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30 August 1942
I took a deep breath and left the house with my trunk. Unfortunately, my pouch was not enough to hold everything I needed. So I had to carry a big trunk to school.
As soon as I closed the door of the house, I felt that the anti-theft wards and talismans that my father had previously set up in our house were activated. In the past, I could not feel magic so clearly. But occlumency studies had shown their benefits in this field as in every field. Not only the magic energy inside my body. It became easier for me to feel the surrounding energy as well. I was very close to finishing level 2. The benefits were obvious. My memory was clearer than ever. Spells came to me almost at will. I almost didn't even need to think about spell words and wand movements. At first, I had a hard time understanding why occlumency was not taught at Hogwarts when it was so useful. Then, when I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that the reason why it progressed so quickly was the strengthening of my mind due to voxnaturae and the merging of my mind with Hagrid. Otherwise, it would have been much more difficult. I went to the pine tree in the garden and saw Faye playing with her brothers and sisters. Last week the tree had given birth to two more bowtruckles. Unfortunately these two were more hostile to humans and more attached to the tree, so they had refused to come with me. Which was good in a way. Otherwise I wouldn't have known what to do with the greenhouse tree. The two bowtruckles were very attached to it and took the job of protecting and caring for it very seriously. The greenhouse tree had also made great progress over time. Its life force was no longer like a dying candle, but more like deciduous trees in winter. I could safely say that it had survived the dangerous time. I called out to Faye and told him it was time to go and after saying goodbye to his brothers he climbed on top of me and took his place in my breast pocket. After leaving the garden I did something I had decided never to do again, I took out my wand and called for the knight bus. The conductor started talking after loading my luggage onto the bus. The man looked really tired. There was no trace of his previous cheerful demeanour.
'Where are you travelling to?'
'King's Cross station london'
'Ten sickles.'
After paying, I went to the back and sat down, this time prepared and glued myself to the seat with an adhesive charm. When I looked at the bus, there were probably a few families going to the same place as me. Two more families got on the bus on the way. When we arrived at King's cross station, there was a race to get off the bus. After taking my trunk, I dragged it by its wheels and started walking through the railway station. Probably because of my height, the muggles I passed looked at me strangely. When I came to the wall before platform 9 ¾, I stopped for a moment until the muggle repellent spell at the entrance took hold of me. After confirming that the surrounding muggles were no longer paying attention to me, I crossed the wall and entered platform 9 ¾. Although I knew this place from Hagrid's memories, it was very different to see it in person as a fantasy fiction fan in my previous life. On the platform, families were saying goodbye to their children or helping them get on the train. I think there was still a little more than an hour before the train departed, so the platform was not full to the brim. I walked on the platform with slow steps, enjoying every moment of it. I'm sure this place was the dream of every potterhead. After boarding the train, I found an empty compartment. After closing the door behind me, I put my trunk in place and sat by the window.
After watching out of the window for a while, I was bored, so I took a book on ancient runes out of my trunk and started reading it. As the train was about to leave, the compartment door suddenly opened. John Fawley, a Gryffindor from our year, entered.
'Hello Hagrid. There are no other seats left on the train, would you mind if we sat here?'
'Sure.' John's mates came in and sat down and started chatting amongst themselves. Old Hagrid wasn't a bad bloke, but people tended to avoid him because of his size. John was one of the few people brave enough or well-meaning enough to talk to me. That's why I didn't want to offend him.
-Narrator's point of view-
In a random compartment on the Hogwarts express. A strange scene was taking place. 4 children were talking and joking among themselves while a very big boy was sitting quietly by the window reading his book. Finally, one of the boys turned to the big boy and started talking to him. There was a twinkle of mischief in the boy's eyes that seemed to never go away.
'Hey Hagrid, what book are you reading?' he tried to start a conversation.
Hagrid looked up from his book and pointed to the cover and began to speak.
'This year's ancient runes book. I thought it would be useful to read before you go to school.'
Arthur Carrow of Ravenclaw, the other boy sitting next to him, said, 'Ancient runes? I didn't know you'd chosen that subject, don't take this the wrong way, but you don't strike me as much of a bookworm.'
Rubeus said, 'I wasn't expecting it either, it was a bit of a last minute choice. So what lessons have you learnt, people?'
Alexandra Crouch, another Ravenclaw.
'I took ancient runes, Aritmansi and muggle studies'
Anna Bones of Hufflepuff 'Arithmanship and the care of magical creatures.'
John Fawley 'Arithmansy and ancient runes.'
Arthur Carrow 'Divination and Arithmansy'
Rubeus spoke a little hesitantly. 'Aritmansi, ancient runes and the care of magical creatures.'
Meanwhile, Fawley spoke in surprise. 'Aritmansi and ancient runes, you amaze me more and more, Rubeus.'
'I've heard that Arithmansi and ancient runes are specialities that every wizard should know, and the care of magical creatures is just what I love about them.' Rubeus tried to explain. 'What about you guys in divination and muggle studies?'
Crouch said, 'Muggle studies is important. My mum works at the ICW and her job is to research muggle technology and communication methods and develop new spells and measures to maintain the secrecy charter. Also, muggle studies is a necessary NEWT for many positions in the Ministry of Magic.'
Carrow 'Although the divination course at Hogwarts is not very good, divination is actually a very useful thing. The essence of divination is to gather information. For example, a knight's bus uses divination to find out who summoned him.'
Fawley whistled, 'I thought divination was about seeing the future.'
At this point Anna Bones joined the conversation. 'To see the future using divination usually requires a certain ancestry. Unfortunately, schools in Europe tend to favour this discipline.'
Carrow said, 'Yes, although many European wizards would deny it, we are far behind in this field. My family has some acquaintances in Japan and China and it seems that Aurors there use divination spells that allow them to assess the threats in an area they are about to raid.'
Bones 'My uncle is an Auror and I've heard him complain about it, apparently the countries that use it are reluctant to share it.'
Crouch 'All magical civilisations guard their expertise to the death, I wish there was an organisation that allowed them to share their knowledge freely. Guilds facilitate this, but they are certainly not enough, and the ICW restricts information it deems dangerous in every possible way.' He looked quite angry as befitted an information-loving Ravenclaw.
Fawley shrugged and said nonchalantly, 'That's unlikely.'
Now it was Rubeus' turn to ask a question. 'How is it unlikely.'
Bones straightened up to answer. 'In the magical world, skill + knowledge = power. If a magician is powerful enough, he can be almost unstoppable. Grindelwald, for example, has shown up every time the ICW forces have made some progress in the war in Europe and almost single-handedly rendered all efforts useless and forced the ICW forces to retreat.'
'This is the reason why all magical countries both hate archmages and do everything they can to lure them to their countries, because if the archmage wants to do what he wants without respecting any laws, there is very little they can do to stop him. That is why they absolutely hate archmages. Likewise, since almost the only thing that can stand against an archmage is another archmage, they want them in their own country like crazy.'
Fawley 'Is there really nothing they can do against Grindelwald right now?'
Bones 'From what I heard from my uncle, Grindelwald specialises in the dark arts, so he's even at the top of the list of archmages in terms of fighting power.'
Crouch 'It doesn't help that many archmages are actually academics, because to become an archmage, not only magic power is enough, but a wide knowledge of magic is also needed. Archmages are also reluctant to fight against him unless the war directly affects their country.' here he continued after a pause. 'There are not that many archmages in the world anyway, the number of archmages known by the public in the whole world does not exceed 10.'
The children chatted like this for a while. Then the food cart came to their compartment.