Hogwarts Is Somewhere I Have No Desire to Go / Going to School Is Actually About Dropping Out

Prince Charles and the Princess of Wales's relationship had taken a sharp turn for the worse that year. They had even begun living apart on a regular basis. Young William saw it all, but had no idea how to stop it, so he could only turn to Harry for comfort.

But apart from telling him that every family had its own troubles, all Harry could do was take him running, play sports with him, and go out to eat and have fun, trying to distract him.

As an outsider, Harry couldn't pass judgment on something like that. Besides, he was dealing with family troubles of his own.

For over a year, Mr. and Mrs. Granger had treated him as their own. They hadn't touched a penny of the money the Royal Family had provided—in fact, they'd added some of their own and set it aside as a fund for Harry's future career. He'd noticed all of it.

He truly considered the Granger family his own now, and that was precisely why he was becoming more and more conflicted.

Harry knew that Mr. and Mrs. Granger had always hoped he would truly become part of their family.

That was why he was so torn over whether he should start calling them something else... and whether he should change his name.

After all, if he really did change his name, people might easily assume he was some kind of two-timing cad.

Lost in thought, Harry opened the front door.

But when he walked into the living room, he found all three Grangers there, staring at him with strange expressions!

"Um... what happened?" Harry asked, stunned.

"Harry, someone sent you a letter," Mr. Granger said, pointing to the letter on the long table. "It was delivered by an owl..."

"An owl?"

Harry picked up the letter. When he saw the crest on the seal, made up of a shield and various animals, his expression darkened despite himself.

("Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: Albus Dumbledore...")

Of course!

He didn't even need to finish reading the letter to know there was nothing good in it!

After lying low for over a year, Old Dumbledore was ready to make his move again!

"This letter..."

"So you're the famous Harry Potter, known throughout the Wizarding World?"

Harry had been about to tell the Grangers they could ignore the bizarre letter, but Hermione's shriek cut him off completely.

"Oh my goodness, I can't believe you've been through something so incredible!"

Hermione excitedly sprang over and grabbed Harry by the shoulders. She swept his hair aside and stared closely at his forehead. "That scar... you got it after fighting that... that You-Know-Who, didn't you? This is unbelievable!"

"And Hogwarts... there really is a school that teaches magic?! And I can go there too? That's amazing!"

"What did you say?" Harry stared at Hermione in disbelief. "Did you just say... you're going there to study too?!"

"Of course~" Hermione held up another letter that had already been opened. "Don't think you're the only one who gets to learn magic, little Harry~"

The usually proud young genius teased Harry triumphantly, but he couldn't care less!

All he could think was that fate had played one enormous joke on him!

Hermione Jean Granger, a witch from an ordinary family, a top student...

At that moment, the Hermione standing before him finally began to match the girl he remembered from the original story.

What kind of nonsense was this?

The Grangers, who had adopted him, had a daughter named Hermione, and she was the heroine of the original story?!

Ha. He'd worked so hard to steer clear of the names on the list, and had even gotten into a fight with Dawlish. So in the end, he'd avoided absolutely nothing, had he?!

Come on, Hermione wasn't ugly by any means, but he didn't remember her having such prominent front teeth or such ridiculously bushy hair in the movies!

And most importantly... wasn't she supposed to be called Mione?!

Before transmigrating, Harry had never read the original novels. His only knowledge of Harry Potter came from a Chinese-dubbed version of the Sorcerer's Stone movie...

He vaguely remembered that the heroine in that movie was called Mione!

There hadn't even been English subtitles, so who knew why the localization team had translated "Hermione" as "Mione"?

They could at least have transliterated her full name as "Hermione"!

As for Hermione's surname, Granger wasn't a common surname in Britain, but it wasn't rare either. Harry had never made the connection!

Besides... he'd spent the whole time paying attention to the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Granger were dentists~

This was bad...

Harry decided he'd support official releases and original versions from now on, especially for works that needed translation!

Otherwise, one of those unreliable names might trip him up again someday~

Hogwarts Was the Last Place He Wanted to Go

"Hey, you're not seriously being this petty, are you? Is it really that hard for you to accept that I can go to Hogwarts too?"

Seeing Harry's dark expression, Hermione assumed he was throwing a tantrum and put her hands on her hips, cheeks puffed in anger.

"It's not that I can't accept it. You simply can't go!" Harry firmly refused, secretly clenching his fist around the Space Ring Scamander had given him.

Dumbledore's persistence, combined with his attempt to drag the Grangers into this, had infuriated Harry so much that he was about to let his Obscurus loose!

As far as he was concerned, Hermione absolutely, positively couldn't go to Hogwarts.

If it were only Harry, then when Dumbledore or anyone else tried to use him, he'd at least dare to fight back as fiercely as he had against the Dursley family.

But if Hermione got dragged into it too, she'd become a vulnerability that could cause trouble at any moment.

If someone used Hermione to threaten him and forced him to do something he didn't want to do, what would he do? Would he go along with it or not?!

Besides... the Wizarding World wasn't safe at all!!

"Oh? Then tell me, why can't I study at Hogwarts?!"

Unfortunately, Hermione had completely misunderstood him, and she wasn't going to understand how hard he was trying to protect her.

"Do you think only someone like you, the Boy Who Lived, deserves to learn magic? And that children from Muggle families like us deserve to be shut out of that world?!"

Hermione kept shouting questions across the living room, and Harry's expression grew darker by the second.

"Hermione, don't call Uncle and Aunt that Muggle word! And I've never thought of myself as the Boy Who Lived. I don't think the Wizarding World is any better than this one, either!"

"That's only because you've already been there!" A mocking smile crossed Hermione's face. "So you're afraid, aren't you? You're afraid that even though you learned about magic before a Muggle-born like me, I'll still outperform you once we start school!"

"Forget it. I don't want to argue with you right now... Hermione, if you insist on learning magic, I can introduce you to a very good teacher. But you absolutely cannot go to Hogwarts!"

To be honest, Harry thought Hermione's impulsiveness was rather childish. But she was so stubborn that he had no choice but to take a step back for now.

He thought he might ask Scamander, who seemed to be a fellow transmigrator, for help. Harry had kept in touch with him over the past year.

Harry trusted Scamander far more than Dumbledore, and he figured Scamander would be more than happy to act as a cheat-code-granting mentor for the original story's heroine~

"I. Don't. Want. To!" Even so, Hermione remained utterly resolute, growing even angrier.

"Harry Potter, someone like you, who knew magic existed from the start, could never understand how I feel! I'm qualified to go straight to Hogwarts, but you want me to study with some mysterious person you don't even know! How is that any different from cheating on an exam?!"

As far as Hermione was concerned, Harry had finally let the truth slip after pretending all this time!

"So you really do think someone like me doesn't deserve to learn magic openly, don't you?! You kept it from me all this time, and now that you can't hide it anymore, you're trying to stop me by being completely unreasonable!!"

She had always been a proud girl, proud enough to come across as overbearing. But beneath that haughty exterior, she hid a sense of inferiority.

Harry was the Boy Who Lived, famous throughout the Wizarding World, while her family knew nothing about magic. They were what wizards called "Muggles"!

That was it... he looked down on her background, which was why he was trying so hard to stop her!!

"Hermione, I don't care whether you learn magic or not. You simply have no idea how dangerous the Wizarding World is!"

Without realizing it, as Hermione's misunderstanding of Harry deepened, his temper finally snapped!

"You call me the Boy Who Lived, but do you know... I was only a year and three months old when I got this Lightning Scar?"

"You say I kept things from you, but do you even know... both my parents are dead? They were killed by the very person all wizards are too afraid to even name!!"

"I don't want you going to Hogwarts, and I don't want you involved with the Wizarding World, because... that mysterious man, Voldemort, is still alive! And one day, he'll come back!!!"

After that furious outburst, the entire living room fell silent. Even their breathing seemed to stop.

The Grangers stared at Harry, who was trembling all over, his face already twisted out of shape.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger had thought this was just a squabble between children. They never imagined it would uncover a secret involving the tragic death of Harry's parents!

Hermione was even more stunned. She'd never imagined that her adopted brother, Harry Potter—the Boy Who Lived who had "defeated You-Know-Who," according to the Hogwarts messenger—had gone through such a terrible past!

She felt awful now. She was both sorry for Harry and worried about him.

She thought she was beginning to understand why Harry, despite being so bright, was so keen on being a lazybones who never wanted to get ahead.

Maybe... he'd been doing everything he could to act like an ordinary person.

But Harry no longer had the time to notice that Hermione's attitude had changed. He had to focus on silently repeating the incantation that would steady his emotions!

Clear Mirror Still Water!

The book Scamander had left him had mentioned that an Obscurus was powerful, but it was also an extremely dangerous force. It was like a time bomb that could hurt its wielder or someone else at any moment!

So before he could fully tame this power, Harry had to learn to keep his emotions under strict control!

Harry knew his problems could only be solved in the Wizarding World, but he didn't want to go to Hogwarts.

Because he didn't want to deal with Dumbledore.

The earlier business with the Dursley family, along with a few things he'd noticed about Scamander, had made Harry realize something: Dumbledore might be a man with an overwhelming need for control!

Harry had always chosen to keep his distance from people like that. He had never been willing to let anyone else make his choices for him!

"Oh, you poor boy. You've been through such terrible things."

Just as Harry's magic was surging restlessly, Mrs. Granger suddenly came over and gently pulled him into her arms, despite the danger.

"Harry, it's over now. All those painful, hopeless things are in the past..."

"Mm..."

Her voice was so kind, like a clear spring gently washing over the wounds in Harry's heart. It gave his overwhelming emotions a safe harbor.

For a moment, through his tear-blurred vision, Mrs. Granger looked just like the mother he'd had in his previous life.

Mrs. Granger hadn't given birth to him, nor had she sacrificed her life to deflect Voldemort's Killing Curse for him. But with a different kind of tenderness, she had given him something that belonged to a family...

Hermione, you really shouldn't have argued with Harry like that.

While Mrs. Granger gently comforted Harry, Mr. Granger drew Hermione aside.

"I want you to understand that everyone is allowed to have secrets, and the memories Harry kept to himself were clearly unhappy ones. Besides, he was trying to protect you when he stopped you from going to that school. He was only saying what your mother and I had been worried about."

Fathers and mothers sometimes showed their love in very different ways. Mr. Granger was certainly one of those fathers.

So rather than comfort Harry while he was upset, the way his wife had, he began earnestly teaching his daughter a lesson.

Clearly, he thought it was more important for the children to learn something useful from this incident than for him to soothe their feelings.

Besides, after hearing Harry explain what had happened, he too was now weighing the matter. He wasn't sure sending Hermione and Harry to Hogwarts was really a good idea.

"I understand, Dad." Hermione nodded glumly, but her expression remained as resolute as ever. "But even knowing all that, and even if Harry won't go to Hogwarts, I'm still going!"

"I know that means there may be risks, but I trust that school to keep me safe! Its headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is known as the great wizard Voldemort fears most!"

"And... I don't want to give up this chance to enter the Wizarding World, and I don't want to have to use some other method to sneak a peek at it when my talent has already been recognized!"

"So please support me, Dad, Mom! If I don't do this, I'll regret it for the rest of my life!!"

"Well..."

Mr. and Mrs. Granger exchanged glances, each seeing the same helplessness in the other's eyes.

They knew their daughter. Hermione had made up her mind, and nothing they said now would change it.

Besides, they were also thinking it over. After all, the messenger who had delivered Hermione's letter had made her situation sound quite serious.

Strange things had been happening around their daughter since she was very young. Now Mr. and Mrs. Granger understood that it was because she had the potential to become a witch.