The Butcher of Hogsmeade

Pig Head Bar is known for its "unique" hygiene conditions. Even the snow in front of the bar looks filthy, with mud that smells slightly sour and rotten when turned up from under the snow, which inevitably makes people think of things that challenge their psychological limits.

The young stranger lay sprawled in the puddle of black and white "slush," staring up at the wand in the bar owner's hand, as if stunned by magic, his face filled with astonishment and confusion. He didn't respond to the bar owner's question, then suddenly raised his hand and slapped himself several times, watching his cheeks quickly swell and turn red before muttering under his breath, "Not a dream?"

No one could understand his mutterings because he wasn't speaking English at all; naturally, they couldn't understand the young man's second sentence: "How can I understand so much English?"

"I'm fucking asking you a question!" the bar owner said sternly. When he didn't get a reply, he felt slighted and mocked. He stretched out his wand as if to launch another attack.

The young man was already traumatized. Even though he didn't know what force had injured him, he understood that the small wooden stick in the other man's hand was a weapon. Seeing the wand extended forward, he instinctively dodged backward, frantically retreating with his hands and feet. Unexpectedly, the wand's attack was more unpredictable than the young man had imagined. This time, it didn't hurt; instead, a rope suddenly shot out from the tip of the wand, binding his feet and dragging him straight back to where he started, even closer to the wand and the bar owner.

"What the Fuck?" The young man's catchphrase proves once again that everyone learns a foreign language by first using profanity.

Then, naturally, the young man was hit hard on the head again for his vulgar language. While seeing stars, he still couldn't see what had hit him on the forehead.

"Stop, stop! I don't even know you, why are you hitting me? Who are you? Where am I?" This time everyone understood what the young man was saying, because he finally switched to English, and he spoke it with unusual fluency.

"You barged into my bar and crawled into my fireplace. You're incredibly lucky I didn't kill you on the spot! Answer my questions: Who are you? What are you doing here? Who sent you to cause trouble?" The bar owner's eyes were like knives, with a sharp edge rarely seen in someone his age.

"Answer? What the hell am I supposed to answer?!" the young man cried hysterically. What he was experiencing was beyond his psychological capacity, even beyond his imagination. "I didn't want to be here! I don't know who you are, I don't know where this is, and I have no reason to cause trouble! A minute ago I was at home playing games online, and the moment I opened my eyes I was in that fireplace. I was still asking you who you are, and where this is!"

"You think you can get away with this? I've seen plenty of your kind!" The bar owner's cane suddenly burst out in a burst of sparks, a flame grazed the young man's cheek and exploded on the snow beside him; the small cluster of flames continued to burn without fuel, even melting a large patch of snow.

The intense heat brushed against his cheek, causing a sharp burning sensation, and the young man screamed in pain, clutching his face. Just as the bar owner was about to punish him again out of impatience, the Pwitt brothers finally stumbled over to him and stopped the enraged old man in time.

"Wait, wait, Aberforth, don't get yourself into trouble." Gideon grabbed the bar owner's hand, stopping him from casting more spells.

"Don't get in my way, Gideon!" The old man clearly recognized the Pewter brothers, and although he was still furious, his tone had softened considerably.

"I'm not trying to get in your way, I'm just worried you'll get into trouble." Gideon stood in front of the old man, gesturing for his brother Fabian to check on the young man, and then lowered his voice, "Take a good look at this kid. He's not even wearing shoes. In this snowy weather, he's not dressed like he'd go out. And think about his reaction to the wand earlier. He looks like a Muggle, and he's wearing Muggle clothes too... Using a curse on a Muggle, even if he barged into your bar first, you'll still be in trouble; Frank's Auror colleagues aren't far from here, and they... aren't all on our side."

The bar owner—an old man known as "Aberforth"—looked directly into Gideon's eyes, his anger still burning, but his mind gradually calming down.

"I don't care anymore, you guys handle it, but don't let him appear in front of me again, or I'll stuff him back into the fireplace and use his bones to start a fire for warmth."

"You're really stingy. In this weather, you didn't even light the fireplace." Gideon breathed a sigh of relief, finally daring to tease the other person.

"They're bundled up tighter than a grizzly bear, why would they need a fire?" The old man turned and walked back to the bar, yelling at the onlookers, "Get back here! I remember who hasn't paid for their drinks, don't think you can skip out on your bill by pretending to be a spectator!"

"Hey, I remember the fireplace in the bar isn't connected to the Floo Network, so it's impossible for anyone to bring Floo Powder over, right?" Gideon shouted after the old man's retreating figure.

"No!" Aberforth slammed the bar door shut, and the windows closed within seconds. In an instant, only the Pwitt brothers and the bruised and battered young man remained outside.

"Alright, now we can talk properly." Gideon turned to look over and immediately felt sympathy. This kid had been beaten too badly by Aberforth. Although no particularly powerful curses were used, he had been thrown and hit on the ground. The old man didn't have the kind heart to hit someone in the face. His head and face were covered with various superficial injuries. They wouldn't be fatal or leave permanent damage, but they were still shocking to look at.

The young man was clearly still shaken. Even when faced with the much milder attitude of the Pwitt brothers, he remained wary, looking them up and down without uttering a word.

"You like talking while sitting in the snow?" Fabian, who hadn't spoken until now, teased. Although he looked relaxed, his wand remained poised, seemingly hanging naturally but actually pointing directly at the young man, ready to be raised at any moment to deliver a sharp blow.

The young man looked embarrassed and bent over to untie the rope around his ankle.

"Let me do it!" Gideon continued to play the gentle, good-faced role. Seeing the young man's clumsy, hunched posture, he ran the tip of his wand across the rope, as if an invisible blade had cleaved the knot in two. The young man scrambled to his feet, only to shiver uncontrollably the moment his feet touched the snow.

"That's strange, who would go out without shoes?" Fabian joked as he picked up two pieces of wood from under the eaves of the bar, tapped them with his wand, and they turned into two leather boots.

The reason I say "two" instead of "a pair" is because these two shoes don't even achieve basic left-right symmetry. One has a pointed toe, and the other has a round toe. The colors and heights of the uppers and shafts are also different, making them look like ignorant children who picked one shoe from each of two pairs and pieced them together.

"You should have let me come. Your Transfiguration grades have never been good; your best ever was only an A." Gideon looked at him with disdain, but not at the shoes.

"And how much better are you?" Fabian retorted unhappily.

"I passed at least one E."

"Only once in seven years."

"It's better than nothing."

The two brothers argued over their dislike of the shoes, but the young man who took the shoes was completely shocked. He didn't care about the "minor flaw" that the two shoes were not a pair and kept asking, "How did you do that? What is this? Is it magic?" He seemed to be so shocked that he even forgot that his feet were cold.

"Magic? No, this is magic, not those clumsy tricks that Muggles use to fool people." Fabian shook his head repeatedly.

"Magic? Does magic really exist in the world?" the young man asked in surprise.

Fabian pointed to the shoes: "Didn't you see them? And you're putting them on right now! You've never seen magic before, and you don't know magic exists?"

"If I knew, would I need to ask you?" Seemingly realizing that he had temporarily escaped the "dangerous situation," the young man began to show the strong curiosity and adaptability unique to his age; he put the boots on his feet, partly because he really couldn't stand the coldness on his feet, and partly because he wanted to test whether they were really boots; because he was putting on the shoes while standing, he couldn't control his balance on one leg and could only hop around.

Once the young man was finally able to put on his boots and walk, Gideon first gave him a "Clean Up" treatment to remove the snow and mud from his clothes. Then he led him down a secluded path, at the end of which they could see a shed with its doors and windows closed in the distance.

"Now you can tell me, who are you? A Muggle, and why are you in Hogsmeade?" Gideon walked ahead, asking as he went; Fabian followed behind, sandwiching the young man in the middle.

"My name is Shen Hou, I'm Chinese... This is definitely not China anymore, right? Judging from your appearance and the architectural style of the houses, you just said this place is called Hogsmeade?" the young man retorted.

Gideon laughed and said, "Of course, it's far from China; in fact, all I know about China is the 'Chinese Fireball Dragon,' and nothing else. I rarely even leave England; your country is half a world away from us."

"Is this England?" The young man—from then on, he would be called "Shen Hou"—was so surprised he almost jumped up. "This is impossible! I was just playing video games at home. How could I have crossed half the globe in just a few minutes?"

"Oh, you came directly from China? How did you get here?" Gideon ignored the young man's surprise and instead extracted the key information from his words.

"I need to explain several times, I have no idea how I got here." Shen Hou was getting a little exasperated.

Gideon gently comforted him, "Don't worry, I understand how you feel; it's really hard for a Muggle to accept such a bizarre thing. Even for us wizards, it's not a common occurrence to be on the other side of the world in the blink of an eye."

"What's 'Muggle'? Is it a word you British people use to describe Chinese people?"

"No, no; Muggles are people who don't use magic, as opposed to us wizards. You probably have a distinction between wizards and Muggles in China too, but I'm not sure if they're called 'Muggles'; you know, I've never been to your country."

Shen Hou quickly put aside his curiosity about the term "Muggle," because there was a more pressing question: "Then why am I here?"

"We don't know either. There could be many reasons, but... do you really not remember what happened? Was there no warning or anything unusual before this strange thing happened?"

"What do you mean by unusual?" Shen Hou asked in return.

"Anything will do! Something, an event, a person—basically anything you've never encountered in your daily life, but which suddenly happened or appeared today, is there anything like that?"