Isaac turned toward the voice and, inevitably, the first thing he noticed was Hermione's enviable mass of hair.
It took a lot of hair to get that bushy.
With his fine, soft hair, Isaac could never manage Hermione's look.
Under the combined gaze of Isaac and the manager, Hermione's cheeks reddened.
Even if she hadn't meant to, she had overheard someone else's conversation and reacted dramatically to it.
In the Granger family, that was unquestionably rude.
"I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to listen in, but!" Hermione spoke in a hurried rush.
"But did you say you've already finished studying Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration?!"
Last time, at the Granger family's home, the rather gloomy-looking Professor Snape had taken over after Professor McGonagall left.
He seemed so unapproachable that Mr. Granger had only tried to start a conversation before realizing the professor had no intention of replying and giving up.
On that first trip to Diagon Alley, the Granger family had simply followed Professor Snape's guidance and bought everything on the school supply list.
Fortunately, they knew where Diagon Alley was now and could return on their own.
The Granger family had planned to go back the next day, but Hermione had already become engrossed in her Hogwarts textbooks.
For the past month, she had spent every day either reading the basic theory in them or trying to practice magic.
Yet after a month, she had made progress only with some of the spells in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1.
At her parents' urging, she had come to Diagon Alley today, intending to give her mind a break.
But Hermione had headed straight into the bookshop anyway.
Her parents were long used to this. They had gone to sit in the ice cream shop across the street.
They could experience a little magic while they were at it.
Just now, Hermione had been captivated by Hogwarts: A History. Everything recorded in its pages fascinated her.
She was reading intently when she suddenly heard a familiar voice.
It belonged to the "Seer" whose claims she still didn't know whether to believe.
She had asked Professor McGonagall the same question, only for the professor to leave their house in alarm.
But when she asked Professor Snape, he had given her a distinctly unfriendly look.
None of that mattered right now. What had she just heard?!
What did he mean, he had finished studying Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration?!
Hermione was a clever girl. She had understood exactly what the bookshop manager was implying.
While she was still at a loss over Transfiguration and struggling away at spells, someone had already finished the whole damn book?
And Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration wasn't just for first-year students.
It was the textbook for young wizards in their first and second years at Hogwarts.
Likewise, Intermediate Transfiguration was used in years three through five.
Advanced Guide to Transfiguration was the Transfiguration textbook for years six and seven.
To Hermione, Isaac finishing that book meant someone had started the race two years ahead of her!
How was she supposed to accept that???
Hermione looked close to tears. Isaac hurried to reassure her.
"You heard right. I've finished it. It's only Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration. How hard could it be?"
As he spoke, Isaac glanced at the bookshop manager, apparently seeking agreement.
The manager promptly nodded along.
Whether he himself had found Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration difficult back in school was beside the point. Professor Dumbledore's "relative" certainly hadn't!
Mr. Waldore was a major customer of the shop now. If he claimed Dumbledore couldn't do magic, the manager would nod along to that too.
After the recent "prophecy incident," Isaac might not have had much credibility with Hermione.
But she couldn't simply dismiss the bookshop manager's word.
So Isaac had learned in one month what normally took young wizards two years?
The little girl was on the verge of crying.
Across the street, Mr. and Mrs. Granger noticed something was wrong with their daughter. They paid for their ice cream and hurried over.
The bookshop manager seemed to realize that upsetting a little girl like this wasn't right, so he explained.
"Miss, if you're worried about your studies, there's really no need.
There aren't many people in the entire Wizarding World as gifted as Mr. Waldore."
Huh?
Hermione immediately caught the gap in his wording.
"Mr. Manager, 'not many' means... there's more than one wizard as gifted as Waldore??"
Her voice nearly cracked. The bookshop manager realized at once that his attempt to help had backfired.
Oh no. Why was this Muggle-born young witch so fiercely competitive?
As a senior manager at the bookshop, he knew the trouble a careless word could cause.
He also knew that powerful wizards tended to have strange tempers.
He could comfort Hermione by saying Waldore's talent was one of a kind, but who could guarantee other powerful wizards wouldn't hear about it?
What if some wizard took aim at Waldore and earned Dumbledore's enmity?
Great. Another wizarding war?
He had no intention of being the person who started one.
The bookshop manager decisively pretended not to hear Hermione's question and turned to Isaac.
"Given your talent for Transfiguration, Mr. Waldore, I suggest subscribing to Transfiguration Today and Transfiguration Monthly.
They're journals covering some of the latest Transfiguration theory.
I'd also personally recommend Transfiguration Today: The Development and Prospects of Transfiguration, Collected Edition.
It's a collection of papers that builds from the basics after Advanced Guide to Transfiguration.
It will help bridge the gap as you pursue more advanced Transfiguration."
The manager's explanation was a mouthful, but Isaac understood.
Judging by its admission age and length of study, Hogwarts was more like a combined middle and high school.
It was also a place where young wizards could acquire knowledge cheaply.
Once they graduated and entered wizarding society, they would find that continuing to learn what they could easily study at school cost them at least ten, a hundred, or even a thousand times as much.
That was when the gap between Muggle-born wizards, Half-blood wizards, and Pure-blood wizards truly widened.
Worst of all, once Muggle-born and Half-blood wizards realized this, they would discover that, apart from Hogwarts, the Wizarding World
had no such thing as a "magic university."
If they wanted more advanced knowledge, they could only grit their teeth and keep paying an exorbitant price.