It was a bright, sunny day, and the outer edge of the Forbidden Forest beside Hogwarts was unusually lively.
A crowd of students was heading excitedly toward the forest for their first Care of Magical Creatures lesson of the term.
Their faces showed a mixture of anticipation and nerves, as if they were off on a picnic or an adventure rather than going to class.
Every year, Dumbledore solemnly warned students not to go near the Forbidden Forest, and for most of them, his words were very effective.
So the Forbidden Forest had always remained a mysterious place many students longed for. In their imaginations, it was full of magical creatures, beautiful and dangerous plants, and scenes of mysterious splendor.
The reality, however, left many of them disappointed. There was no dazzling, magnificent hidden world in sight. The edge of the forest before them looked no different from any ordinary stretch of woodland.
It was not nearly as interesting as the book in their hands.
The Monster Book of Monsters, a "living" textbook.
That book was something else. It had nearly driven the owner of Flourish and Blotts to bankruptcy. These books were like mad dogs, liable to start biting everything in sight if you were not careful.
Just stocking this new batch of textbooks for Care of Magical Creatures had nearly gotten Flourish and Blotts torn apart by the things.
And the students who bought them had not escaped unscathed either. Most of them had been bitten while curiously trying to open the books.
Quite a few were still shaken by it.
"This book is way too weird," Harry Potter said uneasily, staring at the trembling volume in his hands. The eye on the cover was glaring at him as if it wanted to tear him apart.
If it were not strapped shut with a belt, Harry was sure it would already have bitten him.
Even Harry, who was close to Hagrid, thought this book was a bit much, let alone the other students.
Watching students all around him complain about the textbook, Harry could not help worrying for Hagrid, who had only just become a professor.
Then, in the crowd, Harry noticed someone who stood out.
While everyone else was complaining about how savage the textbook was, Leonard William stood there empty-handed, looking completely calm.
"Leonard, didn't you bring your book?" Harry walked over and greeted him.
Leonard looked at Harry and gave a calm nod.
"Then you can share mine in class," Harry said warmly. Then his gaze stopped on Leonard's arm.
"What happened to your arm? Did you get hurt?"
Leonard's arm was wrapped in bandages, dense layers covering every bit of skin.
Just looking at it made Harry feel oddly uncomfortable.
"No, it's just decoration," Leonard said.
"That's... a pretty unusual decoration," Harry replied casually, handing Leonard The Monster Book of Monsters. "By the way, do you know how to make this thing calm down?"
Leonard took the book, and before he could even say anything, the Monster Book, which had been growling like a hunting dog, fell silent.
"Huh?" Harry stared at the book in Leonard's hands in surprise. "Why did it stop?"
Maybe it was just his imagination, but he could have sworn the book was trembling.
Leonard shrugged, then opened it right in front of everyone.
Harry gasped. The surrounding students squeezed their eyes shut, as if they could not bear to watch Leonard get mauled by it.
But the Monster Book lay there as still as a corpse, letting Leonard flip through its pages without the slightest resistance, as though it were just an ordinary book.
"Blimey, Leonard, how did you do that?" Harry asked in astonishment.
"Just go with the flow," Leonard said flatly.
Then he suddenly looked up toward a tree not far away. A crow was perched on one of the branches, openly watching him.
"It reeks of plants... no, this thing is basically a plant."
Inside the castle, Leonard, who was currently in Arithmancy, curled his lip.
Since the Time-Turner would not work, Leonard had selectively given up a few electives.
Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures had been left to that other "Leonard," whatever exactly it was. Leonard himself focused mainly on Ancient Runes, with the occasional Divination or Arithmancy lesson.
Divination did have some value, after all. Trelawney might be unreliable most of the time, but she really did have a bit of talent.
Who knew? Maybe one day she would blurt out a genuinely useful prophecy.
Besides, Leonard himself was curious whether he had any talent for divination. He was increasingly convinced that relying on his foreknowledge of the original plot and pretending to be some fake seer was far too unreliable.
As for that other "Leonard," Leonard had already confirmed that the one who created that plant-person had to be himself. He had even "seen" the familiar Rune letters temporarily imprinted on that other version.
Leonard had three Rune letters, each representing a crow. Those three letters were marked on his arm, and even Raven would not have been able to produce Rune letters carrying such an unmistakably personal aura.
"Leonard, have you been acting a little strange lately?" Hermione, sitting beside him, suddenly asked.
Hermione disliked Divination, but she unexpectedly loved Arithmancy. She clearly had the mind of a natural STEM student.
The difference between Arithmancy and ordinary Divination was that Divination required talent and let people make things up as they pleased, while Arithmancy only required that you actually knew mathematics.
So for someone like Hermione, who loved being praised, Arithmancy was far more interesting than Divination.
Still observing Plant Leonard, Leonard asked casually, "Strange? What's strange about me?"
"It's just that when you're attending different classes at the same time, you don't quite feel the same. The one wrapped in bandages feels a little too blank," Hermione said. "And what exactly are those bandages for?"
She glanced at Leonard's arm again, certain that he was not injured at all.
"Oh, those are just decoration," Leonard said with a straight face.
Those bandages were probably meant to hide plant traits, weren't they?
From observation, Leonard concluded that the "plant version" of himself was probably a huge, unusually rare Living Wood Vine.
Living Wood Vines were usually very small. Even the ones Leonard had strengthened and grown himself were only about a meter tall.
He himself was over one-point-seven meters tall. So where on earth had such an enormous Living Wood Vine come from?
"Decoration?" Hermione looked completely baffled, unable to understand what kind of custom would treat bandages as decorative.