Chapter 275: Chapter 275: International Magicians' Guild (Part 2) (Edited)
"The reason is simple, because the process is simply too complicated for those magical creatures to perform, not to mention the fact that transformations require wands! Wands can only be used by wizards, magical animals can't use them..." Professor McGonagall explained to Tom the characteristics of being an Animagus.
In the end, she added, "I prefer to believe that there are little wizards who are born Animagi than cats or other animals that can take human form. If a cat can turn into a human, it must be some kind of unknown magical creature."
What Professor McGonagall didn't know was that this conversation would be the only interaction she would have with the students in this Transfiguration class. Afterward, no matter what she said, there was no response from the students: no questions were asked, no answers were given, and there was no further interaction, not even when she told a joke, which Professor McGonagall thought was funny, but there was no response.
Professor McGonagall felt like she was giving a lesson to the classroom wall. All the students in the class were sitting in the classroom, but their souls had gone somewhere else. Oh, Professor McGonagall realized, it seemed like everyone's souls had been taken by Harry Potter.
"Very well, let me show you how." She transformed into a tabby cat in front of the class, but the students remained distracted.
Professor McGonagall reluctantly transformed back to her original form.
"What's happening? Are these the first students who see me transform and don't applaud?"
Hermione raised her hand.
"The last Divination class..."
Professor McGonagall instantly realized, "Alright, Miss Granger, who among you is going to die this year?"
Harry raised his hand.
Professor McGonagall stared at Harry with her shining eyes. "Potter, Sybil has predicted the death of a student every year since she arrived at this school: Fred, Ron's brother, sitting next to you, has received such a prediction and is still alive and well."
It was clear that Professor McGonagall, just like Hermione, had no patience for Divination. Tom was sure that Hermione continued to attend Divination classes purely out of student instinct.
"Well, Mr. Potter, that's no reason for you not to do your homework tonight, and I assure you that if you die, you won't have to turn it in."
The joke managed to make the class laugh, and the atmosphere in the classroom lightened a bit. Amid the laughter, Tom continued, "And if Harry became a ghost? Like Professor Binns?"
Professor McGonagall thought for a moment and said, "Then you can take over Harry's part, Yodel. Anyway, you have plenty of time." She gave Tom a meaningful look.
"Oh, by the way," Professor McGonagall remembered something as the bell rang, "I need to see if your Transfiguration levels have dropped after the holidays, don't say I didn't warn you."
With that bombshell, Professor McGonagall left in a very good mood, leaving a classroom full of frozen students.
The prophecy from Professor Trelawney had shocked the Gryffindor students, but Hermione was not concerned at all. It was less important to her than the new stew being served in the kitchens. After the sumptuous lunch, Hermione left the Great Hall, rubbed her slightly swollen belly, and said to Tom, "That stew was exotic, sliced pork, vegetables, and strange white pieces stewed together, it had a pleasant flavor... but I hesitated before eating it! The taste of that white thing is very strange..."
Both of them chatted and walked back to the Ravenclaw common room, exchanging glances before returning to their respective dormitories, placing their crystal balls under their pillows, and taking a nap.
Tom was very curious about this so-called "International Union of Wizards." He couldn't wait, and if he didn't enter at noon, he would have to wait until nightfall.
Tom had had four classes in the morning,
This made him fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a room resembling a cabin with nothing more than a bed, a chair, and a nightstand. Bright light streamed in through the skylight in the ceiling, and through the window, Tom saw a clear blue sky. Strangely, the floor seemed to be trembling softly.
There was a book on the nightstand next to the bed.
Tom opened the book, flipped through the pages, and found lines of text flying out, as if editing a shared document.
Tom randomly flipped to a page and read it.
[Unidentified disappearance of Transcontinental Railway personnel]
[Mission rating: B, recommends an Auror lead a team to investigate]
[Mission description: Insufficient clearance to view.]
[Reward: 8000 points]
Tom raised his eyebrows, this thing created by Nicolas Flamel was interesting! Perhaps it's because this is a dream world, so it's easier to do things that are difficult to do.
Tom stepped out of the room and found himself on a small boat. It was a small boat, no more than seven or eight meters long and five or six meters wide, with hardly anything else besides the cabin: no rudder, no sails, no cables, nothing.
In front of the boat was a vast ocean, but the sea was strange, not blue or black, but pure white, and the boat seemed to be drifting on the clouds.
Tom spotted a ladder on the cabin wall and climbed up it. Once on the roof, the view opened up, and Tom saw Hermione's boat next to his, also on the roof.
They both had the same reaction upon seeing each other and couldn't help but smile.
"So, what are we going to do?" Tom asked Hermione out loud from the roof. "Didn't Dumbledore say that we would enter the guild when we fell asleep?"
Hermione shrugged, indicating that she wasn't sure. But as soon as they said that, the boat moved, rapidly advancing.
"This is outrageous," Tom said, slightly annoyed that he and Hermione had to shout every word... As the idea occurred to him, the two boats merged and became one, so he could stand beside Hermione.
"Good boy! That's very human," Tom exclaimed.
"It's a dream, after all," Hermione found it normal.
Tom glanced at the "waters" beneath the boat and saw that deep within those "clouds," a thousand strange images seemed to flash rapidly.
"I think it's someone else's dream," Tom speculated based on the few images he had seen, and Hermione leaned in and closely observed the remnants of the clouds.
After a while, the boat came to a stop.
Chapter 276: Chapter 276: Newt Scamander (Edited)
The boat took Tom and Hermione to a harbor. In the middle of the harbor, a wooden bridge extended into the sea, with several platforms branching out on both sides. Around the platform, several boats were parked, of different styles and models, but all of similar size: seven or eight meters long and five or six meters wide. Tom's boat, which had been in the middle of a gap, found a place to dock.
"Isn't this a Muggle autopilot?" Tom observed the precision of the "reverse parking" and wondered again about the consideration of the dream world. If his boat had gotten stuck on the dock, he would have been the laughingstock of wizards worldwide, wouldn't he?
Tom stepped onto the dock's trestle, and there was a creaking of planks. Although there were many boats moored alongside the bridge, there was no one on the hundreds of meters long bridge. At the end of the bridge, there was an endless meadow.
Blue sky, sea of clouds, blue fields. If this space is a man's dream world, his mind is so clear.
At the edge of the meadow, near the sea, there was a small two-story cabin.
Tom and Hermione walked towards it. As they approached, they realized that the cabin didn't seem different from an ordinary cabin in the woods, and there was even a low fence outside, with some plants that Tom couldn't name growing in the space between the house and the fence.
The two entered through a gap in the fence, crossed the small garden, and arrived at the cabin door, which opened by itself before they could knock.
[Arrival at: International Guild of Wizards]
Tracking search for 'Dumbledore's Ordeal' (II) activated: Enter "Mercury" conference room and speak with the person inside].
The space behind the door, not much larger than it appeared from the outside, was laid out in a way that resembled a post office. Once inside, there was a circular-shaped counter, and Tom could see a person sitting behind it. Next to the counter were two staircases, one leading to the first floor and the other downward, presumably to the basement. Additionally, there were several sliding doors on the walls surrounding the room, and voices could be heard behind them.
The reception area, which was like a foyer, was decorated in a homely manner, like the living room of a three-member family. There was barely any decoration, not even a stool, but the wizards who entered it relaxed, as if they were at home.
Upon entering, Tom rang a little bell that was on the door, and the sound it made startled the man who was sitting behind the counter. He looked at the visitor at the door: a pair of handsome-looking wizards, not very old, wearing Hogwarts uniforms and Class D badges on their chests.
Tom also saw the young man behind the counter, who had light blond hair, neither too long nor too short, reaching down to his collar. He wore a plain black wizard's robe and the same Guild of Wizards badge pinned on his chest, except that in the center of the badge were the initials "IWU," the International Wizarding Union, instead of the class letters.
He's a Guild staff member. And given the peculiarities of the Guild's location, it was likely that he was not a living person but some kind of dream-like being.
Upon entering, the badges that Tom and Hermione wore on their chests flashed with a burst of light. The notebook in front of the blond-haired boy also automatically displayed Tom's personal data.
"Welcome to the halls of the International Guild of Wizards, Mr. Yodel and Miss Granger. I'm Chuck, the Guild's receptionist. You're new to the Guild, please proceed to Room 7 for orientation..."
Chuck suddenly paused as he saw a new notice added at the bottom of their profiles.
"Excuse me, please proceed to the [Mercury] conference room on the first floor. Someone is waiting for you there."
Tom climbed the stairs to the first floor and discovered that it was also filled with cubicles, but each had a small sign on the door, the first one was [Hydrogen], the second [Helium], and then [Lithium], and so on.
Tom raised his eyebrows, knowing that Nicolas Flamel, the alchemical master, knew a lot about the periodic table of elements. Tom headed straight to the depths of the floor. "Mercury" was element number 80, quite far back.
When Tom and Hermione reached the front of the [Mercury] conference room, they heard a metallic noise coming from inside the room, as if someone was engaged in a fierce struggle.
Tom flung open the door to the conference room, and a dark figure lunged directly at his face, hitting him with a loud thud, causing Tom to feel dizzy.
"Accio!" An ancient voice intoned a summoning spell. The dark figure that had just struck Tom's face writhed and twisted, trying to resist, but in the end, it was no match for the magic and was flung backward, toward a large hand.
Tom was already on his feet, recovered from the shock. He saw the culprit in his face for what it was: a chubby creature covered in black fuzz with a long snout.
Tom recognized it as a Niffler.
It was struggling desperately in the hands of a man, and occasionally a few gold coins spilled out of its plump belly. The man holding it, with white hair, wore a blue tweed overcoat and a Hufflepuff-style scarf around his neck.
He held onto the Niffler tightly, then grabbed a suitcase from the table, opened a slit in it, and stuffed it inside, pressing its body against it as soon as it was inside and locking the latch. The suitcase swelled a couple of times and then stopped moving.
He stood up panting, placed the case back on the table, wiped the sweat from his brow, and looked at Tom and Hermione at the door with a slightly embarrassed smile. "I'm sorry, I don't know why this one came... like its great-grandfather, it's an overly energetic Niffler."
He took a step forward, extended his hand in front of Tom, and introduced himself, "Newt Scamander."
Hermione covered her mouth for a moment, almost exclaiming, the elderly man in front of her was the author of the book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"!
"Tom Yodel, this is Hermione Granger." Tom shook Newt's hand, noticing that Newt seemed somewhat surprised by Hermione's reaction, and he helped address her doubts.
"Hermione loves reading, and she loved your book 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'."
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