The Admiral of Hogwarts

Just as Veneto received that magical letter, Hugo and Hermione were having breakfast at the dining table at home. As compensation for the meager dinner the two children had the previous night, Mrs. Granger had prepared a lavish English breakfast this morning.

The aroma of grilled bacon, fried eggs, and baked beans filled the table, stimulating Hugo's appetite after a busy night.

However, just as he was heartily enjoying his mother's loving breakfast, Mr. Granger walked in from outside the door with a frown. Besides the subscribed 'The Times' and several bills in his hand, there were also two strange-looking letters at the bottom of the pile.

"I'm not sure if this is a prank or what," Mr. Granger said as he sat down on the chair. He first put the other letters on the small tea table next to him, then placed the two strange-looking letters on the table. "I found these in the mailbox. They look a bit odd, and if it's a prank, the cost is too high."

At this moment, Hugo noticed that the envelopes of both letters were made of thick parchment, and the addresses were written in emerald green ink. There were no stamps. One was addressed to Hermione, and the other to himself. Turning over the envelopes, he found a wax seal on the back, with a shield-shaped coat of arms. Around the capital letter 'H' on the coat of arms were a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake.

"Am I also a wizard?" The thought echoed in Hugo's mind the moment he saw the specifics of the letter. After all, he had never experienced any magical surges in his previous memories, which had led him to believe that he was just an ordinary person without magic.

Therefore, after learning last night that summoning a ship girl required changing the original plot, Hugo had been searching for ways to alter the plot without being a wizard. Unfortunately, one night wasn't enough for him to come up with any good ideas. But he didn't expect that he and Hermione would receive Hogwarts' owl post together.

"I think it's probably because of our existence that you didn't have a magical surge before," Victory explained from upstairs, sensing Hugo's strong sense of confusion. "After all, when two mysterious forces coexist in one person's body, all sorts of strange phenomena can occur."

Due to these two strange letters, everyone quickly finished the breakfast in front of them. Then, the four of them sat around the round table in the living room and began to study the letters.

Mr. Granger first opened the two envelopes and took out the letters. After handing one of them to Mrs. Granger, the two of them started reading, while Hugo and Hermione nervously stared at their parents, because they had seen the names on the envelopes and knew that the letters were related to them.

"I think this is very much like a clever prank," Mrs. Granger said after putting down the letter a few minutes later, hesitating for a moment before speaking to Hugo and his sister. "For example, when I was young, I received an invitation from the Tooth Fairy, but it was actually just an excuse for your father to invite me for a walk in the park."

"That was a rather foolish excuse, but thankfully you responded to me," Mr. Granger said, looking at his wife with affectionate eyes. For a moment, Hugo felt like he was being force-fed dog food.

Perhaps noticing Hugo and Hermione's expressions, Mr. Granger coughed softly and resumed his upright posture, saying, "Your mother and I share the same view, we think this should be a prank—"

However, before he could finish his sentence, they heard a rhythmic tapping on the glass. Then, the four people in the living room saw a gray and white owl pecking at the glass of the living room window with its beak.

"It seems Hogwarts also understands cost management!" Hugo thought in his mind as he looked at the owl, which was a whole circle fatter than a chicken raised for a year or two. "At least they know to use one owl to deliver letters to two people living in the same place, instead of finding two owls to deliver two letters separately."

Just as he was thinking about this, Mr. Granger stood up and opened the window. As a result, he saw that this owl didn't run away like common wild animals when it saw people, but directly flapped its wings and fluttered to the table in the living room, then stood proudly next to the two letters.

"What's wrong with it? Is it injured?" Mrs. Granger asked Mr. Granger in a slightly surprised tone as she looked at the owl that had voluntarily flown into the room. "Why did it fly into our house?"

"I think this may be related to the two letters we received earlier," Mr. Granger's voice sounded a bit distorted, because he had never seen such a magical thing. "I remember the end of those two letters said something like this: 'We will await your owl's reply before July 31st.'"

"So, it delivered these two letters?" Hearing Mr. Granger's answer, Mrs. Granger widened her eyes and pointed at the owl, which was leisurely preening the feathers on its wings with its beak on the table. "Who do you think trained them?"

"I'm not sure either," Mr. Granger said, shrugging his shoulders as he walked to the table and stared at the owl, "But I'm starting to believe that what's written in the letter is true, after all, it's very difficult to train wild animals like owls to be like this."

"So, there really is a magical school called Hogwarts that has sent invitations to our children? This is just too—magical," Mrs. Granger said in a raised tone, startling the owl that was just grooming its feathers, causing it to jump to the side.

"That can't be determined yet," Mr. Granger said, shaking his head. "After all, if it's just training such an owl to deliver letters, it's not impossible, so I don't think we can determine—"

"Chris, can you tell me what your final conclusion is?" Mrs. Granger sounded a bit angry after hearing her husband's ambiguous words. "For the sake of the children, I think we must come to a conclusion about this matter."

"Uh—we can write a letter and write our questions on it, then give it to the owl. Then, let's see if it can deliver the letter for us as the letter says," After being yelled at by Mrs. Granger, Mr. Granger immediately came up with a seemingly feasible method.

"Then what next? What if there really is a magic school?" Mrs. Granger asked. "Are we going to let our children go to that strange school to learn magic?"

"—I think we should," Mr. Granger said, making up his mind after thinking for a few minutes. "Maybe wizards are like mutants in X-Men, possessing some magical powers. If they don't learn, they may cause some harm to themselves and the people around them."

The first X-Men comic appeared in 1963, when Mr. Granger was young and very obsessed with these comics. Therefore, when considering the issue, he naturally thought of the content of the comic and influenced his decision.