Harry Potter: I am the Legend

The person who appeared was none other than Aglaia.

A self-proclaimed know-it-all and an arrogant girl. A self-centered critic of Galileo and Copernicus. She was the most "Ravenclaw" of all Ravenclaws.

"You have a unique way of saying hello," Hoffa said cautiously.

"Hmph."

She withdrew her fist and walked up to Hoffa with her arms crossed, her blue eyes filled with barely concealed excitement.

She moved so close that she was practically sticking to him. Raising her hand, she hovered it over his head and clicked her tongue.

Hoffa instinctively took a step back, already knowing why Aglaia had approached so closely.

Sure enough, she teased, "Oh~ Bach, did you starve yourself all summer? How did you suddenly get shorter?"

Indeed, she had gotten close to him to compare their heights.

Girls of the same age often developed faster than boys. Miranda had grown quite a bit, but Aglaia had grown even more. She was now slightly taller than Hoffa.

There wasn't much Hoffa could do about the laws of nature.

He replied coolly, "Just wait until I'm 20 years old."

"Ha! I'll still be taller than you at 20," Aglaia scoffed, shaking her arm dismissively.

At that moment, Hoffa noticed a very extravagant bracelet on Aglaia's wrist.

It was about five centimeters wide, adorned with gemstones and jade. Its edges were lined with intricate gold patterns and designs, resembling the kind of jewelry a top-tier Hollywood actress might wear to the Oscars.

"What's that?"

Hoffa pointed at her wrist, unable to resist asking.

"This?"

Aglaia raised her hand and waved it, flaunting it with pride. "Looks nice, doesn't it?"

"It does look nice," Hoffa muttered, but in his mind, he added, It just doesn't match your age.

Aglaia beamed. "It's a birthday gift from my mother, hehe. But it's actually an old family heirloom."

Miranda glanced at the distance and asked, "Did your parents come to see you off?"

At the mention of this, Aglaia's lips immediately pursed. "Hmph! I didn't need them to come along. They insisted on following me!"

Heh.

Hoffa rolled his eyes and glanced in the direction of Aglaia's parents. He was curious to see what kind of people could raise such a peculiar child, but by then, they had already disappeared into the fog.

The three of them boarded the train and found an empty carriage to sit in. Not long after, the train jolted and began chugging forward.

"I heard Professor Gorshak went to the Far East. Do you think they'll bring in a new Charms teacher this year?" Aglaia asked Miranda as soon as they sat down.

Miranda frowned. "That's odd. I never heard Adbe say the school was hiring a new Charms teacher."

"Of course, they'll bring in someone new," Aglaia said with certainty. "They just didn't tell you. Otherwise, what would we do for Charms class?"

Hoffa turned his head. "Maybe you could be our Charms teacher."

Miranda burst out laughing. "Come on, who's ever heard of a 12-year-old teacher?"

Indeed, 12-year-old teachers didn't exist. Hoffa thought to himself, Though, fifty years later, Harry Potter would become a teacher at 15, during his fifth year.

Once the laughter died down, Miranda's face grew worried.

"Adbe might be strict, but he's been a head of house and deputy headmaster for over 20 years. At this point, who would the school assign as our head of house?"

At that, Aglaia and Hoffa exchanged glances, both falling silent.

It was easy enough to find teachers — there were plenty of skilled wizards proficient in Charms. But it was much harder to find a house head. Even in later years, the Defense Against the Dark Arts position had a revolving door of instructors, but none were ever appointed as house heads.

Hoffa glanced at the students of Ravenclaw House, chatting and laughing in the adjacent compartment. They probably have no idea that their head of house has gone to the Soviet Union, he thought.

While the two girls chatted beside him, Hoffa kept his eyes on the window.

Young wizards ran up and down the train, bursting with energy and excitement.

Their compartment door was frequently slid open by boys wearing expressions of excitement, infatuation, or shyness. They had come specifically to greet Aglaia.

While Hoffa wasn't affected by Veela allure, others clearly were.

Not only did the boys come to see her, but some even brought gifts. Aglaia brushed them off with familiar, practiced indifference, but at one point, she quietly slipped her extravagant bracelet off her wrist and tucked it into her suitcase.

Eventually, Miranda had had enough. She pulled down the curtains and cast a Muffliato spell on the door to block out the noise.

The compartment finally grew quiet.

Miranda was about to sit down when the train suddenly screeched to a halt.

A sharp, piercing screech echoed as the brakes engaged, and Miranda lost her balance, falling squarely onto Aglaia's lap.

The two girls stared at each other in shock.

"Did the train stop?" Miranda asked in confusion.

"What's going on?"

Hoffa pulled out his wand and got up to look outside. He wasn't the only one. Curious heads peeked out from the doors of other compartments, and murmured conversations filled the train.

Bending down, Hoffa peered out of the window. All he could see was howling wind and thick fog. Beyond that, there was nothing.

"We should be close to the school by now, right?" Miranda asked.

The dense fog still clung to the surroundings, swirling in the gusty wind. Visibility was so low it seemed like the world beyond the window didn't exist.

Hoffa remained on high alert, gripping his wand tightly.

He had experienced enough "coincidences" to know that sudden stops like this rarely ended well.

Aglaia leaned over to glance at Hoffa's watch. "Hmm, if I calculated correctly, we're less than a kilometer away."

Looking at the thick gray fog outside, Hoffa's voice grew serious.

"Could it be Dementors?"

"Dementors? The guards from Azkaban?"

Aglaia snorted with laughter. "Hoffa, you've got such a wild imagination. Those creatures don't leave Azkaban so easily."

"Oh, I know about those things," Miranda said, raising a finger. "Aren't they afraid of the Patronus Charm?"

"Do you know the Patronus Charm?" Hoffa asked.

"Never learned it. I've never even seen a Dementor," Miranda replied nonchalantly. "Besides, I doubt Dementors are behind this stop. There's been no drop in temperature. Most likely, the train just broke down."

Sure enough, before she even finished speaking, a sharp whistle sounded from up ahead.

Pheeeew!

Through the dense fog, Hoffa saw a signal spell rise briefly before vanishing back into the mist.

At the same time, several train attendants appeared in the corridor, walking as they called out loudly, "If you're not dressed, get changed quickly! There's some trouble with the tracks ahead, and construction is in progress. Those ready should get off the train and follow the Hogwarts escorts to the castle."

Track construction?

Hoffa let out a breath of relief, scolding himself for being too jumpy. There aren't any fugitives on the run at Hogwarts these days, after all.

The two girls exchanged glances and headed out the door. Hoffa quickly drew the curtains and changed into his old robes inside the carriage.

Once he was done, he stepped out and saw that Miranda and Aglaia had also changed.

In the corridor, the young wizards were jostling each other, moving slowly toward the exits of each train carriage.

The moment they got off the train, a gust of wind whipped across them, forcing many of the young witches and wizards to shield their faces and noses with their robes.

The wild wind lashed at Hoffa, making his hair a tangled mess. Even the worst smog in Beijing isn't as bad as this, he thought.

Aglaia grumbled irritably as she fought against the wind. "How can Scotland have weather like this?"

Miranda stepped closer, placing one hand on Hoffa's shoulder and the other on Aglaia's. She whispered softly, "Talico — Skita."

Immediately, the howling wind seemed to hit an invisible barrier, splitting and flowing around them. Hoffa's wild hair dropped back into place.

"Thanks," Hoffa said as he ran a hand through his hair.

"I know how to cast Shield Charms too," Aglaia muttered.

"Sure you do," Hoffa replied dryly. "Would it kill you to go one minute without showing off?"

"I do know how," Aglaia mumbled, pouting in protest.

Just then, another sharp whistle echoed through the air.

Pheeeew!

Three figures in black robes approached quickly through the fog. As they drew closer, their outlines became clear — they were Aurors.

"First-years, follow me!" one of the Aurors called out. A group of first-years separated from the crowd, pushing and shoving as they moved toward the Auror.

"All other students, follow me!" another Auror ordered.

Miranda leaned close to Hoffa as they walked. "Did Joey leave?" she asked quietly.

Hoffa nodded. "He took Maya back to America."

Aglaia muttered to herself, "Looks like the Ministry's Department of Magical Law Enforcement is overseeing the hunting grounds this year. They're being really strict."

The three of them joined the rest of the students, slowly walking along the tracks shrouded in fog and buffeted by the wind.

From time to time, a few clumsy young wizards stumbled on the stones, tripping and falling to the ground, drawing snickers from the crowd.

Hoffa spotted a boy with short, spiky, pale blonde hair roughly shoving two Gryffindor students aside, loudly mocking them.

They hadn't walked far before Hoffa spotted the cause of the train's stop.

A massive wooden fortress extended from the direction of the Black Lake into the foggy distance, where it disappeared from sight. Every three steps, there was a guard post; every five steps, a watchtower. The fortress wasn't fully completed, as thick logs and large stones were scattered across the tracks.

There was no doubt that this fortress was built in response to the recent upheavals in the global wizarding community.

As they passed under the fortress, Hoffa tilted his head back, observing several wizards waving their wands atop the structure.

"Pretty tight security," he muttered.

No one replied. Without realizing it, the chatter around him had died down.

Due to the thick fog, the fortress soon disappeared from view, even though they had barely walked any distance at all.

Hoffa noticed the air around him had grown damp. The moisture crept in with the soft breeze, wetting his hair. Unbeknownst to him, the Shield Charm Miranda had cast on him had quietly worn off.

"Huh? What's going on?" Hoffa asked.

There was no answer.

The surroundings had become slightly brighter, and Hoffa felt something was off.

He looked up and saw a large but blurry half-moon hanging in the misty sky.

The moon shone too brightly, almost unnaturally so, and its outline was far too indistinct.

Startled, he whipped his head around, only to discover that everyone around him had vanished.

"Miranda?"

He called out, but there was no response.

"Aglaia?"

Again, no answer.

All that remained around him was the dense, inescapable mist. Before long, his clothes and hair were soaked through.

Something's wrong.

He took a couple of steps forward, but still, there was no sign of anyone. The scenery hadn't changed at all.

Feeling the sudden strangeness of the situation, Hoffa frowned and stopped moving. Tightening the straps of his backpack, he began to analyze what could have caused this anomaly. His first thought was of the illusion magic of the centaurs he had encountered last year. Back then, he'd fallen into an illusion because of the carvings on the oak tree.

But this time, he had simply been walking with his companions, only to be inexplicably drawn into this strange environment.

He tried to activate his mental force field, but to his dismay, it wouldn't extend even an inch through the fog.

"Damn it!" he muttered, his voice tinged with surprise and frustration.

Just then, a low, rumbling sound echoed from afar.

Clatter-clatter, clunk-clunk.

It was the rhythmic sound of tracks and the mechanical hum of moving parts.

A train?

A train?

But the train had stopped, hadn't it?

Hoffa's eyes widened in confusion.

Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble.

The ground?

He looked down.

To his shock, the gravel road beneath his feet had vanished without him even noticing.

He was now standing atop a vast, transparent surface — a giant, mirror-like plane. The thick fog that had surrounded him slowly thinned, and the gentle breeze transformed into a fierce gale.

Clatter-clatter, clunk-clunk!

The sound of the train grew louder and more intense.

Ripples formed beneath his feet, as though he were standing on the surface of water.

Hoooonk!!

A loud, piercing train whistle blared.

Out of the fog, a train came barreling toward him.

The wild wind, carrying the damp mist, struck Hoffa's body like a hammer.

Without hesitation, Hoffa jumped to the side.

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

The massive wheels of the train, driven by the mechanical rotation of its axles, thundered past him. Each wheel was so close that he could make out every bolt and detail of the train's undercarriage.

Through the rippling surface beneath him, he could faintly see a thin railway track.

But before he could make sense of it all, the high-speed train stirred up a surge of water vapor, turning his entire view into a foggy blur.

Amid the thick mist, something hit his face hard.

Smack!

"Hoffa!"

"Hoffa!!"

A cold, firm hand slapped him across the face.

His eyes flew open.

Staring back at him was a pair of bright, ghostly blue eyes.

It was Aglaia, her face inches from his, her expression a mixture of anxiety and frustration.

"Hey! What's wrong with you? Why are you wandering around like that?" she shouted.

"What do you mean I'm wandering around?" Hoffa blurted, still disoriented.

"Don't act clueless!" Aglaia pointed at the ground beneath him, clearly agitated. "Look where you are!"

Hoffa looked down and saw, to his astonishment, that he was standing on a bed of smooth, wet pebbles.

At some point, he had unknowingly strayed far from the train tracks and was now standing near the shore of the Black Lake.

Out on the water, several small wooden boats floated along. Inside them, groups of first-year students were taking part in the traditional crossing of the lake.

In the distance, the towering spires of Hogwarts Castle loomed on the opposite shore, its many windows aglow with warm, golden light.

"Did you see it?" Hoffa asked, still shaken.

"See what?"

"The undercarriage of the train!"

Aglaia stared at him like he had gone mad.

"The undercarriage of the train? What are you babbling about? The train stopped, remember!"

Frowning, she reached out to touch his forehead.

"And why are you soaking wet?"

(End of Chapter)

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