Having escaped famine, I was accepted into Hogwarts

“That’s why I’m apologetic.” Dumbledore chuckled twice and sat back down in his seat. “Anyway, I really love this gift. To be honest, I think I’m more honest than you. You once said you wanted to frame the acceptance letter, but I haven’t seen it yet. However, I really do intend to hang the panpipes you gave me around my neck.”

After Dumbledore finished speaking, he actually took out a chain, put the panpipes on it, and hung it around his neck.

“I’ll frame it right away,” Kane said, raising an eyebrow.

“It should have been done a long time ago! By the way, Kane, could you do me a small favor tonight? I’ll put this mirror in that abandoned classroom on the third-floor corridor. You can take Harry there. Hmm, guess what Harry desires most?” Dumbledore finally got down to business.

“Perhaps it’s his parents. What you’re doing…isn’t it a bit hurtful to him?” Kane asked.

"But it's so pitiful that he doesn't even know what his parents look like from birth, isn't it? Of course, if Harry's greatest desire isn't love, well—that's understandable, since he's never experienced love."

Dumbledore started to get sentimental again as he spoke, and Kane couldn't bear to listen any longer. Christmas should be a time of joy and family reunion, but now Dumbledore had turned it into a time of weeping and lamenting.

“I will. Not just Harry, Ron will go too, if I can get him sober tonight,” Kane said as he left the headmaster’s office.

"Hmm, that would be even better." Dumbledore muttered to himself as he took the panpipes off his neck and placed them on his desk.

He then took out a box of wood wax oil from under his desk, took out some, and applied it all over the panpipes before putting them back around his neck.

late at night...

Kane led the way, while Harry and Ron echoed from behind.

"If what you show us later isn't cool enough, we'll exercise our supreme dorm voting rights and vote for you to make us a free three-day meatball feast."

"Ah, whatever. Anyway, I can make meatballs really well without any problems. But I think you guys should probably have some meatballs, since I really think they're pretty cool."

After Kane finished speaking, he stopped in front of an abandoned classroom door, pushed it open, and revealed the Mirror of Erised inside.

Chapter Sixty-Three: Hanging a Faceless Dark Circle on a Streetlight

“Hmm…a mirror?” Ron murmured, looking at Kane as if he were looking at a private chef.

"Couldn't you two come a little closer?" Kane gently nudged Harry and Ron twice, telling them to move forward a bit. In an instant, Harry, who was about to complain about Kane calling them here so late at night, stopped talking.

"Who...who...who are they?" Harry asked blankly, while Ron curiously leaned closer, but unfortunately he couldn't see anything, since the Mirror of Erised could only process one person's desire at a time.

Otherwise, what if we had to handle both at the same time? Harry's mother became the Hogwarts Student Council President and then knelt down to give Harry a loving hug?

Harry noticed Ron's urgency and moved aside, giving the mirror to Ron. He then looked at Kane and asked, "What's with this mirror?"

"What allows you to see what your heart most desires, have you seen it...?"

Harry swallowed hard. "I think they should be my family."

"Ah... family, it's so good." Kane sighed and took a few steps back, sitting down at a desk in the corner.

"Is this what you wanted to see? Harry's favorite thing is his family?" Kane asked softly, knowing that Dumbledore was sitting next to him.

"Who Harry saw inside, and what their identities were, is not the most important thing. Whether they were family, friends, or lovers, it doesn't matter. The most important thing is love." Dumbledore's voice rang in Kane's ears, while Harry and Ron, who were not far away, were completely unaware.

“Harry has never experienced love growing up. I thought he would crave something more practical, but now it seems... he’s a really good kid.” Dumbledore said, then gently nudged Kane’s shoulder.

"It's time to pull him out of his pathetic illusion; people always have to embrace reality."

Kane shook his head: "It's not like he did anything heinous. What's wrong with Harry wanting to spend more time with his parents?"

Dumbledore nodded: "Then stay a little longer."

Time flies, and the Christmas holidays are coming to an end. During this time, apart from eating, sleeping and going to the toilet, Harry spent almost every moment in this abandoned classroom looking at his parents in the mirror.

Doing nothing, sometimes just sitting cross-legged with hands supporting my face can take up most of the day.

Even Kane, who initially thought it wasn't a crime, couldn't stand it anymore.

"So Harry, aren't you going to come out?" Kane stood at the door of the abandoned classroom. He even thought Harry was addicted to this, but he couldn't say anything yet, after all, no one can completely give up love.

"Um, Kane, have you met your parents?" Harry asked slowly, still staring intently at the mirror.

"Never seen it before, no memory of it."

"Don't you miss them?" Harry then asked.

“They never raised me, or maybe they never had the chance. It may sound cold-blooded to say this, but I really don’t want to. Would you miss your great-great-great-grandfather whom you never met?” Kane asked rhetorically.

“I’m not coming here tomorrow, today is the last day,” Harry said, turning to Kane.

“You probably won’t be able to see it here tomorrow anyway,” Kane said as he left the dilapidated classroom. The Hogwarts Express would be arriving soon, and he and Ron would have to go pick up Hermione.

Soon, at Hogsmeade Station, Kane, wearing a horned hat and carrying two hand warmers in his pocket, nudged Ron, who was shivering from the cold, with his elbow.

"Here's something good for you." Kane stuffed the warm stone into Ron's cold hand, and in an instant Ron let out a loud roar.

"hot!"

Kane picked up the warm stone that Ron had accidentally dropped from the ground with a sigh. The poor kid was now frozen solid.

Soon, as the little train chugged into the station, Hermione, who had been searching for Kane and Harry for over a while without success, finally got off.

Then she saw Ron waiting on the platform... and Kane too.

In an instant, Hermione's cerebral cortex was soothed, and she felt completely relieved.

It's understandable that Celestial Dragons have special ways of returning to school; maybe while I, a commoner, take a magical little train, they have a magical giant rocket.

"Where's Harry?" Hermione walked over, completely ignoring why Kane had returned to school early, and then asked another question.

“Him? We’ll take you to him. We found something really amazing at Hogwarts while we were here.” Ron said, taking Hermione’s huge satchel and heading toward Hogwarts.

Soon, in that abandoned little classroom.

"Hmm—isn't this just an ordinary mirror?" Hermione pointed at the Mirror of Erised in front of her, then looked at Kane and the others with a puzzled expression. She even thought it was a harmless prank.

"You can't see what's inside?" Harry asked in surprise. After all, the three of them had seen what they longed for inside. Although they didn't know what Kane saw, there was something there. But Hermione, on the other hand, saw that the Mirror of Erised was just an ordinary mirror.

Does this seem right?

"Hmm? I think I understand what you mean. This mirror can reflect a person's inner desires? But my desires are being satisfied all the time. I want to study hard, I study hard every day, I want to become a better version of myself, and I take action. So maybe that's why I can't see the fantasies in the mirror." Hermione scratched her head and said in a very ordinary tone.

“All I can say is… Hermione, you are something else.” Kane flicked out his fist and gave her a thumbs-up with a loud pop. Harry and Ron quickly echoed, acknowledging Hermione's awesomeness.

The four chatted for a couple more minutes in the empty classroom before leaving to go to the auditorium for dinner.

Before leaving, Hermione took one last look at the Mirror of Erised. In the mirror, Hermione looked incredibly spirited, holding a wand in her left hand and a belt in her right. Beside her was a streetlamp, and hanging on the streetlamp was a person without features, without a face, and whose gender was even indistinguishable.

If you had to identify him, the only thing you could see was that he had two dark circles under his eyes.

In the Great Hall, the four of them deliberately sat in the corner of the Gryffindor table because they wanted to conspire loudly about something they didn't want ordinary people to discover. As a result, Quirrell, who didn't see the professor's seat, left early and returned to his office.

"Master, you... you want me to prepare the ritual altar for plundering the shadow magic within Kanehis's body. I... I'm ready. Would you like to check it?"

In the office, Quirrell looked at his noseless face in the mirror and said obsequiously.

"Hmm...no need. You've done a great job, Quirrell. Now that the preparations are so perfect, I think we can get started," Voldemort said hoarsely inside Quirrell's head.

"Master, when?"

"I'm looking for a day that suits my magic, and I'll tell you when it happens."

Chapter Sixty-Four: Resurrection Amulet [Available tomorrow]

On the second day after the Christmas holidays ended, Kane was still half asleep when a bright red turkey woke him up.

???

In his sleepy haze, he managed to make out what was bothering him. It wasn't Harry, it wasn't Ron, it wasn't even a person. Very well, it was the evil, fiery red phoenix. Here it comes!

Wait a minute? A phoenix?

He rubbed his eyes and looked closely; it really was Dumbledore's Phoenix Fawkes.

"Um, did Dumbledore stay up all night without roasting mandrakes? Go back and tell him that young people need to sleep more, or they won't grow tall. I'll go find him when I wake up." Kane mumbled sleepily before pulling the blanket over himself again.

Unfortunately, Fox didn't care about any of that. Seeing that he couldn't wake Kane, he simply stopped trying. With a burst of fiery red flames, he teleported Kane directly to the principal's office.

???

Kane, dressed in a long velvet robe, had a head full of question marks. He looked at Dumbledore, who was drinking tea across from him, and sat down helplessly. "I need you to compensate me for coming here so early in the morning instead of sleeping."

"Didn't you ever think that something important might be going on?" Dumbledore asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Come on, why would you tell me something important? I'm more inclined to believe you're just bored and want to chat with me to pass the time," Kane said helplessly, leaning back in his chair.

"Tom and Quirrell have already devised a plan to scheme against you," Dumbledore said quietly.

"...So? In ten minutes?" Kane rubbed his face. Dumbledore had told him about this long in advance, so he wasn't surprised at all.

"It could be in a few months, who knows?" Dumbledore said, raising an eyebrow.

"Ah!" Kane covered his face in pain. "Why couldn't you just let me sleep a few more minutes!"

"Well, please forgive my selfishness, but Kane, I'd like to discuss something with you, okay?" Dumbledore completely ignored Kane's accusations and spoke to himself.

"You tell me first," Kane sighed and said slowly.

“As you know, Quirrell and Tom’s purpose this semester is to train Harry, but perhaps for some strange reason, Harry hasn’t found any of the clues I gave him. Well, actually he has found some, but he hasn’t thought about the Philosopher’s Stone at all. If this happens, we can’t do without him as the main character when the play reaches its climax.”

Kane was getting drowsy listening to Dumbledore's words, but there was one thing he understood: Dumbledore had dug a perfect trap for him and was now begging him to jump in.

"Do you know the story of the hero who saves the princess?" Dumbledore suddenly asked.

"Ah, I know, it's the plot of a cliché knight adventure novel, so I'm a knight?" Kane said with a yawn.

"Yes, I'm sorry, you are a princess."

As soon as Dumbledore finished speaking, Kane immediately stood up to leave: "I'm leaving now."

With an agility that an old man could not possibly possess, Dumbledore grabbed Kane's sleeve: "I think we can talk some more."

Kane shook his head frantically, accusing, "I have nothing to say to you about this! You not only used Harry as a puppet, but you also used me as bait? This is disgusting! I'm going to tell Professor McGonagall to break your jaw!"

“I assure you I can protect you, and I have the ability. And you might need this. Take a look; this is your reward.” Dumbledore gripped Kane’s sleeve even tighter, and with his other hand, he pulled an irregularly shaped red gem from under the desk.

"This is a Philosopher's Stone. I think you might find it useful, don't you think?"

Kane, who had been heading straight for the exit of the principal's office, suddenly stopped...

Um.........

He felt it was necessary to take a look at the Philosopher's Stone, a treasure that originated from mythology.

“But then again, if you have this Philosopher’s Stone… let me see it first.” Kane no longer rushed to Professor McGonagall as if he were in a hurry to bang his head against a wall, but instead sat back down and took the Philosopher’s Stone from Dumbledore’s hand.

He certainly wasn't foolish enough to risk his life for a magic stone that might give him the chance to use it, but not necessarily to live. A prerequisite for accepting the stage play script was having a way to guarantee his own safety with absolute certainty.