Investigation

"I see." Dumbledore adjusted his glasses. "Miss Hawthorne, would you mind showing me your magic?"

A large-scale Anti-Apparition Spell had been set up at Hogwarts. Aside from House-elves and Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, no one could use teleportation magic at school. Even the upper-year Apparition Class could only be held normally when the headmaster temporarily lifted the Anti-Apparition Charm for a limited time.

Only when Aya heard Dumbledore call her did she turn around and blink. Xiaohua had already stopped beside a glowing spot in the Headmaster's Office. Their figures flickered, and Aya appeared where Xiaohua had just been, while Xiaohua appeared in front of Dumbledore. Aya eagerly reached for the glowing spot and, a few seconds later, pulled out a bag of Fizzing Whizbees.

"Yay!" Delighted, Aya didn't put it away in her backpack. Instead, she turned to show Snape. "See? I told you I found it in the classroom!"

Snape turned to Dumbledore, surprise showing on his face for once. He had made a couple of nasty remarks the last time he brought the old bee a potion for strengthening teeth, but surely it hadn't been that bad. "You hide sweets in your Pensieve?"

"...I don't." Dumbledore remained composed. Recalling how he had seen Aya rummaging through piles of odds and ends in the corners of Diagon Alley, and how Duoduo had reported that she obtained pounds in the Muggle world, he asked again, "Miss Hawthorne, didn't you take your sweets out of your bag?"

"No, they were here." Aya pointed to the glowing spot, then eagerly opened the bag to count how many sweets were inside. "Other places work too, as long as there's a glowing spot~" She swished her tail happily.

"A glowing spot?" Dumbledore turned his head, as though taking a closer look at the office he had used for so long. "Where else?"

Aya unwrapped a sweet and popped it into her mouth, then made a circuit of the office. Quite a few of the headmasters' portraits on the walls had woken up, and they were all craning their necks to watch her.

She walked over to Dumbledore's desk and pointed at a stack of books he had piled there. "There's one here too."

Dumbledore narrowed his eyes, and Snape also stepped forward, but neither of them could see anything.

"Please." Dumbledore raised a hand, gesturing for her to proceed.

Aya reached out with a claw and grabbed at it. Dumbledore and Snape saw a feather appear in her hand.

"What's this?" Aya waved it curiously. The red feather gleamed with touches of gold, making it very beautiful.

"...Fawkes's feather." Dumbledore's expression was complicated. Fawkes answered with a clear call from his perch across the room.

"Very nice." Snape folded his arms, no longer doubting Aya. "Do you leave such precious materials lying around too?"

Aya didn't care whose feather they said it was. It was in her hand, so it was hers!

She put the feather in her backpack and took a look. Wow, it was even an orange material! Her trip to the Headmaster's Office hadn't been wasted. She forgave Snape for inexplicably doubting her earlier.

"Was there anything else, Mr. Headmaster?" Aya twitched her ears, little flowers practically blooming all around her.

"Ahem, yes. Would you mind if I examined your body?" Dumbledore came back to himself. "Your magic seems a little different."

Aya nodded, unconcerned, and watched Dumbledore take out his wand and cast several diagnostic spells on her. His frown deepened.

"Hmm, there doesn't seem to be anything unusual?" He put away his wand. "May I see your wand?"

"It's a staff, Mr. Headmaster." Aya corrected him, taking her weapon out of her bag and handing it to him.

"Unknown material, unknown technique, unfamiliar channels for the flow of magic..." The staff was taller than Aya but much shorter than Dumbledore. Frowning, Dumbledore asked Snape to take a look as well. After all, he was the professional and would have encountered more materials than Dumbledore had as headmaster.

"...I don't recognize it." Snape carefully examined the grain, material, and weight of the wooden staff, but couldn't recall any matching material.

"Of course you don't," Aya said matter-of-factly. "It's loot from where I'm from. I got it from a chest. I have lots more, but I can't use them right now."

"Let me see-let me see!" a portrait on the wall said eagerly, her head nearly poking out of the frame.

Dumbledore used a Levitation Charm to bring the staff in front of the portrait. At once, many of the headmasters crowded over to look.

"She was a headmistress well versed in alchemy," Dumbledore explained.

But apparently, no one could identify a material that didn't belong to this world. Aya heard a voice among the portraits muttering that there was actually a material the Blacks didn't know about, and that this was sheer negligence.

Bored, Aya watched the two men study her staff, then sat down on an empty sofa and held Xiaohua in a daze.

Only after she had drunk several cups of sweet tea did the two adults, one in black and one in white, give up on figuring out the staff's material for the time being.

When Aya left, Dumbledore handed her a large bag of sweets from Honeydukes. Aya, who had grown a little impatient from waiting, immediately felt better. She left the Headmaster's Office with Xiaohua, her steps light, leaving Snape and Dumbledore to speculate about her origins.

"Spells we've never seen before, and there seems to be hardly any requirement to cast them?" Dumbledore tapped the desktop.

"She was able to withstand my attack," Snape added. "The incantation I heard her shout seemed to be 'pollen'?"

"Pollen?" Dumbledore asked, puzzled. "Is there some special connection?"

Most spell incantations in the wizarding world were created by adapting Latin or English roots, and a spell's usual meaning was the effect the wizard wanted it to achieve. Generally speaking, most wizards could understand a spell's effect just by hearing its incantation.

But "pollen"? Did it have some special meaning?

"I remember that her cat wasn't in the classroom before the lesson. I'm quite sure of it," Snape continued, thinking back. "After she called the cat, it appeared out of thin air."

"Did you sense any spatial fluctuations?" Dumbledore asked.

"There were magical fluctuations," Snape replied. "And she reacted very quickly in combat. I attacked by surprise, but she was able to respond immediately."

Dumbledore sighed at that. "Poor child." Such a reaction could only mean that she often came into conflict with others, so her combat awareness was very sharp. "I'll have Duoduo continue to look after her."

A flicker of concealed disgust passed through Snape's eyes. Look after her? More like keep her under surveillance.

"All right, I still have a class to teach. I'll be going." Snape didn't want to talk anymore, so he took his leave as well.

Dumbledore waved him off and watched the door to the Headmaster's Office close again. His gaze fell on the stack of books from which Aya had just pulled a phoenix feather, and his eyes lost focus.

It was still early when Aya left the Headmaster's Office. She checked the clock on the corridor wall and saw that it wasn't yet four. It was an awkward time: not quite dinnertime, but close.

She looked down the long corridor-portraits, cabinets, clocks, suits of armor, statues—and spotted several glowing points at a glance. Besides, it was Friday, and Hogwarts had two days off each week. Aya had never had such a long break. She planned to start on the Seventh Floor and loot every glowing spot in the castle over the weekend!

Aya had discovered back in Diagon Alley that although glowing spots refreshed after being looted, there was no set time for them to do so, and they yielded different things after refreshing. So she treasured every chance she had to find one.

Aya's early departures and late returns over the weekend went unnoticed. She only saw Hermione at meals. Hermione also went out early and came back late, but she spent all her time in the library. Aya had little interest in reading, so she put the library's glowing spots at the very bottom of her priority list.

When she returned to the dormitory on the weekend evening, three large trunks had been placed beside her bed. She had asked Duoduo to buy them for the materials that wouldn't fit in her backpack. Even though the player had unlocked all its space, her backpack still couldn't hold all the rubbish in Hogwarts. She took out some low-level materials and packed the trunks full, while the valuable ones remained in her backpack.

The new week began with the news that Flying Class was scheduled for Thursday.

Aya was quite curious about Flying Class. You could take to the air just by riding a broom! There was no such thing as flying in her world, only lightness techniques, which at most let her glide and ensured she wouldn't fall to her death.

After learning about Flying Class, Aya heard many of her classmates' little stories about flying.

Apparently, most children from wizarding families had a child's flying broom during their childhood. Aya heard Draco talk about how he had once dodged a Muggle helicopter on his broom; heard Seamus Finnigan say that he had spent his childhood flying around the countryside on a broom; and heard Ron say that he had nearly crashed into a glider while using his brother's broom...

Aya's anticipation for flying brooms was at its peak. She had never flown before.

Hermione, however, seemed a little too nervous. On Thursday morning, clutching a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages borrowed from the library, she chattered on. "...I have to make sure I know the correct flying position. Otherwise, if I accidentally fall off, I think I'd break my neck from that height!" she said. Beside her, Neville looked as though he wanted to grab a quill and write down every word.

Aya was already eating apple pie first thing in the morning. It was sweet and tart and delicious. As she munched, she listened to the Weasley brothers sitting across from her tell stories about their past matches. Both were Beaters on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, and they were very good flyers.

"My aim is excellent. That match last term-George, you remember, don't you? I knocked that bucktoothed Slytherin right off his broom!" Fred said, making a swinging motion with a bat. Aya couldn't help flattening her ears a little.

"Of course. I'd been wanting to hit him in the face with a bat for ages!" George chimed in. "If people hadn't been watching, I would've pretended to let my bat slip out of my hand and hit him with it again!"

Aya played along and applauded. Beside her, Alicia Spinnet—she was a Chaser on the Quidditch team, and the other two Chasers were girls too, Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell-reached out and caught Aya's hands after she had clapped twice. "Aya, clap twice more and those two will turn into inflated cowhides and fly away."

Thanks to her unusual appearance, Aya had managed to make everyone remember her name in less than two weeks of classes. Gryffindor was full of people who made themselves at home with others, so many called her by her first name.

"Hey!" Fred waved a baguette indignantly. "It's the truth!"

"If we hadn't knocked that annoying git down, who knows how many people he'd have sent flying!" George also raised a baguette and pointed it at Aya. "So please, carry on applauding, miss."

Aya reached out and snatched away the baguette pointed at her. George, caught off guard, stumbled, then looked up just in time to see Aya open her mouth to bite it.

"Wait, wait!" Alicia hurriedly stopped the hungry cat from pouncing on her food. "I'll cut you a piece. It's so long, you can't eat the whole thing!"

Aya obediently closed her mouth. George passed over a table knife, and the group watched Alicia saw through the wood.

By the time Aya got to eat the dry baguette, it was time for the day's owl post.

"This is a Remembrall!" Neville held a glass ball that seemed to be filled with white smoke. "I'm always forgetting things, so Gran sent me one. All you have to do is hold it tight-oh, you've forgotten something." His voice trailed off, and he began racking his brains to remember what exactly he had forgotten.

As a feline spirit, Aya was a little curious about balls. She held out her hand. "Let me see."

Neville handed it to Aya without thinking. Aya shook it, but the Remembrall was still red. "Why is it red for me too?" She didn't believe she had forgotten anything.

"Could it be broken?" Ron leaned over, apparently wanting to try it too.

"Ha, brainless Weasley, that can only mean this beastkin miss has forgotten something too-" Draco, passing the Gryffindor table with his two followers behind him, sneered.

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Malfoy," Aya greeted him politely, then watched Draco glare at her and turn away.

"Why did he glare at me?" Aya didn't understand.

Ron, who was closest, pulled a face. "Why did you call him 'mister'? He's a Slytherin!"

"And he's so annoying," Harry added, leaning over and gesturing. "It's not your fault he glared at you for no reason. There's something wrong with his head."

"All right, but it's polite. We don't really know each other, after all," Aya replied. She watched both their expressions soften at the same time, though Ron still added, "You don't need to call him 'mister.' He doesn't deserve a title of respect."

Aya thought Ron was wrong. At least, ever since she had addressed Draco with the respectful title "mister" when they first met, he hadn't given her any trouble.

After their morning lessons, everyone eagerly gathered at the grounds early, since Flying Class was that afternoon.

The weather was lovely that day, clear with a light breeze and warm sunshine. It was Aya's favorite kind of weather. She sat on the grass, breathing in its scent, with Hermione's reading sounding like a chanted spell beside her ear.

"...The standard sitting position. Don't be nervous. The broom will sense your intentions. Only with firm conviction can you make the broom fly according to your wishes..."