A troublemaker who could transform.
This reminded Harry of shapeshifters, a humanoid race that could transform into the likeness of anyone, even mimicking their thoughts, voice, and expertise.
Gryffindor certainly sounded interesting.
Harry didn't dwell on it too much, asking instead, "So, Mr. Hagrid, do you happen to know any blacksmiths?"
"I'm awfully sorry, little Harry, I don't," Hagrid said, shaking his head with an embarrassed look. Failing to be of help made him feel rather guilty, and he quickly added by way of compensation, "Though Professor Flitwick, your future Charms professor, has some goblin ancestry. Perhaps he might know a master blacksmith."
Harry nodded.
"Why... why would you want a sword?" Halfway there, Hagrid hesitated, but finally asked.
Harry kept a straight face. "When I was buying clothes earlier, Madam Malkin mentioned that Gryffindor was a wizard who wielded a longsword, and I figured I could be that kind of wizard too."
Hagrid grew excited. "Oh, yes!"
"I knew it, Harry, you're a true Gryffindor at heart."
"Your parents were both in Gryffindor House, I was in Gryffindor, and Headmaster Dumbledore was too."
He went on and on, introducing Hogwarts with great enthusiasm.
Harry couldn't help feeling that he brought far too much "bias" into it.
Slytherins were a bunch of cunning and deceitful scoundrels, Hufflepuffs were a bunch of unremarkable and dim-witted fools, and Ravenclaws were nothing more than wooden posts who only knew how to read books.
Harry added that silently in his mind.
Perhaps, in the eyes of the other houses, Gryffindors were simply brainless, loudmouthed troublemakers?
Somehow...
Hogwarts might not be a very peaceful place.
For the next month or so, Harry remained with the Dursleys—he actually wanted to leave and find somewhere else to live, as the Dursleys didn't like him.
However, an eleven-year-old body was terribly inconvenient, so he had no choice but to stay, reluctant and resentful.
Aside from meals and physical training, Harry almost never left his new room. Petunia had the place tidied up before he returned from Diagon Alley.
Harry named the owl Hedwig, a name he found in a History of Magic book—she had been a great witch who protected young wizards during the dark days of the witch hunts and taught them to prevent them from becoming Obscurials.
Magic in this world was everywhere.
The moment he finished naming her, an aura spread from Hedwig, wrapping around Harry and forging a connection between them.
It was neither a contract of words nor legal clauses.
Instead, it was a passive, magical contract of the blood.
How interesting...
Harry's interest in the magic of this world grew even stronger, and he eagerly threw himself into reading.
The magic of wizards bore a great deal of similarity to Witcher Signs—incantations, gestures, and firm conviction.
After finishing *A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry* and *Important Magical Events of the Twentieth Century*, Harry finally formed a general impression of the wizarding world.
Lifespans were short. Normal wizards lived for only a little over a hundred years. The longest-lived wizard, Nicolas Flamel, had extended his life to over six hundred years by taking a Potion called the Elixir of Life.
In the Witcher world, both sorcerers and witchers enjoyed very long lifespans.
Master Vesemir had lived for nearly three hundred years, yet he still looked like a middle-aged man—at least, he looked somewhat younger than Uncle Vernon.
However, the power of magic was immense.
The first Dark Lord, Grindelwald, had burned half of Paris with Fiendfyre. In the Witcher world, that would require the combined forces of multiple sorcerers to unleash such a powerful spell.
Then there was the Animagus.
Masters proficient in transfiguration could master an animal form. The only drawback was probably that the type of animal they transformed into was completely random.
Yet this was hardly an unacceptable flaw.
What interested Harry most of all, however, was Potions. An excellent witcher's capabilities stemmed from swordsmanship, Signs, and Potions.
Every witcher was an accomplished herbalist and potion-maker, and Harry was no exception.
Yet the potions of the magical world were more like "medicine."
They could age you, compel you to tell the truth, enhance your brainpower...
Crucially, they were practically non-toxic.
Normal people could not take witcher potions; the formidable toxicity contained within them would destroy their bodies in an instant. Even witchers, who had undergone mutations and possessed immunity to all poisons, could not take multiple potions in a short span of time.
Wizards' potions, however, had no such restrictions.
It was a novel and immensely useful field of potions, and Harry was hooked almost instantly.
If there was a single drawback...
Just as Harry had anticipated, the herbs of the two worlds had very little in common. Even "Mandrake," sharing the exact same name, had differences as vast as heaven and earth.
The Dursleys spent this period living in constant terror.
They would frequently see...
Harry waving a small stick, making tables and chairs fly back and forth through the air, or else attempting to slice magazines apart and mend them back together.
Or huddled in the attic, vapor bubbling away as he brewed goodness knows what kind of concoction.
Until the day before term started.
At the dinner table that evening.
"My dear uncle, you might have to trouble yourself to drive me to King's Cross Station tomorrow," Harry said after finishing a large steak.
Thank goodness!
This plague of a boy was finally leaving!
That was the only thought in Vernon's mind, but he still put up a tough front. "Going to a wizard school by train is simply ridiculous! Have all their blankets rotted away?"
"If there is superior transportation available, why wouldn't one use it?" Harry countered as a matter of course.
If the Witcher world had cars, trains, and airplanes, then sorcerers and witchers alike would be cheering. To tell the truth... traveling by portal was a truly miserable experience; unless the situation was particularly urgent, Harry and other witchers preferred riding horses.
"Which platform?" Vernon asked again.
"Platform Nine and Three-Quarters," Harry replied.
Vernon sneered, the chubby flesh on his face and belly shaking with a jiggle. "There's no such platform at all. I knew that bunch of lunatics..."
Harry waved a hand.
Vernon shrank his neck back like a frightened bird.
Nothing happened; Harry simply picked up his glass of milk. "Wizards have wizard ways. Since they can make ordinary people oblivious to their existence, naturally... they can also hide a wizard's train station inside an ordinary one."
He finished his milk in large gulps.
He returned to his room to pack all his things, along with the three potions he had brewed over the past month—two Draughts of Forgetfulness and one Pick-Me-Up.
The next day.
They set out at seven-thirty, enduring three hours of bumpy travel before arriving at King's Cross Station.
The crowds were surging, with travelers coming and going in an endless stream.
"All right, boy, you've arrived." Vernon helped Harry unload his luggage from the car, driving him off like a plague. "Platform Nine, Platform Ten, this is the place you're supposed to be."
"Go on and find your train with your wizard tricks!"
"Goodbye!" This final word was punctuated by the heavy slam of a car door. Vernon quickly placed the cage holding Hedwig onto the luggage trolley, slammed the door shut, stepped hard on the gas pedal, and vanished from Harry's sight in a flash.
Harry took a deep breath and opened up his senses.
The complex scent of humanity... that didn't matter.
A foul, sickening stench—it smelled like the body odor of scavenger creatures, though it was very old. A large pack of scavenger monsters must have been here once.
And most importantly, the aura of magic.
Pushing his trolley, Harry tracked this magical aura and quickly arrived in front of a wall—the wall between Platforms Nine and Ten.
This was the entrance.
Harry reached out and touched the wall; it felt solid, no mere illusion.
It seemed there was a special way to enter.
There were no marks of a wand striking the wall. Instead, looking down at the ground, he could clearly see footprints and trolley wheel tracks leading straight into the other side of the wall.
The stride length was wide, forceful, and hurried.
Harry followed the tracks forward, starting from three meters away.
So...
The way to get through was to take a running start and smash into the wall?
Harry thought thoughtfully, pushed his trolley back to where the tracks began, and broke into a trot forward—passing through the wall as a cool wave of magic washed over his body.
On the other side of the wall was another platform, hung with a sign reading "Platform 9¾."
Many people were dressed in ordinary clothes like him, while quite a few others wore wizard robes.
He checked his ticket and boarded the train.
Waving his wand to hoist his luggage, Harry waded through the thick crowds until he finally found an empty compartment at the back of the train. He didn't particularly care for forcing himself into other people's social circles.
He had barely sat down for a moment.
The compartment door was knocked upon, slid open with a screech, and a red-haired head poked in. "Excuse me, do you mind? Everywhere else is full, can I sit here?"
Harry nodded. "Of course."
The red head let out a sigh of relief. "Brilliant."
He opened the compartment door wider and began laboriously hauling his luggage inside.
Harry drew his wand and gave it a gentle wave; the luggage automatically floated into the corner.
"Oh... are you a senior student?" The red-haired boy grew more reserved, sitting down opposite him and lowering his head. "I thought... you were a first-year like me."
Harry smiled and shook his head. "No, I'm a first-year too."
"Then how do you know magic?" The red-haired boy jerked his head back in astonishment. "I asked my brothers to teach me, but I couldn't get the hang of it."
"I learned it from reading books myself," Harry replied succinctly.
The red-haired boy rubbed his messy mop of hair. "Then you must be a Ravenclaw."
"Let me introduce myself, I'm Ron, Ron Weasley."
"We're bound to be great friends. Compared to my older brothers, I'm not smart at all, so you'll have to help me with my homework."
Harry introduced himself in return. "Hello, I'm Harry Potter."
Ron sprang straight up, his eyes widening. "You're Harry Potter? The Harry Potter?"
As he spoke, his gaze dropped to Harry's forehead.
Harry raised a hand and brushed back his hair. "Yes, that Harry Potter."
In the Witcher world, he hadn't yet earned a moniker like the Butcher of Blaviken.
He hadn't expected his reputation in this world to be so loud.