Twenty minutes later, Harley, fully dressed, sat at the dining table.
She saw her aunt and uncle huddled on the living room sofa, their faces filled with terror. Dudley was squeezed between them, struggling even to breathe. None of them dared make a sound.
Given the difference in their sizes, the scene carried a rather absurd sense of comedy.
It seemed this professor had done something to them, Harley thought.
She lowered her head to look at the letter in her hand. "Um, a wizarding school? The kind I'm thinking of? Sir, you aren't joking with me, are you?"
Snape made an effort to make his expression look a little gentler.
But when he spoke, he sounded like Tom Hanks after being stranded on a deserted island for more than a decade. "Yes. There will be some changes this year, but it is still a place where people are taught to master magic."
Harley looked at the letter in her hand again, then suddenly asked, "Sir, do you know me?"
Snape looked at her. Sunlight streamed through the window behind the kitchen, falling over her. Even the dust floating in the air was clearly visible. Her red hair, those emerald-green eyes.
For a moment, Snape thought he had returned to the past.
For some reason, he did not answer her question. Instead, he awkwardly changed the subject. "Miss Potter. If you are willing, I can take you to make your preparations before enrollment now. Term officially begins on September first, so we have two days left."
Harley smiled and pushed up her glasses. "I think I already have my answer, Professor Snape."
"Still, I suppose I don't have a choice. Goodbye, Aunt Petunia. Goodbye, Dudley. Goodbye, Uncle Vernon."
Harley laughed, drained the warm milk in front of her—which had originally been Dudley's—in one gulp, and asked, "So, how are we getting there?"
"Don't you need to bring anything? A change of clothes, for example?"
"Ah, I only have three sets of clothes to change into, and they're all pretty worn out."
The girl scratched the back of her head a little sheepishly, but her smile remained bright. "The school should provide uniforms, right?"
Snape nodded.
He carried a suitcase while Harley followed him outside empty-handed. They came to a secluded corner of the neighborhood. Snape closed his eyes, calmed himself, and drew upon the Magic Power he had prepared through meditation in advance. He opened a Portal, and beyond it lay somewhere Harley had never been.
The streets were neat and clean, and the lavishly decorated shops had huge flashing signs. Yet at that moment, Snape noticed that the girl seemed more constrained and uneasy than ever.
He stepped through the Portal first and held out a hand for her to take. Harley felt a strange shiver as she crossed through it. Just like that, they arrived on a commercial street in London.
"I thought where wizards went would be stranger than this," Harley said softly with a forced smile.
"This is not a place for wizards."
For some reason, he could not even bring himself to say the word Muggle. Instead, he used an uncommon term. "This is where ordinary people buy clothes."
"Oh!"
Harley looked a little uneasy. Only then did Snape realize that the indifference and maturity beyond her years she had displayed in that nightmarish house had probably been nothing more than a facade for self-protection.
Harley clutched at her oversized, tattered sleeve, wanting to say something. But Snape simply took her forward, his tone firm. "To avoid causing even the slightest trouble for Hogwarts' image, I believe you need some new clothes, Miss Potter."
He tilted his head up, unwilling to let Harley see his expression.
As a result, he did not see Harley's expression either. It was a heartbreaking smile, full of gratitude and uncertainty.
They entered an upscale clothing store that carried everything: men's wear, women's wear, and children's wear.
Snape spoke to the clerk in an awkward tone. "Please find this young lady some clothes that fit. Money is no object. Five sets each for summer and winter. I also need socks—long socks, short socks, wool socks, around ten pairs of each. And prepare five pairs of shoes."
The female clerk's eyes practically lit up as she looked at Snape. "Certainly, sir!"
Harley tugged on Snape's sleeve and whispered, "Isn't this a little too expensive, Professor?"
Snape glanced at her, trying to pull a reassuring smile onto his face.
But his atrophied facial muscles clearly could not manage such a friendly expression, and the look that resembled a grimace more than a smile made Harley burst out laughing.
Snape turned his face away and muttered quietly, "Fine, fine. That achieves the purpose too."
Two hours later, Harley emerged from Gringotts in a fitted black suit, wearing a new pair of glasses as well.
Snape followed behind her like a butler.
The rest of Harley's clothes were packed in his black suitcase. Dressed in a tailored suit, Harley had also had her hair cut short. Her red hair was no longer a tangled mess, but trimmed into choppy locks that fell to her ears.
She happily hummed a song Snape did not understand, occasionally looking back at him with narrowed, smiling eyes.
"It feels strange to become rich, Professor. But that's nothing compared to discovering that everyone here seems to know me."
She greeted a hunchbacked wizard in black robes who passed by her. The man looked delighted. Snape stared at him coldly until he slunk away in embarrassment.
Following behind Harley, he carefully chose his words. "You are indeed very famous."
Harley had her back to Snape, so he could not see her expression. He only heard her voice. "Am I?"
Snape stepped forward and gestured for her to stay close.
"Originally, we would still need to buy you wizarding robes, a wand, textbooks, and a pile of miscellaneous things. But we have a new method this year, so there is no need to buy those yet."
He led Harley to the entrance of a noisy pet shop, opened the door, and let her enter first. "But you must have a pet. An owl, a toad, or a cat."
Harley wandered around the shop. Every animal shrank back when it saw her, as if afraid of something. The female shop owner wanted to introduce them, but Snape merely made a simple gesture, indicating that Harley should choose for herself.
"I don't know, Professor. They all seem a little afraid of me."
"It's fine. You choose them; they do not choose you. Just pick one you like."
Snape calmly answered the girl's question. He casually took out a pile of Galleons from his briefcase and tossed them to the shop owner. But Harley refused, pulling out a handful of her own money from her pocket and smiling sheepishly at Snape.
"If that's all right."
"Of course." Snape took back his Galleons.
Harley ran over to the owls. The owls in their cages came in all sorts of colors, but every one of them turned its back on her. She then ran to the toads' display window. They did not even croak, remaining so still that they looked dead.
As for the cats, they simply fled into every corner to hide.
Harley turned back to Snape with an apologetic smile. She believed the animals' strange behavior was her fault. "Sorry, Professor. It seems they really don't like me very much. But it's fine. It's always been like this for me."
Snape took the Galleons from the reluctant shop owner's hand and put them in his pocket. He took Harley outside and asked, "Then, is there any animal you like?"
Under London's gloomy sky, the girl tilted her head and thought for a moment, her red hair standing out sharply. "Ah, snakes. Is that allowed?"
Snape pressed his lips together before answering, "Usually, no."
The girl's eyes dimmed.
Then he continued, "But I'm a professor, so it is."
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