"Susan Bones… Bones, huh. Pretty familiar name. That's Amelia's family, right? The one who investigated me last time."
"Little girl seems diligent enough. I'll keep an eye on her when the time comes."
"Hannah Abbott—this must be the niece old Tom mentioned. Not bad at all."
"And this Truman kid looks solid too."
"Too bad Tonks already graduated last year. Otherwise, with her daring to tail and report on me during her internship, I'd definitely have shown her what real 'society's dangers' look like."
"Now let's see how Ravenclaw's bunch of nitpickers are doing these days."
"Tch. Still the same as ever—specialised war gods, every last one of them."
"And what the hell happened to Slytherin? They've got repeaters now? This is embarrassing."
"Compared to our year, Slytherin these days is straight-up bottom-feeder trash!"
"Finally—Gryff-'f'-indor. Let's start with the Saviour himself."
"Oh, solid Quidditch player, lots of room to grow academically, can hold his own in a fight. Looks like prime duelling material."
"Weasley, Weasley, Weasley, Weasley… yep, red hair really does equal monster."
"Bill and Charlie's little brothers really aren't pushovers at all."
"Even the weakest one, Ron Weasley, has scary talent in curses. Terrifying~"
"And last but not least—Hermione Granger. The Saviour's external brain. Yeah, her marks are disgustingly perfect."
After skimming through the current Hogwarts student records—grades, professor comments, the lot—Viktor had a rough mental ranking of the present crop of little animals.
Plenty of excellent ones, sure.
But in terms of actual combat ability? They were miles behind the students from his era.
Add in the revolving-door curse on the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, with its ever-changing (and often incompetent) professors…
Put today's kids in Viktor's time?
He could've chased down and beaten ten of them single-handed, no sweat.
"Looks like I'll need to crank up the intensity in class."
Viktor thought to himself as he stared at the parchment.
But the situation made sense.
The little animals now were living in a completely different era from when Viktor had been at school.
Back when Viktor first stepped through the Hogwarts gates, Voldemort was at the absolute peak of his power.
Defence professors were still on annual rotation, sure.
But every house—every single one—had a duelling club.
And they weren't playing around: the drills included Beater-level striking spells, even full Auror training regimens.
In that kind of time, your wand was the only thing that could protect you and your family.
So the fighting ability of students back then was legitimately high.
Against that backdrop, Gryffindor and Slytherin students were brawling somewhere in the castle almost every single day.
Thanks to Voldemort's blood-purity doctrine, Hufflepuff—the house with the most students and the highest number of Muggle-borns—ended up squarely on Slytherin's hit list.
Ravenclaws, meanwhile, stayed aloof, floating above the whole mess.
Most Hogwarts professors were off answering Dumbledore's call—fighting Death Eaters and dark creatures in the real war.
Supervision of the student body was… lax, to put it mildly.
And it was into that Hogwarts that Viktor Scamander—pure-blooded grandson of the world-famous magizoologist Newt Scamander—arrived.
The Slytherins rolled out the red carpet immediately.
Too bad Viktor had zero interest in Voldemort's bloodline nonsense.
After all—in China, only cats and dogs care about pedigree.
Still a child in mind (eleven years old, plus no real-world beatdowns yet), Viktor didn't even hesitate—he just threw it straight back in their faces.
Which naturally earned him (and all of Hufflepuff) Slytherin's full attention.
After a few run-ins with older Slytherins, Viktor had enough.
So in the Hufflepuff common room he gave what would later be called the "Pub Speech"—spreading guerrilla warfare tactics to the entire house.
Then, under the Scamander name, he led Hufflepuff in a four-year campus war against Slytherin's little snakes.
Even Voldemort's death in 1980 (thanks to Harry) didn't stop the fighting.
If anything, it got worse.
After Voldemort fell, the British wizarding world's purge of Death Eaters left most Slytherin families missing relatives.
Their behaviour turned even more extreme.
Meanwhile, Hufflepuff families had suffered heavy casualties from the Death Eaters' dying counterattacks.
All the built-up resentment finally detonated in 1982.
Under Viktor's command, Hufflepuff united completely.
They fought in corridors. In the Great Hall. In greenhouses. In dungeons.
Thanks to Hufflepuff solidarity—and the dangerous magical creatures Viktor had secretly smuggled in from Grandpa Newt's collection, plus the suitcase—they managed to wipe out Slytherin three times.
The final wipeout pushed the snakes all the way back to their own common room—cornered them in the fountain itself.
Only when professors realised neither Hufflepuff nor Slytherin had shown up for class did they rush down and forcibly end the little wizards' war.
Aftermath: Hospital wing overflowing.
One unlucky Slytherin took three Stunners and had to be rushed to St. Mungo's.
Viktor—the ringleader—was expelled by the Board of Governors on charges of keeping dangerous magical creatures and illegally possessing Undetectable Extension Charm items.
He didn't regret a thing.
He had united Hufflepuff. Protected his housemates.
And he had spread the "Badger Spirit" so thoroughly that it permanently reshaped Hufflepuff's entire ethos.
After expulsion, Viktor followed Grandpa Newt full-time—learning magizoology while travelling the world to rescue all kinds of magical creatures.
Influenced by both his grandfather and the Fantastic Beasts films he vaguely remembered from his previous life, he genuinely fell in love with these strange, pure-hearted little (and big) beings.
Then, on his eighteenth birthday in 1984, the "Magical Creature Master" roulette system awakened.
First pull: jackpot. Tom.
The next seven years were spent globetrotting.
He studied under Grandpa Newt's old friends.
Fought poachers.
Learned to protect endangered species.
Published two books in Newt's footsteps:
One called Magical Creatures Here.
The other: Magical Creatures in the Stomach—banned almost everywhere due to content, surviving only in China and a few niche corners of the world.
Worth noting: Creatures Here didn't stay confined to the wizarding world.
Viktor adapted it with elements from Muggle children's classics he remembered—The Wolf King's Dream, Diary of a Laughing Cat, and similar tales—repackaged it as "science fiction," and published it in the non-magical world.
It became a massive bestseller.