When Rey finally woke up again, another three days had passed.
Looking at the fruit and flowers beside his hospital bed, Rey sighed inwardly: It's good to be alive.
Not dying from the fall was definitely a plus. Thinking back to the moment he plummeted from the sky, a lingering fear still gripped his heart.
To be precise, Rey didn't fall. He jumped.
When people stand on top of a skyscraper and look down, they often feel a sudden, irrational urge to jump. It's a common psychological phenomenon called l'appel du vide—the call of the void.
But when Rey jumped off his broom, he didn't feel that urge at all.
At that moment, he was possessed by something else. The revulsion he had suppressed toward the broomstick suddenly exploded once he was high in the air.
The broom beneath him felt like a burden, an unnecessary crutch. He felt a profound arrogance, a disdain for the magical object, and a reckless, suicidal impulse that flooded his otherwise rational mind. Wrapped in those overwhelming emotions, he had simply let go.
Even now, Rey could vividly recall the sensation of Madam Hooch's Cushioning Charm fighting against the crushing force of gravity as he slammed into the ground.
It was agonizing. It felt like being the rope in a game of tug-of-war.
Then the rope snapped. His body compressed, the air was punched out of his lungs, and he shared an overly intimate moment with the earth.
"What on earth is wrong with me?" Rey stared blankly into the distance, his eyes unfocused, replaying the question over and over in his mind.
---
"Hey, space cadet. What are you doing?"
Agnes's sweet voice snapped Rey out of his trance.
"Oh, I was just missing a little thing called a cell phone," Rey said. He didn't want to discuss why he jumped off the broom, so he improvised.
Cell phones existed in 1988, but they were brick-sized luxuries, far from the smartphones of the future. And for Agnes, a pure-blood witch raised in the magical world, even a landline was probably a mystery.
"What's a cell phone?"
Agnes blinked her big eyes at him, looking confused. Rey always felt different to her. When they talked, he often dropped new terms or concepts, and his explanations always opened up a fascinating new world.
"A special communication tool. It lets people talk to each other instantly, even if one is at the North Pole and the other is at the South Pole."
"Is it a magical object?"
"Well... you could say that. But it's a magical object invented by Muggles."
Rey smiled as he explained, squirming uncomfortably in his bandages.
He was heavily injured. His chest, arms, and legs were wrapped tight like a mummy.
The Skele-Gro and healing potions were working well, which meant his bones were knitting and his flesh was healing. The resulting itch was maddening. It felt like a thousand ants crawling under his skin.
The more he squirmed, the itchier it got. And he couldn't scratch. It was torture.
Watching Rey wriggle like a caterpillar, Agnes wanted to laugh. He looked ridiculous.
---
Muggles can make magical objects. This idea completely captured the little pure-blood girl's curiosity. She forgot all about asking why he fell off his broom.
Sitting in bed with nothing to do but twitch, Rey figured there was no harm in educating this sheltered pure-blood princess about Muggle "magic."
Muggles didn't just have phones; they had airplanes. Agnes knew about planes, but she had no idea that future Muggle aircraft could fly several times the speed of sound.
That kind of speed was beyond the imagination of a young witch who traveled by steam train.
Transportation was just the appetizer. Muggle weaponry was the main course.
Guns were the basics. But a sniper rifle that could kill silently from thousands of meters away? That was more direct and terrifying than many curses.
Then there was artillery. And missiles—the ultimate deterrent.
Especially when you tipped a missile with a nuclear warhead. One button, one city gone.
"But magic is amazing. We have Unforgivable Curses..."
Agnes tried to list the advantages of magic, but the more she listed, the more it seemed like Rey's Muggle inventions had them beat. Even the deadliest curse couldn't compare to the destructive power of the "bomb" Rey described.
After thinking it through, it seemed magic only held the upper hand in medicine.
It started to feel like wizards were the primitive ones, while Muggles were the ones driving the world forward.
From that perspective, families like the Malfoys, who championed pure-blood supremacy, seemed pathetic. Pitiful. Laughable.
Agnes pouted. Although she saw the logic in Rey's arguments, as a member of a pure-blood family, thinking about her elders' beliefs made her heart heavy.
"Hey, hey, don't look so glum. It's not absolute. Aside from medicine, magic has plenty of advantages Muggles can't touch."
Seeing that he had oversold the Muggle world and depressed the little girl, Rey quickly tried to salvage the situation.
"Like what? What advantages do we have that Muggles can't match?"
The little girl was smart. A glint of cunning flashed in her bright eyes.
Rey caught it instantly. His intuition was sharp. Agnes had pranked him on the train, so he was prepared this time. But since she had come all this way to visit him, he was willing to let her win one.
"Muggles can't Apparate. They don't have Floo Powder. They don't have flying broomsticks. And they certainly don't have magical creatures to help them..."
---
The pleasant visit ended after Agnes shared a few laughs.
Chatting with Rey always brought something new. Agnes loved that feeling.
In a way, Agnes was Rey's first friend in this world.
True friends were hard to come by. Even in his past life in the 21st century, having two or three friends who would actually help you in a crisis was rare and precious.
Rey appreciated it deeply.
Once he was alone again, his mind started wandering. He calculated the years silently, recalling the plot of the Harry Potter movies.
This was 1988. Harry would be enrolling in a few years.
When Harry arrived, Voldemort would return. Rey figured he had about five or six years to improve his magical skills.
He didn't know the exact date Harry started, but he had a rough estimate. Five or six years wasn't a lot of time.
"Can I get strong enough before the plot really kicks off?"
Rey whispered the question to himself, turning his head to look out the window beside his bed.
Dusk was settling, casting long shadows across the grounds. But as Rey turned his head, he let out a strangled cry of terror.
"AH!"
Standing right outside the window—floating, really—was a blood-soaked ghost.
He was glaring at Rey with pure rage, his teeth gritted.
"Where is the thing you promised me?"
The suppressed anger, the icy interrogation, the terrifying gaze, the silver bloodstains, and the rusted shackles...
It was the Bloody Baron.
His sudden appearance outside a second-story window was a jump scare straight out of a horror movie.
---