001. Transmigrator Scott Trollope

September 1, 1992, King's Cross Station, London, Platform 9 3/4.

This day marked the annual enrollment of new students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the only magic school in England.

For the young witches and wizards attending or about to attend Hogwarts, taking the train from King's Cross Station was the only way to reach the school.

This resulted in the entire platform being packed with people, making it exceptionally lively.

Students of various ages and the parents seeing them off walked along the platform, pushing luggage piled high with bags and trunks.

Owls flew overhead, shedding a few feathers as they passed.

Several cats wove nimbly through the legs of the crowd.

Beside the platform, a crimson steam locomotive sat waiting.

A sign hanging on the train read [Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock].

In a quiet carriage near the end of the train, a boy sat alone in a compartment, resting his chin on his hand as he watched the crowded platform outside the window.

He had slightly curly but neat black hair, and much like his attire, his first impression was one of freshness and tidiness.

He wore a plain wizard's robe with a blue badge embroidered on his chest.

Besides a bronze eagle, the badge also bore the word Ravenclaw.

At this moment, although he was looking out the window, the noisy scene did not reflect in his clear blue eyes; his thoughts were drifting elsewhere.

Scott Trollope, born into an ordinary family in the coastal town of Hastings in southeast England, was 14 years old and a fourth-year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Ravenclaw House.

Beyond these facts, he held a secret identity that set him apart from others—he was a transmigrator.

Fourteen years had passed since he was reincarnated into this world, carrying the memories of his past life.

Scott did not know why he had been reincarnated with his memories intact after dying unexpectedly in his previous life.

Regarding this, he could only sigh—the events of the past are beyond pursuit.

As for his life in this world, his upbringing before the age of eleven could be described as unremarkable.

He was not a world-famous child prodigy, not the richest person in the world, did not rush to publish the Harry Potter novels, did not buy Apple stock, nor did he teach himself hacking skills to empty the Bank of England... he didn't even have the system that was standard for transmigrators.

After his brain developed enough in infancy to think independently, he simply accepted his new identity and grew up step by step.

The first time he noticed something unusual was, of course, due to a sudden burst of accidental magic.

There is no need to dwell on the process; in short, after that, he quickly accepted yet another new identity—that he was likely a young wizard.

He did not think he was a mutant or that his superpowers had awakened—the feeling of the magic surge was too clear, and since he was in England, he naturally chose the most likely explanation among the many options that could account for such a phenomenon.

After he received his acceptance letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the age of eleven, his parents, Michael and Emilia, readily accepted the fact as well.

They did not make a fuss, nor did they view their wizard son as an outsider.

It must be emphasized that the Trollope family was a purely Muggle household—Michael and Emilia jointly ran an antique shop.

There were no wizards or Squibs among their relatives or friends, and there were no hidden secret rooms or magical portraits in their home.

Once Scott confirmed his hypothesis about this world, he only felt a slight pity that his memory of the Harry Potter story was reduced to a rough outline, but he did not feel any anxiety because of it.

He was not a fan of the Harry Potter series of novels and films; in his past life, he had only read the entire series of novels sporadically during his student days to follow the trend.

Even for the globally popular film adaptations, he had only watched the first two when he was young.

But he felt that being able to remember the outline was already a gain, and he should be secretly pleased with his rather outstanding memory—after all, being able to remember the general plot and trajectory of the entire story after being reincarnated many years later was already quite remarkable.

In short, Scott boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time in 1989 at the age of eleven, and was later sorted into Ravenclaw House by the Sorting Hat during the entrance ceremony.

Originally, he thought that with his easygoing personality, he would be sorted into Hufflepuff House.

But he did not expect that the Sorting Hat would see that his intelligence and wit were clearly more prominent than his easygoing nature.

It must be emphasized that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry does not use Legilimency on young wizards.

Neither the Sorting Hat nor Headmaster Dumbledore was interested in the unremarkable memories inside a young wizard's head.

Scott believed that if they could easily judge a person's ability and character, then memories were not that important.

He knew that as long as he acted like a student who wasn't too out of the ordinary, no one would pay special attention to him.

Conversely, if he constantly acted suspicious and showed excessive defensiveness, he would only be "protesting his innocence too much" and inviting suspicion.

Everything went as he had expected; since entering his magical school life, Scott had safely spent three years as a wizard apprentice.

Woo-woo-woo...

The long whistle of the steam engine interrupted his thoughts as the train began to move.

Scott came back to his senses, watched the scenery receding outside the window for a while, and then took a book with a colorful cover from the backpack placed beside him.

Vacation with Vamps, written by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Lockhart was a figure Scott still had some impressions of in his memory, and he was also the professor responsible for teaching them Defense Against the Dark Arts in this new school year.

Scott still remembered that he was a fame-seeking fraud, and the plots in his books were stolen by casting Memory Charms on the true owners of those adventures.

However, although Lockhart was a fake, Scott felt that his books were still worth reading.

After all, apart from the protagonist's name being fake, the adventures themselves were all real. Otherwise, Lockhart would not have been able to gain the honors that made him famous through these novels.

The train sped across the open fields, and Scott flipped through the pages of the book in his hands from time to time.

He was not reading very carefully, merely skimming through it and using a pen to mark the knowledge that was actually useful.

Naturally, he skipped over all the passages Lockhart used to boast about himself.

When he reached the halfway point of the book, he suddenly put down his pen and turned his head to look at the compartment door.

--Five seconds later, the compartment door was pulled open.

"Excuse me..." the little witch holding the door poked her head into the compartment and asked in a rush, "Have you seen Harry Potter and Ron Weasley today?"

Scott saw that she had a bush of thick brown hair and a pair of prominent front teeth.

He recognized this girl, the companion of the "Boy Who Lived" Harry Potter--Hermione Granger.