Yuri went after him anyway. He waved the flowers in his hand with some excitement, "What the hell are you? is this magic?"
Tom just looked at him with a smile.
Yuri's breath caught, his instinct telling his that this was the most important and unmissable opportunity of his life, and he felt the urge to give Tom all the money he had, but he refused, taking only the twenty-five pounds he had given Yuri.
"I owe you." Tom waved his hand and walked away.
Yuri watched the boy's back fade, sat down on the floor and smoked a cigarette.
...
Hermione stood in front of the open window, looking out at the familiar, intimate garden, feeling the scent of the grass coming in through the window. She couldn't believe it until today: the day before yesterday a cat had turned into a human being before her eyes and told her that she had been accepted into a wizarding school called Hogwarts. It was more than a fairy tale.
She was standing by the window, holding a furry tiger doll in her arms, looking so peaceful that, if her arms weren't trembling slightly, anyone would have thought she was a young girl contemplating the scenery.
She was nervous, because her future was uncertain, because she would be leaving her parents to study and live in a strange world. Her life had been completely altered by this inexplicable school. The Grangers had planned for young Hermione to either grow up and go to a prestigious medical school and become a decent doctor or come home and inherit the practice and become a good dentist.
Hermione looked at the neatly trimmed raspberries, the clean paths, the bushes with her mother's favorite flowers and reflected that the scenery, which had brought her so much pleasure, had only made her feel bored.
Looking at the bushes, a figure suddenly flashed through her mind: I wonder if that person has received a letter of acceptance...
Hermione picked up a copy of her unread novel, left the bedroom, exchanged her slippers for sandals at the door and went straight out into the garden. She intended to go to her newfound "secret base" to rest.
It was a pond, but the water was clean because it was connected to a small river, and because the environment had been tended for decades. The pond was surrounded by vegetation and was an ideal place to spend the summer.
She turned onto a tree-lined path, under which was the pond, surrounded by thick willow bushes swaying in the wind.
Hermione was about to sit down in the shade of a tree and read a book when she suddenly saw a fishing rod raised on the bank of the pond below, so she stopped short.
She approached the fishing pole, ran her hand along the branches of the bush and a familiar figure appeared before her. She recognized the young man, Tom.
Tom was sitting with his pants rolled up, on a small wooden dock, with a broken can beside him. He was so engrossed in his fishing that he didn't even notice Hermione approaching.
"Can you still fish here?" asked Hermione curiously. The sudden voice made Tom almost drop his rod. He looked toward the source of the noise with some irritation.
He saw Hermione standing on the shore, a book in her hand. She was wearing a beige top and light shorts, white stockings tight around her calves, brown sandals on her feet and her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Tom's anger subsided a bit. At that moment, the fish in the water scattered and suddenly the water fluctuated a couple of times, sending a ripple through the water.
Hermione exclaimed from behind Tom, "It's biting! The fish, it's hooked..."
Tom was a bit stunned, but somehow, he managed to catch a palm-sized fish.
The fish was yellowish brown, with three spines on the back and next to the gills.
"What kind of fish is this?" asked Hermione curiously as she walked over and looked at the struggling fish on the hook.
"It's a Yellow Surgeonfish." Tom carefully unhooked the fish from the hook and prepared to put it in the bucket.
"Can I touch it?" Hermione looked very happy, even though she had no idea what a "Surgeon Yellow Fish" was, that didn't stop her from being very excited.
She reached out to touch the fish, but underestimated the fish's determination to resist. So.
"Look out!" exclaimed Tom.
"Ah!"
A fin from the Yellow Surgeonfish hit Hermione's index finger, and Tom hurried to restrain the fish and toss it into the bucket, taking Hermione's hand to check the wound.
It wasn't very deep, but Hermione was still frowning in pain. It wasn't that Hermione was being petulant, it was just that the spines of the yellow surgeonfish had a poison that caused severe pain, and the wound swelled and itched after a while.
Tom looked at the wound with a grave expression. Hermione was so terrified by his expression that she couldn't help but squint her eyes and asked, "Is he going to be okay? It's just a small cut, it's not even bleeding...ouch!"
As she spoke, Tom pressed the cut on Hermione's index finger, drawing a few drops of dirty blood.
"The sting of the Yellow Surgeonfish is poisonous, and you may suffer today, but there are two ways to detoxify..." said Tom.
"What should I do?" Hermione was surprised by the word poison.
"Piss on the wound...," Tom hesitated a bit and said.
"No!" Hermione's eyes widened, she thought Tom was playing a joke on her.
"Or rubbing yellow surgeon fish slime on the wound may also relieve the pain," Tom said.
It was the second statement that soothed Hermione, although the goo also looked gross, it was better than urine! No comparison can hurt, so Hermione quickly took some of the slime and put it on her finger, and she didn't know if it was a psychological effect, but it didn't seem to hurt that much.
"After all, it's a lifetime of water, so you should get some iodine or something to clean the wound when you get home." instructed Tom seriously after treating Hermione's wound.
"Okay!" Hermione nodded, then asked as if remembering something, "Did you get your Hogwarts acceptance letter?"
Tom nodded and asked, "Yes, have you been to Diagon Alley yet?"
"Not yet, Professor McGonagall gave us the address to Diagon Alley, dad will take me there in a couple of days," Hermione smiled knowing that the teenager in front of her was also going to Hogwarts, and felt a sense of reassurance: a sudden warmth in the cold world of magic.
Tom looked at her and realized: Professor McGonagall hadn't taken her to Diagon Alley, and it seemed that not all new students had the privilege of being shown the way by a member of staff.
'I'm afraid there's going to be a lot of trouble...', Tom muttered in his mind, 'with a family of Muggles trying to find their way to Diagon Alley.'
With that in mind, Tom looked at Hermione, 'If you don't mind, I could take you on a tour of Diagon Alley, I've been there once before.'
"Really? That's great." Hermione laughed gleefully, and their laughter echoed along the river.