Harry Potter: I am the Legend

"What's your political stance?"

The girl named Sherlock asked.

"Me?"

Hoffa had never been asked such a question, let alone thought about it. He froze for several seconds before replying:

"A socialist, I guess."

"Oh~"

"Really?"

"Interesting."

Everyone around raised their eyebrows.

Delphina teased, "Then you must really like Roosevelt and Stalin."

Carlson exhaled a puff of smoke and asked, "The current Minister Moon has some pretty strong policies. What do you think of him?"

"I..."

Hoffa had no idea why the group was suddenly focused on him or who exactly they were talking about. These Western kids seemed oddly mature, discussing such topics so fluently.

Before he could scrape together an answer from his brain, he felt a ticklish sensation on his leg.

Looking down, he saw Aglaia's family poodle clinging to his leg, tongue out, drooling, and enthusiastically humping his shin.

"Ugh, what the hell!"

Hoffa was dumbfounded. This wasn't even his own pants—what if they got dirty? Instinctively, he kicked the creature away.

The poodle yelped, retreated in pain, and slinked away dejectedly.

"Buster!"

Sherlock cried out in surprise.

"You don't like the current British Minister of Magic?"

Carlson frowned and asked.

Hoffa, busy wiping saliva off his pant leg, didn't answer. The others took his silence as confirmation and began whispering amongst themselves.

After cleaning up, Hoffa lifted his head, intending to respond to the earlier question. But Sherlock had returned, holding the poodle by its neck.

"Hoffa, don't you like dogs?"

"I..."

Hoffa didn't have time to reply before another boy chimed in, "Hey, why don't you like him? He's my uncle! I think his policies are perfect for the current times."

Another girl laughed, "Maybe he has some trauma with dogs?"

Hoffa quickly waved his hands. "No, no."

Girl A: "Well, I thought everyone liked dogs."

Boy A: "I won't allow you to insult Minister Leonard Moon. Not you or anyone else."

Boy B: "Don't be like that, Hoffa. You're a public figure now; you need to pay more attention to your image."

Girl A: "Ew, I think he's just shy."

Girl B: "Have you ever faced the media before?"

Carlson: "Oh, please. Reporters from The Daily Prophet are so annoying."

Girl A: "Was it a big dog that traumatized you in childhood?"

Girl B: "A Doberman, a Labrador? Or some magical creature similar to a dog?"

Boy A: "Have you ever seen a werewolf, Hoffa?"

Julian: "Have you heard of Kandinsky, the painter?"

Carlson: "Wasn't he executed by Muggles?"

Boy B: "Anyway, the media's pretty crude."

The relentless stream of chatter left Hoffa utterly dizzy. He had no clue what they were discussing or why the conversation flitted so rapidly.

He felt like there had to be an idiot among them—either him or them.

The topic drifted aimlessly until it somehow landed back on Hoffa again.

Delphina: "By the way, Hoffa, what's your specialty in magic?"

"Hoffa?"

"Hoffa?"

Still stuck on the tenuous connection between dogs and the Minister of Magic, Hoffa snapped out of it when someone addressed him directly.

"What's your specialty, Hoffa?" Carlson asked impatiently. "Miss Delphina just asked you something."

"Hoffa's a Transfiguration expert," Sherlock interjected. "Right? Last year, you were even a teaching assistant for Hogwarts' Transfiguration class."

Finally, the conversation veered toward something sensible. Hoffa wiped the sweat from his forehead and sighed in relief. If they wanted to talk about Transfiguration, he could at least have a normal exchange.

He straightened up, cleared his throat, and said, "My specialty is human Transfiguration, including some applications of mental fields."

"Do you read Transfiguration magazines?" Girl B asked.

"Uh..."

Hoffa froze again.

"What magazines?"

"Mr. Bach, are you a little hard of hearing?" Girl A teased.

"Magic Star, Tales of Legendary Wizards, and Agramanis Adventure Club—these are the most popular Transfiguration publications right now."

The confidence Hoffa had just regained flickered like a candle in the wind. He licked his lips, trying to keep up with their rhythm, but the topic had already veered off.

Suddenly, Girl A leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Could you pass me the fruit wine, Mr. Bach~?"

Girl B added, "I'll take the one with cherries."

Hoffa quickly handed over the fruit wine to the unexpectedly intimate girl.

Girl A: "Thanks! I heard your hair used to be black."

"Yes."

"And your eyes? Are they naturally like that?"

"Yes."

"That's amazing."

"Yeah."

Hoffa was mentally cursing at this point.

At that moment, a woman named Delphine suddenly spoke up: "Bach, tell us about the changes in Animagus."

For a rare moment, the room fell silent. All eyes turned to Hoffa, clearly shocked by this unexpected comment.

Hoffa glanced around in surprise, hesitating. But after a moment of thought, he sighed and forced a faint smile.

"You see, Animagus works like this: if you try to transform actively, the results are minimal. But if you truly understand a creature, deeply enough—"

"Understand! Yes, exactly!!"

Carlson interrupted Hoffa excitedly, "Remember that summer when Julian turned a patterned snake into a necklace and gave it to Sherlock?"

The crowd erupted into laughter.

"Yes, yes, I remember that!"

Sherlock laughed heartily. "Didn't it eventually turn back?"

"I even sketched your expression back then!"

"Do you still have the drawing?"

"Of course I do!"

The conversation shifted again, diverting attention away from Hoffa. The smile on his face gradually faded, disappearing entirely, leaving only a sharp, cold expression. At this point, he was certain—if someone here was acting foolish, it wasn't him.

Once this realization set in, the cacophony of chatter seemed to grow distant for Hoffa. He sipped his drink indifferently, watching the flow of people like an outsider, observing these young wizards flitting about like jesters around him.

Sure enough, before long, the scattered conversation looped back to him.

"Mr. Bach," a young man asked, "how did you defeat that dark wizard? Were you ever afraid?"

"Yeah, yeah!" a young woman chimed in. "I'm so curious about your strength!"

"Power alone is useless," Carlson commented. "In the wizarding world, everything revolves around exchange and—"

"That's because you're sitting safely in this castle, surrounded by marble walls," Hoffa said coldly, cutting him off.

The chatter abruptly stopped. Everyone turned to Hoffa in surprise. A girl froze mid-bite on a cherry, her lips parted. A boy spilled his drink as he gawked.

"What did you say?" Carlson paused mid-sip.

"I said," Hoffa replied, his voice icy, "you don't care about these things because you can hide safely in your houses, behind these rules and protections."

Sherlock tried to interject, "But how did you defeat—"

Hoffa raised a finger, and a cold aura swept through the room like a winter chill. "Apologies, but I'm speaking."

The boys and girls fell silent.

Hoffa stepped forward, walking toward Carlson, his tone cold: "Not everyone in the world has the privilege of hiding in big houses, talking idly under the protection of Ministry Aurors, sipping twenty-Galleon fruit wines, and pretending to enjoy cigars from Cuba."

Each word landed heavily, the oppressive force of Hoffa's mental aura rendering the hall deathly silent. He stood before Carlson, face to face. Carlson took a step back, his face pale and beads of sweat forming on his brow.

The air grew heavy with tension.

"What are you trying to say?" Carlson stammered, his voice trembling.

Hoffa plucked the cigar from Carlson's mouth, blew on it, and then dropped it to the floor, crushing it underfoot.

"I don't like the smell of smoke."

At that moment, faced with Hoffa's blazing golden eyes—burning like the sun itself—Carlson was utterly shaken. Those eyes made him feel insignificant, humiliated. The glass in his trembling hand shattered with a crash. He had never imagined a gaze could carry such intensity.

Is this person's soul burning?

"Hoffa!!"

Just then, a voice from the crowd broke through the oppressive atmosphere.

Hoffa turned his head to see Aglaea descending the wooden spiral staircase. She wore a light purple gown, crystal-clear heels, and a silver half-moon headpiece. Her gloved hands rested gracefully on her abdomen, her collarbones and shoulders exposed, giving her the appearance of a regal princess.

But at that moment, her face was filled with urgency.

She paused, then quickly lifted her skirt and hurried down the stairs.

"What's going on here?"

She positioned herself between Hoffa and Carlson.

Hoffa withdrew his temper, bending slightly in a polite bow. "You all continue your conversation."

With that, he turned and walked out of the hall.

The crowd left behind exchanged awkward and embarrassed glances, their earlier arrogance replaced by discomfort. Even the adult wizards around were drawn to the scene, their curiosity piqued.

"Oh, Merlin's beard!"

Seeing their expressions, Aglaea rubbed her forehead in frustration. "Did you all gang up to bully him?"

(End of Chapter)

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