Harry slowly backed away two steps. "You don't need to explain. You don't need to explain anything. Everyone has their own tastes. I completely under... understand, hahahaha!"
At first, Harry had managed to keep up the pretense of being a serious person, but in the end, he couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing.
Kane's lips held an awkward, almost-smiling expression at a bizarre angle. He needed to find out how much his SAN had recovered as quickly as possible, then get the flower crown off his head.
After returning to his room, he wrote a short, straightforward message across a piece of parchment.
I want to learn magic that lets me clearly see my own attributes. Teach me!
Suddenly, he felt that it sounded a little stiff. After considering it for a moment, he added another line at the end.
Dear Professor Dumbledore.
He placed the envelope beneath the raven's feet and patted its warm back. "Fly, Raven."
Unfortunately, Raven showed not the slightest intention of taking off.
"Did Hagrid buy me a defective one?"
As Kane stared helplessly at Raven, Harry pushed open the door behind him. Looking at Kane and Raven staring each other down, he said, "Could it be because you didn't give it a name? If someone called me, 'Human,' and told me to deliver a letter, I'd spit right in their face."
"A name?" Kane looked at the pitch-black raven and thought for a moment. "You'll be called Hujin. Now, Hujin, please help me deliver this letter... thank you."
This time, Hujin immediately flapped his wings and soared into the sky, flying toward Hogwarts.
"You named it Hujin? Should I rename Hedwig too? Maybe Morin?" Harry glanced at Hedwig, who was drinking water in her cage. She hurriedly shook her head and glared angrily at Kane.
"Your owner wants to rename you. Why are you glaring at me?" Kane pouted innocently.
Dumbledore's reply came quickly. That afternoon, Hujin returned with the envelope clutched in his talons.
Dumbledore had written quite a lot. First, he asked why Kane needed such magic and whether something was wrong with his body. He also explained that because a wizard's power could not be quantified, no one had yet invented such a spell.
Still, Dumbledore taught him a little trick. He could disperse all his magic outside his body, then pour it back in. This would achieve a function similar to ultrasound.
While it could not reveal exact values, it would allow him to observe the current state of his soul—whether it was vigorous or listless.
Finally, Dumbledore warned him that the trick was extremely difficult. If he could not learn it, he should not force himself. On the night Hogwarts opened, he could visit the headmaster's office, and Dumbledore would teach Kane then.
In the blink of an eye, it was September 1st. As for the little trick Dumbledore had taught him... Kane had learned it that very day. It was easy.
Through that trick, he could see the completely different states of his flesh, soul, and magic. His soul roughly corresponded to his SAN.
Whenever he felt mentally exhausted and the Shadow Monsters invaded, his soul was always listless. Just like now: Kane and Harry had finally found an empty compartment, and the instant he sat down, Kane put the flower crown on his head and stuffed two pieces of chocolate into his mouth.
During this time, aside from reading magic books in his room at the Leaky Cauldron, Kane had been reading magic books on benches in Diagon Alley.
Accordingly, his SAN had never been full during all this time spent studying magic.
"Looks like I need to upgrade my technology as soon as possible. Otherwise, with the intensity of studying magic at Hogwarts, I'll probably enroll in the morning and be chased all over Hogwarts by Shadow Monsters in the afternoon." Kane read as he set another small goal for himself.
Knock, knock, knock.
Harry opened the door, and the person outside happened to be someone they knew.
"Harry!" Ron said excitedly.
"Ron!" Harry eagerly hugged Ron, then pulled Kane out of his book. "Kane, look who's here!"
"Whoever it is, what does it matter..." Kane looked up at the visitor. "Ron!"
Kane shouted at full volume as well. Well, he was not actually that excited. It just seemed more polite that way, and it suited the atmosphere.
Ron kept the mood going. "Kane! What the heck is that on your head?"
"...An accessory. Don't mind it."
The small compartment gained another member, but that did not dampen Kane's enthusiasm for studying magic. It only gave the bored Harry and Ron another good friend to chat and joke with during the journey.
Well, he could not speak too absolutely. They did disturb him a little, such as now.
"Kane, which house are you planning to join? You know about Hogwarts' four houses, right?" Ron asked.
"I do. Honestly, they're all more or less the same to me." Kane calmly turned a page.
"How can they be more or less the same? Gryffindor rejects cowards, Slytherin rejects non-pure-blood wizards, and Ravenclaw rejects people who aren't smart. Surely everyone should find the house that suits them best." Ron shook his head and explained his understanding.
"They're all just forms of rejection. I don't care. Even if I dug up the entire house's ancestral graves, I still wouldn't think they could do anything to me." Kane slowly closed his book. "But if I had to say..."
"I'll go with you two. It's a boarding school, after all. If I'm not in the same dormitory as my friends, I won't even have anyone to talk to after class. That would be too lonely."
Just thinking about that loneliness, so completely different from the Eternal Realm, made Kane's scalp tingle.
If you had no friends at a boarding school, you truly had no motivation to stay there at all. You would not even want to return to the dormitory, and you might not bother going to eat either. Everyone else would be surrounded by friends while you stood there alone... yeesh.
Not that it wasn't a good way to lose weight.
"Then let's all go to Gryffindor. I think we can definitely all get in!" Ron said seriously.
"Do we get to choose?" Harry asked.
"Umm... maybe there's a test? Or maybe something else? I'm not really sure." Ron's previously excited little face immediately fell.
What if the house-sorting test was too difficult? What if the houses chose the young wizards, and he was not selected? Would his three brothers be of any use?
Knock, knock, knock...
"Come in," Kane said, reopening his book.
"I'm looking for a toad. Oh, people I know! Do you remember me? Hermione Granger." After opening the door, Hermione saw the magical Celestial Dragon who had left a deep impression on her at Ollivanders' Wand Shop in Diagon Alley, along with his two friends.
Wait... what was that Celestial Dragon doing? A magical Celestial Dragon from such an illustrious family that Britain's only wand shop had custom-made a wand for him and even paid him for it was still reading on the train despite having such terrible dark circles. And what was she doing? Helping someone find a toad?
It really was true: those better than you worked harder than you did.
Hermione, Hermione, how could you agree to look for that stupid toad?
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