Bring a fairy tale to Hogwarts!

When Victor left the interview hall, he didn't receive a very friendly farewell; all he got was Professor McGonagall's dry "We'll think about it again."

But this is already quite good—if it were someone else, they might have sent him to the Ministry of Magic because of what they just said.

The magical world is full of all sorts of strange curses, so most wizards are very vigilant about them. Even if they have never heard of a curse before, they will investigate it with the attitude of "better to be wrong than let it go."

Hogwarts only let him off the hook because Dumbledore was the most authoritative wizard in the field of curses.

But Victor was never afraid of anyone investigating him.

Because what he did was not a curse at all.

As Victor stepped out of Hogwarts and felt the first cool breeze, he took out a strangely shaped little mirror from his cloak pocket.

The mirror had an antique pattern on the back, carved from an old silver metal, and the front was very blurry. Strangely, although Victor held the mirror up, his face was not reflected in it.

"Magic mirror, magic mirror, please tell me..."

"Where is Grandma Yaga's house?"

His voice was deep and indistinct, as if it came from a very distant place.

Victor also often calls Barbayaga "Grandma Yaga," which sounds more natural to him.

After a while, a faint, more indistinct and distorted voice came from the mirror in his hand.

"...Passing through a city perpetually shrouded in darkness, behind a mist that lingers year-round, a wooden cabin stands eternally. Swans lower their necks at its sight, and even deer dare not call out."

"Looks like nothing's changed," Victor murmured.

Then, he walked out of Hogwarts Castle, braving the light drizzle, and headed into the distance.

However, his figure grew increasingly blurry, as if gradually being erased, until finally, he vanished completely from the sight of all the wizards without a trace—

……

"Knock knock, knock knock."

When Victor's figure became clear again, he was already in another place.

This is a deep, dense forest, with trees stretching all the way to the sky, their black, leafless branches spreading wildly overhead. A thick fog hangs in the air, shrouding everything in gray, making it impossible to see even the road a dozen feet away.

Even more chilling was the constant, heavy, muffled sound that seemed to emanate from the depths of the fog.

"Knock knock, knock knock..."

The sound was heavy and solemn, as if something enormous had stepped onto the ground, enough to send chills down the spines of any passerby who strayed into the crowd.

But for Victor, he was already used to it.

He put the mirror back into his cloak pocket and walked confidently into the depths of the forest, turning right the whole time, as if he were constantly going in circles—

Until a huge, filthy chicken foot appeared before him.

Each toe of the chicken foot was as wide as a person's waist, not to mention the legs above, and every part was orange-yellow, covered in dirt. The chicken foot seemed to truly belong to a giant chicken; when you got close, the skin on it would twitch slightly, as if it were tightening and relaxing with the movement of its muscles.

Looking up, the top of the chicken foot was completely hidden in the mist, with only its huge black outline faintly visible. The heavy, muffled thud was the sound of the chicken foot walking on the ground.

However, the chicken feet stopped moving when Victor got closer.

Immediately afterwards, a faint rustling sound came from above. A moment later, a small, narrow rope ladder fell down and landed right in front of Victor.

Victor's expression remained unchanged as he grabbed the rope ladder and began to climb upwards.

He didn't know how long he climbed, until he reached the height of some treetops, when a small door emitting a warm yellow light appeared in front of him.

It was a door facing the ground, and the rope ladder was thrown out from inside.

Climbing to the top of the rope ladder and climbing through the small door, you enter a warm little wooden cabin. On one side of the cabin is a fireplace embedded in the wall, and on the other side is an old-fashioned fabric sofa.

A huddled figure sat on the sofa.

"...You're back?" the figure said in a hoarse old woman's voice.

"You're back," Victor said, standing up from beside the small door. He moved his fingers, and the rope ladder underneath rolled up again.

"I went to the nearby magic academy; they were recruiting. Coincidentally, a witch was praying by the window, saying she wanted to have real prophetic abilities, so I granted her wish."

"In a few days, I should be able to get her position and then go to teach at that college."

"Whatever you want," the old woman said slowly. "As long as you can come into contact with a lot of children, you should have enough wishes to trade, and you can also use human money to buy things."

"That's right. Maybe one or two children will be willing to learn something with you."

"Me? I don't need it that much," the old woman said.

During his conversation with the old woman, Victor had closed the narrow door and come to the fireplace. Only then could he see the old woman's face clearly.

It was a distorted, aged face.

Grandma Baba Yaga was ugly. What made her look most strange were the several huge fleshy lumps on her face, which squeezed one of her eyes into a very small size and made her wrinkled nose asymmetrical. When she opened her mouth to speak, you could also see a few loose teeth.

She was wearing a worn-out, grayish-pink robe with several patches.

She chuckled twice in a hoarse voice: "Look, I only have a few small pimples on my face. After having two or three more children, they'll disappear completely, and I'll be normal again."

"It's just a little bit short, but I'm not in a rush. What's meant to happen will happen. You just need to try a little harder."

"More or less."

Victor said noncommittally, standing in front of the fireplace for a while.

Strangely, the fireplace fire was blue, and instead of radiating heat, it emitted a cool breeze that dispelled the summer heat.

Clearly, Victor and Granny Baba Yaga are different from normal wizards; they aren't even human.

According to Victor himself, they are special beings who recently came here from another fairy tale world, and they gain unique powers by satisfying certain logics within themselves.

Only after these logical conditions are met will they become more normal.

What Grandma Barbayaga needs to satisfy is her desire to have children, which will reduce the number of tumors on her face, while Victor needs to receive "transaction requests" of sufficient quality.

This kind of trade request is the same one the Little Mermaid made to Ursula in the fairy tale—she would exchange her voice for a pair of human legs, but if she couldn't win the prince's heart by the time the time was up, she would turn into sea foam.

Victor needs the same kind of deal. The more deals he makes, the more normal he appears, and the more powerful he becomes.

Going to Hogwarts was his way of finding deals, and he could sense that the 'destiny' around Hogwarts seemed more active than elsewhere, which meant that by staying there, he had a greater chance of receiving 'revelation of destiny' that would pave the way for his next step...

Of course, he still needs to do some trading to maintain his food intake.

This is why the Vatican's Department of Magical Accident Control was always working day and night, racking its brains to get rid of him, because he often single-handedly caused 70% of the magical accidents in the entire region...

Fortunately, Victor eventually had a change of heart and decided to make some contributions to the safety of the fairy tale world.

So he moved to a different place to live.

However, after Victor warmed himself by the cold fire for a while, Grandma Baba Yaga suddenly said:

"Oh, right... I forgot to tell you. I actually just brought in a child."