From Azkaban to Hogwarts.

The conversation went very well, and after having lunch together, Dumbledore finally stood up to take his leave, taking Harry with him.

“It should be finished by the afternoon, if everything goes smoothly,” Dumbledore said with a smile, gesturing for Harry to stand beside him before heading towards the door.

“By the way,” he suddenly stopped, “although the American Ministry of Magic is in such a mess that they haven’t extradited the Thunderbird yet, you still have to be careful—next year is Harry’s year of Owls, and I don’t think he’ll find another chance to try amidst his busy studies.”

"Let's go, Harry."

After Dumbledore reminded him, he smiled at Harry and said, "We need to hurry, or he'll make up some excuse about oversleeping."

He quickly left with Harry, leaving Sirius and Lupin stunned.

-

"You need to focus on your studies, Harry. This is the Year of OWLS, and I'm sure that's going to be incredibly stressful, especially with Professor William. I don't think he'll be happy to see you spending the whole holiday playing video games."

Harry was stunned by Dumbledore's first words after he left the house—it turned out that all of them hadn't been able to hide anything all this time.

Seeing Harry's dumbfounded expression, Dumbledore laughed even harder. "Although we heard many complaints last semester about Professor William's excessive number of tests, judging from the letters received at school this holiday, parents seem very satisfied with Professor William and are strongly requesting that he continue teaching fifth grade, so this year..."

"Is Professor William leading us?"

"Yes."

Dumbledore's affirmative response left Harry momentarily speechless, but he quickly added, "But it's still early, so you don't need to worry too much for now. Hold my hand—if we don't leave soon, Professor Lupin and the others will be wondering what's going on."

With a sensation similar to being squeezed through a pipe, Harry soon found himself in an upscale neighborhood.

"Sir, where is this place?"

“At the residence of an old friend, we are facing another professor shortage this year, so we came to persuade my former colleague, a retired professor, to come back to work.”

Dumbledore looked around at the scenery and replied.

"How can I help, sir?"

Harry was very curious; he simply couldn't figure out what Dumbledore had brought him along for. He was never good at guessing what others were thinking, and he didn't think it would be easier to persuade a professor than to persuade his girlfriend…

But Dumbledore, with his mischievous nature, offered no explanation, so he could only silently follow and arrive at the house in the best location within this upscale neighborhood.

"This is it."

Dumbledore pointed, and Harry quickly recognized it as a wizard's house—or rather, he didn't need to recognize it at all; the house was surrounded by several owls, and in the time Harry was looking at it, another one flew over.

'How flamboyant…'

This was Harry's first impression; he had never imagined that wizards would live there so openly and ostentatiously…

"Let's go, it looks like we have more guests to meet than we thought."

Dumbledore glanced around, made a decision immediately, and then rang the doorbell.

Within seconds, a commotion broke out inside, and soon, a bald old man appeared at the door. "Albus, you're here! That's wonderful! I thought you'd be even later!"

His face was beaming with joy, and he even gave Dumbledore a hug before shouting to the back, "Oh, sorry, my lovely lads, the party has to end early today. I must apologize to you all. I have a very, very important matter to discuss, so I can't keep you here today."

He called out with a regretful tone, but Harry could always sense the smugness in his voice—something he disliked.

Harry even suspected that this former colleague of Dumbledore's was deliberately showing Dumbledore to the partygoers to boast about something...

"It's a bit messy, Albus, but it's also a good opportunity to show you my colorful retirement life..."

"Honestly, when it's time to retire, we should retire so we have enough time to enjoy life and other things..."

He waved his arms exaggeratedly, talking as he saw the departing wizards off, enthusiastically greeting them, "Come participate again next time—"

As he approached the living room, he finally had time to look around at the rest of the place.

The next second, he froze, his big round eyes staring at Harry's forehead and the lightning bolt-shaped scar on it. "Huh!"

Chapter 501 Harvest

"Ho!"

When the fairy at the bank saw the vendor who brought William and the others to the bank, she couldn't help but make a strange sound—which troublesome, self-important fellow had this guy run into today?

It wasn't doing very well at the fairy bank, otherwise it wouldn't have to spend most of its time on duty on the street instead of staying inside to handle financial business.

If it weren't for racial restrictions, it would have long ago followed this swindler's example and started selling laurel wreaths and similar items at inflated prices on the street—in fact, the swindler's laurel wreaths were made from the same molds he sourced from him, and he sold them for one gallon each.

The reason that thing could be sold at such a high price was entirely because it promised to stand up for the swindler and guarantee that it was a product that came from its hands when the swindler had a conflict with someone, thus ensuring that the accusation of counterfeit goods was unfounded.

As for other disputes, they are not within its scope of responsibility. Anyway, that guy has made quite a few laurels with that broken mat.

'Well, now I have to put on a straight face and say it's my own work, and that it was bought by the other party for a high price…'

This process has been repeated many times before, and it has been done with great skill.

Just as it was about to step forward and continue with the old routine, it saw its collaborator blinking rapidly, the food it was holding already in the hands of the client who had come with it.

'Was his livelihood stolen? Or was it bought? Is this guy planning to quit? What will happen to my Galon now?'

Countless thoughts flashed through my mind, but ultimately they all boiled down to a simple "Welcome!"

"Let's go, take out the money, inspect the goods, and exchange money for goods."

As it watched the group walk away, it heard this sentence: "The sky seemed to darken all of a sudden. Did that spendthrift really sell his rice bowl?"

-

“Withdraw five hundred gallons. I remember I had about a thousand gallons deposited in Gringotts’ international business.”

William handed over his identification and waited for the goblin on the other end to process his transaction—this made one have to complain about the sluggishness of Gringotts' international business. Funds not kept in the treasury not only didn't accrue interest, but also incurred transaction fees... It was exactly the old-fashioned financial business model.

But he can't do without it; his vault is in Gringotts, England, where there are no transaction fees. But he can't just fly back to get the money out of thin air.

To put it bluntly, if he didn't have some knowledge in this area, he would be living off the money he had or taking on exorbitantly priced mortgages from fairies...

"Hmm, the credentials are correct, ah—a professor from Hogwarts?"

The fairy raised her head and smiled. "Wait a moment, we'll process the withdrawal right away."

It rushed inside and soon came out with a young-looking wizard.

"Professor! When did you come to Greece?!"

The young wizard looked around for a while before fixing his gaze on William. After carefully examining him, he greeted William with great joy. After exchanging pleasantries, he handed over the paperwork. When he glanced at the man who had come with William, his expression changed slightly.

"Oh dear, I'm sorry, Professor, I accidentally filled out the form incorrectly. Could you please come over and sign it?"

William shook his head slightly in exasperation and followed, and sure enough, he heard a warning that the man was a fraud.

"Okay, I understand. I will check the goods carefully..."

He thanked his student while taking his large bag of Galleons and handing it to the student, patiently checking the items he wanted to buy again.

"The material is right, the feel is right, and the runes on it are right too..."

He then poked the so-called broken cushion with his wand without any disgust, and tested it with a few simple spells. Everything was fine, and the test passed.

"Garon is right, isn't he? Well then, it'll be a pleasure doing business with you?"

William casually stuffed the 'broken cushion' into his pocket, then shook hands with the other person, said goodbye to his student who worked at the bank, turned and left, taking with him a group of new graduates, most of whom had already come to their senses, and departed from Gringotts on the Greek side.

"What a despicable guy—selling fakes with genuine products..."

Once the mystery was solved, the students naturally understood how the conman operated—the mat was a valuable item, and then worthless things were placed on top of it and sold at a high price. Those who knew their stuff would think they could be fooled and would buy it, asking to have it wrapped up or otherwise taken away with the mat, thus falling for the scam.

However, since it was still about using intelligence to sell things, after everyone looked down on it for a while, they felt it was nothing special and their attention was completely focused on what William bought.

"But professor, what is that, a magic carpet?"

“Magic carpet? This isn’t a magic carpet,” William waved his hand. “A magic carpet would cost less than a hundred gallons, and that’s because magic carpets are banned in Britain. This is actually an empty bag.”

"Empty bag?"

"Yes, empty bags. Before the Unseen Expansion Charm was so perfect, these bags were used to carry the power of the spell, becoming bags that could hold a lot of things at once. However, ever since Dumbledore discovered the new use of dragon blood and used it to modify the spell's attachment, these bags have disappeared from the historical stage."

"Did the principal discover this as well?"

“Yes,” William spread his hands, “Magic always progresses. Although the original bag has been phased out, it still has some uses, after all, the original materials and techniques are still there.”

"I thought there would be something magical inside..."

"How could that be? That guy isn't stupid. He's had the stuff for so long, and he knows its actual value and use. After I went back and gave it to my friend to study the process, I was going to disassemble the material and use it."

William spread his hands. "Alright, thanks to you guys, I've managed to buy something good. Let's go, we're hungry after all this time, it's time to get something to eat."

He was now eager to send the students away and then put on a deep disguise—he had to admit that Hogwarts, as one of the three major magic schools in Europe, was still supplying talent to the whole of Europe, even though it rarely recruited wizards from outside Britain.

It's a little better now, but if he doesn't keep up the act in the future, he'll probably find his former students in some remote corner of Europe...

"This is terrible... I almost saw my own students in Azkaban..."

After seeing the students off, William quickly found a shop to alter the bag, and then took the opportunity to carefully check his haul for the day—although the possibility of tampering with it was very low, he still had to check if there was anything wrong with the bag.

"No curse, no pollution, no poison..."

After checking several potions, William found nothing amiss on the outside of the bag, so he began to examine the inside.

"Hopefully that guy didn't put anything unclean in there—but theoretically that's impossible, because of the manufacturing process, opening this thing is quite difficult and inconvenient, so it's only commonly used for smuggling."

The potion was simply prepared, and then the corresponding magic was used to open it—sure enough, it was empty.

"Hidden compartments... I remember, based on what I knew before, there were also regional hidden compartments..."

William concocted another potion and then tentatively tested it using a method commonly used in England—"Hmm?"

He froze, then looked incredulously into the bag. After using a spell to protect his arms, which were covered in dragon-skin gloves, he carefully began to rummage through it.

Surprisingly…

Although it was inside a bag, the hidden compartment, as it's traditionally called in smuggling, wasn't very large—it was usually used to store valuable goods.

'Is this a group of British smugglers who got detained here, and then stubbornly refused to reveal the whereabouts of their goods in hopes of getting a reduced sentence?'

'Or did they double-cross you, take the items, and not know the hidden compartment existed?'

William wasn't sure, but the thing wrapped in this oiled paper package was now his—hopefully it wasn't spare parts or a German engineer inside…

After taking extra precautions, he carefully opened the paper package.

What is this?

He saw two small wooden boxes; one contained thin books, and the other contained several small figures woven from straw.

'Really?'