Where the Dream Begins

The city was shrouded in a light veil.

The smoggy days in London seemed to drape layers of gauze over the very air.

On the quiet street.

Ian remained immersed in the sorrow of parting.

Although he had always looked forward to truly learning magic, when the moment finally came to step out of the orphanage and head off to his studies, he still felt a lingering reluctance to leave this place and the people within it.

After all, this was the place where Ian had lived for eleven years since his transmigration.

"Hmph, it seems, Mr. Prince, that you are quite adept at currying favor."

Snape's voice shattered the heavy atmosphere. For some reason, even seemingly normal words, when paired with his slow, deliberate tone, always carried a hint of sarcasm.

Ian did not respond.

He simply dragged his suitcase behind Snape.

His mood was rather low right now.

He didn't want to expend the energy to deal with the professor in front of him. After all, to this Potions Master of Hogwarts, no matter how well-behaved a student appeared, it would never earn his favor.

Faced with Ian's silence.

Snape spoke up once again.

"You left all your money to them; that is not something a clever person would do." Clearly, Ian's little maneuvers had not been able to escape the eyes of a wizard like Snape.

"I kept a little bit, enough to go to... to the appropriate place to exchange it for the currency of the magical world." Ian looked up at Snape, who felt somewhat inconsistent with his established persona.

What happened to being a man of few words?

"That is not entirely stupid."

Snape let out a snort through his nose.

"You know that you are merely an orphan adopted here, the kind of status that requires being taken care of, right?" Snape slowed his pace, squinting his eyes as he glanced at Ian beside him.

"My health wasn't very good when I was young. It might have been due to my magic awakening; I was quite frail and sickly." Ian did not answer Snape's question directly.

"Ms. Elena would take me to the city hospital for treatment. The orphanage's financial situation was much worse back then than it is now, yet she would still buy me expensive medicine."

"Food in the orphanage was also very scarce. Whenever I fell ill, Catherine would split her share of bread with me, and Daniel would run out to find wild herbs for me."

"Although Daniel's witch-doctor grandmother was poisoned by her own medicine, that didn't stop Daniel from believing that as long as I ate his concoctions, I would become strong and healthy."

"As for Mia, she is even younger than I am. Whenever I got sick, she would pray to God for me all night long. Everyone has been so, so good to me."

Ian's voice was calm and gentle.

"Tsk, tsk, are you attempting to move me?"

Snape remained unmoved.

"Not at all, Professor."

Ian did not expect Snape to understand his inner heart. He had heard that those who would become Death Eaters did not know what love was, so he could only explain it to Snape from a different angle.

"They have considered me in so many ways, so when I have the ability, I naturally need to consider them in return." Ian spoke softly in a very firm voice.

"This is a responsibility I ought to bear."

His youthful voice echoed through the empty street. The small figure followed Snape through the smog, and his calm words left the man in the black robes silent for a long time.

"Tsk, tsk, not much of a person yet, but you have quite a lot of principles. Truly worrying about things you shouldn't be concerned with."

After a long while.

Snape uttered a sarcastic remark with an expressionless face.

"Although there has been a wealthy benefactor making anonymous donations over the years, the purchasing power of the pound has dropped significantly lately. Without that money, everyone would have a very hard time living."

The reason Ian set up a stall on the street every day, besides improving his [Thought Perception] proficiency, was naturally to earn a little extra money to help Ms. Elena, the headmistress, share her burdens.

Even without the matter of Hogwarts, that money would eventually turn into eggs, milk, vegetables, and meat, brought back to the orphanage by him in one way or another.

To be honest, an eleven-year-old child didn't really spend much on himself. Ian was no saint, but he was certainly not the type to be ungrateful.

"So, are you expecting me to call you the savior of the orphanage?"

Snape was still eyeing Ian askance, his slow, drawling tone making one want to punch him.

"No, Professor. If you could show your generosity and donate some money to the orphanage, then you would be the true savior, the true hero."

Yes.

After all that rambling.

Ian's fox tail was finally revealed.

He turned his large green eyes toward Snape, feeling that the color of his eyes was the same as Lily Potter's—perhaps it could exert some influence, more or less?

Furthermore.

Although he still didn't understand what Dumbledore had meant earlier, he had truly sensed a feeling of guilt from Snape through [Thought Perception].

If he could use this to make Snape donate some money, it would be a stroke of luck for the orphanage—Ian's own meager savings could only last for so long.

But the Snape standing here now, the Potions Master of Hogwarts, could benefit the orphanage immensely just by letting a few crumbs slip through his fingers.

One should never underestimate the financial power of a Potions Master.

"You really are a..."

Snape stopped in his tracks.

His black eyes fixed on Ian.

They held a sharp, inscrutable complexity.

"Qualified Slytherin."

Clearly.

Ian's little tricks couldn't fool Snape; he had realized almost instantly what Ian's long-winded emotional appeal was ultimately aiming for.

"It's a pity, however, that you don't know me. I am no saint, and I wouldn't donate even a single Galleon to a ridiculous Muggle orphanage."

Snape sneered.

He resumed walking, ignoring the look of disappointment in Ian's eyes.

He led Ian into a deserted alleyway.

"Drink it."

Snape suddenly produced a bottle of green potion.

His tone left no room for refusal.

"Hm?"

Ian, dragging his suitcase, froze for a moment. Looking at the green liquid that seemed to be bubbling inside the bottle, he couldn't help but swallow hard, offering a sheepish smile.

"Professor, what is this..."

He felt as though the man was trying to poison him; even if it wasn't lethal, he figured it would leave him with psychological trauma. Everyone knew that potions in the wizarding world were notoriously foul-tasting.

"You don't think I would need to resort to tricks like tricking you into drinking a potion if I wanted to harm you, do you?" Snape looked at Ian with a gaze of utter contempt.

How to put it.

That was a fair point.

"I just thought it wouldn't taste very good."

Ian replied weakly.

However.

Snape simply stood still, staring at him with an expressionless face.

"Fine, fine."

Gritting his teeth.

Ian took the potion.

He downed it in one go, just like taking medicine—wait? The aftertaste wasn't bitter at all; it was sweet, like coconut milk, and incredibly smooth and delicious!

This wasn't right, was it?

Weren't Snape's potions supposed to be the worst-tasting things imaginable!?

Ian was still savoring the aftertaste of the potion.

"I have never seen such a cowardly fool!"

Snape suddenly reached out, gripping Ian's neck with one hand while waving his wand with the other to initiate Apparition—the two figures vanished from the alley instantly.

Ian felt his vision blur.

When his sight cleared again.

The scenery around him had undergone a world-shaking transformation.

Before him lay a cobblestone street that seemed to stretch toward the horizon. The sides of the road were lined with all sorts of unique shops, and people dressed in strange, magnificent robes laughed and played as they walked.

Feather dusters swept away dust automatically, unattended brooms cleaned the trash from the street, and owls, snakes, rats... all kinds of creatures sat obediently and adorably on the shoulders of the wizards.

The scene he had only ever seen in movies now appeared before Ian's eyes without warning, in a way that was dozens of times more breathtaking than on screen.

He knew.

This was Diagon Alley.

The place where his—and many others'—dreams began.