[Chapter Size: 1800 Words.]

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  The Crabbe family is a pure-blood clan, but most of the family resides in the Netherlands, so they are not included among the twenty-eight clans of England.

  Although not one of the twenty-eight clans, the Crabbe family still maintains good relations with the circle of pure-blood wizard families in Britain. This is likely due to Kempins Crabbe being very close to the current patriarch of the Malfoy family, Lucius Malfoy.

  Kempins Crabbe has a son, Vincent Crabbe, who enrolled at Hogwarts this year, one of the three largest wizarding schools in Europe. Originally, almost all members of the Crabbe family studied at Durmstrang, but probably to please the direct descendant of the Malfoy family, Vincent was enrolled at Hogwarts and became a follower of the young Malfoy.

  However, this child is foolish and clumsy, and there is a 99% chance that he would be bullied if he were to attend Durmstrang, which has a violent school spirit.

  On the first day back during the summer holidays, Vincent Crabbe was called by his parents to the office at their mansion.

  "So, my son, have you heard anything?" Kempins Vincent looked at his son with a smile. The father and son had somewhat similar eyebrows and eyes, but compared to the Kempins, Vincent seemed somewhat overweight.

  "Yes... yes, Father," Vincent seemed very reserved in front of Kempins. "I heard some rumors about the Philosopher's Stone. But... but Dumbledore... Dumbledore seems to have destroyed it."

  "What?" Kempins, who had been smiling at first, immediately changed his expression upon hearing this. "Are you sure?"

  "I... I don't know. That's what everyone at school is saying," Vincent said hesitantly.

  "Don't scare the boy," Mrs. Crabbe gave her husband a tap, pulled Vincent to her side, and comforted him gently. When he was near his mother, Vincent did relax a little.

  Kempins also realized that he seemed to have scared the child, so he softened his tone a little. "So, has anyone else had contact with it? The Philosopher's Stone?"

  "Yes, yes..." Vincent nodded repeatedly. He then told the story that had been circulating at school in the past few days. However, since most of it had been passed on by Ron and the twins, the content was incomplete, and much of it had been "artfully" processed, making it somewhat confusing.

  Kempins' frown deepened. After hearing everything and asking a few more questions, he waved his hand and asked Vincent to leave.

  Vincent escaped as if he had been forgiven. He had feared his strict father since childhood. In comparison, his mother was much kinder.

  After Vincent left, Kempins slammed the table and said, "Damn it, Dumbledore! He couldn’t use the Philosopher's Stone himself, but he destroyed it. Idiot, what an idiot!"

  Mrs. Crabbe also seemed melancholic. "What should we do now? Sir Nicolas Flamel didn’t refine the Philosopher's Stone for hundreds of years. The only Philosopher's Stone that exists is probably the one."

  "We’ll ask around. Maybe it's a false rumor." Kempins gritted his teeth and said, "If it’s true, then we’ll have to figure out a solution ourselves."

  "But..." Mrs. Crabbe seemed a little hesitant.

  "No buts. Vincent is in this state now. Do you have any other solution?" Kempins looked at his wife. "Our time is very limited. Seven years, maybe even less. We have to... you know."

  "Okay, I... I’ll think of a way..." Mrs. Crabbe sighed softly.

  …

  Dudley has been very active lately. He would ask Harry to tell him about Hogwarts every day. Obviously, Dudley is very interested in things about the magical world.

  Especially after he tried twice to use owls to send messages.

  Harry asked Dudley how he used the owl, but Dudley couldn’t explain it clearly. It turns out that sometimes the owl would appear when he wanted to write to Harry. But it’s not particularly easy to use, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

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  Harry couldn’t explain it either, as he knew very little about the magical world.

  Harry decided not to worry about it if he didn’t understand, so he started telling Dudley about his experiences last year.

  At first, Harry told him some serious stories that actually happened. But soon he realized that, besides facing the troll on Halloween and the final experience of protecting the Philosopher's Stone, his year hadn’t been particularly exciting.

  It was hard for Harry to make Dudley understand the fun of Quidditch just by describing it.

  Most of the time, Harry just attended classes, did homework, and practiced.

  Such a story obviously didn’t satisfy Dudley. Harry felt powerless, but soon realized that he was making things up, and Dudley couldn’t tell the difference, so.

  "Cousin, you don’t know that when the dragon’s wings were spread out, they were more than three meters long! Its head was bigger than mine, and it could swallow a cow in one go. I was so scared at the time. You didn’t know because you weren’t there, but its eyes were so big, and I could feel its bad breath even when it was less than a meter from me..."

  Harry was speaking nonsense with all his gestures, but it only made Dudley extremely excited, and he was scared when he heard it. The fist clenched tightly, as if he were really there, extremely nervous.

  At that moment, someone knocked on the door. It was Uncle Vernon.

  He didn’t come in but handed Harry a document at the door. Uncle Vernon had prepared this for Harry two days before, after asking if there was any unused equipment that had been replaced during the production line update.

  Recycling is a very special job in the UK, and what’s special is that no one does it.

  Large equipment, once eliminated, is no different from trash and has no recycling value. Fixing it could be worse than buying a new one. Therefore, Uncle Vernon’s company was already wondering what to do with some of the equipment that had been replaced in the production line.

  Uncle Vernon was pleased to know that Harry could help him with some tasks. However, he was still very unhappy when he heard Harry talking to Dudley about magic.

  "Thank you, Uncle Vernon, leave it to me. I'll show my classmate's father later, hum, in a magical way," Harry said with a smile.

  Dudley seemed interested in hearing about wizard customs. Uncle Vernon frowned visibly but said nothing in the end, turning and leaving the room.

  Ignoring the thick pile of documents, Harry looked at his older cousin beside him. Now definitely wasn’t the time to search for information, Harry was sure of that, so he continued to chatter.

  …

  In the afternoon, Harry took a nap and didn’t see Dudley. After asking Aunt Petunia, Harry learned that Dudley had gone out to play baseball with his friends. Harry thought for a moment and decided to go out for a walk. He hadn’t left the house once since returning from the holidays.

  Actually, when Harry was at school, he wanted to visit Diagon Alley to walk around and see if there were any other wizards near his house.

  Harry felt that there must be one, after all, he felt that his identity was very special. Harry didn’t believe that Dumbledore or the Ministry of Magic gave him any special care.

  After all, with his identity, if he were found and killed by Voldemort’s followers who were still out there, the remaining Death Eaters, the Ministry of Magic would likely lose all credibility.

  However, after strolling through the neighborhood, Harry realized he had been a bit self-indulgent.

  He bought a large ice cream and used his magical senses to walk around the community, but he didn’t see anyone with magical powers.

  Just as he closed his magical senses and was about to go home with a bit of regret, a faint voice suddenly reached his ears.

  "Boy, don’t look around. If you see something you shouldn’t, the consequences will be something you won’t be able to handle."

  Harry turned around suddenly and saw a dark-skinned man standing behind him.

  Africans have some distinct facial features, which are a bit different from those of European peoples. But the man in front of him didn’t have any of these features.

  And the man’s skin was so dark, it was as if a layer of paint had been applied to his body.

  Not only his skin but also his clothes, boots, and gloves were all black. There was no other color on his body, except for the white of his eyes and his teeth.

  Harry was shocked. He was certain that just a few seconds before, when he had looked around, there had definitely been no one nearby.

  At that time, although there weren’t many people around, there were still a few coming and going. The person in front of him was extremely strange both in appearance and attire, and he was standing next to a child like him. This situation was definitely not normal.

  However, no one around them even looked at them.

  It was as if they hadn’t seen the person at all.

  "You... who are you?" Harry asked nervously, ready to draw his wand at any moment. Although there are rules prohibiting magic outside of school, you can still make an exception if you’re truly in danger.

  "You still can’t know my name." The strange dark-skinned man looked at Harry with a smile that was three parts interest and seven parts mockery on his face. "I’m here to see what kind of little boy has my toy in his hands."

  "Your... toy?" Harry looked at the strange man in front of him with surprise and distrust.

  The dark-skinned man slowly walked around Harry and said, surprised: "Interesting, very interesting, this is the first time I’ve seen such a small guy... Hey, I told you not to look around. Why didn’t you listen?"

  Before the dark-skinned man finished speaking, Harry fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth and convulsing uncontrollably.

  Harry only saw a blinding white light in front of his eyes, as if he were staring directly at the sun. To his ears, the voice of the dark-skinned man sounded as if it were coming from beyond, strange, and incomparably clear:

  "Little lamb, I’ll teach you a free lesson: don’t look directly at God."

  This was the last moment of Harry's consciousness, and then he passed out.

  ******

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