From Hogwarts to Sturhaven

"And what about your beard?" Harry looked a little malicious. "Since you're over a hundred years old..."

“To be precise, I’m 144 years old.” Ivy continued to tell the truth, as he liked to. “Because of a terrible magical accident, I was sealed in a crystal and slept soundly for over a hundred years. My body not only didn’t age, but actually became much younger.”

"Wow! That's so cool!" Ron seemed to really enjoy the topic, and he might use Ivy's words in his next bragging session. "What about magic? How is magic from over a hundred years ago different from magic now?"

"As far as the first-grade textbooks are concerned, there isn't much difference." Ivy shrugged. "However, the magical accident that caused me to be sealed away for over a hundred years was due to ancient magic that has almost been lost."

“Ancient magic!” Ron nodded, leaning forward as much as possible, his buttocks shifting restlessly in the seat. “What…can ancient magic do?”

“Simply put, it is extremely powerful and difficult to control.” Ivy began to describe the characteristics of ancient magic, “It can summon lightning, cause earthquakes, and toss unusually large rocks around like feathers.”

"Show us something, Ivy!" Ron jeered. "Let us see the ancient magic you've been talking about!"

“That’s not a simple matter… I got up too early this morning, so I didn’t eat breakfast… And casting ancient magic is a very physically demanding activity, so…” Ivy put on a mischievous smile.

"So, if we feed you, you'll show us what you've got?" The clever Harry immediately understood the implication. Although he didn't entirely believe in the ancient magic Ivy spoke of, he had personally witnessed Ivy's suitcase float into the carriage with him. Therefore, he was quite willing to see other magic.

“Exactly!” Ivy clapped her hands.

“But where are we going to get something to eat? I’m so nervous about catching the train that I forgot about breakfast… and I’m hungry too.” Harry looked down at his stomach.

“I have sandwiches!” Ron started rummaging through his luggage, pulling out a cardboard box from a hidden compartment. Inside were four sandwiches. “My mom made them for me, canned corned beef sandwiches… but she has to take care of five kids, so they might be a little dry. If you don’t mind…”

“Of course.” Ivy reached out and took one, and Harry took one too.

“Hmm, it’s pretty good.” Harry gave a fair assessment. This was the first time he had shared food with someone else, and perhaps this novelty added to the flavor of the canned corned beef sandwich.

Sharing food makes it taste even better, and the three of them were teenagers (except for Ivy, who was 144 years old, but looked much shorter than Ron, so they treated him as a peer), so they were in the prime of their lives and the four sandwiches were quickly devoured.

However, someone's stomach was still growling.

Just then, around noon, the sound of wheels rolling across the ground echoed in the passageway.

A smiling woman pushed open the compartment door and asked, "Honey, would you like some snacks from the train?"

Harry jumped up immediately. His pockets were now full of Galleons and Silver Sickles he had taken from Gringotts vault, and he couldn't wait to spend them.

"It's on me this time!" Harry exclaimed. The snacks on the cart were all types he had never seen before, so he took a little of each and returned to his seat with a pile of things in his arms.

The table was almost completely covered with snacks, but Harry didn't spend a single Galleon; the snacks cost less than twelve Silver Sickles.

"I've never even tried any of the magical world's snacks!" In fact, Harry hadn't even tried many Muggle snacks; his cousin Dudley would always snatch everything from his hands.

Having just shared his sandwich with Harry, Ron felt no qualms about eating the snacks Harry had bought. He was busy putting pumpkin pie into his mouth with his left hand while picking up a pot-shaped cake with his right.

"What's this?" Harry picked up a bag of chocolate frogs. "They're not real frogs, are they?"

"Be careful when you open the Chocolate Frog; it might jump away," Ivy warned. "It doesn't look much different from the Chocolate Frog from over a hundred years ago. I just wonder if Honeyduke has added any new cards."

“Oh! It’s Dumbledore.” Harry had already pulled out a card that hadn’t existed for over a hundred years.

“You should know his name, right? After all, it’s written on the acceptance letter.” Although Ron didn’t have much hope for Harry’s lack of knowledge about the wizarding world, he thought Harry would at least know Dumbledore. “It’s said to be the largest Chocolate Frog card in existence, because people say he’s the greatest wizard of the twentieth century.”

“Very good, a card I haven’t seen before has appeared right away.” Ivy raised an eyebrow, took the card from Harry, and maintained his persona as an ancient wizard.

“Hey! I remember you said you’d seen Dumbledore!” Harry popped a snack into his mouth, then suddenly remembered something and asked, “Does he look like he does in the pictures?”

"Most likely, maybe even older." Ivy looked at the picture in her hand; Dumbledore in the picture had already left.

Ron stopped eating and looked at Ivy in surprise: "Why have you seen Dumbledore before? Where have you seen him?"

"Of course it's Hogwarts, what else could it be?"

“But they don’t allow young wizards who aren’t old enough to go to school to enter Hogwarts!” Ron was even more puzzled.

“Remember? Ivy was an old wizard who lived to be 144 years old!” Harry answered Ivy’s question for him.

“Indeed…that makes sense.” Ron stopped dwelling on it and continued to devour the snacks on the table with both hands.

Chapter 12 Students

Just as Ron was enjoying his meal, a chubby little boy with a tearful voice knocked on the cubicle door, then came in and said, "I'm sorry..."

He sniffed. "I wanted to ask, has anyone seen my toad?"

The three people in the cubicle shook their heads, and then he started crying again.

"If you see anything, please let me know..." The chubby boy, whimpering, left.

Ron shrugged, then popped the last of his Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans into his mouth, and then let out a loud, cow-dung-smelling burp with a grimace.

“!€€€€” Harry, standing next to him, held his breath, a look of utter disbelief on his face.

"Luckily it's dried cow dung, so it doesn't smell too bad," Ivy tried to reassure Ron.

Ron covered his mouth and nose with his hand, trying not to empty his stomach, and managed to utter two words: "Stop talking..."

After opening the window, Harry tried to distract Ron: "Ivy! Are you full now? Then let's see the power of ancient magic!"

Hearing him say that, Ron immediately felt energized and stared intently at Ivy's next move.

Ivy then pulled out her pale silver wand and put on a mysterious smile.

"Open your eyes wide..."

"Whoosh—" The cubicle door opened again. The chubby little boy who had been crying earlier appeared before the three of them once more, but this time, he was accompanied by a little girl who had changed into her school uniform.

“Has anyone seen a toad? Neville lost a toad…” she said, her arrogant tone vanishing upon seeing Ivy’s face, gradually becoming barely audible.

It seems that having a handsome face can get you preferential treatment anywhere.

“We didn’t see…” Ron was interrupted before he could finish speaking.

The girl with thick brown hair and a pair of large front teeth sat down next to Ivy, staring at the wand in his hand, and said, "Are you casting a spell? Let us see!"

"Ahem... open your eyes wide... don't let your mind wander!"

The pale silver wand traced an elegant path through the air, finally tapping lightly at the tip. A shimmering light shot from the wand's tip, instantly filling the entire compartment.

"...Did it work?" the girl asked.

“Look! Your hair…” Harry shouted, pointing at the girl’s hair.

The thick strands of hair floated in the air like jellyfish. The girl screamed and reached out to try to smooth them down.

To her surprise, her actions actually accelerated the process of her hair moving further apart.

"Is it static electricity?" With a mind sharper than her peers, she quickly guessed what was going on.

"Whoa!" Ron tried to stand up from his seat, but he sprang up and his head hit the ceiling.

"It's flying! That's amazing!" Harry also got up from his seat and floated in mid-air.

A fat mouse floated out of Ron's bulging pocket, frantically waving its limbs, trying to find a place to land!

The only person unaffected was the chubby boy at the door, but the tears on his face, which had not yet dried, seemed to be affected by magic, and now they were clustered together and floating swaying in the air.

"You've eliminated gravity in this compartment!" the brown-haired girl exclaimed, struggling to hold down the hem of her pleated skirt. "What kind of magic is this?"

“Ivy is an ancient mage who lived to be 144 years old!” Ron answered for him. “This is ancient magic that is extremely difficult to master!”

“Ancient magic?” The girl sounded quite skeptical. “I memorized all my textbooks and also looked up many other books about the magical world for reference, but none of them mentioned this term!”

"That proves you haven't read enough books!" Ron said smugly, as if he himself had cast the gravity-eliminating spell.

"Hmph~" The girl scoffed, then awkwardly twisted her body in the air. "Sorry... could you end this spell? This is so awkward talking!"

“Of course.” Ivy snapped her fingers, and all the people and objects floating in the air fell down.

Harry and Ron collided, and the brown-haired girl landed on the ground in a very unseemly manner.

"Scabbers!" Ron shouted, then shoved Harry aside, reached under his bottom and rummaged around for a while before pulling out a large, fat rat.

Ron held it in his hands and examined it carefully before saying, "Thank God you're alright!"

Taking this opportunity, the brown-haired girl got up from the floor and began to introduce herself: "What amazing magic! I never thought magic could be used like this... I'm Hermione Granger, and he's Neville Longbottom. What are your names?"

“Ivy Dum”.

“My name is Harry Potter,” Harry glanced back at Ron, whose attention was still on the fat rat, so Harry had to introduce him, “The red-haired one is Ron Weasley.”

“Harry Potter?” Hermione asked with interest. “Although none of the books I bought contained anything about ‘Ancient Magic,’ they all mentioned you.”

Although still not quite used to his fame, Harry tried his best to appear calm: "It's nothing..."

He regretted it as soon as he said it; to his own ears, it sounded like he was showing off.

“Okay… do you know which house you’ll be sorted into?” Hermione changed the subject again. “Gryffindor is supposedly the best, after all, Dumbledore graduated from there. But if you ask me, Ravenclaw is not bad either.”

“My whole family are Gryffindors. If I were sorted into another house, Fred and George would probably laugh at me for the rest of my life,” Ron said, stuffing the fat rat back into his pocket.

“But if I were sorted into Slytherin…” Ron shuddered, “that’s where the Man Who Revue once lived!”

"Are there any differences between the four houses?" Harry asked. Although he had bought a copy of "Hogwarts: A History" on Ivy's recommendation, reading was really against his nature for an eleven-year-old, so he just flipped through a couple of pages and put it aside.

Ivy briefly introduced the four houses: "They each represent the qualities most admired by the four founders of Hogwarts. Gryffindor's courage, Ravenclaw's wisdom, Hufflepuff's loyalty, and..."

"Slytherin blood."

Standing by the door was the young master of the Malfoy family, along with his two henchmen.

Chapter 13 Conflicts Among the Children

Malfoy leaned against the door and said in his characteristic, deliberately drawn-out tone, "We meet again, Ivy."