The Big Star

"Look, it's him!"

"Oh, Harry Potter! It really is him!"

"Did you see his scar?"

The corridors were filled with whispers. All kinds of adoring or reverent gazes landed on them, making Li Mu feel as if his cheeks had been scorched, painfully hot—though at most, he was merely the bodyguard of the big star, a green leaf beside a red flower.

The first Charms class had not contained anything substantial. Flitwick had merely given the first-years from all four Houses a brief introduction to the course arrangements and demonstrated a few basic spells.

Now, they were leaving the Charms classroom and rushing to their next lesson. Li Mu finally understood what celebrity effect meant, and what it meant to be afraid of fame.

Perhaps because of Flitwick's excited scream, every first-year in their year knew that was Harry Potter... Even some older students without classes had somehow heard the news and come specifically to see the spectacle.

Of course. It was Harry Potter... the Savior, one of the most famous figures in modern History of Magic!

The Hogwarts students now looked exactly like crazed celebrity fans. Pointing and whispering from the corridors was the mildest behavior. Students kept coming up with notebooks, asking Harry Potter for autographs—even two bold, uninhibited older girls were preparing to hug Harry, frightening him so badly his face went white as paper.

After a brief internal struggle, Li Mu decided to once again display the results of his years of training. He grabbed Harry and Ron, forcibly shoved through the crowd, and bolted.

Earlier, Hermione and Neville had wisely chosen to slip away first. If the three of them did not hurry, they would be late again.

In the heat of the moment, Li Mu's thin body erupted with powerful energy. Dragged along by his two hands, Harry and Ron were panting hard, but they still quickly crossed flight after flight of stairs toward the classroom.

Unfortunately, their luck was clearly terrible.

As they prepared to step onto the final stair, several balls of paper smacked into their heads. When they looked up, they saw the person—or rather, ghost—they least wanted to see right then.

"Come on, come on~ Let's fight~! Raise your cannonballs and fight me!" Peeves sang in a shrill, bizarre tune, baring his teeth and claws above them as he danced strangely. He still held paper balls in his hands, and clearly had no intention of letting the poor trio go.

Hermione had been right. Peeves held grudges.

"Fine, Peeves, let's settle our score from last time!" Li Mu felt that he was quite the grudge-holder himself. The bruise from that cane strike still hurt.

When narrow paths met, the brave won. He decided to teach Peeves a profound lesson.

While Peeves was making faces at them, Li Mu swiftly pulled several yellow talismans from his pocket. They were covered in blood-red spell marks that Harry and Ron could not understand at all.

But Harry and the others could understand Peeves's expression.

Peeves's face suddenly changed, revealing the frightened look he only wore in front of the Bloody Baron. He quickly floated backward. Just as Peeves was about to flee, Li Mu began chanting—

"Where do wandering souls reside? In boundless Fengdu, bodies of countless sinners. I summon the Five Paths Ghost General to bind spectral forms and forge their spirits."

Strangely, Peeves suddenly slowed down, as though his entire body had been frozen. The obscure incantation finally reached its end.

"By Lord Lao's urgent command..." Li Mu shouted, "Ghost Binding!"

Four yellow talismans flew from his hand and instantly stuck to Peeves's limbs. Then Peeves's small body was pulled into the shape of a spread-eagle and nailed directly to the ceiling, unable to move.

"Hehehe, scared now? You dared fight this young master—you had it coming!" Li Mu stared smugly at Peeves's pitiful expression overhead and lifted his foot to leave.

"Watch out!" Harry and Ron shouted at the same time...

"Boom!"

Harry and Ron poked their heads out and looked down, seeing only a cloud of dust.

From the corridor one floor below came Li Mu's groans and curses. "Damn it! Where did that section of stairs go? When did it fly away?... Ow..."

Harry and Ron could not help laughing. Even Peeves, stuck to the ceiling, trembled with laughter as he began singing an improvised song in his strange tune: "La la la, la la la~ The muscle man fell and turned into a little winter melon... Mmph mmph..."

The next second, a flying talisman sealed his mouth shut as well.

Unfortunately, the class after Charms was Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall looked extremely strict just from her appearance. Li Mu knew even better that, as the Head of Gryffindor House, she would only be harsher on students from her own House.

By the time they reached the Transfiguration classroom, they were about a minute late again. Being late for two consecutive classes on the first day of school was probably a rare occurrence in Hogwarts history.

Still, Harry felt rather lucky, because Professor McGonagall had not arrived yet. Only a brown kitten lay lazily atop the teacher's desk, its cat eyes sweeping over the noisy students.

Harry patted his chest. "Ah! Professor McGonagall isn't here yet. That's great!"

"What's that cat doing here?" Ron asked.

At that moment, they noticed in surprise that there were three empty seats in the front row. They hurried over happily, only to discover that Hinata, Hermione, and Neville were seated to the right of those three seats.

Hinata blushed and said softly, "Li Mu... I-I got here first, so I saved... saved seats for you."

"Oh! Thank you, thank you so much!" Li Mu and the other two happily thanked Hinata—though they could not figure out why Hinata, a Ravenclaw, was sitting beside Hermione.

But wasn't Li Mu a Hufflepuff as well? Harry and Ron tacitly let Li Mu sit down first, placing him beside Hinata.

Hinata's face turned even redder.

"That cat might be a prop for Transfiguration class?" Harry returned to the discussion about the cat.

"But don't you think its eyes are a little strange? Like... like..." Ron pondered his words.

"Like Mrs. Norris?" Neville could not help joining the conversation. Across Hermione, Hinata, and Li Mu, he picked up the thread of Ron's conversation.

"Exactly, exactly!" Ron greatly admired Neville's "wisdom."

"Are all cats like Mrs. Norris?" Harry said with a laugh. "That would be awful."

"Yeah. I heard Fred and George have wanted to catch Mrs. Norris and stew her into soup for ages!" The round-faced chubby boy was unusually bold at that moment. He even made a rare joke and waved his plump fist through the air.

Mrs. Norris was Filch's loyal assistant. Many students who broke school rules had been caught with her help, so she was infamous among the students. Even first-years on their first day of school both hated and feared Mrs. Norris.

"Cats hold grudges too. Stop talking. We'd better get ready for class properly." Li Mu suppressed a laugh and reminded them.

"We should catch every cat and stew them into soup!" Ron clearly had not understood. "Then we could drink cat soup every day."

Neville's face immediately turned pale.

Amid the astonished cries of the entire class—no, the entire year—the kitten on the teacher's desk leaped into the air and transformed into Professor McGonagall in an instant. She stood before the class and quietly called out four names: "Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom..."

She hesitated, then finally added, "Um, and Li Mu!"

The four of them instantly froze...