Bring a fairy tale to Hogwarts!

The faculty lounge is a long room with wooden panels on all four walls and several wooden tables and wardrobes in the middle.

At this moment, three or four professors were sitting at the long table on the left side of the lounge. One was a relatively young wizard, another was Professor Kereddy Bubbage, who studied Muggle studies, and the oldest was Professor Kettleburn, who was talking eloquently.

This professor's life story is also quite legendary.

Sylvanas Kettleburn, the professor of the Conservation of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts, was placed on probation sixty-two times during his tenure and lost an arm and 1.5 legs.

His current wooden leg was a gift from Headmaster Dumbledore a couple of years ago, supposedly to thank Professor Kettleburn for toning down his teaching style in recent years—although many say it's because he only has one and a half limbs left and has no choice but to live a peaceful life.

Nevertheless, Professor Kettleburn remained in high spirits.

"...What? You're asking what Lu Wei is?"

He glanced at the professor beside him and said, "Oh, it's Hagrid's three-headed dog from a couple of years ago. I must say it was trained quite well. If Albus hadn't insisted on borrowing it, Hagrid and I would have planned to release it into the Forbidden Forest."

Kettleburn let out a seemingly heartbroken sigh, which elicited dry laughter from the other two professors.

Thankfully, I didn't put it there.

Otherwise, we really can't enter the Forbidden Forest.

This emotion was written on their faces.

It was at this moment that Victor walked into the faculty lounge. When Professor Kettleburn saw him, his eyes immediately lit up, and he greeted him:

"Oh my, isn't this Professor Victor? The last time I saw you was at the opening banquet."

"That's right. Good afternoon, Professor Kettleburn."

Victor nodded to him.

"Oh, just call me Sylvanus—unless you find that name harder to pronounce than my last name, then it's up to you," Kettleburn said with a smile. "This is Professor Eric Philomon, who teaches alchemy, and this is Professor Bubbaji, who studies Muggle subjects. You should have met him before."

"Oh, yes," Professor Bubbaji greeted Victor with a smile, seemingly having a good impression of him. "I was sitting a few seats next to you at the opening dinner and overheard a bit of your conversation with Quirrell—I'm glad you also think we shouldn't discriminate against Muggles."

"Of course."

Victor shook hands with her and also greeted Professor Philomon, who was standing next to him—his purpose in coming here.

However, before he could speak with Professor Philomon, Professor Kettleburn interrupted the conversation, pulling Victor to sit down at the table.

At the same time, Professor Kettleburn pushed a plate of cookies across the table. Each seated professor had one, including Professor Philomon, whom Victor was looking for.

It seems they didn't eat much; only Professor Kettleburn's hand had a faint tooth mark.

The cookies are brown and look a bit hard, but they shouldn't be bad—the cracks on them are quite even.

With that thought in mind, Victor took one.

Seeing that he had taken the snacks, Professor Kettleburn felt pleased that the distance between them had narrowed, so he pulled him into their conversation:

"Victor, I heard from the students that you were with Severus and the others last night? Do you know why Louie suddenly started talking to Severus? I thought Hagrid was doing a good job disciplining him."

Victor shook his head.

"I don't know much either," he said, bringing the biscuit to his mouth. "Because Severus went by himself, and by the time we got there, he was already lying on the fourth floor by that door, but he still insisted on coming with us to see the troll—I suppose he thought the troll thing was something people did on purpose."

"I see... Severus has really been working hard this year."

Professor Kettleburn seemed to want to say something gossipy, but for some reason forcibly held back, which made the other two professors very curious.

However, seeing Victor about to eat the biscuit, Professor Philomon said, "By the way, remember not to bite too hard, otherwise..."

"Click!"

A loud cracking sound came from the broken end of the biscuit in Victor's hand, as if a rock had been snapped in two.

The other professors immediately stopped in their tracks.

?

Victor glanced at Professor Philomon, who had suddenly frozen, with some confusion, then took a bite of his cookie, as easily as if he were biting any ordinary cookie—except that as he chewed, the cookie crust rubbed against his teeth, making two dull "crunch" sounds.

It felt like some kind of bone was being crushed into pieces.

The other professors stared blankly as Victor finished eating, also noticing the gap that occupied about a third of the biscuit.

A few seconds later—

"You swallowed it? That was Hagrid's rock crust!"

Professor Kettleburn stared at him for a couple of seconds, then looked at the cookies on the table in disbelief.

"Is it called rock crust cake? That's quite fitting," Victor said calmly. "The outer layer is quite crispy, and the sugar granules and flour inside blend together quite well. Overall, it's not bad, just the outer shell is a bit hard."

"It's a little hard?"

Professor Bubbaje raised his voice a bit: "My aching teeth don't think so; it's practically no different from chewing on a table!"

"You really didn't put any magic on your teeth?" Professor Philomon asked.

"No."

Victor and the other professors exchanged silent glances for a while, until all four of them saw the confusion and silence in each other's eyes...

"Hagrid will really like you. You must come visit the hunting grounds when you have time."

Professor Ketterburn looked at Victor with admiration for a while.

"But speaking of which, Victor, you seem to be a bit picky about food every time you eat. I remember at the opening banquet you only ate the most sour and sweet foods on the table, and at the time I thought you were influenced by Albus. Now that I think about it..."

"Is there some problem?"

"No, of course, no problem, it's just very interesting." Professor Kettleburn immediately waved his hand.

"I suddenly remembered that magical creatures like dragons and Veelas have a particular fondness for foods with extreme flavors, and other creatures in the XXXXX category also exhibit similar behavior... When I was doing my research, I discovered that this might be because their senses are quite different from those of human wizards, probably due to their innate magical abilities."

"You know, young wizards need to go through a magical surge before they can use magic, but dragons are born that way. We even use the intensity of the fire breath of the Hungarian hornet at birth to determine its future size."

As Kettleburn spoke, he seemed lost in his own thoughts for a moment, and after a few seconds, he chuckled and said:

"Perhaps you have dragon and magical creature blood, Victor."

"..."

Victor didn't reply for a moment.

He still had that expressionless look, and for some reason, Professor Bubbaji felt that he was even colder than when he came in—

But after observing Victor's empty black eyes and his pale, flat mouth for a while, she felt it was just an illusion.

Professor Philomon couldn't help but mutter from the side, "A fire dragon? That's impossible. Nobody would do something like that. Besides, it's more likely to be a vampire."

"But vampires' teeth are hollow because they mostly eat liquid food, so their teeth aren't particularly hard," Professor Kettleburn said with a chuckle. "If a vampire were to bite into this rock cake, he'd probably have a mouthful of blood and wouldn't be able to eat for six months."

"Oh, sorry Victor, we weren't implying you really meant anything by this—it was just a joke."

"fine."

Victor said casually, nodded to Professor Kettleburn, and seemed unconcerned.

So Kettleburn and the other two professors quickly moved on from that topic and went back to talking about Snape and Fluffy—although Snape was the Potions professor, everyone knew that his Defense Against the Dark Arts was exceptional, so they were all very curious about how he had been bitten.

Their final conclusion was that Snape held back, after all, he didn't want to kill or harm Fluffy, which rendered most of his magic useless.

After all, what kind of black magic doesn't harm people?

Victor's silence during this time caused slight concern among the other professors. They feared they might have spoken too casually and offended Victor, given the less-than-respectful attitude towards non-human races within the magical world.

Fortunately, just as the conversation was about to end, Victor spoke up again:

"Speaking of alchemy, I actually have a question I'd like to ask you, Professor Philomon."

"Of course, no problem!"

"...But have we talked about alchemy?"