The new students excitedly walked in a long line to the great hall to wait for their sorting, while Felix felt a little hungry.


    Niffler Valen felt the same.


    “Just wait a little longer, let’s make a bet and guess if there’s any Raisin Pudding on the tableter, by the way, do you eat grapes?” Felix asked in a whisper, Niffler sat on hisp, stretching her neck to stare at the empty table, with some disappointment.


    Especially whenshe requested with her eyes, asking if she could collect a set of Hogwarts tableware, Felix rejected her without mercy.


    Snape looked at them with a strange expression on the side, but Niffler was only interested in shiny and delicate things, as she looked at the silvery long beard of the Dumbledore who suddenly appeared for a while, and then turned her head to look at Flitwick who was sitting on a high cushion, her curious eyes werepletely insufficient for her needs.


    “…


    Now slip me snug about your ears, ~


    I’ve never yet been wrong, ~


    I’ll have a look inside your mind.


    And tell where you belong!~”


    With booming apuse, the Sorting Hat ended the yearly song and the Sorting officially began. The only thing that surprised Felix was that thest line of the song wasn’t “They shared a wish, a hope, a dream” – he had heard it so many times in the Headmaster’s office that he subconsciously thought that’s how the Sorting Hat intended to end the song.


    “Stewart Ackerley!” Professor McGonagall stood aside, unfolding a long roll of parchment and brushing over the name to read it.


    A boy stepped forward, and you could tell he was shaking from head to toe. He grabbed the Sorting Hat and put it on his head, sitting on the stool, nervously rolling his eyes a little.


    “Ravenw!” Sorting Hat shouted.


    Stewart Ackerley took off the hat and hurried to his seat at the Ravenw table, where everyone at the table apuded and greeted him.


    “Malcolm Baddock!” “Slytherin!”


    “Eleanor Branston!” “Hufflepuff!”


    “Owen Cauldwell!” “Hufflepuff!”


    “Dennis Creevey!” “Gryffindor!”


    The little kid with thest name Creevey was wearing arge moleskin coat, which obviously belonged to Hagrid, and which looked like a sturdy piece of fur tent for a first-year freshman. When he assigned to Gryffindor House, he thought nothing about it and ran at a brisk pace to the Gryffindor House spot.


    As he ran, he yelled excitedly, sharing his experience: “Colin! I fell into theke! Theke!”


    “The Sorting Hat! Leave the Sorting Hat behind!”


    Professor McGonagall shouted after him twice, but he didn’t respond. As ast resort, she nudged with her wand and made the Sorting Hat float back on its own, while Felix hooked his fingers and made the Moleskin Coat fly to Hagrid, who was just about to get up.


    “Thanks, Felix.” Hagrid said gruffly, as he reached up and shook his coat as the drizzle fell everywhere.


    On the other hand, Gryffindor House let out a heartyugh, the freshman scratched his head, somewhat sheepishly sat next to a student who looked a lot like him, and after a moment of tranquillity, he began to describe his fall into theke excitedly, “I fell into theke, dunked a few mouthfuls of water, and thought, That’s the end! Then suddenly something pushed me back into the boat!”


    “That was cool!” His older brother, who is two years older – Colin Creevy – eximed as excited as his brother, “Probably the giant squid, Dennis!”


    Colin pointed to Harry who is a few seats away and said, “See that boy over there? The one with the long ck hair and sses? He’s Harry Potter! And he’s in all twelve of those photo albums I sent home, along with his friends!”


    His brother Dennis looked at Harry curiously, if not for the fact that his brother was hospitalized for most of the first year because he indirectly stared at the basilisk, the family’s photo albums might not have been able to fit his brother’s collections.


    But thanks to his brother’s photo album, he recognized Harry right away. And his brother continued to talk: “I just asked him to pray for you to be sorted into Gryffindor, and guess what? It worked!”


    “I’ll tell you more about the Patronus he released in the entrance hall, handsome as hell …”


    Human emotions are hard to predict. Harry’s face burned a little, and Ron asked him teasingly, “Did you just pray for that?”


    Harry stammered and hastily changed the subject by saying, “That empty seat is supposed to be the new professors, right?” He pointed to the faculty table.


    “Who else can it be?” Ron muttered, “But he’ste, and the dinner is about to start.”


    In fact, the empty seat at the faculty table remained unupied until nearly the end of the dinner, when Harry was so bloated that he had to part with half of the smoked potatoes on his te.


    Felix used transfiguration to create a small set of tables and chairs on which Niffler Valen sat, eating a piece of finely sliced Raisin Pudding, with a white napkin tied around her chest.


    Niffler, who had finished her meal early, was bored and sniffed the air for various smells, and soon found an acquaintance.


    It pulled on Felix’s pant leg and pointed in a direction, Felix looked nk – the little girl is too small how could he see what she meant, but he could see the direction and guess what she meant.


    “Go ahead and don’t steal anything from anyone, not even the tableware, Remember?”


    Niffler nodded energetically.


    She wormed her way under the dining tables, crossing over a trail of legs by stomping indiscriminately, then she quickly spotted her target and crawled up to her thighs.


    “Ouch!” Hermione yelped, looking down and meeting a pair of small, dark eyes.


    “Valen?” She whispered as Ron, Harry and several students around the table looked over.


    “A ck duck?” Dean Thomas, who grew up mostly in a Muggle household, wondered.


    “I guess that’s a Niffler.” Neville said quietly.


    “Niff-what?”


    “Niffler, her name is Valen, and she’s raised by Professor Hap.” Hermione said with an introduction.


    “She?” Dean got taken aback.


    “That’s right!” Hermione hugged the Niffler happily, “She’s a littledy, aren’t chu cutie?”


    Ron stared at Valen and said, “I’ve always wanted one, they’re notorious for being treasure hunters, it was on Fred and George’s New Year’s wish list when they were little.”


    Fred poked his head over from where Angelina had been sitting at the table as he said, “Don’t nder us, our wishes changed a long time ago.”


    “Yeah,” said George, sitting on his other side, “especially when we learned, upon inquiring, that Niffler is better at rummaging through the pockets of those around it, we changed our minds.”


    “Watch your pockets, and your forks-” Fred concluded with a cautionary note.


    “And the goblets.” George added.


    Ron covered his pockets sadly, “They have a point, Harry, it’s staring at your coin!”


    Niffler, which had been sitting in Hermione’s arms, stared at Harry, who is holding a muggle coin, which is golden and shiny, the one Felix modifiedst year, with a spell on it to monitor the number of times he can cast an apparition perfectly.


    ording to the agreement, Harry must fill in its golden glow before he can use the apparition outside the Room of Requirement.


    When he left schoolst year, he was a bit short of the mark, but over the summer he followed Sirius around and inadvertently filled up thest bit …


    At this point, Dumbledore smiled and began to speak, starting with the usual lines, Filch’s list of banned items is updated every year, and has now been umted with four hundred and thirty-seven items; he once again repeated that students are not allowed to enter the Forbidden Forest privately.


    These words had been familiar to them for a long time, and the circle around Harry did not listen very attentively; they were obviously more interested in Niffler-


    “Harry, you’d better put the coin away, although Professor Hap had taught her, but – oh gosh!”


    Hermione paused in surprise as Niffler Valen’s meaty hands pulled a golden galleon from her pocket, as she ced it on the table, and then pointed to Harry’s coin.


    “What’s it doing?” Ron asked in confusion.


    “I think,” Hermione said incredulously, taking a deep breath, “Harry, it wants to trade with you–”


    The trio looked at each other, what a strange Niffler, Ron chuckled, “Professor Hap’s education is really … haha … really effective, even the Niffler’s nature has been corrected. ”


    But soon, he couldn’tugh anymore, because of the dyed response, Valen though Harry didn’t want to, so she pulled out another gold galleon from her small pocket and stacked it on top of the first one.


    Harry watched it dazedly as a third and fourth golden galleon soon stacked up on the long dining table, and the longer it went on, the slower Niffler moved, her little pink hands shivering a bit and even Dean could see how reluctant she was.


    Niffler stretched out her finger and pointed at the golden galleons stacked high, and pointed at the coins glowing in Harry’s hand, giving off a little rich girl vibe that made everyone around her stare in awe.


    Ron said encouragingly, “Don’t surrender, Harry. Let’s see how many galleons it cane up with, Merlin’s beard ah … it’s much richer than me!”


    At this point, Dumbledore finally spoke about something closely rted to the students, “… I also have to tell you with great regret that there will be no Quidditch match for the House Cup this year.”


    “What?” Harry looked up, gasping in surprise. He wasn’t the only one, most of the students were stunned by the news.


    “Rumble!”


    A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, thunder exploded outside the castle, rattling the ss windows, as a great hall door mmed open.


    A man walked in, leaning on a long cane, wearing a ck travelling cloak. With the bright light in the great hall, the pupils of the four house students saw his appearance as they drew in a cold breath.


    The man’s face looked like it was carved out of a piece of rotting wood, and it was done by a crappy craftsman who was absolutely inept in carving, every inch of skin was scarred, his nosecked a piece of flesh, one leg is a wooden Prosthetic leg, and when he walked, he made a thumping sound, scaring the young wizards on either side of him as he passed by the table, as they hastily shrank back towards their tables.


    Harry stared at Moody’s face and then at the half-smoked potatoes on his te, then his stomach suddenly reeled a little.


    After he approached, the students found that the most frightening thing about the stranger should be his eyes, one intact, but the other – Niffler in Hermione’s arms, covered her face with her two small hands afraid to look at him, but she still did not forget to reach out and stuff the golden galleons on the table back into her pocket.


    Hermione felt both amused and embarrassed, but when her eyes fell on the stranger’s eyes, she couldn’tugh anymore. The eye looked like a big, round, fake eye, in the eye sockets it rolled up and down, sometimes leaving only the white of the eye, it looked like as if it should be staring behind him.


    He then simply shook hands with Dumbledore, and sat down in the only empty seat, ignoring the rest of the people, and ate the remaining food on the table. But his blue fake eye still kept turning around to survey the great hall and the students.


    “Allow me to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts ss professor,” Dumbledore cheerfully broke the silence, “Professor Moody.”


    In a frightening silence, Dumbledore announced the existence of the tournament, and he described the origin and development of the original Triwizard Tournament and how it had to be called off after centuries because of too many deaths, and how the Ministry of Magic was finally well-prepared, and this time, the number of schools participating in the tournament had increased to five.


    Many students did not even know about Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, let alone Ilvermorny and Uagadou outside of Europe, and they listened to Dumbledore’s speech as if they were listening about flying Rainbow colour pig.


    And Felix is not unfamiliar with this information, he cleared his throat, as Niffler Valen immediately jumped down from Hermione’s arms, deliberately taking a long detour to avoid Moody, who has frightening eyes.


    Moody was holding a sausage and eating it, as his false eye followed Niffler’s trail and saw it finally climbing onto the shoulder of a young professor. Then he let out a low “snort”.


    “Little thing.”


    ———-


    #Patrick Wishart, Thanks for your support.


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