Lynn, having enjoyed a peaceful afternoon nap, woke up in a daze. He felt that today's pillow was exceptionally soft, fragrant, and quite bouncy.
Before he even opened his eyes, he heard Harley and Cho chatting about the Houses.
"Lynn, you're awake?"
Cho's voice drifted into his ears. Opening his eyes, he saw her looking down at him with a beaming smile.
Lynn was lying on the carpet, his head resting on her lap.
"Did you sleep well?"
"I'm not sure how this happened, but perhaps I should say: Thank you?"
"Hehe~" Cho chuckled softly. "You're welcome. It was quite strange, though. You actually started floating while you slept. I thought maybe the floor was uncomfortable, so I lent you a spot to lean on."
"Really?" Lynn scratched his head, a look of genuine surprise flashing across his face. "I honestly didn't know about that."
It was likely because his psychokinetic powers were growing stronger with time. While sleeping, he would inadvertently leak a bit of psychic energy, or perhaps simply because sleeping without a pillow was uncomfortable, he unconsciously floated up to sleep more soundly.
"Harley and I were just talking about the Houses. Have you thought about which one you'll go to?"
"I quite like Hufflepuff." Lynn propped himself up off the floor, rubbed his messy hair, and tied it back casually with a strip of cloth.
"I thought you'd want to go to Ravenclaw. Harley says you love reading and know so much."
"Ravenclaw has our own private library, you know. Although it's not as big as the school library, it has books you won't find even in the main collection."
Cho propped her chin on her hand, tilting her head to look at Lynn. She really did wish all three of them could attend Ravenclaw together.
"That sounds amazing. You've actually tempted me a bit there. But, which House we go to depends on the school's assignment, right?"
"That's right. You have to undergo a very, very, very difficult entrance exam."
Cho kept a straight face, describing the difficulty of the test in a bluffing tone that had Harley, sitting opposite her, stunned into silence.
"Then... then what if we don't pass the exam?"
Harley, a little frightened, nervously shook Cho's hand, staring wide-eyed as she awaited the answer.
"Then of course—" Cho drew out the sound, but after a few seconds, she couldn't hold it in anymore and giggled aloud.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I shouldn't tease you, Harley."
"It's actually a Sorting Hat. It tells you which House to go to. After you put it on, you'll hear it talking inside your head, and then it's done."
Cho was a kind-hearted girl at her core; she really wasn't very practiced at teasing people.
"Too bad you only fooled Harley, not Lynn."
Cho pouted, feeling a tiny bit disappointed.
"Because you're not good at lying, Cho. I saw through it at a glance."
"Is that so?"
"When I was living out on my own, I met plenty of people who were better liars than you, but none of them succeeded either."
"Living on your own? Did you encounter a lot of dangerous things?"
Knowing that Lynn had been a vagrant for several years, Cho felt sympathy for him in her heart, but she was also curious about what that kind of life was like.
"It was actually alright. Look, I have this tent, so living outside is quite safe. But for other people wandering the streets, that wasn't necessarily the case."
Lynn briefly recounted a few things he had seen and heard. The dark corners of society were too numerous; even picking a few of the less dark incidents to share was enough to make the two girls feel a bit fearful.
Soon, the time approached sunset. The golden-red glow of the setting sun pierced through the carriage window, reflecting inside the tent where the three sat.
"It's time to change into our robes. We should be arriving at Hogwarts in about half an hour."
Cho, having taken the train once before, was clear on the procedure. "Actually, the train can go very fast, but for some reason, on the first day of school, it moves very, very slowly. By the time we reach the Great Hall, it'll be nearly nine o'clock at night."
They crawled out of the tent and pulled their school robes from their trunks. Putting them on didn't require changing their clothes underneath; they just had to pull them over their heads, so there was no need for privacy.
The sun dipped its head below the ridge line, and in the blink of an eye, a pitch-black night sky shrouded them overhead. Under the cover of darkness, the Hogwarts Express rumbled forward, its speed gradually decreasing. The sound of young wizards discussing grew louder throughout the train; most were looking forward to returning to school and continuing their interesting magical studies.
The train arrived at the station, and the corridor was packed with people. Lynn walked in front, his psychokinesis spreading out gently to prevent the crowds from shoving him or the two girls clinging to his back. Following the flow of people off the train, they arrived at a dark, damp, and cold little station.
Because Hogsmeade Station was close to the Black Lake, the moisture blown in by the wind made the temperature here lower than elsewhere—it was even somewhat freezing.
Harley and Cho shivered as the whistling night wind blew away the warmth from their bodies.
"It's so cold."
Cho rubbed her hands together and linked arms with Harley, speaking to the two of them. "We have to separate now. I need to take the carriages back to the school, and you—"
Just then, a voice with powerful penetration shouted across the platform: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"
"It's Hagrid. Just follow him. I'll see you in the Great Hall later."
Cho reached out and hugged Harley and Lynn, then waved and left with the other students.
"See you later, Cho!"
After bidding Cho farewell, Harley glanced at Lynn, then pulled on his arm and walked toward Hagrid. She was already very familiar with Hagrid; he had taken good care of her back in Diagon Alley.
"Hagrid!" Harley waved at Hagrid with a beaming smile. "Thank you for the birthday present, I love it!"
"Harley." Hagrid had spotted them as soon as they arrived. A happy smile broke out on his hairy face as he waved back. "Glad yeh like it, haha!"
"C'mon now, stand in front o' me. And Lynn, good to see yeh too."
"Good evening, Hagrid."
Before long, the new students had gathered near Hagrid, while the older students had left the platform, heading for the Thestral carriages.
"Right then, follow me."
Hagrid, holding a gigantic oil lamp aloft, walked at the very front of the crowd. "Mind yer step, now! Firs' years, follow me!"
They followed Hagrid, stumbling along a narrow path until they reached the edge of the Black Lake. There, they boarded the small, wobbling boats in groups.
Boarding the same boat as Lynn were two other people, a boy and a girl. The boy looked like he had been crying; his chubby face bore a trace of dejected misery.
"What's wrong?"
The kind-hearted Harley asked quietly.
"Neville's lost his toad," said the other girl in the boat. Her shiny front teeth were easily visible even in the dark night.
"I was asking people in the carriages on the train earlier. Were you two... the ones in that compartment with the curtains drawn?"
"By the way, I'm Hermione."
This fast-talking girl chattered away, but listening to her words, it was easy to tell she was actually a good kid who enjoyed helping others.
"Um, yes. But we haven't seen a toad."
Harley nodded, looking at Neville apologetically.
"By the way, Lynn, do you have any way to help?"
"I was actually just about to say something."
Lynn nodded slightly. He wasn't stingy about helping people when he had the means.
"However... my tools don't seem like they'd be much help in this situation."
Although he had plenty of items in his Doraemon pocket that could help find lost things, he hadn't obtained gadgets like the Seeking Wand or the Lost & Found Fishing Pond. What he had was a box of almost unused Owner Stickers. These could help find lost items, but the stickers needed to be applied to the object before it was lost.
"Maybe we can try the Summoning Charm."
Lynn quickly thought of a spell suitable for this situation.
"But the Summoning Charm is fourth-year content. Can you really use it?"
Hermione looked at Lynn with suspicion. She had read many books over the holiday, practically memorizing the first-year textbooks, so it was normal for her to know of this spell.
"I tried a few simple spells at home, and they worked. But as for the Summoning Charm..."
"Shh~" Lynn held up a finger. "How will we know if we don't try?"
"However, I'm not particularly good at casting magic." Knowing that his talent for spellcasting was indeed limited, Lynn turned his gaze to Harley. "How about this, Harley? I'll teach you how to use Accio, and you cast the spell."
"I can do it?" Harley pointed at herself in disbelief. "Really?"
"Do you trust me?"
"Of course I trust you." Harley nodded. She had always had unwavering faith in Lynn's abilities. "I just don't have much confidence in myself."
"Neville." Lynn looked at the round-faced, chubby boy. "Can you describe your toad? Does it have a name?"
"Yes, yes!" Neville nodded vigorously, then stumbled through a description of his toad, Trevor, to Harley.
"Close your eyes. Harley, can you imagine what Trevor looks like?"
After a moment, Lynn asked Harley.
"I can." Harley nodded. She had the image in her mind.
"Now, draw your wand."
Lynn held the hand in which Harley gripped her wand. "The incantation for the Summoning Charm is—"
"I remember, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4 has a detailed record," Hermione's voice interjected forcefully at this point. "The Summoning Charm cannot be used to summon buildings and most living things. Flobberworms are an exception. Because the essence of the Summoning Charm is not teleporting the item to you, but involves a flight process, it would cause fatal injury to living creatures."
"Thanks for the reminder, Hermione." Lynn nodded. "But if you've seriously studied the Summoning Charm, you'd find that the Summoning Charm and Accio are two spells that have nearly identical effects but are completely different. The Summoning Charm is one of the oldest spells in wizarding society. Because of its age, it inevitably carries the characteristics of the era in which it was created. Simply put—brute force works wonders."
"It's not that the Summoning Charm can't summon buildings. In The Evolution of Charms: Disaster Edition, there was a remarkably powerful wizard who once summoned his wizard tower. When his tower was summoned, it stirred up a devastating catastrophe akin to a category 20 superstorm along its path. He himself died in the accident."
"But Accio is different. Accio was a concept proposed by a wizard in 1860, subsequently perfected by Mr. Newt Scamander, and recorded in the first revised edition of his Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them published in 1930, demonstrated using 'Accio Niffler' as an example."
"This is a summoning-type magic that is less difficult than the ancient Summoning Charm, can be used on living things, and does not cause them fatal danger. Its effect is far inferior to the true Summoning Charm because the flight trajectory is relatively slow, which allows the summoned item to avoid most obstacles in its path."
"Items summoned by the ancient Summoning Charm fly at near 'light speed' because they appear almost via 'teleportation,' yet it isn't space magic. The summoned item is simply wrapped in magical energy and transported directly to the caster using that energy as a protective barrier."
"If you break down Summoning Charms, there are over five different branches. The food summoning charm most commonly used by wizards actually belongs to spatial summoning magic, similar to Apparition for objects."
"The Standard Book of Spells series written by Miranda Goshawk is actually based on Spells and Runes, written by her ancestor Epimetheus Webb Goshawk in 1776. Although that book systematically organized the common magic of the wizarding world at the time and categorized it by difficulty, much of its content lacks timely relevance."
"The publication date of The Standard Book of Spells was 1965, but unfortunately, Miranda did not include the Accio spell perfected by Newt Scamander for summoning living creatures."
Red-faced, Hermione looked at Lynn with embarrassment, then shrank back and said, "Sorry, I really didn't know that. I apologize."
"It doesn't matter. There are too many things in the magical world for us to explore and research. What I know is only a scratch on the surface."
"So, come on, Harley. I'll teach you the phrasing and pauses for Accio. Your talent for spellcasting is much better than mine; you can do this."
"The wand movement is roughly a pull and a hook. You must have the image of the summoned object in your mind. The more accurate it is, the more precise the spellcasting and the better the effect."
"When you aren't familiar with the summoned object, you can perform a more precise directional summon by adding a specific designator during the incantation."
"Repeat after me: Accio Neville's toad Trevor."
"Accio Neville's toad Trevor."
Harley waved her wand under Lynn's guidance, but it didn't work the first time.
"It's okay. You can try a few more times. Believe in yourself, Harley."
Harley nodded, then tried again.
Under Neville's hope-filled gaze, Harley attempted the spell several more times.
Suddenly, a cry of surprise rang out from the fleet of boats. A chubby toad flew out from a boat behind them and landed at Harley's feet.
"Croak~"
The chubby toad swayed dizzily, trying to stand steady.
But before it could flip itself over, it was scooped up into a pair of chubby hands.
"Trevor!!!"
Neville was so excited he looked ready to cry; he thanked them repeatedly, happily blowing a snot bubble in the process.
"I'm glad I could help, Neville."
Harley smiled sweetly and lifted her small face toward Lynn.
"Well done."
Lynn reached out and patted Harley's head. "A very fine Summoning Charm."
"Hehe~"
Harley, who enjoyed this praise immensely, nuzzled against Lynn's palm and puffed out her chest with pride.
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