Chapter 35: Problematic Mouse

"Harry? Harry Potter—are you talking about that Harry Potter???"

Ron looked at Dali in shock.

"Uh…" Dali looked at Harry, thinking Harry had already introduced himself to Ron.

"He just came in," Harry said helplessly.

Dali shrugged, casually picked up the sleeping cat beside him, placed it on his lap, and began petting it.

The startled cat stared at Dali with a bewildered expression, even seeming to doubt its own cat life.

"You… you're Harry Potter?" Ron finally realized who the bespectacled boy sitting in front of him was.

"Yes, I am Harry Potter," Harry said with a smile, nodding.

"Then you really… I mean…"

Ron pointed to his own forehead.

"Oh, yes."

Harry casually flipped up his hair, revealing the lightning scar on his forehead for Ron to see.

"You're from a wizard family, right? I saw your whole family when I entered the station earlier," Harry said.

The Weasley family was easy to recognize; they all had red hair, and Harry had only glanced once but remembered.

"Yes, our whole family are wizards. We are the Weasley family, also considered an ancient wizard family. By the way, a distant cousin of my mother seems to be an accountant; we don't keep much contact with him," Ron said.

Friendship between boys often needs only a few words to spark strong interest in each other.

"Then you must know a lot of magic, right?" Harry asked excitedly.

"I heard you later lived with Muggles. How are they?" Ron also asked.

"Uh… not bad," Harry said, glancing at Dali beside him.

If it were the previous Dali, he would definitely say something terrible and even harshly rant about it.

But now, that's unnecessary.

"Oh, I forgot, he's your cousin," Ron said apologetically, glancing at Dali.

"Could you tell us about Hogwarts? We're not very familiar with the school yet."

Dali said with a smile.

"No problem."

Ron replied immediately.

"Hogwarts is the world's finest Magic academy, that's what I think. The school is divided into four houses: Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Slytherin."

"Each house has its own criteria for selecting students, but I don't know exactly how they do it. My brother told me there's a test, supposedly quite harmful to students," Ron explained.

Hearing that, a trace of worry appeared on Harry's face.

If the test is hard and he fails, what then? He's never practiced magic since childhood and only started reading books a month ago, hasn't tried many spells; if no house accepts him, wouldn't that be terribly embarrassing.

"Those two twins are your brother, right?" Dali suddenly asked.

"Ah, yes, have you met them?" Ron asked, surprised.

"Well, I saw them joking with your sister before; I think you shouldn't believe everything they tell you,"

Dali said.

Those twins clearly liked playing pranks; teasing their younger brother was nothing unusual.

"Alright, I won't believe what they said either," Ron nodded.

Ron continued the previous topic, moving from Hogwarts houses to the Magic World's most popular sport, Quidditch, and all sorts of bizarre magical phenomena.

These aren't found in books; they all come from Ron's life.

Dali and Harry listened with great interest.

Suddenly, a knock sounded, and a round-faced boy with teary eyes walked in.

"Sorry to disturb, have you seen my toad?"

the boy asked.

"No, we haven't," Ron shook his head.

"Alright, thank you,"

the boy turned and left the compartment, closing the carriage door.

"Toads as pets fell out of fashion years ago; if I had a toad pet, I'd definitely wish it would run away quickly."

After saying that, Ron pulled a sleeping mouse from his pocket.

"This is Banban, the pet mouse my brother didn't want; now it's mine,"

Ron's ears were a bit red.

"It only knows how to eat and sleep all day; sometimes I can't tell if it's dead or alive,"

Dali glanced at the hairless mouse, his brow slightly furrowed.

He felt the mouse seemed different somehow, as if it exuded a faint, lingering evil aura.

"May I see your mouse?"

Dali said.

He wanted to examine the mouse up close.

Feeling that hint of evil aura suggested the mouse might not be simple; even if it were just his imagination, Dali wasn't willing to let the illusion go.

"Oh, okay."

Ron didn't think twice and handed Banban to Dali.

Squeak squeak squeak…

Suddenly, the sleeping mouse thrashed violently, screaming wildly.

"Banban, what are you doing?"

Luoen was startled, and quickly grabbed the mouse in their hand.

"It might be afraid of cats."

Harry said.

Dali was stroking his pet cat at that moment; he guessed that the mouse had discovered the cat, so it began to struggle violently.

"All right, all right, I'm not going to feed you to the cat, so don't cry."

Luoen soothed Banban, then put it back into their own pocket.

"Sorry."

Luoen said to Dali.

"It's fine; I just forgot I still have a cat here."

Dali said.

But at the same time, his gaze turned to Luoen's pocket.

He always felt that this mouse was somewhat unusual.

Dali blinked slightly and activated Spiritual Sight.

"Huh? An Extraordinary Creature?"

Under Dali's Spiritual Sight, he saw a faint halo of light emanating from Luoen's pocket, which meant that something spiritual existed there.

"A Magical Species?" Dali guessed.

He wasn't sure if such a pet had any issues beyond the norm, after all, he still wasn't very familiar with the animals of the Magic World.

Perhaps it was just a mouse with some Magical Species bloodline.

The evil aura couldn't explain much; it might just be that it had picked up some other substance's scent, or perhaps it itself had an evil Magical Species bloodline—these judgments would require Dali to have a certain understanding of the species in the entire Magic World.

"Let's look into it more carefully when the chance arises." Dali thought to himself, committing the matter to memory.

Meanwhile.

In Luoen's pocket, the mouse Banban trembled slightly all over.

In its bright, black eyes, there was a hint of fear.