In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 504: Hogwarts

Jon knocked on the door of the house of the owner of this farm, which seemed so abrupt in the silence of the dark night.

However, there was no movement inside for a couple of seconds, so he continued to knock on the door with great patience, only stopping when several vulgar curses came from inside, as well as a series of footsteps.

The door was opened from the inside, and a burly man with a bushy beard held a double-barrelled shotgun in his hands, staring at Jon and Lily with an unfriendly look on his face.

The wariness in his eyes visibly subsided a little when he saw that the people standing outside the door were children and women.

"If you guys are lost, you can go to the cabin next to the house to make do for the night first, and wait for tomorrow for other things, if you have other purposes, you better weigh this guy in my hand first!"

He didn't think of Jon and Lily as some kind of beggars, because the two of them really didn't look like tramps, even though their clothing and attire looked strange.

Somewhat to his surprise, the person who interacted with him was actually not the indifferent-looking pretty woman, but the boy who looked like he might only be 7 or 8 years old at most.

"We just wanted to ask for directions sir, sorry to disturb your rest, but we do have some difficulties."

Jon could tell that the man just looked gruff, but should be a fairly nice person to talk to, otherwise, he wouldn't have been willing to offer them help right after he had just opened his mouth.

"Where are we now, and what year and month is it today?"

The man looked at Jon and Lily with an increasingly strange gaze, and his sleepiness looked like it had mostly worn off as well, then after a few moments of silence, he managed to answer.

"This is Paisley, today is the 2nd of June 1996."

After hearing his answer, Jon couldn't help but look at Lily, both pieces of news were good news for them.

Paisley is an area located in the southwest of Scotland, which meant that while they were still in Northern Europe before travelling through space, they are now back in Britain.

And in terms of time, it was five months faster than when they were in their original world.

Although it wasn't exactly the same, the difference in-between wasn't that big, and they were more than capable of roughly being able to deduce from this that the time Voldemort had used the time-turner to reverse in this world in the very beginning should have been the same 5 months!

After obtaining these two crucial pieces of information, Jon finally had a smile on his face for the first time since Dumbledore had fallen into a deep sleep.

He turned his head and continued to stare at the man, digging one hand into the pocket of his robes while saying.

"There is one more thing I would like to trouble you with, sir, and it may not be called trouble, after all, this is something that is in your favour, can we exchange some money with you?"

Just as the man listened to Jon's words, subconsciously alarm reoccupied his eyes, and his hand began to raise the muzzle of his shotgun.

Then he saw what Jon pulled out of his pocket.

It was two gold beans.

Having made this mutually satisfactory transaction, the man was not sleepy, and he enthusiastically offered to help Jon and Lily get to a nearby place with a station.

And thus, just as the sun was rising, Jon and Lily arrived together in front of a small railway platform located in Scotland.

At the platform, they bought their tickets to London, and it took the two of them the rest of the day to reach London from Scotland that afternoon.

But it was from that point that they returned to the most familiar of places.

The entrance to Diagon Alley, the location of the Leaky Cauldron Bar had not changed due to some deviation; it was still situated grimly in the middle of one of London's busier streets.

As soon as Jon and Lily both came into the bar together, the vibrant and relaxed atmosphere of this world's magical community was evident.

The bar was bustling with wizards and witches of all bloodlines sitting at the same table, and there was no hint of tension or dullness in the place, from time to time they could overhear these people talking about last year's Quidditch World Cup, and how the Irish team had beaten the Bulgarian team and won, or about the Triwizard Tournament that the three wizarding schools in Europe had organised together last year, and how the two Hogwarts champions had won the title together!

Lily listened intently to the second one, trying to find out if there was any information about Harry in it, but didn't hear the names of the two champions representing Hogwarts from those talking about it.

Jon could see the unease within Lily's mind, so he turned his head in mock confusion to the elderly barkeep, Tom, who was cleaning up at the bar.

"Sir, was the person who represented Hogwarts in the tournament last year was Harry Potter?"

Because of Jon's age, there was no surprise for him to ask this question, so Old Tom answered naturally.

"It's all already common knowledge boy, Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory, the two of them lifted the Triwizard Cup together and ended up in a trap laid by the remnants of the Dark Lord, but together they worked to defeat them and ultimately brought back the truth. The Daily Prophet has been picking up on this story for almost a year now."

Lily's entire body felt as if it had stood frozen in place as the old tom opened his mouth to answer Jon's question.

She had desperately warned herself before she arrived not to get her hopes up, and there were times when disappointment was more difficult to accept precisely because of the higher hopes.

But now, like a blasting curse that had suddenly exploded, the news that Harry Potter was alive and well and had won the Triwizard Tournament on behalf of this world's Hogwarts had bombarded her brain before she had a chance to return to Hogwarts.

After a long moment of standing still, Lily couldn't stop a slight tremor from running through her body.

It took Jon grabbing her arm from the side to make her finally come back to her senses from her trance and turn her head to look at Jon.

It was like she wanted to say something, but didn't know exactly what to say.

But before she could say anything, Jon had turned to Old Tom first.

"Can you prepare some Floo powder for us, we're going to make a trip to Hogsmeade."

It only took four Silver-Sickle for Jon and Lily to use the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron Bar to get to the Three Broomsticks Inn in Hogsmeade via the Floo Network.

After arriving in Hogsmeade, neither of them lingered, first they wrote a letter at the Owl Post Office and delivered it to the Hogwarts school grounds, and then instantly made their way to the gates of the school.

They watched with their own eyes as the owl with the letter flew into the castle, and McGonagall of another world didn't let them wait long, with a similarly straight back and a similarly serious look, she walked out of the castle.

When she saw Lily standing outside the school gates, the one who claimed to be a student from long ago visiting in the letter, somewhat familiar but mixed with too much strangeness, she stared blankly at the castle gate.

The whole person froze in place.

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