with a light drizzle.

In the Common Room, the Weasley twins were arguing passionately, seemingly discussing the various uses of magical tricks.

In George's opinion, Extendable Ears are not as good as Instant Class-Skipping Candy, because Instant Class-Skipping Candy helps people fake illness, while Extendable Ears are just for fun. Fred, on the other hand, believes that the most attractive element of magic tricks is that they are fun, and one should not ignore their fun factor in pursuit of effectiveness.

In the end, Fred succeeded in persuading George.

While in the Great Hall, Harry received many greetings, especially from his fourth-year classmates.

"Harry, I mean, could you teach us Charms too?" Colin Creevey said rapidly, holding his camera. "I really can't imagine how boring that rascal, Professor Umbridge's, classes must be for the students to unanimously object to her continuing to teach."

"That's not up to us to decide, Colin," Harry said with a yawn. "I'd be happy to teach you if possible—but not now."

"Okay." Colin nodded somewhat dejectedly, then quickly snapped a precious photo of Harry eating Meiji.

It really is video; after all, photos from the magical world are animated GIFs, not static JPGs.

But then again, the people who came to congratulate Harry were just doing it out of curiosity, and after a while, no one paid much attention anymore.

After all, there's a lot of homework. I don't know what's gotten into the professors this semester, but they've assigned far more homework than in previous years.

Harry initially thought it was homework assigned to prepare for the OWLs exams, but after asking around with other students, he discovered that all grades were treated equally, including the first-year students who had just enrolled.

Newly enrolled Abercrombie was writing his thesis while pulling at his hair and sighing deeply.

After breakfast, it's time for class. This morning, there are two Charms Class followed by two Transfiguration Class.

Before officially starting the class, both Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall spent fifteen minutes emphasizing the importance of the OWLs exam to the whole class.

"You must remember," said the short, shrill Professor Flitwick, who, as usual, stood atop a pile of books so he could see the whole class from the podium, "That these exams could affect your future for many years to come! If you haven't seriously considered your careers yet, now is the time to think about it. At the same time, to ensure you all perform to your full potential, we'll probably all have to work even harder than before!"

Next, they spent over an hour reviewing the Accio, which, according to Professor Flitwick, is definitely going to be on their OWLs exams.

Before class ended, he assigned an unprecedentedly large number of Charms as homework.

The situation in the Transfiguration Class was, if not worse, not much better.

"Without serious study, practice, and application," Professor McGonagall said seriously, "You will not be able to pass the OWLs exam. I believe that as long as you put in the time and effort, there is no reason why any of you in this class should not get the OWLs certificate for the Transfiguration Class."

Neville sighed in disbelief.

"Yes, you are too, Longbottom," Professor McGonagall said. "Your actions were flawless, you just lacked confidence. Therefore—today we will begin learning the Vanishment Charm. The Vanishment Charm is simpler than the Summoning Charm you usually practice when you reach NEWTs level, but it is still the most difficult spell to appear in your OWLs exams."

She's absolutely right, because everyone has discovered that the Vanishment Charm is incredibly difficult to obtain.

By the end of the two classes, most of the students had failed to make their snails disappear, although Ron said hopefully that he thought his snail had become a little lighter in color.

Hermione succeeded in making her snail disappear on her third attempt, thus earning a ten-point reward for Gryffindor House from Professor McGonagall.

Of course, Harry had learned the Charms and was quite skilled at using it, but when he made the snail disappear, he also made the table disappear along with it, causing Ron, who was lying on the table, to fall over like a dog trying to steal food.

Only Harry and she didn't have to do homework; everyone else had to practice the Charms all night, preparing to try it on the snails again the following afternoon.

Harry wanted to ask Ron to go for a walk with him, but Ron refused.

After becoming Prefect, Ron may have developed a psychological burden, and he has now begun to seriously struggle with homework.

"I mean, man," Ron asked without looking up, "Professor McGonagall certainly didn't assign you any homework, but here's the thing, aren't you going to do the homework Professor Snape assigned either?"

"Oh," Harry waved his hand, "Anne will write it for me."

Ron looked up and glared at Harry through gritted teeth.

"You're fucking stupid, buddy!"

Harry laughed with his hands on his hips. In the past, when he didn't want to do his homework, Anne would always help him, and Sebastian would often tease him about it.

The afternoon was a cold and windy day. As they walked down the grassy slope toward Newt's small camp on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, they felt a few raindrops falling on their faces.

Newt seemed to be in a good mood today, as did Hagrid behind him.

Upon seeing Harry, Hermione, and Ron, he smiled and greeted them.

"Hagrid," Harry waved his hand and said, "I'll come to your house for Rock Cakes tomorrow!"

"Okay, Harry, okay!" Hagrid said cheerfully.

After confirming everyone had arrived, Newt smiled at them and pointed to a pile of thin twigs nearby, asking, "Does anyone know what these things are?"

Hermione immediately raised her hand, just like she always had.

Before Newt could even name them, the thin branches on the table suddenly shot into the air, revealing their true forms. They looked like Elf, each with brown, bumpy legs and arms, two twig-like fingers on each hand, and two round, bright brown eyes on each flat, bark-like Winky face.

Newt grabbed a handful of something that looked like brown rice from the bag behind him and threw it at the withered creatures, who immediately pounced on it and began to eat.

"So—does anyone know the names of these animals, Miss Granger?" Newt asked.

"Bowtruckle," Hermione said, "Are the guardians of trees, and they usually live on wand trees."

Standing behind Newt, Hagrid immediately clapped. His hands were large and strong, and the sound of his clapping was deafening.

"Five points for Gryffindor." Newt lowered his head, but couldn't hide his admiration. "Excellent. These animals are Bowtruckle. Miss Granger is quite right. They usually live in trees with branches that can be used to make wands. Does anyone know what they eat?"

"You bumpkin," Hermione replied immediately, "And fairy eggs, if they can get their hands on them."

"Good boy, five more points." Newt surprisingly looked up and smiled at Hermione.

As a professor, it's hard to imagine any professor not liking a smart and studious child like Hermione —except, of course, for that oddball Snape.

"Therefore, if you need to collect leaves or wood from the trees where the Bowtruckle inhabit, it is best to prepare some grouse as a gift to attract their attention and soothe their emotions."

As Newt spoke, he reached out his hand, and a little Bowtruckle climbed up his shoulder.

"They don't look dangerous, but if provoked, they will use their fingers to gouge out people's eyes—you can see that their fingers are very sharp, and it's no fun if they touch a person's eyeball."

Seeing everyone's curiosity, Newt smiled and said, "Alright, if you'd like to come closer, get some worms and take a Bowtruckle so you can study them more closely... Of course, in groups of three, since I haven't prepared many Bowtruckle. I hope everyone will complete a sketch before the end of class, marking each part of the Bowtruckle's body."

"Yes, Professor Scamander," the students said in unison.

After spreading out, the students divided into groups of three and went to collect ground beetles, intending to study this seemingly interesting and Magical Creatures.

Harry had no intention of going to investigate the Bowtruckle; he had seen the gadget before in Veratia's Magical Creatures storage room in the Room of Requirement.

There are also rare and exotic Magical Creatures such as the Mooncalf, Fire Dragon, and Erumpent. I wonder where Veratia got them from.

"Harry," Newt called out to Harry.

"Professor Scamander," Harry replied politely.

Newt smiled and said to Harry, "Just call me Newt, no need for all this... um, it's too formal."

"Oh, that won't do," Harry said with a laugh. "In class, I have to call you Professor, that's the rule."

Newt opened his mouth, but after thinking for a long time, he still didn't know how to answer.

"What do you need me for?" Harry asked when Newt didn't speak.

"Oh, it's nothing." Newt smiled. "I heard about what happened yesterday. Of course... you don't need to worry. I still have some connections with the Ministry of Magic, so this won't affect your daily life."

"Fudge already knows?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course, Fudge was furious about it." Newt smiled and said, "You know, he's been worried lately that Dumbledore will take his place, but everyone thinks he's overthinking it. Dumbledore isn't interested in power. If he wanted to be Minister for Magic, he would have been there decades ago. It's not like someone like Fudge would have been Minister."

"Maybe he can't see his own position clearly," Harry said with a smile.

"Yes, that's right." Newt patted Harry on the shoulder and said, "By the way, Pabbie is planning to start a Care of Magical Creatures organization. Has she told you about it?"

Harry thought about it carefully, then shook his head and said, "No, there really isn't."

"Oh," Newt thought for a moment, "If she talks to you about this, I hope you'll support her."

"Of course." Harry gave Newt a strange look, thinking, "If I don't support my girlfriend, am I supposed to object?"

Besides, protecting a Magical Creatures is nothing special; it's been Pabbie's hobby since she was little.

It's not like we're going to protect House Elf...

Thinking of this, Harry turned around and glanced at Hermione was having a great time playing with the Bowtruckle.

It seems that ever since Kritcher gave her a good scolding, Hermione has never mentioned the pitiful state of House Elf again.

As the saying goes, evil people need evil people to teach them a lesson... Oh, forgive me, Hermione shouldn't think like that.

Harry silently repented for a second.

"Thank you, thank you," Newt kept saying to Harry.

Harry glanced at Newt and said to him, "You're welcome. It's what I should do, after all, Pabbie is my girlfriend."

Newt suddenly looked up, looking extremely surprised.

He grabbed Harry's arm immediately, asking in shock, "When did this happen! How come I didn't know! How come I didn't know!"

Harry was a little taken aback; it was the first time he'd ever seen Newt like this.

"Uh, during summer vacation, I guess?" Harry asked uncertainly—not because he was unsure of the time, but because he was unsure how Newt would react if he found out.

Newt took a deep breath and released Harry.

He paced back and forth a couple of times, then looked up and asked, "Does Miss Grindelwald know about this?"

(End of this chapter)