August came in a blink.
Douglas Holmes had spent an entire month holed up at home, only occasionally sending letters to a few friends. Of course, since he'd long planned to keep a low profile in the Muggle world, he never bothered to keep an owl himself.
For that, he owed a debt of gratitude to his magical world editor—Mr. Slane of Silent Publishing Company—and the editor's relentless, deadline-hounding owl. Without it, Douglas suspected he might have drifted so far from the magical world that he'd never find his way back.
He'd spent the month gathering information from former classmates and recent graduates about the latest O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams, painstakingly compiling nearly five years' worth of syllabi and exam trends. Thankfully, with the magical world's tiny population and the examiners' legendary lifespans, most of the test questions barely changed from year to year.
Beyond that, Douglas divided the curriculum into practical and theoretical modules. It's worth noting that every professor at Hogwarts has the right to choose their own textbooks. Naturally, Douglas didn't bother to make any changes—classics might not be perfect, but in the slow-moving magical world, tradition was king. For lower years, The Dark Arts: A Guide to Self-Defense by Quentin Trimble remained the standard, a book detailing all manner of dark creatures and defensive spells.
He certainly wasn't about to pull a Lockhart and force students to study his own works. His earlier, pseudonymous forays into magical publishing had been inspired by his student-era terror of Dumbledore's Legilimency. Hiding behind wild, imaginative novels was the perfect cover.
Unfortunately, not every student was named Harry Potter. At first, Dumbledore barely noticed him—until, of course, his little "incidents" at school drew the headmaster's attention.
Still, thoughts of Lockhart nagged at him. Was he forgetting something important?
A glance at the clock told him it was already 1 a.m. Douglas stretched, gazing through his window at the sliver of moon hanging in the night sky.
"The moon's a silver hook, and longing's hard to shake... Bloody hell—"
He froze. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a car soaring through the moonlight, not all that far away.
It took him only a second to realize what he was seeing.
He tapped his finger beside his eye and whispered,
"Visual Enhancement!"
Instantly, his vision zoomed in as if he were looking through a high-powered telescope. The car came into sharp focus, and he could make out the passengers inside.
Just as he suspected.
Four people in the car—three of them with unmistakable red hair. The twins were obvious: George and Fred, whom he'd met years ago at The Burrow. The smallest was their kid brother, Ron, though when Douglas last saw him, he'd only been about seven or eight.
But the most striking was the black-haired boy with glasses.
"Looks awfully familiar... Is that Harry Potter?"
Before he could get a better look, the car vanished into a bank of cloud.
Douglas frowned and rubbed his eyes.
"If I'm not mistaken, this is the famous 'Weasleys' midnight rescue—breaking Harry out of the Dursleys' with a flying car' scene. Judging by the direction they're flying and the location of The Burrow... does that mean Harry Potter actually lives not far from me?"
He racked his brain, wondering if he'd ever bumped into the Boy Who Lived during his own mundane errands.
"Still, Mr. Weasley's got real talent. Maybe I should find myself a car and ask him to give it a magical upgrade..."
A sly smile tugged at his lips.
Five years ago, Douglas had been good friends with Bill Weasley, the top student of his year. That Christmas, Bill had invited him to spend the holidays at The Burrow, where Douglas met the future twin troublemakers, little Ron, little Ginny, and of course, Charlie—though they'd known each other at school already.
He'd spent a week at The Burrow, fielding endless questions from Arthur Weasley about the Muggle world. When he learned Arthur hadn't yet started modifying Muggle cars, Douglas had offered a few tips. That was when he discovered that turning a Muggle artifact into a magical one wasn't as simple as waving a wand and muttering a spell—it required real expertise in alchemy.
Sadly, Hogwarts' Alchemy class had been suspended for years due to staff shortages and general chaos. It was only an elective anyway, so now the only alchemy knowledge to be found was in the library's dusty tomes.
Still, from Arthur's reactions, Douglas could tell that while the Weasleys weren't rich, it was only in terms of gold. As one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, they clearly had a heritage of their own.
Not that Douglas was jealous. Not at all.
But...
Suddenly, he realized what had been nagging at him. Seeing the Weasley kids had finally triggered the memory—Ginny, the diary, the Chamber of Secrets, the basilisk.
So much time had passed...
Back in his first year, Douglas had even tried to find the Chamber. He'd succeeded in locating Myrtle's bathroom and the tap with the snake emblem that wouldn't run. He'd even tried mimicking Parseltongue from those Muggle films, hoping to open the Chamber.
Ha—Muggle movies, as it turned out, were not to be trusted.
Douglas stroked his chin, cringing at his own adolescent antics.
"If I remember right, I even scribbled in pinyin next to the Chamber entry in Hogwarts: A History in the library, noting where the entrance was and what was inside. And didn't I carve 'Welcome home, Mr. Voldemort' beside that tap...?"
He winced at the memory of his mature soul doing such childish things. Would a "prophetic" joke like that have startled Voldemort if he'd seen it?
But that wasn't his problem now. When the sky falls, let taller wizards hold it up.
Right now, Douglas had more pressing worries—like how to survive his upcoming meeting with his editor at the end of the month.
There are few things more painful than being hounded for manuscripts.
August slipped by in a blur.
By the end of the month, Douglas had managed to crank out enough new pages for a full volume and made his way to London.
Between a bookshop and a record store, he spotted the battered sign of The Leaky Cauldron.
Stepping inside, Douglas couldn't help but curl his lip. The pub was as dim and shabby as ever—just a handful of tables lurking in the shadows beyond the bar. The only "menu" was a greasy poster behind the bar advertising pig's head with drinks.
Yes, the very same poster Douglas himself had designed and hung up years ago. If he hadn't been blackmailed, he'd never have traded that pig's head recipe.
No sooner had he entered than the sharp-eyed landlord, Tom, spotted him.
"Oh, look who it is—Mr. Holmes, my best customer! Been ages, hasn't it? Fancy a butterbeer? On the house. To celebrate your—"
Douglas coughed lightly and cut him off with a hum.
"Still as sharp as ever, Old Tom. But thanks—I've got business in Diagon Alley. I'll stop by for a chat later."
Tom shrugged, unfazed, and went back to polishing glasses. He could guess who Douglas was here to meet—after all, that pig's head recipe had been his hush money. As the gatekeeper to Diagon Alley, he knew which secrets to keep.
Ignoring the exchange, Douglas slipped out to the little courtyard behind the pub. Drawing his wand, he used the dustbin as a landmark, counted three bricks up and two across—(why count? Because he rarely came here)—and tapped the wall.
With a low grinding sound, the bricks shifted, and the lively bustle of a magical market washed over him. A cobblestone street lined with odd and wondrous shops stretched out before his eyes.
"Magical world, long time no see!"
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