Chapter I – A New Home

"Come on, Eco! You should be excited. Feel the heat."

Eco looked up at the airport window. Even though it seemed insulated against UV rays, the sunlight outside was so strong he could feel the heat from outside. He could also see a few trees in a surprising amount of shades of green glimmering with the light. Not as many trees as he had imagined, though. When his father said they'd be moving to Brazil, Eco had expected a forest. Instead, the few trees he saw through the window were overshadowed by the myriad of concrete buildings that spread around the airport.

"It's just like London," Eco said, more to himself than to his father.

"It looks similar," his dad conceded. "But can't you feel the heat?"

Eco could, and he hated it. There was supposed to be snow in January. Snow in which he could play with Beth and Rob. They had spent the past three days trying to build their biggest snowman yet, but by the time Eco left, they hadn't yet managed to beat last year's. And now Eco would never see his friends again, and wouldn't be able to build any snowpeople at all.

"Hey!" It was only when his dad knelt beside him that Eco realized there were tears in his eyes. He tried to wipe them away, but it was already too late. His father hugged him, and the contact turned Eco's silent tears into sobs. "Hey…" He said again, but even his dad didn't seem sure of how to proceed. "It's going to be okay."

"I miss everyone," Eco confessed. He hadn't planned to. He had been trying to be strong.

"I know you do. I miss them too… But Eco, we'll meet new people. New friends. The people here are probably nice. You'll see. Look how bright it is here." His father took Eco by the shoulders and turned him to the windows. "Look at the light. Feel the heat. We're going to be happy here."

As far as happiness went, Eco was dissatisfied with their beginning. Outside the airport, the heat turned out to be even higher than inside, almost unbearable. His dad managed to get their luggage and procure a cab using his awful Spanish. Still, even the people looked different than Eco's father's enthusiastic picture had painted them. They smiled too much, and they seemed disinclined to do anything, least of all work.

Still, through persistence and an entire saga of gestures, Eco's father managed to lead the driver to the right place. Eco wasn't paying attention, though, as he took his cellphone out from his pocket. He wanted to check whether there were any new messages from his friends or his mom, but there was no internet connection. His father had told him they'd need to hire a new provider service once in Brazil, but Eco hoped his slow and painful attempts to connect to the airport's wi-fi would have yielded results. He had to make do with offline games for the time being, then.

"Hey, Eco! Look up!" Eco did, but not before sighing with all the air that he could fit in his lungs. His dad's enthusiasm didn't diminish, though. "This is our new home."

Echo looked up to find a modest sized apartment building. It had four floors of visible windows, without any garage entry that Eco could find. The cheery yellow paint had been covered in red and black graffiti with a meaning too obscure for Eco to grasp. That would be for the best, probably. The windows were big, which would come in handy in that heat, and there were some plants poking out of some of them, giving the whole building a grandmotherly look. It didn't seem so bad, however the sides of the building were contiguous with their neighbors, a black and shady tattoo joint and a wide nameless bar.

"Well?" his father prodded.

Eco thought of saying he didn't like it, and immediately regretted it. This new home business wasn't easy on dad either. He would be apart from mom for a long time, and even though Eco also loved mom and didn't want to separate from her, dad would miss her the most. The least Eco could do was not to make things even harder.

"Neat!" he said, before remembering to smile a compatible expression. It's like a dollhouse!"

A dollhouse? Why did Eco say that? Luckily, his father only smiled an expression so full of relieve that Eco was glad he had made the effort.

It was obviously a Muggle neighborhood. Eco didn't really mind it, since they used to live around Muggles in London as well. Most of Eco's friends were Muggles, as he had been attending Muggle education before he had the right age for Hogwarts. Though he had already confided of his magic to Beth and Rob, it had surprisingly little effect on their friendship. His mother did work with magical research, but this job in Brazil would be the first Eco's father had in the magical world for over three years. Eco could only hope that at least for his father this whole thing would turn out to be a positive experience, then.

Adapting was hard. Eco and his dad had started studying Portuguese before leaving home – or rather, Eco would have to get used to calling it his old home. There was still an entire month of summer vacation before classes started, though, so they had time to polish the edges. As it was, Eco felt like he was doing much better than his dad.

"Hey, Eco!" his father called one day. "I spoke to the headmistress earlier, and she confirmed you've been admitted to school.

For the first time since they arrived Eco permitted himself to feel a glimmer of excitement. It bubbled and burst into an explosion of joy as he looked away from his laptop. "My admission letter arrived?"

"Oh. Oh, no. They don't have admission letters here. It was just a phone call."

No letter of admission? Eco reclined back on his chair, the breath he had been holding not quite managing to escape. No letter of admission. For the past few months, all Eco and his friends had discussed were the letters of admission. They'd be receiving them later that year, but Beth's brother had let her scan his to show Eco what to expect. But Eco would have no letter of admission. It was a silly detail, really. A silly detail that shouldn't matter.

But it did.

Perhaps Eco was still shaken from their move. Perhaps he just wanted to share as much as he could with his old friends. Either way. The lack of a letter was the threshold that tipped Eco's weariness of the new environment into actual animosity. Whatever happened when classes started next month, Castelobruxo would never be his home.

Author's Note

Hello, and thank you for reading the first chapter of All Beyond the Sidelines!

I started writing this maybe a year ago, after finally getting around to watching the Harry Potter Musicals and scouring the net for fanfiction. I was surprised at the lack of material from other schools of magic around the world, even though some of them had already been confirmed by Rowling. My initial idea then was creating a visual novel fangame that allowed the player to choose what school she'd attend. As I started to write what I intended to be the first of many stories, I realized this would probably take a while, so I decided to release this as fanfiction so I could get some feedback and do more editing before continuing with my gaming ambitions.

All Beyond the Sidelines was written entirely on my cellphone while on the bus. I realize it's in sore need of editing (while editing this chapter, I realized Eco sounds much older by the end of the story). I'll try to do this at a reasonable pace to publish one chapter per week.

I just watched Fantastical Beasts earlier today, and it gave me the boost I needed to kick off the revisions, even though I had finished the story last week. I've tried to keep true to cannon while writing, but I'm sure I got a lot of things wrong, since I haven't seen Cursed Child yet, and haven't followed Pottermore very closely. If you happen to see something in my story that seems out of place in the universe, please let me know so I can do something about it in a later revision.

As a last note, while drafting the story I went back and forth between making Eco and his dad British or American. I decided to go with British since I know more about the wizarding world there, but as I haven't ever been to the UK, the characters might come off as American. If there are suggestions about words or expressions that could sound more British than in the current dialogue, I'd welcome them as well.

Thanks for reading!