"Look, that's..."
"Neville Longbottom! Do you think he'd give me an autograph if I went to ask for one now?"
Harley and Hermione rushed through Platform Nine and Three-Quarters to the Hogwarts Express. Before they could even get their bearings, they found people spontaneously forming a circle nearby, with some excited Gryffindor students chanting the name of the chosen one, Neville Longbottom.
Hermione frowned and complained, "Tsk, this is too much... Thanks to the chosen one, his fans have blocked the entire path to the back of the train."
After a summer of crash-course tutoring, Hermione had finished reading those extracurricular leisure books she bought earlier (about two thousand pages of 'leisure' reading in total), plus the first-year History of Magic textbook. She now had a fairly good understanding of the history between the chosen one, Neville Longbottom, and Lord Voldemort.
As for Neville Longbottom, Hermione had a different view.
"I don't know much about magic, but Longbottom must have been only one year and four months old when he defeated Lord Voldemort. Obviously, a Wizard of that age hasn't reached the age for systematic magical study—so Longbottom didn't defeat Lord Voldemort through his own hard work and strength at all, right? I think it's more like fatalism... it's a bit like cheating."
As a hard-working genius, Hermione wasn't very interested in this kind of 'destined' protagonist.
Harley raised an eyebrow. To be honest, she felt that in the original story, the reckless Harry Potter's ultimate victory was twenty percent Dumbledore's strategizing, twenty percent Snape's double-agent work, twenty percent the blood charm Lily placed on him, twenty percent the Malfoy Family's defection at the critical moment, and twenty percent Hermione saving his life multiple times over those seven years.
In the first year, when facing Snape's logic puzzle, Harley had relied on Hermione's extraordinary intelligence to successfully obtain the antidote.
In the second year, the vital clues regarding the Basilisk were also found by Hermione through painstaking effort, for which she suffered the pain of petrification.
After entering the third year, when Sirius faced a life-and-death crisis, it was also thanks to the Time-Turner in Hermione's hands that Sirius was saved.
In the fourth year, when Harry and Ron had a falling out, if it hadn't been for Hermione accompanying him and guiding him in practicing Accio, Harry probably wouldn't have even passed the first task of the Triwizard Tournament. For this, Hermione was even slandered with malicious rumors by Rita Skeeter and attacked by Harry's fans.
As for the D.A. in the fifth year, although Harry appeared to be the leader of the group, in reality, everything from the techniques needed to transmit messages and the magically enchanted parchment register to the reasonable arrangement of the D.A. members' free time for training was the work of Hermione. Harry just taught everyone how to use Expelliarmus and Expecto Patronum.
In the blink of an eye, the sixth year arrived. Because of a Potion textbook, a significant dispute arose between Hermione and Harry, but fortunately, the two eventually resolved their misunderstanding and reconciled.
In the seventh year, Ron fell out with Harry for a second time. When Harry was helpless, it was Hermione who stepped up once again to become Harry's strong emotional support, silently accompanying him until the final dawn of victory.
As for Harry himself, besides faithfully following Dumbledore's request to go to his death at the end, he mostly just had a clumsy struggle with Lord Voldemort's brainless soul fragments all the way to the final battle. He survived multiple near-death experiences during that time thanks to his protagonist halo, and because of his lack of trust in Snape, he failed to learn Occlumency, which indirectly caused the death of his godfather, Sirius.
In the outside world, Harry was the glorious savior, but back in the Order of the Phoenix behind closed doors, Harry really should have knelt and bowed down to Hermione, Sirius, Dumbledore, and Snape.
Thinking of this, Harley sighed. Fortunately, the plot had changed inexplicably; she wasn't an orphaned savior, and as long as she was careful this life, she could live a leisurely existence.
Seeing the crowd around Longbottom growing, Harley simply boarded the train with Hermione at the front. She intended to walk through the train to the back to find a compartment and settle down while it wasn't too crowded yet.
Harley and Hermione said goodbye to their respective mothers. Harley thought the parting would be sad, since she wouldn't see her mother for nearly four months, but she couldn't see a hint of sadness from Lily's face. Even Mrs. Granger, standing beside Lily, was excitedly discussing with her how they would go on a shopping spree at the mall and then head to a pub for a drink once they sent the children off.
Heh, heartless middle-aged women.
Hermione accepted this quite well; she gave her mother a hug and pulled Harley onto the train, muttering to herself about how they could be sorted into the same house once they reached Hogwarts.
"Look at that red hair, could she be—"
A shrill voice suddenly rang out but was quickly interrupted by another slightly deeper voice: "Not necessarily, the Weasley family all have red hair..."
"That may be so, but haven't you noticed a unique temperament about this girl? Besides, as far as I know, the Weasley's youngest daughter won't be coming to Hogwarts until next year... And look at that latest model spatial trunk she's carrying. I heard it uses the most advanced space compression technology and a unique weight-reduction charm, allowing it to hold a vast amount of items while keeping the weight under 3kg!"
"A top-of-the-line trunk like this can't be bought for less than eighty Galleons—even if you sold all the Weasley children, you probably couldn't scrape that much together."
The speaker didn't forget to show an expression of envy, jealousy, and hatred while talking.
(The Weasley family: Is that polite?)
"...In that case, she must be the person Miss Malfoy is waiting for. She's so beautiful!"
"After all, she's the daughter of our respected Dean; it's normal for her to be so good-looking."
Harley, who had just boarded the train, inexplicably became the focus of attention, with various whispers of curiosity, surprise, or envy reaching her ears from time to time.
Hermione, feeling somewhat annoyed by the surrounding whispers, frowned and turned her head, complaining softly to Harley with a mix of confusion and dissatisfaction:
"Harley, can you give me a proper explanation of what's going on—why does it feel like your popularity in the wizarding world is on par with that Neville Longbottom?"
Harley herself was completely bewildered. She was just a half-blood shut-in who grew up in the Muggle world; her only connections to the wizarding world were going to see a Quidditch final and shopping in Diagon Alley. When did she become a celebrity too?
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