March 10th, 2021, was a Wednesday just like any other for Gray, or at least started as such.
Gray, a twenty-one year old man, woke up an hour past the time he was supposed to. For the past month he had been looking for a job, with non essential businesses closing down he had lost both of his part time jobs and didn't have enough money saved up to support his current expenses. He needed to find a new source of income.
Gray had dropped out of college, but he worked multiple jobs since he could legally be employed. Nearly every one of his bosses only had good things to say about him, and his work ethic. All in all, his resume was pretty appealing. However, a lot of the current hiring businesses wanted something specific, like good results or potential in a single field that helped their companies, he had nothing like that.
It had taken a while, but Gray had finally got hired and slept through the alarm he set. When he woke up and saw the time, he rushed out his bed, washed his face with hot water and fumbled with his new outfit. He grabbed a slice of whole grain bread and a duffle bag as he ran through his rooms, he picked up his wallet and keys on the table by his door and shoved them into his pockets. He took a second to mentally check if he had everything, before he threw his door open, he skipped steps as he jumped down the stairs.
He already missed the first train, so his primary route was unusable, he had to move down his list of backup routes because he slept in so late. Right now he was running to a bus stop that would only be the first of many vehicles he rode, he was going to fake sickness at certain stops to get off earlier, but that was getting ahead of himself, he still needed to catch this bus first. He checked his watch to regulate his speed and exhaustion and to time the crosswalks, he didn't need any unnecessary stops.
For Gray's entire life, since he could plan, he avoided everything that didn't contribute to the big picture. He only worked to create a better life for himself, he had never done anything out of obligation or courtesy, he never returned greetings, he never messed around, he never celebrated anything and he never broke the law for personal enjoyment. He never did anything one would attribute to being a good person. He didn't attend the funerals of friends or family, never kept in contact with anyone once they ran out of usefulness, and even denied his twin brother's request for a kidney transplant. The worse moral actions he ever did were inactions, every time he encountered danger he ran away or ignored the signs. He had witnessed death many times, and never told anyone, because he didn't want to get caught up with the law.
Everything in Gray's life had followed his plan, but he did have setbacks, most of them were caused by human nature, the pandemic was only going on because humans couldn't follow simple rules.
The biggest setback started only seconds ago, his heartbeat changed. The rhythm was interrupted and didn't return to normal, every beat afterwards was erratic, his heart stuttered and paused. A wave of dizziness washed through him and his head felt light. Gray collapsed on the sidewalk and tried to breath, but his lungs felt full, as the seconds passed his vision went blurry and noises sounded distant.
No thought passed through his mind about his life, only about how to survive. He tried to pound his chest, but his body felt weak, and then he couldn't think of anything else to try. He knew if he had more tools, he would try suicidal means to fix his heart, but he had nothing to use.
Gray stopped struggling, he would die, but at least he won't be in anymore pain than necessary. Through his blurry vision, he could see vague shadows of people surrounding him, he criticized them for breaking the six foot rule. In the center of the people, and far above the sky, the sun was unmistakable as he stared at it. The sight of it was burned into his retinas as his eyelids fell closed. Gray didn't bother thinking about his final thoughts, he cleared his mind, as if he was just preparing to sleep.
March 10th, 1982, was a Wednesday just like any other, with one very special exception.
Like every other day of Gray's life, the sun burned brightly in the sky.
"Are you having fun, Sweetie?"
He actually wasn't, but he turned to the grown woman who asked and let a smile stretch across his face. He answered with intelligible sounds and giggling. Gray, the twenty one year old man, had died on the sidewalk and seconds later he had awoken in the body of a two year old boy, who was celebrating his birthday. It day was also Gray's birthday and his death day.
Gray didn't know what to think, mainly because his toddler sized mind had trouble processing everything. And because he had the memories of this child, for two years he had lived this life. On one side, he was a grown man with the body of a toddler, and on the other side, he was a toddler with the mind of a grown man.
He didn't know what, how or why this had happened. He wasn't unfamiliar with reincarnation, but he was more used to it as a story gimmick opposed to religious philosophy. If he was truly given a second life, and not just having a death hallucination or an overactive daydream of a child, then that would imply that forces beyond what he previously thought possible were real. Cosmic Entities or Futuristic Beings, someone had put his mind or soul into a child.
The realization that what he previously thought to be fiction could be real, broke the busy mind of the twenty year old man, but acting like a baby wasn't a task that needed him to think. So he did just that.
When night fell and the party guest left, Gray's parents tucked him into his crib and read him a bedtime story. He pretended to fall asleep until his parents left him alone, then he thought about his new life. As it was, he shared his name with the toddler, so it didn't matter what called himself, and he decided to not think about which Gray he really was, because in the end he was both of them.
What he really needed was a life plan, and the first step was information gathering. From analyzing his memories of this life and listening in to the chatter of the adults at his party, he knew his name was Gray Matthews, he was born in the year 1980, and he lived in a small town in England.
In his previous life, his life plan was to live a moderate life with no troubles, he never had any faith, belief or hope that anything unnatural existed. Yet here he was, reincarnated or something similar, so he needed to know what else was real. Although he avoided unnecessary things, he didn't always occupied his mind and body with taxing things, he enjoyed entertainment in his spare time. Whether it be the type that plays with the mind, or the type you have to turn off your mind to enjoy, he enjoyed it all.
Gary strongly believed whoever or whatever reincarnated him, didn't do so to give him a second chance at life, it would just be more of the same, they did it for entertainment. They wanted to see a person like him interact with this world, in that sense it was no different than a story, and if he wanted a life plan, he would need to know the genre of his world.
As the years flew by, Gray allowed himself to gradually change his behavior and attitude, to the outside world he became less cheerful and more calculating. His parents and friends became concerned, but he wasn't doing anything harmful so there was little they could do. His parents reluctantly accepted the distance he put between them, and focused on raising their second child. She was born one year after his second birthday, and after her fifth birthday, Gray decided she wasn't anything special. He had checked her reactions to mentioning reincarnation during each of her birthdays, but she showed no signs of realization.
Gray, the eleven year old boy, was seated in a desk that was pushed against the single window that his room on the second floor had, it allowed Sunlight in and gave him a view of his backyard. He was finishing up writing in his journal for the day, he closed the book and placed it on his bookshelf filled with his journals. Inside each journal was the story of each day he was alive, or at least that what they would appear to be to anyone reading them, but in reality, Gray was writing down his observations in coded words and sentences.
For the nine years he's been Aware, he has been investigating the world, a while ago he learned about something called The Jupiter Effect, it was a Doomsday Prophecy that predicted catastrophic events for earth caused by all the planets aligning, in a very loose sense of the word. It was supposed to occur on March 10, 1982, but nothing happened, except for Gray being reincarnated. The author of the theory wasn't anything particularly interesting, so Gray just chalked it up to coincidence.
He observed and noted down people and events like: Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, Iran, the Falklands War, the Irish Republican Army, Chernobyl, Revolutions and the World Wide Web. He wanted to check if anything changed, but nothing happened.
Gray was sitting at his desk fiddling with a Rubik's Cube, and he was practicing his mental defenses. Although he had never met any psychics, that chance of a mind reader wasn't zero, and he wanted to be prepared. The Cube had a similar purpose, he was matching with the patterns with the time, if he ever lost time, he would know. He also memorized various religious and mythological texts, in case of demons or monsters. He also memorized star maps and facts about recorded stars, in case of aliens. And he carried a switchblade with him at all times, in case of humans.
Four small knocks sounded from his door, Gray had trained his family to only ever knock on his door like that or he wouldn't answer. The knocks were weak and came from the middle of the door, it was probably his sister knocking. He changed the pattern on his cube to signal he had to voluntarily leave but would be back within four hours, and walked over to his door, he unlocked it and greeted his nine year old sister. "Hello, Ashley." He said politely, when he became a teenager he could finally drop greetings, even if people would consider it rude, but for now he had manners.
Gray stared down his sister, she shared most of her features with him, but they wore them completely different. Their golden hair, she let it grow and braided it, he kept his short and messy, their silver eyes, hers were soft, warm, and glittered with cheer, his were sharp, cold and filled with suspicion. Right now her body language told him that she was confused.
Her face scrunched up, reviewing her words before she spoke. "A... strangely dressed, old woman is here to see you." Ashley started slow but quickly built up speed. "She said that everyone should be downstairs when she explains why she's here." Then she smiled. "Was that everything?" She asked Gray.
This was another thing he had trained his family in, speaking while answering any obvious questions one might have. He would have preferred them to be a little more specific, but there was a limit he could push them. "Yes, and you did good." He answered her as he walked past her. There weren't a lot of guests that came for him, so she didn't get a lot of practice. Gray started to go down a list of suspects, wasn't unfamiliar with human culture, thought he would need an explanation, and was willing to explain to his family.
As Gray walked down the steps and into the living room, a majority of his genre theories were discarded. On the sofa, a mature woman sat dressed in a soft looking green dress robe, she was sipping from a teacup and when she put the cup down, she smiled at him. "Greeting young Matthews, I am Professor Minerva McGonagall, and I'm here to invite you to our school."
Gray played along, he acted like a confused child as she asked about unexplainable events occurring, and mentioned Magic. He put on a face of wonder as she Transfigurated the teacup into a mouse. In his past life he never trained his memory beyond what he needed it for, and there wasn't a lot he bothered to remember. The plot of Harry Potter definitely wasn't one of those. So while acting, he was also trying to recall the story.
Harry Potter, Closet under the stairs, Snake at the Zoo, Hogwarts Letter, Hagrid at a Cabin, Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley, Bank Vault, Owl...Robes...Wand...Hagrid got the owl, while Harry got the Wand, Train, Hat, Class, Broomstick, Troll, Cloak, Stone, Dobby, Lockhart, Diary, Heir, Chamber, Basilisk, Sirius, Remus, Scabber, Hogsmead, Dementors, Tri-Wizard, Dragons, Lake, Maze, Cemetery, Half-Blood Prince, Order of The Phoenix and then the Deathly Hallows.
After telling his parents that'll she be back early tomorrow to take him shopping for his school supplies, she left through the door. After a few seconds had passed, Gray turned to his father. "Please withdraw all the money in my savings account, Father." He politely asked with a smile.
The next day, he acted a lot less like a curious child, he opened an account at Gringotts and converted all his money, he left most of it but took enough for his supplies and some, he got his Wand at Ollivanders, 9 1/2", Beech, Dragon heartstring, Pliable. He rushed through Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment, Madam Malkin's Robes For All Occasions, Eeylops Owl Emporium, Flourish and Blotts, Potage's Cauldron Shop and Scribbulus Writing Instruments.
That night he was reading through his books, and found something that was interesting in 'Hogwarts, A History', Gray found the story of the Girl Who Lived, Holly Potter. The book described the attack and her fate afterwards, left scarred and orphaned, she was fought over by various families and the Malfoys were the ones to win custody. There was one thing that had his attention in the story, it was her twin sister, Harriet Potter, who was only mentioned once during the introduction to the family. The book didn't tell him her fate, so Gray thought of the three most likely: she was killed, taken by Death Eaters, or just forgotten.
Confronted with a non canon Harry Potter story, Gray concluded that he was in a Harry Potter fanfic. He relaxed as it caught up to him, he knew his genre, he knew the kind of story he was in. Most of his new life was spent questioning his new world, now his brain could slow down, there was no need to pay attention to anything outside of a small magical bubble. He went through his room with boxes and packed away nearly all of his journals and tools, he allowed himself to act without second guessing reality.
Gray needed to know the tropes that he was working with, and his memories about the topic were definitely lacking, he would have a better time recognizing them then guessing them. He already knew that there was a Female Harry Potter, and either a dead twin, evil twin, or the actual Fem!Harry, if it was the last one, then it would be the Wrong Girl Who Lived trope. Gray allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep and dreamt with questions for the first time in nine years.
The next day he got his father to drop him off, and went back into Diagon Alley, he bought the books for the second year and found an empty building to practice his Charms. He continued to visit and practice until September 1st.
When Gray entered the platform, his hands were free because he had shrunken his luggage, and carried it in his pockets. He got there early, sat down on a bench and just watched the students board the Express, he kept an eye out for people of interest. Gray watched as a young girl drew the attention of everyone, Holly Potter, she looked like a female version of Harry Potter, but styled and held herself with dignity and arrogance. Her raven black hair was made into big curls that bounced, only giving glimpses at her scar, and as she walked people fled her path. She was chatting with the girl next to her, a female Draco Malfoy, Gray ignored her and focused on Holly. When she disappeared into the train, people broke into whispers and gossip.
Gray waited some more, and as the crowd dwindled, he finally found what he was looking for. A young girl, short and thin for her age, with a ratty nest of black hair and broken glasses shoved a cart filled with suitcases and a cage for an owl, through the gate. She looked on with pure wonder, before her mood plummeted for no visible reason. Gray followed behind her from a distance as she dropped off her luggage and boarded the train, he trailed behind her as she opened cabin door after door, only to close them if they contained any amount of people. After she found an empty cabin, Gray waited a few minutes for her to settle down, and as he waited, he got into the character he'll be for his time at Hogwarts.