Arriving at Old Tom's, Owen Harris greeted Tom warmly, "Tom, business is booming! Please bring me a glass of fish-flavoured green ale and a glass of pumpkin juice for each of the kids."
"Yes, Owen, one moment please." Old Tom bent over and bowed as if to thank his guest for coming - then Luke realised that the very old, almost hairless, toothless, wrinkled hotelier who looked like a deflated pecan actually had a back that had gone a bit lumpy.
"What dedication." Luke was still quite taken with the old Tom, and then gained a few more shades of admiration after seeing the other man snap his fingers to light the fireplace for their group of guests without a wand - even if these were minor spells that weren't even formal magic spells yet, it still wasn't quite an easy thing to do so effortlessly and casually without the use of a wand.
"Owen, Owen Harris ......" came the enthusiastic call from the back right of the window.
"Arthur, how nice to see you!" Owen changed his previous disdain for the Weasley's when he was at home and embraced Arthur Weasley warmly, as if he were embracing a long lost brother.
"It's rare to have the leisure to get together why don't we go for a drink." Owen felt he'd found his chance, Arthur would surely be willing to take on the matter of dealing with Muggle magical items.
"Great." Glancing at his wife Molly, who was having a lovely conversation with Morgan le Fay Harris, Arthur Weasley agreed without hesitation, "Ron can have some company with this lad of yours, be careful not to run far."
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a red-haired teenager with some freckles on either side of his nose dug in behind him and looked at Luke with some trepidation.
"This is a rare opportunity to explore freely." Luke unconsciously patted the gold galleons in his bag gently before taking the initiative to walk up and introduce himself to the red-haired boy.
Ron was a very talkative man, and he rarely seemed to see such a co-operative audience - in fact, of the Weasley children, he was one of the least appreciated.
As a good teacher, Luke was very good at listening, not to mention the fact that Luke learnt a lot of interesting information during the conversation.
After listening to Ron talk about his family Luke couldn't help but start to make up his own mind, "Speaking of which, the Weasley surname itself is derived from a variation of the word weasel which is also known as a weasel, this kind of animal has a bad reputation in a lot of countries, including England, this kind of animal's fur is the reddish blonde colour of its fur, and Ron's father's name is Arthur, and the guardian of his patronus spell is a weasel.
Arthur's name is rather the same as King Arthur, and historically that King Arthur a major antagonist was a Roman politician called Lucius Tiberius, and one of Arthur Weasley's sons Percy Weasley's Percy is a shortened form of Percival, the name of one of the Knights of the Round Table, and Arthur's daughter Ginny's name is a diminutive, and her full spelling would be Ginevra, which is King Arthur's wife's name A variation of Guinevere - so the daughter was daddy's lover in a past life?"
Luke shook his head to stop the rambling, and with unmoving encouragement and condescension, Luke matched little by little the memories that were not his own, blending in the common sense about the magical world left by his predecessor.
"Luke, look, there's a lot of activity over there!" Ron, who was gushing about the Quidditch Chaddery Firebolt team, suddenly changed the subject.
Luke followed Ron's gaze, only to see a crowd of people huddled next to the Quidditch Boutique, cheering and shouting.
Ron immediately stopped in his tracks from entering the Quidditch boutique and instead pulled Luke into the crowd.
"Wow, the Malfoy boy is great, he's already got five Medals of Honour to redeem for an autographed poster of Aidan Lindzie." A voice of envy and jealousy rang in his ears, and there were many more voices like that.
"Who is Aidan Linzi?" Luke asked Ron.
"He's the ball finder for the Irish team, who saved the day and won the recent Quidditch match for the Irish!"
Ron proudly didn't hide his fervent admiration for Linzie and looked at the poster with fire in his eyes.
"Ha, Luke, how about we join in? Surely we can outdo the Malfoy kids!" Ron was clearly just thinking straight to the wonderful outcome, and hadn't even begun to mean the difficulty of this process of reaching that goal.
"A poor Weasley family? Try to outdo me, if you dare!" Draco Malfoy looked Ron and Luke up and down, all his looks and body language signalling disdain.
Ron felt that these so-called "true purebloods" had a knack for making you uncomfortable with their eyes without saying a word, making them realise their own poverty, their own humility - even if their family was one of the twenty-eight Sacred Clans.
Malfoy's platinum blonde hair shone in the sunlight, though his fairly cute face was marred by his raised eyebrows, making him look overly superior and obnoxious.
"We'll definitely pass you! Luke, let's go answer the questions." Ron waved his fist towards Malfoy.
Malfoy narrowed his eyes at Luke, the boy with light blonde hair like him looked and dressed rather more like a pureblood wizard should than the Weasley next to him, as if his grandmother was still a distant cousin of his mother? If he didn't hang out with the traitorous Weasley family, he would be a better follower than Goyle and Crabbe, "I'm Draco, from the ancient Malfoy family. Your name is Luke? Is this hair a child of the Harris family? If you can answer three questions correctly, I'll allow you to follow me as a friend."
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"What an arrogant teenager!" Luke thought to himself, as a classroom teacher who had been teaching for seven years, Luke knew all too well the true desires of these teenagers deep down.
The boy in front of him, whose episode as he remembered it was the obnoxious talk and arrogant attitude that had caused him and Harry Potter to have a grudge before the start of the school year, had initially wanted nothing more than to be friends with Harry Potter.
But when it came to answering the questions, Luke really had no stamina, after all, he, an outsider, had merely read the original book and some related materials, and although he knew the key points of the plot, he really didn't understand the knowledge system of this world.
Ron had already pulled Luke in line, Luke returned to his senses and carefully observed the answers of the contestants in front of him.
Currently, none of them had answered more than four questions correctly.
Ron had been dumbfounded, "Luke, oh no, it's going to be embarrassing, I don't know a single question, do you?"
On the contrary, Luke's heart was already half down.
This was just some brain teasers, logical riddles, it seemed like it was just like taking advantage of the wizards' knowledge blind spots so that they couldn't answer the questions. As a maths teacher, his hobby was to play Sudoku for a while or do some logic puzzles.
"Don't be afraid, I'm here." A confident Luke patted Ron and calmed him down.
Soon the queue reached Luke and Ron.
The Quidditch clerk waved his wand, only to see the title quickly displayed on the giant parchment, ten inches long and wide: five silver sikors of the same size. How should they be placed when they are required to touch each other two by two?
"Ah Merlin's trousers! I've never touched a silver cico before!" Ron's hands dug into his hair in desperation and yanked it down tightly.
"This has nothing to do with whether or not you have a Ginzico. Don't worry, I can fix it." Luke's confident look managed to stop Ron's hands from trying to turn himself into a Jedi.
"Put one Ginzico on the bottom, then the second and third on top of the first, and the other fourth and fifth upright on top of the first."
Luke said as he pulled out the silver sico to demonstrate.
No one could solve the puzzle so quickly, not even Malfoy. Unless the player had read the solution to this question beforehand, but the young wizard obviously wasn't at an age where he could just come out and shop on his own.
Receiving the six-maned star-shaped medal of honour handed over by the shopkeeper, he also received a number of admiring looks.
"The second question is also related to coins."
The shopkeeper seemed to think highly of Luke and winked at him.
"The next topic can only be done by one person, which one of you will do it?"
Ron eyed Luke, which made Luke feel like he should be obliged to do it.
"I'll do it!" Luke looked to the clerk.
"Close your eyes, please!" The clerk blindfolded Luke with a folded thick red cloth.
The clerk then held out a pile of copper nativities on the table, waved his wand, and then said, "Here are twenty-three copper nativities lying flat on the table, ten of them face up. Please divide these copper nativities into two piles in the best way you can, and each pile needs to have the same number of copper nativities facing upwards."
"That's too hard, the copper natriums are about the same to the touch on the front and back, so how can you feel them when you can't see them!"
"It might require the use of prophecy, even if you don't open your eyes you can still see it."
"Even if divination can be useful, but now you still have to be blindfolded, it's no way to look at the crystal ball or tea leaves."
"It's over, Luke said before that he doesn't know magic spells!" Ron looked worriedly at Luke, then realised that he actually didn't know it either...
Not the least bit affected by the onlookers, Luke calmly and calmly chose thirteen copper natroniums to place on one side without changing direction, chose ten more, again without changing direction, and placed them on the other side, then flipped all ten copper natroniums over.
"Completely correct, truly remarkable for a head at your age, were you born into a mixed family? The Ravenclaw pureblood wizards who used to get it right weren't as fast, you know...o, you may not know it by now, those smart people are better at philosophical questions than these muggle maths problems" the clerk was clearly amazed that such a young child could have such abilities, he moved to neatly undo the red cloth that had blindfolded Luke, "those muggle maths questions," the clerk said, "I'm not sure if you can do that, but I'm sure you can. red cloth over Luke's eyes, "Those Muggle-born wizards seem to be better at these little games."
"I'm a pureblood who just happens to have read a few muggle books." Luke casually responded, then began to continue answering the questions, and unsurprisingly, he flowed through them, solving the questions that were difficult for wizards, or Cockney's for that matter.
The clerk handed Luke the poster of Aidan Linzi.
It took Luke, who hadn't yet shifted from his Muggle mindset, to notice that this wasn't an ordinary poster, it was moving.
A man with the physique of a Mr Bodybuilder was sitting on a flying broomstick, ripping his shirt off his chest, and hissing "wow!" in celebration of his victory, judging by the shape of his mouth.
But apart from his initial surprise, Luke didn't think it was all that surprising - after all, he'd lived in a world that could hold images much longer than this one - and casually handed the poster to Ron.
Ron's ears were red, Weasley's tutelage made him feel that he shouldn't accept this reward for a game he hadn't contributed anything to, but then again he just couldn't stand the temptation of a poster of his favourite ball finder player.
"I'll stick him above my bed, thank you Luke!" Ron stammered his thanks, holding the poster close to his chest, with the intention in mind of spending some time saving up an allowance to make some amends to his opponent as well.
"Never." Luke swept a glance at Aidan Linzi, who was hissing on Ron's chest, "Even without the sound, just that aura will probably keep you awake at night..."
"May I ask if you need to continue the challenge?"
The clerk's attitude on the side was kind, he also very much enjoyed the feeling of Luke's super-fast speed to abuse the onlookers to the skin, such a speed of answering the questions simply made the onlookers wizards doubt their lives, even if they were born as a muggle, but under the maths education in the United Kingdom, these people also had the doubt of "whether they were born without a brain".
"Of course. You saw what my friend did, he'll do!" Ron had become Luke's fanboy, although normally he wasn't too fond of know-it-all nerds like this one, it would remind him of his older brother Percy Weasley who didn't please him.
"Okay." The clerk waved his wand excitedly, not giving Luke a chance to refuse. He was equally excited to see how far Luke would go.
"What's the incantation for the floating spell?" It's indeed difficult for children, since it's something you have to go to magic school to actually be exposed to, other than having previewed a textbook for a magic spells class ahead of time."
"Feathergardium leviosa." That was just about as hard as it got for Luke, having seen both the original and the film, he remembered the scene so well, in fact, he couldn't help but recite it along with Miss Know-It-All once every time he watched it...
But at the same time, he felt that his challenge might soon be coming to an end, after all, the spells he remembered were really limited.
"Ding - The Scholar System is at your service." As Luke was accepting the reality that he might fail the challenge, an ethereal and somewhat trance-like female voice sounded out of thin air in his head. Sirius. Black, the dark side hidden deep within his personality like his surname!