"...Harry, do you think... it can come back alive?"
In the Gryffindor Common Room, Ron listlessly held his cheek and weakly asked Harry, who had just returned. Upon hearing this, Harry turned to look at his Nimbus 2000, leaned against the wall, the high-end flying broomstick he treasured each day, now seemed... unappealing.
Nimbus 2000: But... clearly, I was here first (╥﹏╥)!
However, Harry didn't react too strongly; losing the Firebolt wasn't much of a problem for him. At least he could still ride the Nimbus 2000 up to the Quidditch Pitch. The only one quite disgruntled by this was Ron. The boy's gaze drifted through the air and landed on a copy of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them * Latest Edition"—
His gaze lifted further, coming to rest on Hermione's frizzy brown hair.
"It really was him!"
Hermione suddenly placed the book she was holding onto her lap, her tightly furrowed brow relaxing slightly. "Meow?!" Crookshanks, who was sleeping in her lap, was startled, instinctively jumping to the side. Ron was also startled by the sudden movement of the big cat, raising his hand to cover the pocket on his chest.
Even though Crookshanks hadn't attacked his rat lately, the cat had a history, so he had to be cautious.
Thus, amidst the chaos of cats jumping and people flailing, Harry finally remembered to ask what started all this, "Who was it again?"
"It's..."
Hermione hesitated for a moment, calming Crookshanks down before standing up and reopening the book that had fallen to the floor. She pointed to the old man striking a pose on a horse-like Kelpie, and Harry frowned, finally matching the old man to an "extra" from lunchtime.
"Newt... Scamander?"
Harry looked at the introduction below the magic picture, frowning as he spelled out the old man's name, "Who is he?" Yet, Harry still looked completely clueless.
"Newton Artemis Fido Scamander! The most famous Magical Creatures Expert in the world! How is it possible that you don't know him?" Hermione's eyes widened, clearly shocked by the ignorance of her two extremely thick-headed friends once again.
"Really? How famous is he? We have to know him..."
Ron clearly didn't accept it. The mountain of events recently had made him quite annoyed with Hermione, yet inexplicably, Harry didn't share his anger at all. Despite Hermione causing his Firebolt to be confiscated, Ron couldn't help but sarcastically say upon hearing their conversation, having decided earlier never to speak to Hermione again.
"Our Magical Creatures textbook is written by him—"
Hermione grabbed hold of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," continuing, "Of course, this is the latest edition; we're using the revised edition from fifteen years ago. Scamander's photo back then wasn't as... uh, old as the one at lunchtime." Hermione struggled with her wording but then immediately remembered that the real star of their quips wasn't even present.
Even though Hagrid initially had them buy "The Monster Book of Monsters," because people frequently came to Professor McGonagall with bandaged hands requesting leaves of absence, Professor Meow ordered Hagrid to switch the textbook back to the original version within two weeks of the term starting, despite Hagrid's complaints that it was less exciting. But this was an order from the Deputy Headmistress.
The key issue was, two unnamed red-haired Gryffindor students, when requesting leave, had their bandages come loose in front of Professor McGonagall...
Revealing perfectly unharmed hands beneath.
As a result, that week, Filch didn't even clean the bathrooms, and there was a persistent stench in the Gryffindor Common Room.
"...Uh, alright."
Ron shut his mouth, he couldn't deny this fame. He and Harry were now remembering that during the textbook switch, Hagrid casually mentioned Newt, and even the second-floor corridor had Newt's portrait, though the painting was usually empty.
"At the time, I thought he looked familiar, but I couldn't figure out from where—" Hermione muttered as she continued.
"Why didn't you ask the senior at the time?" Harry suddenly asked, "I remember they seemed to be together?"
"...I forgot."
After a brief silence, Hermione suddenly stood up, almost causing Crookshanks, who was about to fall asleep, to spin, "No, I have to find the senior and ask him to help me get an autograph!" "Meow..." The ginger cat let out a weak meow.
"I'll go with you, I needed to find him for something before, but he wasn't there." Harry also stood up, then they both simultaneously looked at Ron.
This year, aside from the three of them and William, there was only one fifth-year Slytherin student and two first-year Ravenclaw students left. If those two left now, the entire Common Room would be left to Ron alone...
"...Don't mind me, I can play two games of Wizard Chess all by myself."
Ron seemed quite displeased with the look the two gave him, as if he was an idiot, so he started playing chess by himself, smartly pacing back and forth on either side of the chessboard, although the black knight chess piece was clearly unhappy with Ron's behavior, it stabbed its toothpick-sized lance into Ron's gap-toothed smile.
"Oh!" The boy clutched his mouth in pain.
Poor, forsaken child.
If William were here, he'd definitely have come up with that incredibly fitting phrase. Yet Harry and Hermione merely cast a brief glance filled with sympathy for dim-witted children at Ron's face; Harry sighed, "I'll be back as soon as I can." "If I don't come back for a long time, just come find us in the Great Hall—" Hermione added.