The old fan on the ceiling creaked as it spun.

  In the dark room, a pair of pale golden eyes opened just a sliver.

  Hoffa gradually woke from the sweltering summer heat, still somewhat dazed.

  Knock, knock.A faint knocking came from the door.

  The sound wasn't familiar. Hoffa extended his hand out from under the musty-smelling bnket, fumbling around on the bedside table.

  After a moment, his fingers found a pull cord.

  Click.He tugged on the cord.

  A dim orange light illuminated the sparse bedroom: an old four-poster bed with a stained mattress, worn gray wooden furniture, and cobwebs accumuted over the years that swayed in the breeze from the fan. Startled by the light, a rat darted away in a panic.

  On the wall opposite the bed, where Hoffa had been sleeping, were several peeling letters spelling out:

  "Morse Motor Lodge."

  He stared bnkly for a few seconds as his grogginess faded.

  The knocking at the door came again.

  Knock, knock.

  "Coming," Hoffa muttered. He turned over and got out of bed, frowning and grumbling as he walked to the wooden door and twisted its rusted handle.

  The sky was just starting to brighten, the faint glow of dawn visible in the distance.

  Standing at the door was a young woman smoking a cigarette. She wore cheap leather shorts, fishnet stockings, a low-cut top, and had thin legs and pronounced cheekbones. Her lips were painted with thick lipstick, and her smoky makeup concealed nearly all of her natural features.

  When she saw the door open to reveal a small boy with odd pale golden eyes, she was momentarily stunned. But then, slipping into a rehearsed routine, she ran a hand through her hair and smiled."Hey there, handsome. Care to try something new?"

  The response she got was the sm of the door.

  Bang.

  Outside, angry curses followed almost immediately."Asshole!"

  Hoffa ignored it completely. He walked back to his bed and sat down heavily.

  This was the third pimp to knock on his door this week.

  A week ago, Hoffa had finished his first year at Hogwarts and begun his summer vacation.

  However, upon leaving the school gates, he found himself in an awkward predicament.

  On the one hand, he didn't want to return to Wool's Orphanage in London. Nobody wanted to go back there. But on the other hand, he didn't have anywhere better to go.

  While Headmaster Dippet had suggested he visit France to repair his magical watch, the meeting with the "recent graduate" responsible for the repair wasn't scheduled until June 18th. His vacation had started on June 10th, leaving an awkward week-long gap.

  With no means to find work, Hoffa had been forced to rent a dingy, tiny room in a rundown motor lodge in a seedy part of London's red-light district.

  He had considered staying in a proper inn in Diagon Alley or a normal Muggle hotel, but he was currently dealing with a common problem that pgued all young wizards.

  A problem that not even magic could solve.

  Poverty.

  Hoffa was broke.

  The st time he had any money was the previous year when Indor had taken him to Diagon Alley. He'd gotten 100 Galleons then and had felt briefly wealthy.

  But a year ter, those 100 Galleons were long gone. The only pce he could afford to stay was this motor lodge, which charged just ten shillings a night.

  As he y there for a while, faint, exaggerated moans and gasps filtered through the thin walls from the neighboring room.

  Frowning, Hoffa raised his wrist.

  The magical watch from Fran?ois showed the time in faint, flickering lights: 6:15 a.m.

  "Soliciting at six in the morning. Ambitious," Hoffa muttered with a yawn. No longer sleepy, he straightened up and started getting dressed in front of the mirror.

  The boy in the mirror had a refined, delicate appearance. A silver earring adorned his left ear, adding a hint of fir. He wasn't unattractive, but his eye color was undeniably strange.

  Unlike most people, Hoffa's irises were pale gold—a lingering side effect of his Animagus transformation st year. It was unclear when, or if, this peculiarity would fade.

  Compared to st year, Hoffa had grown a few inches taller. By the standards of a 12-year-old, he was retively tall, but in the eyes of any average adult, he was still just a kid.

  After changing clothes, he picked up the cheap, stiff-bristled toothbrush provided by the motor lodge and began brushing his teeth. As he did, he packed his belongings. Today was June 18th, and it was time to head to France.

  The worm-eaten wooden floor of the room was scattered with disorganized sheets of parchment. The motor lodge didn't have a desk—likely because whoever set up this pce never imagined someone would come here to do homework.

  First-year summer assignments were simple, and Hoffa had almost completed them during his week here.

  On the floor y the letter from Headmaster Armando Dippet, addressed to the mysterious "recent graduate."

  "June 18th, 9 a.m., meet at London's Thamesport, Double Horn Cape."

  Although the envelope specified the time and location for him, the letter itself wasn't written for Hoffa. At best, he was just a courier.

  After finishing his homework, Hoffa sat cross-legged on the floor and began organizing his books.

  As he sifted through them, a slip of paper fell out of his Charms textbook. Picking it up, he saw it was a ticket decorated with illustrations of tropical beaches, skyscrapers, and a message in a bottle.

  "London Thamesport, UK → Manhattan Port, USA. (Valid for boarding anytime.)"

  It was the ship ticket Indor had gifted him st Christmas.

  Hoffa gnced at it briefly before tucking it back into the book. Go to America to find Indor?Better not. Setting aside the mischief Indor was likely to pull, the sheer distance to the United States posed a problem. Even if he went, returning in time would be a challenge.

  Pnes in this era weren't as advanced as those of ter generations, so traveling to America meant taking a ship. Hoffa didn't want to waste his entire summer vacation stuck on a boat.

  Traveling from Britain to France wasn't nearly as far. A round trip would take about a month, leaving him time to return, get a part-time job, and earn some pocket money.

  Bang, bang, bang!

  A sudden, frantic knocking on the door disrupted his thoughts.

  Annoyed, Hoffa frowned."Enough already."

  Wham! He yanked the door open, but instead of another prostitute, he was met by a figure shrouded in a gray cloak.

  The person was hunched over, their face obscured except for a hooked nose.

  "Heh-heh, interested in joining our Half-Human Fellowship?" the strange man rasped, rubbing his hands together.

  Without waiting for a response, the gray-cloaked man extended a pamphlet toward Hoffa."We offer excellent benefits for young wizards—"

  Bang!This time, Hoffa smmed the door shut with force.

  He even drew his wand, retreating quickly to the edge of his bed, staying on high alert.

  That was no ordinary person—it was a wizard!

  Minutes passed, but nothing happened.

  Finally, Hoffa cautiously approached the door and peered through the gap. Outside, there was no one.

  It was as if the gray-cloaked figure had been a hallucination.

  But the pamphlet in his hand was proof it hadn't been.

  Hoffa raised it to examine it.

  The flyer was filled with colorful, chaotic images—magic, firearms, machinery—and, at the center, the crowned head of a king.

  "Follow the Half-Human King, and you shall—"

  "Damn it!" Hoffa cursed, crumpling the paper.

  Hoffa rubbed his forehead in frustration, crumpled the useless flyer into a ball, and tossed it into the trash can.

  At 7 a.m., after packing his belongings, Hoffa left the motor lodge.

  The sky had brightened considerably. Around him, flickering, broken neon lights buzzed and crackled. A few hungover vagrants y sprawled in the stagnant, foul-smelling water, surrounded by discarded liquor bottles.

  One of the vagrants wore nothing but underwear, though what had happened to him was anyone's guess.

  Descending the old iron staircase, Hoffa caught sight of the prostitute from earlier that morning. She was rinsing her mouth at a makeshift basin, tilting her head back as she used a toothpick to clean some bck hairs from between her teeth.

  With his bag slung over his shoulder, Hoffa hurried away from the red-light district where he'd spent the past week. His only thought was a firm resolve: In the next two months, I absolutely, absolutely must earn some extra cash. Never again will I stay in a dump like this.

  Once out of the red-light district, he passed through a more respectable commercial area. Along the way, he transformed his wand into a pair of sungsses and put them on.

  To be clear, Hoffa wasn't wearing the sungsses to look cool—or even to block the sunlight.

  They were simply to cover his strange eye color.

  Even in a pce as diverse as Europe, his pale golden irises were unusual enough to draw unwanted attention. With the sungsses on, he could avoid curious or prying gazes.

  The distance between his lodging and Thamesport wasn't too far, but it wasn't close either. Being broke, Hoffa didn't take a cab. Instead, he walked for about an hour before arriving at the bustling port. The air here was thick with the acrid stench of engine oil and filled with the piercing bre of ship horns.

  Thamesport, the Atntic Ocean's gateway, was one of the rgest ports in the world. Countless ships of various sizes were docked here, their origins spanning the globe. Hoffa even spotted a cargo ship from Hong Kong among them.

  The water beneath the vessels was filthy, frothing with scummy bubbles and almost pitch bck in color.

  After observing the port for a while, Hoffa ran into a problem.

  He wasn't familiar with London. When Dippet had given him the letter, Hoffa had assumed "Double Horn Cape, Thamesport" referred to a regur street name or perhaps a bar near the docks.

  But now that he was at Thamesport, he found no sign of any Double Horn Cape. There was no shop, no street, and no ndmark by that name.

  Amid the bustling crowd, Hoffa spotted a patrolling guard carrying a baton.

  He hurried over and stopped the man. "Excuse me, do you know where Double Horn Cape is?"

  "What?"

  The loud bring of nearby ship horns drowned out his question.

  Hoffa raised his voice. "Do you know where Double Horn Cape is?"

  "What!?"

  The guard leaned closer, pointing at his ear.

  "Do you know a pce called Double Horn Cape!?" Hoffa yelled, standing on his toes.

  "What?"

  "Double Horn Ca—"

  "I don't know!" the guard shouted back, now visibly irritated. "Are you messing with me? I've worked here for twenty years, and I've never heard of such a pce!"

  (End of Chapter)

  Want to read the chapters in Advance? Join my Patreon

  https://patreon.com/Glimmer09