Please let it be me overthinking things.
Please let it be nothing more than a transmigrator's personal 'cheat'.
Please let everything be alright.
Whatever the case, in the short term this at least counted as good news: he could now carry out roleplay in both the Mysteries World and the Harry Potter World simultaneously, loading up the Scale on both ends.
And from now on, beyond magic, he could also possess Extraordinary abilities. By his understanding, reaching Sequence 5 — or at the most, demigod level — ought to be more than enough to sweep through the entire Harry Potter World.
He closed his eyes and returned to reality. Sure enough, his sudden stiffness just now had drawn the curiosity of the students around him.
In particular, four small figures not far away were staring straight at him: a round, pudgy little boy; a slight, bespectacled one; a redheaded boy with a face full of freckles; and a bushy-haired girl clutching an orange cat.
I'd know them anywhere — this has to be the Golden Trio and Neville.
For Harry, the past night had been both thrilling and bewildering.
Thrilling because he had finally left that detestable house behind and stepped into this dream of a magical school. Bewildering because he still couldn't make heads or tails of why the Sorting Hat had changed its mind at the last second and placed him in Gryffindor.
At least the three friends he'd made on the train were all Gryffindors too — Ron and Neville were even in the same dormitory as him.
The night before, they'd chatted and mucked about until quite late before finally drifting off to sleep. But Harry woke that morning feeling remarkably alert, because this afternoon he'd finally get to attend Professor Vincent's class!
All through the morning, wherever Harry went, he ran into clusters of curious students pointing and whispering about him. It irritated him, but there was little he could do — most of them seemed to mean no harm, just curiosity.
Charms class was good fun, mainly because the spells themselves were genuinely wonderful. The Wingardium Leviosa in particular — Harry had already practised it successfully on Dudley that evening weeks ago, and after several more days of drilling, he had it down cold. Professor Flitwick praised him warmly for it and awarded Gryffindor five points.
Defence Against the Dark Arts had been the lesson everyone was most excited for, yet Professor Quirrell managed to turn it into a complete farce. Two full hours, and all anyone came away with was the smell of garlic.
Potions was even more gruelling. Professor Snape — who looked rather like a great bat — seemed to have a personal grudge against Harry, peppering him with question after question without let-up.
Since Harry had spent time reviewing his Potions textbook at Vincent's house beforehand, he actually answered several of Snape's rapid-fire questions correctly. The result was that Snape's expression grew darker with each correct answer, until he instructed Harry to brew a potion on the spot — something that was entirely beyond a first-year's capabilities. Snape immediately seized on Harry's failure, mocking him with cold sarcasm, and when Harry couldn't help but answer back, he docked ten points from Gryffindor.
"Sorry, Ron — I cost Gryffindor points."
Ron slung an arm around Harry. "Oi, mate — a blind man could see Snape was gunning for you! Who makes a student brew a potion from scratch without teaching them anything first? What's the point of having him as a professor?"
Hermione frowned. "But why would Professor Snape have it in for Harry?"
"No idea. I could already tell he didn't like me at last night's Start-of-Term Feast." Harry glanced around. "Where's Neville?"
"Oh, he had it far worse than you!" Ron hunched his shoulders. "While Snape was walking you through your potion step by step, Seamus's cauldron suddenly exploded, and Neville got splattered from head to toe. Boils all over him — they've sent him to the hospital wing."
Harry winced. "Seamus again? He seemed to cause explosions in Charms and Defence too, didn't he?"
Hermione said icily, "He nearly set my hair on fire."
"So in Professor Vincent's lesson in a bit — do you think he'll still…?"
"He probably won't. From what I've heard, Muggle Studies doesn't require a wand."
"But Potions didn't require a wand either."
"…Oh."
The three of them halted in their tracks and exchanged uncertain looks, suddenly rather worried about what Muggle Studies might have in store.
Two o'clock in the afternoon.
The Gryffindor and Slytherin students had barely finished settling in when Vincent strode briskly through the classroom to the front.
He held his wand and swept his gaze around the room. The students gradually fell quiet.
Vincent gave a satisfied nod, then raised his wand and traced his name in the air in flowing script. "Although Professor Dumbledore introduced me to you all last night, it's still only right to introduce myself on the first day of class."
"My name is Vincent Moriarty. You may address me as Professor Vincent."
"Now then — let's begin."
Vincent swept the smoky letters away. "Can anyone tell me — what exactly is a Muggle?"
The question brought a brief hush over the room. Several of the young witches and wizards from Muggle backgrounds hesitated, unsure whether to raise their hands.
Whoosh.
Hermione's hand shot up first.
"Miss Granger. Go ahead."
Hermione answered briskly: "A Muggle is the wizarding term for an ordinary person without magic. The word varies by region — in America, for instance, they say 'No-Maj'."
"Correct. Textbook answer."
Vincent gave her no points, turning instead to the Slytherin students. "Second question — why do we study Muggles?"
Most of the Slytherins, who came from pure-blood families, looked distinctly unimpressed and couldn't be bothered to respond. A few who knew something of Vincent's reputation dropped their gazes, avoiding eye contact.
"In that case — Malfoy, let's have…"
Malfoy's body tensed. He was just about to look up when he heard: "…the student next to Malfoy — Mr. Goyle. Tell us."
"Huh?"
Goyle blinked blankly. He scratched his head and thought hard for a moment. "Dad took me to see a Muggle film once. It was a good laugh."
"Excellent!"
Vincent smiled in agreement. "The reason I say that answer is excellent is that the expressions on more than half the faces in this room tell the story all by themselves — they don't even know what a film is."
"When Muggles are unaware that magic exists, wizards feel entitled to call them 'Muggles' — or worse, sneer at them as 'Mudbloods'. So, when wizards are equally ignorant of things Muggles have, doesn't it follow that Muggles could use a similar kind of name to describe wizards?"
"Something like country bumpkins? Relics? Those would be on the polite end. They could just as well invent a word every bit as cutting as 'Mudblood', just to throw it back at us."
A voice from the Slytherin side: "Then the wizards would just hex them into next week!"
It was a girl — Pansy Parkinson, from a pure-blood family.
"Quite right. And by that same logic — if a wizard insults a Muggle, can't the Muggle strike back just as viciously?"
"Of course they could try. I just don't think they'd have the means."
Vincent smiled slightly and turned to Hermione. "Miss Granger — could you do me a favour and inform Miss Parkinson which battle in the Muggle world had the single highest death toll, and how many people died?"
Hermione hesitated for a few seconds. "It should be the Siege of Leningrad. Five months. The death toll exceeded four million."
A gasp rippled through the classroom. Most of the young students reacted with shock and disbelief.
"Correct. Five months, four million dead. That averages to eight hundred thousand per month. Twenty-seven thousand per day. Now — can anyone tell me the total number of wizards in Britain?"
Everyone looked at each other.
Vincent answered his own question: "Some say three thousand, others say two thousand. In my estimation, these figures likely don't account for wizards living in seclusion — but even being generous, the number cannot exceed ten thousand."
"But I'm getting ahead of myself."
"Now answer me this, Miss Parkinson: what do you think caused twenty-seven thousand Muggle deaths in a single day? Do you really think that even if You-Know-Who returned with his Death Eaters and went on a killing rampage, he could match that in one day? Do you honestly believe that people capable of inflicting destruction on that scale pose no threat to wizards whatsoever? Because if one day—"
"Enough, Vincent!"
To be continued…