Around mid-party, Professor Flitwick pulled out a chess set and invited Professor Burbage to play a game with him. Professor Burbage's pieces argued loudly, and while Anthony watched, he couldn't help agreeing with a pawn's opinion—thought if Professor Burbage really let him move to C5, Professor Flitwick would definitely eat the en passant pawn without hesitation.
"Listen! Listen!" that pawn said proudly.
And Anthony's comment inevitably drew him into this black-and-white chess battle. When the game ended, the pieces climbing up all demanded Anthony play himself. Professor Burbage smoothly gave up her seat and handed this talkative spectator to the smiling Professor Flitwick opposite.
They played for a while. Finally Anthony made a careless mistake, failed to directly checkmate the opponent's king, and instead left Black in an unbeatable position. He shook his head at the angrily shouting pieces. "No way out."
Professor McGonagall watching also shook her head. "Forced draw." She immediately occupied his position after Anthony stood. "Please, Filius."
"All right, Minerva." Professor Flitwick muttered while arranging pieces. "You know perfectly well I can't beat you!"
Anthony asked Professor Sprout, "Does Minerva play very well?"
Professor Sprout showed a somewhat mysterious smile. "Very well."
Then Anthony witnessed a devastating victory. White pieces constantly at disadvantage finally held their heads high and praised Professor McGonagall as the qualified commander.
Professor McGonagall asked with lingering interest, "Anyone else?"
"Nobody will challenge you when you play White," Professor Sprout said.
Professor McGonagall turned the board around and swept her gaze over her colleagues with a trace of hope. The originally triumphant White pieces suddenly wilted and looked helplessly at the professors standing in a circle watching.
"All right, all right," Professor Sprout said and voluntarily sat opposite Professor McGonagall. White pieces sighed very loudly.
Anthony also played a game with Professor McGonagall and the White pieces gave him such a headache. Professor Burbage gloated beside them, sometimes agreed with the bishop's opinion, sometimes said the knight made sense, but from her tone you could tell she didn't care what the pieces were saying at all.
"Where on earth did you find this wizard chess?" Professor Sprout asked Professor Flitwick quietly.
Professor Flitwick sipped his wine and tilted his head toward the corner. "Right over there, beside Quirinus."
After three consecutive wins, nobody was willing to sit in White's chair anymore.
When someone mentioned Professor Trelawney and Professor Quirrell hadn't played yet, Professor Trelawney suddenly developed great interest in Hagrid's rock cakes and believed the distribution of raisins inside contained universal truth.
Professor Quirrell insisted he only liked watching and tremblingly refused all invitations. His nervous expression and desperate deflection were too pitiful—nobody had the heart to invite him anymore.
And after Professor McGonagall rose from the board, the situation became more back-and-forth again. Professor Flitwick invited Anthony for another game. This time Anthony playing Black beat him, and when the Dueling Master invited him for another game, he let Professor Sprout take his place.
After a while, Anthony played a game with Professor Sprout. The atmosphere was very relaxed—both ate snacks while casually ordering pieces to walk to certain squares. Protests ineffective, the pieces could only lazily stroll on the board and when captured, they'd directly lie down without the opponent raising swords. Made Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick shake their heads greatly.
Not until nearly class time could Anthony extract himself from wizard chess. When leaving he wished others happy playing—especially the battling Black and White sides—and unexpectedly saw Professor Quirrell saluting him.
Anthony pointed at himself confirmingly. Professor Quirrell nodded, showed a nervous smile, and pointed at the chess game, as if this was his gift to Anthony.
Anthony left puzzled.
To prepare for practical activities, this lesson's focus was tallying students' registration intentions and confirming each group's member list. As for lesson content, it correspondingly became how to buy tickets.
This time ticket-buying was naturally Anthony's responsibility, but he hoped if students wanted to take their family and friends to Muggle exhibitions in the future, they could learn how to properly book, pay, buy tickets and check tickets, rather than relying on Confundus Charms making poor ticket workers get scolded by supervisors at month's end.
Cedric registered for the zoo activity and together with Roger Davies became the only two students in class who successfully drew lots to board.
A rejected student looked enviously at the slips in their hands and asked, "Can I trade you for five Galleons?"
"Hey, hey!" Anthony stopped their transaction before answering. "No, I remember all your names, Roberts."
Roberts withdrew his hand reaching for his pocket. "All right, Professor."
Cedric regretfully spread his hands at him and smiled at Anthony. "I don't want to sell my luck yet."
"Wise choice," Anthony said.
After reiterating that British Muggle currency had completely different counting rules from the wizarding world, Anthony began explaining various discount rules for them.
When contacting various parties, he was surprised to discover Hogwarts was actually officially registered ("Scottish Academy of Magical Arts (Special Vocational School)" "Founding date unknown" "Location unknown" "Student number unknown"), so theoretically Hogwarts students all had government-certified student status.
Anthony emphasized with students what student status could do but simultaneously told them that to save that 20% to 50% in pounds, they might spend several times more time telling others what school exactly they attended.
When he contacted the zoo, he was almost misunderstood as bringing a team of future circus workers to visit their future partners. The other party very politely told him they didn't support animal performances. Anthony had to tell the gentleman on the phone they were a magic academy and mainly learned card tricks, tightrope walking and juggling crystal balls.
"What, Muggles really have schools teaching people to make money playing cards?" a student asked quite interested. His fingers rubbed excitedly.
Anthony reminded himself to discuss gambling's harms next lesson and told him it wasn't at all what he imagined.
In a sense, those schools taught Muggles how to disguise themselves as having magic, just like he was now teaching them how to pretend they had no magic.
Another student said longingly, "I should attend that kind of school. I think I could get all O's."
Anthony thought for a moment and had to admit she had some point.
"But not necessarily," he said. "Try this."
He demonstrated the most basic magic trick (also the only trick he knew): a candy that could be produced from anywhere. His grandfather used to love using this method to fool him.
When he pretended to pull a gummy from Cedric's ear, the boy frantically scratched his ear while his deskmate pulled his other ear trying to find another candy.
Nobody knew what he did—according to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, he couldn't conjure food.
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