Harry Potter and the Candy Factory

At night, unlike the bustling daytime, the Woolworth Building on Broadway was surprisingly quiet.

The lights in the lobby had all been extinguished, except for the large clock hanging at the very top, which continued its unwavering operation.

Since the Bigfoot disturbance in 1892, which led to the relocation of the Magical Congress from Washington to this place, its operation had never ceased.

The continuous flow of magic combined with mechanics was, in a way, similar to the assembly line facilities of the Charlie Factory.

It hung in the most conspicuous position in the entire lobby, ensuring that every wizard who entered through the main entrance would notice its presence at first glance.

Over time, in a sense, it seemed to have become another symbol of this building, and even of the Magical Congress, well-known to the world.

On its clock face, instead of the time marked by ordinary clocks, were areas with colors, and within these areas, there were markings representing the level of danger.

Zero Threat (Green)

Level 1: Low Threat (Green)

Level 2: Medium Threat (Green)

Level 3: High Alert (Blue)

Level 4: Dangerous (Yellow)

Level 5: Severe: Unexplained Activity (Orange)

Level 6: Emergency (Red)

“……………”

Sera Stewart stood silently in the lobby, holding two freshly brewed cups of coffee, looking up at the clock, feeling a sense of inexplicable melancholy.

"This is nothing like what I imagined."

Sera Stewart lowered her head, watching the rising steam from the white porcelain cup, muttering to herself in a voice only she could hear.

She had been here countless times, and had seen this amazing clock countless times, feeling the long history it implicitly represented of the American magical world.

When she was a child, the Aurors who traveled up and down the elevators and in the corridors, heads held high, with measured steps, were Sera's greatest aspiration.

Whether it was the ingenious magic they wielded with ease, or the creed of punishing evil and promoting good, it all stirred her young heart and secretly regarded it as the goal of her life.

In order to realize her ideal and become a qualified Auror, Sera naturally put in a great deal of effort.

Finally, when she graduated from Ilvermorny with excellent grades in all subjects and joined the Magical Congress as an Auror in the Serious Crime Investigation Department…

…she discovered that everything was very different from what she had originally thought.

Due to the Magical Congress's focus on cracking down on such incidents in recent years, the security conditions in the American magical world were much better than when she was a child.

It didn't give her any chance to fight crime and realize her life's ambition, so that until now, almost three months after joining the job, she hadn't been on a single field mission, and had been doing the boring routine of classifying past files in the office and brewing coffee for older seniors.

Sera shook her head, throwing these thoughts out of her mind, and then looked up again, with some kind of hope, at the clock in front of her.

The clock was still motionless, as if asleep.

"Sigh," another faint sigh came from her mouth. Sera finally turned around, giving up the slightest hope in her heart, and walked towards the Serious Crime Investigation Department's office with the coffee, as if resigned to her fate.

However, just as she turned around and walked further away, the clock, which had been asleep, woke up.

The gears, which hadn't turned for who knows how long, meshed together again, making a faint and slightly rusty "click, click, click" sound.

The sound was pathetically small, but in this deserted lobby, it was so clear.

"Huh?!" Sera stopped abruptly, as if she had been hit by a spell. Her pupils shrank first, and then her eyes widened subconsciously. Along with the "thump, thump" of her gradually accelerating heartbeat, she turned her head back again.

The next moment, an uncontrollable joy appeared on that pretty face, which was both capable and somewhat childish!

The clock, which had been asleep for who knows how long, finally started working!!!! The pointer, which had always been pointing to the green area, finally turned to other areas with the "click, click, click" of the gears meshing.

Her small mouth opened slightly, her eyes staring straight at the moving pointer with a strange look, not even daring to blink, as if afraid that it was just her illusion.

Finally, the pointer stopped, finally stopping steadily at the junction of blue and yellow.

"A big case!!!!" Sera shouted wildly in her heart, almost shouting out loud.

Then, before she could be excited for too long, a burst of noisy footsteps interrupted her original thoughts.

"Sera Stewart!!" It was the voice of that senior who was on the night shift with her today. But compared to the original laziness, there was a seriousness and earnestness in the voice that Sera had never seen before.

"A large-scale wizard fight has occurred near the Blind Pig bar in the Bronx area!!"

Sera turned her head and saw several colleagues hurriedly putting on their coats and holding their wands, running outside.

The senior turned his head while running and shouted anxiously at Sera:

"Hurry up! Put down those two cups of coffee! Grab your wand, we have big things to do!!!!"

With a soft "crash," the two white porcelain coffee cups in Sera's hand had already fallen from her hand, shattering into powder on the smooth marble floor, turning into a pile of debris.

"Yes!!"

Her face flushed red, and her eyes sparkled with excitement.

At this moment, the flame in her heart that was about to go out was like being filled with a bundle of dry wood, and with a "boom," it burned fiercely again.

"I've been preparing for this moment for a long time!!"

Ignoring the mess on the ground, she responded loudly, watching the backs of her seniors rushing out, and then took out her wand from her uniform pocket.

With a sudden step, she strode forward a few steps and caught up with the people in front, rushing towards the door without looking back.

"Come on! You can finally be a real Auror with the Disarming Charm you've practiced for so long."

Sera muttered, feeling the familiar feel of the wand's spiral pattern.