Chapter 8
Having a rich friend is great!
Having a rich friend who actually spends his money on you is twice as great!
As it turned out, the stack of Galleons was more than enough to buy the entire trolley. Now the three of them sat surrounded by sweets like Charlie in his chocolate factory.
There was, of course, one tiny little problem.
Magical sweets were absolute garbage.
"M—pf! M—pf!" Simon stared wide-eyed at his two new friends, cheeks twitching as though something inside was trying to claw its way out.
"Yeah," Ron winced. "You've got to be careful with Chocolate Frogs the first time…"
Harry had enough sense not to touch the chocolate creature that—on second thought—actually moved.
But Simon's curiosity occasionally short-circuited his brain.
What's the harm?
He'd seen a moving chocolate frog—beautifully detailed, by the way—and decided to shove it in his mouth. He'd assumed it would go limp the moment it hit saliva, but the confectioners apparently had principles. If you're going to commit, commit fully.
After barely surviving the resulting panic attack, Simon forced it down with enormous effort.
His face immediately drained of colour.
"It's… it's moving!" He clutched his stomach. "It's moving inside me, for fuck's sake! Did the people who made this shit decide that along with the rash I'd get an arsehole stroke too?!"
"Don't panic," Ron said, trying to sound reassuring. "Your stomach acid will start dissolving it soon. It'll die in agony…"
"Cool," Harry commented awkwardly and—preemptively—moved all the Chocolate Frogs far away from himself.
One thing you couldn't take away from wizards was their diseased imagination.
"What's this?" Harry picked up a small box.
"Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans!" Ron chewed one and squinted happily. "Watermelon!"
"Pineapple!" Harry joined in.
"Bleeegh…" Simon couldn't resist and popped one in his mouth too. He immediately spat it out and fought down the gag reflex with titanic willpower. "I think… that was… k—ha… sweaty socks."
"Ouch. Bad luck," Ron grimaced. "But 'every flavour' really does mean every flavour."
Great start, magical sweets!
The first one nearly turned into a xenomorph and burst out of his chest; the second treated him to the delicate flavour of sweaty socks. And the worst part? He somehow instinctively knew what sweaty socks tasted like! The deranged creator had even charmed the beans so the "lucky" winner wouldn't mistake the flavour!
Wonderful magical world!
"What's this?" Harry picked up a cardboard card. "It says: 'Albus Dumbledore', Headmaster of Hogwarts and… a whole lot of other titles."
"I've got six of him."
"Hey—" Harry stared at the card in surprise. "He disappeared!"
"What did you expect? He'd stay with you all day?"
"What do you mean 'disappeared'?" Simon leaned in and saw the blank space where the wizard had been. "You paid for him! What the hell—he just fucked off?!"
Apparently the illustrated Albus Dumbledore heard him, because he reappeared and fixed Simon with a distinctly unimpressed look. After a couple of disapproving tuts, Dumbledore vanished again.
"And now he's giving me attitude!"
Simon fought the urge to unleash a string of profanity. This was pure insanity!
He opened his own card and found only a large crack running down the middle. Not even the wizard's name remained.
"Wow—I've only heard about these!" Ron said, genuinely surprised this time. "That's a defective card!"
"…shit happens," Simon replied calmly.
It had been naive to think his aura of constant misfortune would suddenly switch off just because he was in the magical world.
Simon shook his head and pushed the pessimistic thoughts away. He suddenly remembered one of Lily's endless stories.
"…and Uncle Ron supports the Chudley Cannons! And they play in the third division! Practically an amateur team!"
"Uncle Ron"—this scrawny red-haired boy? Could Aunt Lily's saying about "friends for life on the Hogwarts Express" actually be true?
He needed at least a minimal check.
"Ron, I recently saw a poster for some team called the Chudley Cannons…"
Everything became instantly clear.
"They're the best Quidditch team in the world!" Ron burst out passionately. "Such history, such players—just… ugh! Only…" His enthusiasm dimmed slightly. "…they just got relegated from the top division. But it's fine! They'll be back soon!"
"No they won't—they'll drop even lower," Simon thought distantly.
Good. Now he knew Ron was—at minimum—a close friend of Harry even in the future. Another coin in the "Aunt Lily's theory" piggy bank.
He was also starting to like Ron a little.
Simon might not understand Quidditch, but he understood what it meant to support your team.
And supporting a weak team—doing it your entire conscious life—was far, far harder than supporting a strong one like Liverpool.
That spoke of desperate loyalty. And, of course, a cast-iron cauldron where the brain should be.
"You're actually not a bad guy," Simon snorted. "Even if you've got freckles up to your arse."
"Hey!" Ron protested. "What about you? You've got them too!"
"Mine are from delicate skin," Simon shot back instantly. "Yours are because you're ginger."
Ron started turning red with anger while Harry barely held in his laughter.
They were distracted by a large, fat rat that barely fit inside the Every Flavour Beans box.
"That's Scabbers," Ron sighed, introducing his pet. "Pitiful creature."
"Yeah… a bit…"
"A bit?" Simon raised an eyebrow. "How sensible is it to keep a rat at all?"
Simon tried—and failed—to suppress the revulsion clawing its way out.
"Sensible?" Ron looked genuinely confused.
Simon settled more comfortably in his seat, preparing—as always—to dazzle with intellect. He didn't even need prompting; once he started, nothing could stop him.
"First, rats are synanthropic animals. That means they've evolved to live near humans—not with them. Rubbish bins, basements, sewers, grain stores—that's their natural habitat. Not bedrooms, trunks, and definitely not school dormitories."
Ron opened his mouth to argue, but Simon didn't let him get a word in.
"Second—disease. Rats are perfect reservoirs for everything. Bacteria, parasites, viruses… If evolution handed out medals for spreading plague, rats would take gold at every Olympics. Bubonic plague, leptospirosis, tularaemia—the list goes on forever."
"She's domesticated!" Ron said indignantly.
"Domesticated plague is still plague," Simon countered calmly. "Third—behavioural patterns. Rats are intelligent. Sometimes too intelligent. They're social, manipulative, highly adaptable and…" He narrowed his eyes. "…often pretend to be less active than they really are."
He pointed at Scabbers.
"Now specifically about this weird specimen."
At that moment Scabbers lazily cracked one eye, looked at Simon with the expression of something profoundly tired of existence, and closed it again.
"See?" Simon perked up. "That's not normal rat behaviour! She's too lethargic and… large."
"Well… she just likes food," Ron said uncertainly.
"Likes food is one thing," Simon leaned closer. "This is either obesity or a metabolic disorder. Possibly insulin resistance. In plain terms—diabetes."
"Isn't diabetes only in humans?" Harry asked.
"Diabetes can appear in almost any living creature. The body simply stops processing sugar properly." Simon started counting on his fingers. "Constant fatigue, weight gain, apathy. Basically everything matches."
Scabbers gave the faintest twitch of her tail.
"And one more thing," Simon added, frowning. "She's too… calm. Rats are usually nervous, twitchy, constantly sniffing and running. This one… it's like she achieved zen thirty years ago. Even allowing for apathy, that's not normal."
"So what do I do?" Ron blinked.
"Throw her the fuck out! Why do you even need a rat? It's… well, a rat!"
"How can I?! She might be ugly and smelly, but she's been in our family for ten years!"
"Ten years?!" Simon exclaimed. "The maximum lifespan for rats is four years! Er…" He shrugged. "…probably magic again."
Simon was beginning to understand why critical thinking came so hard to wizards.
When you have a universal answer for practically any question, you stop asking follow-up ones.
He absolutely could not sink to the level of other wizards! Einstein preserve him!
"She's still useful!" Ron huffed and pulled out his wand. "You can practise spells on her. Fred taught me a transformation spell! Ahem, 'Sunshine…'"
The spell—which Simon and Harry had begun watching with growing interest—never got finished. In the doorway stood a girl their age with bushy brown hair and a face Simon recognised from somewhere.
"Ahem," the girl cleared her throat to get their attention. "Has anyone seen a toad? A boy named Neville lost one."
"Neville?" Simon perked up. "Neville Longbottom?"
He hadn't expected his future Head of House to be his classmate! Talk about time-travel twists!
"Yes," the girl said, surprised. "Do you know him?"
"Nope," Simon said, putting on an uninterested face and offering no explanation.
The girl gave him a suspicious look, then noticed the wand in Ron's hand.
"Oh—" Her eyes lit up. "Are you doing magic? Well? How's it going?" She lifted her chin slightly. "Does it work?"
"If you hadn't interrupted, it would have," Ron grumbled and returned to his spell. "Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid fat rat yellow!"
A tiny spark singed Scabbers' backside, but no yellow appeared.
Harry and Simon instantly realised they'd been cruelly deceived. Or rather—Ron had been deceived, and he'd passed it on to them.
"Are you sure about that spell?" the girl asked in an annoyingly superior tone. "I think you've mixed something up."
She sat down confidently beside Ron, directly opposite Harry and Simon.
"By the way, I've already tried several spells and they all worked," she added, throwing them a look full of superiority.
Simon's irritation level instantly shot past one hundred.
And it wasn't even her tone—he was used to that; he did the same thing himself—but…
"For example—" She pulled out her wand and pointed it at Harry's glasses. "Reparo!"
A short, almost invisible flash—and Harry's glasses were like new! The crack across the bridge vanished instantly!
Ron, Harry, and Simon gaped.
"W—well…" Simon tried to steady the tremor in his voice. "Not everyone's from a magical family."
"My parents are Muggles," she smiled.
"N—not bad… f—for a f—first try…" Simon muttered like a broken robot.
And he hadn't managed anything except sparks!
Nothing at all! Not a single proper spell—just a junkie light show!
Books memorised cover to cover. Recipes, ready-made essay plans, anticipated test questions—everything calculated!
But actual spellwork and practice? Zero without a wand! Or rather—zero with a wand in hand!
Until now Simon had comforted himself with the thought that a teacher's help was probably necessary. But the moment this arrogant, know-it-all swot arrived, she ground his self-soothing into the dirt!
And it infuriated him! Absolutely infuriated him!
"My goodness—you're Harry Potter?" she exclaimed, spotting the scar on his forehead. "I'm Hermione Granger! And you are?"
"Ron Weasley."
"Wand…" Simon muttered, staring into emptiness. "Probably because the wand's expired—it's so old… The wood's rotted, the feather's gone bad. Definitely the wand's fault…"
"Er—this is Simon Laplace. He's…"
"He's weird," Ron finished for Harry.
"I see," Hermione murmured. "By the way, I've decided I'm going to be in Gryffindor! Albus Dumbledore was in that house! What about you?"
"My whole family's been in Gryffindor," Ron said casually. "It's already decided."
"I don't know yet…"
"I'm red to the core," Simon answered on autopilot. "Gryffindor's my only choice."
Hermione—having been an ordinary English girl until recently—caught the foggy hint immediately, unlike Lily.
"You're from Manchester?"
"FUCK NO! Fuck Manchester!" Simon shuddered. "What the hell—Manchester? I'm from Liverpool! I'm Merseyside!"
"You're from Liverpool?" Hermione asked more cautiously. "Are you… a football hooligan?"
"What the fuck—football hool—" Simon suddenly understood. "Right—shit! It's nineteen ninety-one!"
By Simon's completely unbiased opinion, Liverpool was the footballing heart of England. No other views were accepted. Period.
But rich history isn't only victories and glory—it's also shame and disgrace.
This exact period had seen several tragedies that nearly broke Liverpool. It took about fifteen years to recover!
In eighty-five—just six years ago!—at the European Cup final in Brussels there'd been a major clash between Liverpool and Juventus fans. Liverpool fans started the fight, leading to disaster.
Because of that incident UEFA banned all English clubs from European competitions for five years—and Liverpool for six.
That ban nearly killed English football. And the worst part? Just one year ago—in the match between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool—there'd been a crush that killed ninety fans. The police were later found negligent, but at first they blamed drunken Liverpool troublemakers. The truth eventually came out, but the stain remained.
And this was peak "ultras" culture—the era of football hooliganism, which had started in England.
So by Simon's completely unbiased reckoning, nineteen ninety-one was a brutally difficult time for English football in general and Liverpool in particular. This period cemented England's reputation for football madness.
Hermione's wary reaction didn't surprise him. The reputation was… mildly tarnished. Especially Liverpool's.
"Forget it, Hermione," Simon said with a peaceful smile. "I'm not like that."
Though he was lying a little. If ultras culture hadn't died out in his time, he'd probably have joined it quickly. Because yes—he was a hooligan, and yes—he passionately loved football.
Fortunately, he'd been born into a more peaceful version of English fandom.
"Stop…" Simon suddenly snapped back to reality. "Hermione? Hermione Granger?!"
Several metaphorical light bulbs lit up over his head.
Fragments of newspaper articles he'd devoured whenever possible flashed before his eyes.
"Hermione Granger breaks record to become youngest Minister for Magic in history! Notably, she surpassed her predecessor—Kingsley Shacklebolt…"
"We must admit Magical Britain has not fully recovered from the upheavals of the nineties. You-Know-Who's terror left an indelible mark on our nation and tarnished centuries of reputation as the leading magical community. But Hermione Granger—a Muggle-born—becoming Minister for Magic is the first sign of healing. Of healing, or perhaps forging a new path."
"Rumour: Hermione Granger's husband is a troll!"
"Muggle-born, top student, reformer—the end of pure-blood elite dominance!"
"GRANGER REFORMS: Simplifying laws or destroying tradition?"
"Muggle-born Minister—fluke, inevitability, or joke?"
"In recent Wizengamot hearing, Granger's new law on magical creature protection was questioned—but Harry Potter himself spoke against the Wizengamot. Signs of a split at the top?"
"God…" Simon's eyes widened. "You're all connected, for fuck's sake! Nepotism! Pure nepotism, I'm telling you! A hotbed of corruption! I…"
Simon quickly calmed down.
"…have decided I'm going to be friends with you! Hooray for the magic of the Hogwarts Express!"