From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

Hagrid the Giant (R): Hagrid, who has half giant blood, was ridiculed in the wizarding world, but it was precisely this half giant blood that gave him a huge advantage in battles against wizards.

Giant Skin Skill: Tear this card and consume half your mana to become immune to most spells for the duration, determined by your mana reserves. —Some say this is a magical spell, but no one has yet figured it out.

Hagrid the Dragon Keeper (R): Although the Ministry of Magic restricted the circulation of dragon eggs in various ways, this giant who loved magical creatures still managed to get his hands on a dragon. Although he paid a high price, he was very happy when he got the dragon egg.

Skill: Dragon Affinity: Tear up this card, and for the next hour, dragons will not attack you.

[Hagrid the Fantastic Creatures Keeper (SR): Feed a little of this, feed a little of that, what difference will it make if we use this kind of magical creature to hatch another kind?]

Looking at the skill, the Blasttail Snail: Destroying this card will cause unexpected mutations when raising magical creatures over the next year. —Perhaps it's better in the dark? Anyway, since it's hard to see clearly, it can just grow however it wants.

After a moment of silence, William chose the first card, which had the most practical use.

Although a card that lasts for a year sounds appealing, William, after considering his experience of feeding the fish every three days, changing the water every five days, and changing the fish every week, decisively gave up the card that had been blessed for the longest time he had ever seen.

Open the other box.

【Hagrid at Midnight (R); After Hagrid acquired Sirius Black's motorcycle, this modified vehicle, which had been granted various licenses to become a legal item, remained with the giant ever since.

Legal Speeding Skill: Tear up this card, and for the next hour, your projectile speed will increase by half. —While it may seem like a basic skill, it's definitely not illegal.

【Battle Giant Hagrid (SR); When Umbridge from the Ministry of Magic decided to expel this giant from Hogwarts, everyone realized just how powerful he was.

Unparalleled skill; tear up this card, and for the next half hour, your wand will become incredibly nimble, your movements will be agile, you will be immune to most control spells, and your defensive spells will deflect most spells. —While you can't take on ten, taking on six shouldn't be a problem.

Hagrid the Communicator (SR): This powerful giant possesses a meticulousness completely disproportionate to his size, especially when it comes to magical creatures. He is familiar with the speed of a magical creature, so fast that it seems as if he has cast a spell.

Skill Communication: Tear up this card. For the next month, you will find it increasingly easier to communicate with the designated magical creature, and you will have a very high chance of mastering its language during communication. The success rate depends on the duration of the communication.

A difficult choice.

Don't be too tempted by cards that directly affect combat or those that allow communication. The remaining speed-up card is also a good card.

After a long pause, William finally made his choice of the third card.

"In combat, you can rely on a strong player, since Dumbledore is at Hogwarts, and you have an escape card in your Kaku, so you can run away if you can't win. But you can't rely on a strong player for communication cards. If you can learn a new race's language through communication, you can probably open several more boxes."

Reassuring himself with this thought, William reluctantly chose the third card.

-

Back at the Leaky Cauldron, William, who had slept for half a day, wasn't sleepy at all, so he simply turned on the light and started reading.

Considering that he would be teaching fifth grade, he simply made a table of his lesson plans—after carefully arranging them, he promptly fell into self-doubt.

Why would he take on the thankless task of teaching fifth graders?

If I had been smarter back then and had tried to recruit a first-year student, I guess Professor Lockhart would have probably agreed.

Now he's only teaching fifth grade, but he has to read all five years' worth of textbooks, plus the original sixth and seventh grades—he's only teaching a little less, but the lesson preparation content remains exactly the same!

Thinking of this, William couldn't help but draw a few lines on the table of contents in red pen on his prepared textbook.

Since he's working so hard, then I'm sorry to those students—let's just go with the endless practice questions policy, since it's all for the sake of college entrance exam pass rates anyway.

Planning to hurt each other, he began to draw up a teaching syllabus.

After all, this is his first official job in the magical world. If he gets kicked out because of poor teaching quality, it would be a real laughing stock.

William selected the textbooks used by the fifth-grade students over the past four years from the previously received book list and took out his own notes on those textbooks separately.

"It's not perfect yet. In the next step, we need to find past exam questions. If I'm not mistaken, given the number of people working in the magic world, there are at most three professors responsible for setting the exam questions. This way, there's a high probability that we can guess the exam questions from past exam papers."

“Each examiner should have their own preferences, and the exam questions will most likely fall on their areas of expertise. When predicting exam questions, you can also think of methods from this perspective.”

"If we create some mock exams based on the actual exam questions, we can ensure the probability of hitting the target by increasing the quantity. There shouldn't be any major problems. I think we can completely copy this experience."

……

Unable to sleep for a while, William began to wholeheartedly prepare for teaching the fifth-grade students.

Since he lacked experience and had not received systematic education, even though he was still trying to learn on his own, he knew he couldn't catch up in a short time, so he simply used the model he was familiar with.

He was prepared to adapt to any unknown dangers, but he absolutely did not want anything to go wrong with the exams, if possible.

To put it bluntly, if he can guarantee that over 90% of his students will get their OWL certificates in the fifth grade, even if he skips six months of school due to a limp, a bunch of owls will still fly to the school in the new year asking him to come back and teach.

"Anyway, the previous professors didn't teach for a full year, so it's certain that the students have a weak foundation and limited knowledge. I guess the Ministry of Magic won't set too difficult questions to save face. With a lot of practice questions, I don't dare to think that everyone will pass, but it shouldn't be too difficult for 80% of the students to pass the exam."

As night deepened, in the only room in the hotel with its lights on, William meticulously listed out the missing information in the textbooks of different systems, and was arranging a cramming plan for all the fifth-grade students for the new school year.

Even the stars gradually dimmed their light, as if they couldn't bear to witness the tragedy that would unfold because of this room.

Chapter Thirty-Eight is written as Hogwarts, but reads as troublesome.

When someone is busy, the days always fly by.

Making plans, obtaining past exam questions through various channels and organizing them, buying new books, practicing magic—a whole host of things fell into place, almost completely filling William's time.

Hagrid visited the bar twice during the intermission, and a month of preparation time passed by in a blur.

William did look for a house several times during that time, but he couldn't find a suitable one—connecting a fireplace to Hogwarts would be closely monitored, and most people wouldn't be willing to do it.

Fortunately, the school sent a letter saying that a lounge would be prepared in the professor's office. Although it is not big, it can be used temporarily.

With time running out, William decided to give up on finding a place to live and settle down at the university first before considering renting off-campus.

On the last day of August, William completely abandoned his plans, had a good drink with everyone at the bar, and then woke up promptly at eight o'clock the next day, smiling as he said goodbye to his friends from the past few days and settled the bill with Old Tang.

"Finally decided to leave your little room?"

"If you're willing to sell, it's not that I'm unwilling to buy it."

"Go away, go away. If I'm going to sell, it'll only be when I feel like I can't keep doing it anymore. Until I can lift a glass of wine, nobody can even think about taking over the bar."

"Wouldn't that take seventy or eighty years? I'll definitely consider it after I retire from Hogwarts."

"Alright, fine. Be careful at Hogwarts, and remember to come over for a drink when you're on holiday."

"Alright, see you later?" William ignored the half-sentence he had swallowed back, waved to old Tom, and walked straight out of the Leaky Cauldron.

-

Using Muggle currency again was a completely new experience for William; the pound sterling didn't feel familiar at all.

Without Wi-Fi, without cell phones, people on the subway were engrossed in books, their journeys utterly dull—William, having only recently left the magical world, already felt nostalgic.

After finally arriving at King's Cross Station, William got off the subway as quickly as possible and entered the station.

Yes, although it was a bit embarrassing, William still shamelessly asked the school for a train ticket.

There was no other way. Although he had mastered Apparition, considering the curse on him, William would never use the still-unskilled Apparition over such a long distance.

Floo is quite fast, but after his last visit to Hogsmeade, he decided that if given a choice, he would resolutely avoid using this mode of transportation, which is even worse than the Knight Bus.

The Hogwarts Express was free, comfortable, and safe; aside from being a bit slow, William couldn't think of any excuse not to take the train.

Pulling his suitcase and humming a song, William began searching for the platform.

"Ninth, tenth, this is the way."

After noticing that no one was paying attention, William quickly rammed into the wall.

William subconsciously closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, a brand new sky appeared before him.

A deep red steam locomotive was parked beside the empty platform, with a sign on the train that read: Hogwarts Express, 11:00.

"This is the Hogwarts Express? It's not much different from a regular train."

After taking a quick look and drawing a conclusion, William walked directly to the very back of the train.

He arrived a bit early, and hadn't slept well after drinking the night before. Theoretically, the area at the back of the car would remain quiet for a while, so he took the opportunity to lie down for a bit.

William took off his hat and covered his eyes, then leaned back in his chair and fell asleep. He heard some noise from the crowd, but he simply ignored it until an anxious voice came to his ear.

"Wake up, professor, wake up."

Who's the professor? Don't bother me, I drank too much yesterday and still have a headache when I woke up.

William waved his hand dismissively.

The voice paused for a moment, and then William felt a small hand tentatively pushing against his arm.

"professor?"

Professor? Who's the professor? Oh, right, I am.

He shook his head vigorously, trying to shake off the darkness in front of him, before realizing that he seemed to have put his hat on his face.

Reaching out a hand, he removed the hat, and the blinding light made William close his eyes again.

He only noticed that the two students trying to wake him were two younger students when he slightly blocked the light with his hat.

One had brown hair, the other red hair, and both of them had anxious expressions on their faces.

"What's wrong? Did you run into some trouble?"

William, remembering his responsibilities as a professor, asked patiently without a trace of morning grumpiness.

William speculated that something was probably missing, or that a fight had broken out among the students on the bus.

"My friend (my brother) missed the train."

Missed your train? Did you miss it?

"Don't rush, tell me slowly. Didn't you come together? How can you be sure they didn't get on the train? Did you confirm they weren't in another carriage, or maybe they were just playing a prank on you?"

William's barrage of questions left the red-haired girl bewildered; she was so anxious she didn't even know how to express herself.

On the contrary, the other one still has basic logic.

“I boarded the train early, but she—” the brown-haired girl pointed at the other person, “her family arrived a little late, so they entered the station almost on time, but my two friends were left behind and didn’t come in through the passageway until the train started moving.”

"Did you notify the school using an owl?"

"I didn't have time yet. I found the train conductor, and he said there was a professor on the back of the train today, so I came to find you."

"First, I'll use an owl to notify the school and tell Professor McGonagall that two freshmen are late for their train. I'll go to the station right now to see what happened."

William put on his hat and stood up.

Apparition is prohibited on the Hogwarts Express, so he had to communicate with the conductor to have the train stop temporarily, then return to the platform and pass through the wall to see what was going on with the two who had missed the train.

"Wait, Professor, can I come with you?"

"Go and send the message by owl. I'll take care of those two students."