Chapter 14: Wait until you grow up

Fish's theft plan, of course, was unsuccessful.

Professor McGonagall quickly caught Fish, who was about to run off with the sweets, led him to the corner of the wall, and began to scold him loudly.

At Professor McGonagall's incessant lecturing, Fish pinched the hem of his robe and ducked his head, occasionally raising his emerald green eyes to look at Professor McGonagall and then quickly lowering them again.

He looked miserable.

By Fish's calculations, if he put up a facade like that, Minerva would probably let herself go after another three or four minutes of chanting.

"Come on, Minerva, Fish is just a little boy, poor thing, he already knows he's wrong," But even before that, Mrs. Flume, who had little resistance to animal affinity, had fallen for Fish's charade and had taken the initiative to put in a good word for him, asking Professor McGonagall to let him go.

Professor McGonagall, who knew Fish's character well, hesitated to speak and, after a few moments of stammering, gave up trying to explain.

But even though Professor McGonagall waived Fish for Mrs. Flume's sake, the punishment was still deserved.

"Because of your naughtiness, there are only two snacks to choose from," Professor McGonagall told Fish with a serious expression.

"Meow!", Fish was incredulous, then shouted, "Minerva, you liar! You said you'd let me choose three candies, Meow."

"Who told you to try to steal the candy here! That's your punishment for disobeying me," Professor McGonagall never gave an inch when it came to matters of principle.

"You didn't say I wasn't allowed to take the candy! Minerva is a liar! Big liar!", however, Fish had his own reasons.

As long as he hadn't been told beforehand, there was nothing wrong with what he had done.

Fish thought he was doing the right thing, but unfortunately, his reasoning didn't work with Professor McGonagall, and no matter how much he "argued," he couldn't get his to back down.

In the end, Professor McGonagall had to drag Fish out of the Honeydukes with Mrs. Frum's hard pear candy and his own choice of candy, Squeaky Sugar Mice and Bertie Bott's Greengages of all flavors.

"Meow~ Big liar, big liar, Minerva is a big liar... "muttered Fish, opening the hard pear candy wrapper and sticking his whole face into the unwrapped bag, sticking his tongue out to pop a piece of candy into his mouth.

As he rolled the candy around in his mouth with his tongue, making a delicious "clattering" sound against his teeth, Fish kept muttering in a slurred voice, "Liar, liar, liar, liar..."

Professor McGonagall, knowing that the more attention she gave the boy, the more excited he became, pretended not to hear him, took Fish by the hand and they walked down the main street of Hogsmeade.

"Where are we going?", Indeed, Fish stopped chattering when he realized that Minerva wasn't playing with him at all, and asked instead.

"'The Three Broomsticks,' I have an appointment there," Professor McGonagall said.

"What's a bar?"

"It's a place that sells drinks, a lot of wizards like to have a drink at the Three Broomsticks, chat there and stuff."

"What's the 'Three Broomsticks'?" asked Fish.

"It's a place that sells drinks. A lot of wizards like to have a drink at the 'Three Broomsticks' and chat there," said Professor McGonagall.

At first, Fish hated learning human language, but once he mastered the basics of communication, his curiosity overcame his aversion to learning, and this was reflected in his usual abundance of questions.

Professor McGonagall was always patient with Fish's questions, answering them whenever she could.

"Why can't you drink, Meow?" asked Fish.

"Because you're young," Professor McGonagall replied.

"But I want to drink, Meow," Fish said with a pout on his face.

"You can't drink it even if you want to," said Professor McGonagall sternly.

Fish: "..."

Even if Fish didn't say anything, Professor McGonagall knew what was on her mind, so she said, "Don't even think about asking Comey on the sly to make it for you, I already told him, and don't even think about asking for a drink at the 'Three Broomsticks', Rosmerta won't give you drinks, and you don't have any money either "

"...Minerva, you bad girl," Fish pouted and popped another piece of candy in his mouth.

Leading Fish to the door of the 'Three Broomsticks', Professor McGonagall reached out and pushed open the door to the bar.

Despite Hogwarts being on vacation, it was still crowded, and Professor McGonagall glanced around the room before finding an empty table.

As the two sat down at the empty table, the lovely landlady, Madam Rosmerta, approached just in time.

"Hello, Professor McGonagall, welcome," After greeting Professor McGonagall, Madam Rosmerta turned her attention to Fish.

"Is this the Animagus you've adopted? He's so cute," Mrs. Rosmerta leaned over and reached out to touch Fish's head.

Fish, who was already in a bad mood, pulled his head away from Mrs. Rosmerta's hand and bared his teeth at his, "Ha...!"

But in both his human and feline forms, Fish's expression was so fierce that it frightened no one and elicited laughter from the wizards around him.

"Sorry, the boy's a bit shy," Professor McGonagall laughed and patted Fish's head.

Mrs. Rosmerta didn't care about such trivia, she waved her hand to show she didn't care and asked, "Butterbeer? Or mead?"

"I'll have a butterbeer," Professor McGonagall thought it would be safer to order a butterbeer, just in case naughty Fish stole a drink from her own glass, "And a glass of cherry juice for Fish."

"Yes, please wait," Madam Rosmerta nodded to Professor McGonagall, winked at Fish, who was staring at her, and turned back to the bar.

Just as she turned, however, she heard Fish's childish voice behind her, "Minerva, this person is so weird..."

Fish gestured around his chest with a puzzled look, "Why does he have a butt here?"

The noisy bar went silent for a moment, and after about ten seconds or so, all the wizards in the bar burst out laughing.

As they laughed wildly, many mages hit the table in front of them hard, and some mages even rolled off their chairs from laughing, fell to the floor and didn't bother to get up, lying on the floor and continued to laugh wildly while covering their stomachs.

Fish looked at the laughing humans in confusion, not understanding what was wrong with their question.

He had seen humans like that before, but he hadn't been able to become human at the time, so he hadn't paid much attention to them, and now he was seeing humans with a butt on their chests, of course, he had to ask.

"Uh... that's not a butt...," Professor McGonagall looked embarrassed, not knowing how to explain to Fish.

After a long pause, she finally resorted to the more usual parental response, "You'll know when you're older."