The two-month vacation before the start of term passed in the blink of an eye.
The novelty of the magical world was gradually digested by them during this time.
Dudley had already interrupted his sweat-drenched special weight-loss training. On one hand, he had genuinely lost weight; in a month and a half, he had shed nearly thirty pounds. His originally chubby figure had shrunk a size, and since the volume of fat was large, the change after burning it off was very obvious.
On the other hand, the "Mandatory Exercise Room"—that gadget of unknown second-hand origin that Lynn had produced—had broken. No matter how hard they banged on it, it couldn't be fixed.
However, Dudley, who had become addicted to exercise and fallen in love with the dopamine rush, consciously continued his athletic training even without the item's coercion. Uncle Vernon had bought him a large hanging punching bag, and whenever he had a spare moment—or even when he didn't—he would spend hours punching it, making the sandbag bang loudly.
Uncle Vernon, who drove the small car to take the group to King's Cross Station, was actually a bit reluctant to part with Harley. After living together for over two months, he had finally realized that Harley was actually a very good child.
She didn't make trouble or mischief; she proactively helped Petunia with housework; and every day she would quietly flip through books, previewing the school textbooks. When the sunlight filtered through the blinds and the screen mesh onto her, the golden light would outline a tranquil and sweet, soft silhouette around her.
Vernon had dreamed of having such a lovable daughter, and now, his dream seemed to have walked into reality.
At the thought of this, Vernon felt a slight impulse to squeeze out a few tears of an old father.
When they arrived at Platform 9 at King's Cross Station, the station clock pointed to ten o'clock. Aunt Petunia, holding Harley's hand, nagged her with instructions, while Dudley pushed the trolley beside them. On it was Harley's trunk, though the trunk wasn't large; they had stored many things in their respective spatial bags.
Hedwig and Sigurd squinted quietly in their cages. The velvet cloth covering the cages gave them a great sense of security, preventing them from being startled by the dense crowd.
"Then I'll go over with Lynn. Bye Uncle, bye Auntie, bye Dudley~"
Harley waved to them, then pushed the trolley and walked with Lynn to the wall between Platforms 9 and 10.
"Is the entrance really here, Lynn? How come I don't see a door like the one at the Leaky Cauldron?"
"I can go first. Pray I don't actually crash into the wall, Harley."
Lynn walked forward briskly carrying the owl cage, crashing straight into the seemingly hard and solid wall ahead.
Seeing this, Harley breathed a sigh of relief, then walked forward quickly, slightly narrowing her eyes as she crashed toward the wall in front of her.
There was no sensation of impact, only a coldness like passing through a curtain of water.
Immediately after, the noisy chatter of the crowd drifted into Harley's ears. She saw a scarlet steam engine parked at the platform ahead. A sign read: Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock, and Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
Thick white smoke from the steam engine lingered over the station. Kittens of various colors could be seen everywhere on the platform, and owls were hooting noisily in their cages. Many students were leaning out of the train talking to their parents and friends—a lively scene.
"Let's go, let's find a seat while there aren't many people." Lynn had a smile on his face the whole time. He reached out and picked up Harley's suitcase, walking toward the crowd ahead.
"Okay! I'm coming!"
Harley hugged Hedwig's cage and quickly followed.
"Aren't there a lot of empty compartments, Lynn? Do you know someone at Hogwarts?"
Harley tugged at Lynn's sleeve in some confusion. They had already passed quite a few compartments but hadn't entered any.
"Don't you want to know some things about Hogwarts in advance? Maybe we can find a suitable person to ask."
"Oh, right." Harley nodded vigorously. "The book says Hogwarts has four houses, but I don't even know how we get sorted into different houses."
"But is this okay?"
"What could be the problem?" Lynn shrugged, then stopped at the door of a compartment.
Through the glass, they could see one person already sitting inside. Judging by appearance alone, the student inside was a bit older than them, likely a second-year student this year.
Lynn reached out and knocked, then slid open the compartment door.
"Can we join you?"
Lynn met a pair of black eyes just like his own. Just as he asked, the person also looked over.
"Sure. You're new students this year, right?"
The girl sitting by the window put down the book in her hand and nodded to the two standing at the door. "Please, come in."
"Hello, we are new students this year. I'm Lynn, and she's Harley."
"Hello, I'm a second-year Ravenclaw student, Cho Chang."
Cho, rising from her seat, looked at Lynn curiously. "Are you of Asian descent or from somewhere else? Is your surname Lin?"
"You could say that, but calling me Lynn is fine too. After all, the parents I never met didn't leave me a note with my name on it."
"Ah, sorry," Cho said somewhat apologetically.
"Actually, the feeling of living alone is quite nice." Lynn nodded with a smile.
After putting Harley's trunk and both their owl cages on the luggage rack, Lynn sat opposite Cho.
He had chosen this spot deliberately. With X-ray vision, finding another girl with an Asian face like his in the train carriages wasn't difficult at all. As long as Cho was on the train, there would be no problem.
Just as Lynn's gaze fell on Harley's face beside him, exactly as he expected, Harley entered the carriage with a slightly blushing face. Her eyes peeked secretly at Cho sitting opposite from time to time, revealing a shy little expression of wanting to talk to her but not knowing how to start.
"Her name is Harley, right?" Cho obviously noticed the timid-looking Harley beside Lynn. "Is she your friend?"
"Yeah, we came together." Lynn nodded. "But Harley might be a little shy? She really wants to know more about Hogwarts."
"Then I'll definitely tell you everything I know," Cho said generously, then looked at Harley and asked, "Do you want to know about the houses or something else?"
Looking at Lynn and Harley's attire, they were clearly not children from wizarding families. Actually, this point was quite easy to distinguish. Wizards were obviously inferior to Muggles in the area of "fashion aesthetics." Although they would wear some Muggle clothes as daily casual wear, the styles were extremely monotonous, and almost all followed a retro style. The currently popular outfits among them might be from the last century or even the century before that.
"Trendiness" seemed to be insulated from the wizarding world. On one hand, it was due to the wizarding world's seclusion; on the other hand, wizards subconsciously held a sense of "superiority" that they didn't belong to the ordinary world. After all, magic could do too many incredible things—wizards could use magic to achieve most things that gods in the eyes of Muggles could do.
"Um..." Harley's cheeks flushed a shade redder. She lifted her head to look at Cho, then nodded gently.
"Harley, you're so cute."
Cho, charmed by Harley's slightly red cheeks, leaned forward and took Harley's hand. Whether boy or girl, everyone had an impulse to ruffle the hair of such a cute, moe creature.
Suddenly bursting with big-sisterly affection, Cho gently pulled Harley to sit beside her and took out a wooden food box from a small handbag on the side.
"My mum made these sweets. Harley, do you want to try some? Coconut milk pudding—it's cold and delicious."
Cho used a small spoon to scoop up a square piece of egg-yellow pudding coated in snow-white desiccated coconut. The wobbling little pudding looked very appetizing at a glance.
"Try it. You won't get the chance to eat this at school."
Moist, pink lips parted. As the pudding entered her mouth, the cold sensation made Harley narrow her eyes, revealing an expression of enjoyment. This successful feeding made Cho smile happily too. She felt more and more that she and Harley were kindred spirits, perhaps because they both had waterfall-like long black satin hair reaching their waists.
In just a moment, the relationship between the two girls had grown much closer. Lynn, sitting opposite them, watched the two cute and beautiful girls intimately cuddling with a beaming smile, mentally giving a thumbs-up to his own decision.
Rather than having Ron, brandishing chicken legs and stuffing his face left and right, accompany him the whole way, it was better to watch pretty sisters cuddling. At least it was pleasing to the eye, wasn't it?
Lynn, whose mood had also brightened, took out the book he hadn't finished before from his backpack, leaning against the window to turn the pages in the sun.
"Did you practice magic at home?"
After chatting about some small things with Harley, Cho suddenly realized there was another person in the compartment. She wasn't the type of character to give someone the cold shoulder, so she tossed out a new topic.
"Yes. I've basically finished reading the school textbooks, but when it comes to practicing spells, I don't seem to have that high of a talent."
Lynn spoke with slight distress. He did have the ability to cast spells; he and Harley had tried those simple spells from the first-year textbooks. Even though Lynn had a memory that could practically be considered photographic—able to recite the whole text after reading it just once or twice—in practice, he lagged far behind Harley.
"Actually, first-year magic isn't hard. The two months or so before the start of term for new students is one of the rare times you can use magic at home."
"Why, Cho?" Harley blinked her long eyelashes, leaning her shoulder lightly against Cho, and asked in confusion.
"School students aren't allowed to cast magic outside of school. There's the Trace that detects traces of magic, but if you have an adult wizard in your home, then casting magic won't be detected. But your home doesn't have adult wizards, so after officially enrolling, you can't use magic casually even when you go home."
"That's too much," Harley said somewhat dejectedly. "That's unfair."
"It's probably because a lot of little wizards come from Muggle families," Cho said, having a bit of understanding about these matters. "Because of the Statute of Secrecy, wizards have to hide their existence from Muggles. Little wizards casting magic outside school could easily be exposed and seen by people. If that really happened, the Ministry of Magic's Aurors wouldn't have to do anything else during the holidays but wait around to modify memories and clean up messes every day."
"But for wizarding families, there isn't such high risk. Even wizards living near Muggles can use magic to make their houses unnoticeable to Muggles. My family lives in a Muggle neighborhood, but Muggles can't see my house. As long as you remember to change into normal Muggle clothes when going out, there won't be any problems."
Harley looked at Cho with some envy; she thought of her mom and dad again.
"You can come to my house to play during the holidays. There are no other wizards near my house. To be honest, I was quite bored during the summer vacation, counting down the time until I could return to school."
"By the way, do you know Quidditch?"
"Flying broomsticks!"
Harley instantly perked up. "I originally wanted to buy a Nimbus 2000, but the letter said first-year students aren't allowed to bring broomsticks to school. I really want to fly in the sky."
"Quidditch is super great, Harley!"
Suddenly finding another shared hobby with Harley, Cho was even happier. She linked arms with Harley, pulling her closer. "Second-year students can participate in the House Quidditch team tryouts. I want to participate this year, but I'm not sure if I can get in. Quidditch is still a bit difficult; I'm a little worried about whether I can fly well."
"Cho, you can definitely do it, I believe in you!"
Harley clenched her fist to cheer Cho on.
"But I know a tool that lets you fly without a broomstick."
Harley blinked slyly at Lynn, her emerald eyes seeming to say, Please, please.
"Is it a flying carpet?" Cho asked Harley curiously. "But I remember my dad saying the British Ministry of Magic banned the import of flying carpets. Even though flying carpets are much more comfortable to sit on than brooms... I don't know what the people at the Ministry are thinking."
"You can use this, though it has a small drawback."
Lynn reached into his backpack and felt around, then took out a few Bamboo Copters.
He had a full 22 of these things in hand; they were the item he had the most of. Probably because, in the world of Doraemon, they were the most common transport tool for people's daily travel in the 22nd century, and since children played with them too, the number discarded was also the highest.
"A Bamboo Copter. Just place it on your head, and you can fly freely in the sky, but there's a usage time limit."
Lynn pointed to the base of the Bamboo Copter, where there was a glowing scale line. "At full energy, it can carry a person for eight hours, with a top speed of 80 kilometers per hour. If the energy runs out and you forget to replace it, you'll fall from the sky."
"It looks so interesting!"
Cho reached out and took a Bamboo Copter. After studying it for a while, she pointed to the top of her head. "Do you just put it directly on the head like this?"
"Yeah, you can try it. But these Bamboo Copters all have less than two hours left. If you want to play, you must pay attention to the time."
"Then shall we try it now?"
Cho had a great interest in this magic prop she had never seen before. She looked at Lynn eagerly. "Can we?"
"Of course."
After his telekinetic cultivation reached a high level, Lynn could fly on his own, and he had also mastered teleportation. The Bamboo Copter offered him limited help. Since he had so many anyway, it didn't matter if they used them up.
"I can fly with Hedwig and Sigurd again!"
Harley cheered too. She had secretly tried it once with Lynn before; Harley, who inherently yearned for the sky, had full enthusiasm for flight.
Hedwig and Sigurd, who had been locked in their cages for quite a while, hopped happily onto the table after the cages were opened. They squeezed out through the window, then spread their wings and leaped into the sky.
"Then let's go out quickly too."
Cho stood up somewhat impatiently, but at that moment, there were many people boarding the train, and the corridor was densely packed with people.
"I'll send you out."
Lynn's gaze fell on Cho. The next second, her figure vanished, followed immediately by Harley and himself.
Suddenly arriving on the roof of the train, Cho didn't panic. As a child from a wizarding family, she had long experienced many movements like this. Whether it was Apparition, Floo Powder, or Portkeys, they were all magic that instantly removed wizards from their original location.
When she placed the Bamboo Copter on top of her head, it firmly suctioned onto it. With just a thought, the spinning blades carried their bodies up into the air, giving the sensation of being lifted to the sky by soft hands; it didn't make one feel panicked or uneasy at all.
"Although the speed is slower than a broomstick, it's so agile."
After flying up high, Cho did a somersault in mid-air. She was wearing a skort today, so there was no risk of exposure, and Harley in her jeans had even less to worry about.
"If I could use this to chase the Golden Snitch, I definitely wouldn't get shaken off once I saw it."
Cho, opening her arms and gliding in a semi-circle in the air, reached out to lift the hem of a nonexistent ballgown, curtsying elegantly.
"Cho, have you learned to dance?"
"Mhm, a little bit. My mum taught me. Do you want me to teach you, Harley?"
"Lynn, do you want to join? I can teach you the French Branle; three people are just right to do it together."
Saying this, she took Harley's hand in one hand and Lynn's in the other, pulling them into a small circle in the air.
Hedwig and Sigurd circled beside them, their big round eyes looking curiously at the trio's play.
Beneath their feet, the steam engine blew its whistle one last time. Heavy white smoke rose, and accompanied by the woo-woo sound, the Hogwarts Express began its journey.
Above the steam train, three freely flying figures chased the train's pace, unhurriedly enjoying the shine of the clear sunlight and the refreshing wind blowing from the woods on both sides that gently embraced them.
When the time was nearing twelve noon, the three, somewhat tired from playing, returned to the train roof. The Bamboo Copters' battery life was almost bottoming out too. For safety's sake, they prepared to return to the compartment to rest and wait for the arrival of the trolley, to buy some snacks to fill their currently grumbling stomachs.
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