From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

He relaxed considerably, raising his glass. "This semester's going to be busy, with Dementors guarding the door, plus Sirius Black..."

"Fortunately, we have Dumbledore. Cheers, Professor Lupin."

"Yes, thank goodness for Dumbledore."

Chapter 261 Before the Start of School

"Professor, I've finished my run. What's today's training?"

When William went downstairs for breakfast, Harry came over and asked.

"School's starting soon, you should enjoy your vacation, Harry."

William replied with a smile, "And have you prepared everything you'll need for the start of school?"

“Well, there are still a few days left, I haven’t had time yet…” Harry lowered his head. “I looked at our schedule, and the textbook is the same as before. Are you going to teach us self-defense?”

“It was Professor Lupin, not me,” William replied casually. “I spoke with him, and he is better than me when it comes to systematic self-defense. I think you will have a very enjoyable year of classes.”

“Ah…” Harry paused, “A new professor?”

“Of course, you can’t expect me to take on all the work,” William shook his head. “That’s no joke.”

"Then, Professor, the new professor, he..."

“Shh,” William wagged his finger, “It’s not polite to talk about the new professor, especially another professor. What you should be doing now is going out to enjoy the sunshine and your last vacation.”

"By the way, how's your homework going?"

Suddenly remembering this, William asked casually.

"Ah, thank goodness, thank goodness, that's about right..."

Harry's expression immediately turned sour, and William sensed a sense of anxiety emanating from him.

"Well, Professor, I'll be going now," Harry said hastily, without trying to continue the conversation, and left the pub—as for whether William went to do his homework or go shopping, we can only guess.

"They're probably catching up on their homework, that's perfectly normal."

William chuckled as he ate his fried egg. "I wonder how those students are doing with their holiday homework—it's ridiculous, actually, my previous professors never assigned summer homework, so I don't even have anyone to refer to..."

-

Dear Hermione:

Last time you said you were in France. I wonder how you've been lately, and how the revisions to your history of magic thesis are going.

Something's not right, something's definitely not right.

Harry crumpled the letter he had started writing into a ball and gave up.

He usually writes letters to his friends quite casually, but this one was much more difficult to write than his other letters.

However, he desperately needed Hermione's homework to save his life—it was already difficult enough to get references to Hermione's papers during the normal year, and summer homework? Well, he could completely imagine what kind of response he would get.

To be honest, if he had sent the letter outright, he even suspected he would have received a shouting letter instead.

'No, I need to think this through more carefully…'

The situation was dire; trying to finish so much homework was a joke, and he had to seek help.

Ron's assignments were a different story—Hermione's could be used as a model and with some modifications, it passed the professor's review, but Ron's own assignments were barely passable, and once they were revised, there was no need to look at them anymore.

"I need to find something that interests her. I wonder if Hermione will be interested in the tasks Professor William assigned. Isn't she always fond of studying...?"

Once the idea came to mind, Harry couldn't stop writing it down. He started writing furiously based on the idea and soon finished the task.

I think you'll be interested in the training content, so I'll compile the relevant materials and bring them to you when school starts...

“Hedwig,” he looked at his owl, his eyes full of trust, which made Hedwig take it seriously as well, “do your best to get the things to Hermione.”

As if still worried, Harry added, "Please, act pitiful and make sure to bring back your homework, otherwise I'll have to rely on Ron's homework."

After feeding Hedwig two pieces of bacon crust, Harry solemnly dismissed her.

Make sure you bring your homework back!

He looked up at the sky, letting hope soar with the owl.

-

"Hello, welcome to Ee-la Owl Shop."

William had just entered the store when he heard the voice of the shop assistant.

“Hello,” William replied casually, then immediately recognized the shop assistant—his student, who was theoretically going into seventh grade this year.

"Professor, hello!"

The shop assistant's standard smile vanished, replaced by an eager expression. "Are you here to buy owl food?"

“No, Bourne, I want to pick an owl.”

“That’s great. A batch of trained owls was just delivered to the store the day before yesterday,” said the clerk named Byrne, striding over. “I just went to transport them together a few days ago.”

"Look, there's the Grey Wood Owl, the Howling Horned Owl, the Grass Owl, the Brown Owl, and the Snow Owl."

He pointed to the areas where the owls lived one by one, "They're all great lads, and of course, you know, some are even better..."

"The snow owls over there are among the best-tempered, but they are... well, how should I put it, a little too lively."

"And those scops owls over there, they're even more lively..."

"..."

William can guarantee that if this kid introduced himself like that normally, the shop owner would beat him to death.

"What kind of owl do you prefer, Professor?"

"Hmm...the one that looks more pleasing to the eye..."

William had originally intended to say this to the shop assistant, but he was too embarrassed to say it in front of the students.

Especially considering this student hasn't graduated yet and is currently doing a summer internship—what if this gets back to the seventh grade?

Moreover, once it reaches the seventh year, it won't be long before it spreads throughout the entire Hogwarts. William can easily imagine Adams using this joke as a pretext...

“I have some belief in magic and the occult,” William tried to emphasize his point, “maybe I’m just too serious usually…”

“But your class is fantastic, Professor,” Byrne said earnestly. “Why don’t you come and try feeding them some owl food and see which ones suit you best?”

This is a bit of a privilege, but not excessive.

William quickly distributed the owl food around the area—because they had been trained, these owls weren't particularly averse to food from strangers, and William fed them all around without finding anything unusual.

"Why don't you go check the restock area? There's plenty there too."

Bourne showed no impatience. After setting up a phonograph spell with his wand, he pulled William to the back.

As soon as they entered, William realized he was being watched—a rather silly-looking owl, frighteningly tall, at least half a meter high, stood atop it, looking at William with a defiant expression.

"So big?"

"Oh, professor, this is a hawk-owl, it's not very common..."

Byrne explained, "This is the biggest owl. It can carry much more than a regular owl, which means it eats a lot and can easily corrupt other owls, so it's not sold at the front when the store is crowded."

He gave a very detailed introduction, but he missed one thing: this owl is very good-looking and looks like you could pet it.

"Well, how about we take this one?"

William wanted to hear more opinions.

"Professor, it's not fully grown yet... When it's fully grown, it will be nearly eighty centimeters tall..."

"this…"

William was a little troubled—at eighty centimeters tall, it wasn't an owl anymore, and it basically couldn't fly into the window.

However, the dazed owl landed and tentatively took a few steps near William's left hand, where he was holding the owl food, before nudging William's left hand with its head.

"Fine, this will do."

William was immediately captivated by the plush texture.

Fifteen minutes later, William walked out of the store carrying the heavy cage—as the largest owl, its cage was also special, much larger than other owl cages, and quite heavy to lift.

"We'll talk about the name when we get back. Let's settle this guy down first," William thought as he walked, while also calculating how many meals the owl food he bought would last—that stuff doesn't keep well if it's left out for too long, so he'll just have to replenish it when it's used up.

Back at the bar, the first thing he did was compare the owl to the window.

Sure enough, the height was fine, but the width was far from enough—it couldn't even spread its wings to get out. It could only fly to the windowsill first, then hop out like a chicken, and then spread its wings again.

During this time, the owl showed no intention of resisting and even rubbed its head against William's arm, making him want to pat the owl's head.

'It will keep getting bigger... This is outrageous...' William sighed and patted the unnamed owl, shaking his head. 'Stay in the cage for a while, I'll find you a nicer name.'

-

"Finally...it's finished."

Harry stood up from the table, feeling half-dead—although he usually looked at Hermione's homework, this was the first time he had looked at a whole holiday's worth of homework.

Three quill pens were damaged under the high-intensity work, not to mention the ink.

After completing such a long series of assignments, he felt as if the hand holding the quill pen no longer belonged to him.

'If only the professor didn't check, I could just copy it directly with a mechanical quill.'

The thought crossed Harry's mind, but he quickly dismissed it—Hermione would never let them refer to her homework if it were simply a matter of copying.

"Harry, are you there?"

Ron's voice came from outside the door, instantly pulling Harry out of his reverie.

"What's wrong, Ron?"

Harry, unsuspecting, jogged over and opened the door.

"I knew you were here—I just bought some books and I'm staying at the Leaky Cauldron tonight. We can go to the station together tomorrow!"

Ron spoke excitedly, his face full of smiles.

"To the station?"

"School's starting! Of course I have to go to the station!" Ron exclaimed excitedly. "I've had my new wand for almost the entire vacation, and I haven't even had a chance to use it properly yet. I can't wait!"