Chapter 2

"Wingardium Leviosa."

The sheet of paper I was practicing on lifted into the air for a few seconds before shivering and falling down again. It was a definite improvement on my first attempt, about an hour previously. I still wasn't sure what I was doing wrong exactly, but I was getting the hang of gesturing with my wand and speaking the incantation correctly.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

A part of me had wanted to rush ahead and start trying the Levitation Charm first. It was rather iconic in the series, after all. But, when I'd first started sneaking out to the unused shed—the accompanying garden being horribly overgrown—I'd forced myself to start at the beginning of the syllabus outlined in The Standard Book of Spells. Practicing had become much less stressful once I was able to use the Locking Charm on the shed door. I wasn't sure what I'd do once I'd finished my first year of schooling and was officially banned from using magic during the holidays. I resolved once more to learn as much as I could in what time I did have.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

The shed was a moderately spacious building tacked onto the side of what had used to be an orphanage before it was shut down. Now the site was overgrown with weeds and shoulder-deep grass while the shed was cleared of anything remotely valuable, leaving space for me to practice my magic in cinderblock-ensured privacy.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

I'd wondered on occasion about how there was an active children's home and an abandoned orphanage in relatively close proximity—they were just a ten-minute walk apart for a reasonably fit eleven-year-old like myself. As far as I could tell, however, it was a complete coincidence. The orphanage had closed in the fifties while the children's home in which I was accommodated had only opened ten years earlier. It wasn't the first such home I'd stayed in. It wasn't the second or third either, but I couldn't remember the exact number. I did remember that the staff in the previous homes had found reasons to move me, though often it was to my benefit in some way. In retrospect, that may have been a result of accidental magic spooking my carers, but at the time I'd attributed it to them trying to find a school that would suit me.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

In the end, the school that would—hopefully—suit me had found me rather than I it. The day Professor McGonagall had come with my letter and explained to me about magic... I was lucky she wasn't a Legilimens. I'd sat there and tried to look attentive while she told me about magic and Hogwarts and the hidden wizarding world. Inside, I was an inch from panicking.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

I'd always remembered something of my life before I'd been abandoned to the mercies of Britain's childcare institutions—not that I remembered the event itself. Faint memories of living in a house, of riding a bike, of going to school, of taking exams. Four-year-olds don't sit Calculus exams, I'd been told. I had a vivid imagination and must have watched a lot of television, I'd been informed. I'd believed them, even as I matured and my brain became more capable of parsing the inexplicable experiences.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

Television, radio, books, overheard conversations, there were lots of sources from which I could have concocted an imaginary life for myself. Hard details, confirmation of the existence of magic, the reality of Hogwarts... that broke that theory like a brick on thin ice.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

McGonagall was evidently accustomed to dealing with overwhelmed and confused Muggle-borns and left me to sort myself and get my thoughts in order before we reached Diagon Alley. That night I cried and damn near screamed into my pillow but until then my mask was immaculate.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

To be fair, there was a fair amount of the mask that was genuine. I really did have many questions about how things worked and what magic was like. Questions that McGonagall was all too happy to answer. I'd been something of a suck-up in school in my first life, almost by accident. Relating to teachers had always been easier than talking to my peers. Regardless, I liked to think that I'd made a good impression on the Transfiguration teacher. I'd even managed to get her to turn into a cat as a demonstration of what her field of specialty was capable of. She'd been quite kind in informing me that becoming an Animagus was a long and dangerous process that I wouldn't be able to even start to attempt for years, but she'd also promised that she'd mentor me through it if I had the aptitude for it.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

Unlike Hermione, I didn't have quite the same degree of interest in the history of the magical world. I fully intended to read up on it, but I could borrow those books from the Hogwarts library when I wanted to. Therefore I invested what little additional money was available to me in procuring some additional spellbooks and a volume that proclaimed to cover the fundamentals of Potions theory that I hoped would let me stay afloat in Snape's class. McGonagall had gifted me a book on Transfiguration that she claimed was beyond my ability to understand until I'd attended some of her classes, but that would give me an idea on some of the more interesting applications of the art. It also pretty much confirmed the 'made a good impression' theory.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

The sheet of paper wobbled into the air, but settled after a moment and sat calmly on nothing. With a bit of focus and gesturing, I made it drift in one direction, then the other, before I lost control and it fell to the ground once more. I wasn't too bothered. I'd improve with practice, now that I understood how it worked.

I checked the Levitation charm off the list I'd made in a notebook and gathered the books I'd brought out with me to practice with. If I didn't get back to the home soon, I'd have to explain why I was late for dinner. As it was I was still technically out without permission but I tended to cause little enough trouble that the carers wouldn't take too much notice if I didn't seem to be around the house.

I'd gained what I considered to be moderate proficiency with the Fire-Making Charm (practiced in a bucket of sand), the Wand-Lighting Charm, the Unlocking Charm and it's Locking counterpart. Given another day's practice, I was confident I would have the Levitation Charm down pat.

Transfiguration was a different beast, no pun intended. In the time it had taken me to learn two different charms, I'd only barely managed to figure out how to turn a matchstick into a needle. I could do it almost every time by now but the next spell in the list—one intended to Switch the features of two objects—was giving me trouble. At least the formulae and theory involved weren't too difficult. Not compared to the Integral Calculus I could remember struggling through in my first life.

—tN—tN—tN—

As a child in the care of the government, my possessions were limited. I owned a few changes of clothes and just about enough underwear to last me between laundry cycles. I had an alarm clock that summoned me from fitful slumber each morning and a battered—but serviceable—camera that lacked film more often than not. Courtesy of my enrolment at Hogwarts, I also possessed a trunk, several robes, a number of magical textbooks and assorted other paraphernalia such as a cauldron and a telescope.

Most important of those was my wand. Ollivander had told me that Alder wood was a somewhat contrary material for wand-making that tended to be attracted to people of diametrically opposed personalities. It could make for a volatile match if not suitable, he'd informed me cheerfully, but would form an unbreakable bond in the hands of its rightful companion.

I rolled the stick—my wand—between my fingers again, feeling its weight. My fingers curled around it, gripping the handle like I'd held it. Ollivander was right, there was something mysterious and wonderful about wandlore. There was something alive about them.

Most children in the home shared rooms, primarily to save on costs and make the most efficient use of space. Nobody had wanted to share with me and eventually they'd given up on trying to make them. I could speculate that it was more uncontrolled and unbidden magic at work—trying to enforce my wish to have a room to myself on the others—but it was more likely to be that I was strange and nobody else wanted anything to do with the weird kid. Whatever the cause, I had a room to myself.

It wasn't a big room. In fact, it was more than a little cramped. The walls were painted a faded pink, the covers on the bed a patchwork of reds and blues. There was a window set above my head on the wall, letting sunlight stream in past the bars outside for a few hours each day to light up the motes of dust. When that happened, I could almost convince myself that I was surrounded by stars. Almost.

I had a small chest of drawers integrated into the bottom of a shallow wardrobe, more than enough space to store everything I owned save for the books.

Novels, maps, dictionaries, encyclopedias... as many different volumes as I could get my hands on were piled on the floor in a system that shifted according to my whims and how bored I was.

One of the advantages of being an orphaned bookworm was that my carers were all too happy to find me new sources of books to read. After all, a child curled up with a book was a child not getting into trouble or making a mess. I'd always had to leave some of my collection behind when moving from one home to another and would have to do so again when leaving for Hogwarts, but my own personal library was my proudest possession, after my newly-obtained wand.

I'd acquired them from libraries clearing out excess copies, from used book sales and from second-hand bookshops. It never failed to amaze me how people tossed and traded such treasures so casually and cheaply. I had much of the works of Asimov, Wells, Doyle, Christie and—to my especial delight—Pratchett. And, naturally, a number of people had separately came up with the idea to gift me with the works of my namesakes, Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson.

The story went, according to the story I'd gotten from my third or fourth carer—who'd heard it from the carer before him and them from their predecessor in a grand game of Chinese whispers—was that I'd been left without even a name when I'd entered the system. They had to call me something and had taken inspiration from a nearby bookshelf of Gothic novels. The parallels to the fate of a certain shrunken detective had not escaped me.

The Repairing Charm had been the next item on my list after the Levitation Charm and—unlike the others—I had a specific task in mind for it. A consequence of building my collection out of books that others had discarded had left many of them in poor condition. Broken spines, stained pages and torn covers. None of them was outright missing any pages, I'd discarded any that did.

Now they were all... Not in mint condition, but in much better shape than they had been in. Cleaner, neater, stronger.

I also lucked out when I found the instructions for a charm to keep books in good condition in the back of the extra potions book I'd gotten. Mastering the new charm had proven a bit more difficult and had taken me twice as long as the Repairing Charm. But—with just a few days left before I could take the Express to Hogwarts—I figured it out. Pausing now and then to listen for anyone who might open the door and catch me doing magic, I worked through my collection and protected them for when I was away. I didn't know what would happen to my room, but there was a chance that the staff would pack up my books and store them elsewhere. This way, they wouldn't be damaged or sullied in the process.

The books weren't anything special. I'd only been able to get them precisely because nobody else wanted them. But they were important to me. And I wanted to protect what I held dear.

—tN—tN—tN—

The books I was leaving behind were safely stacked and bewitched against harm. My school stuff and changes of clothes were packed in my trunk and ready to go. My wand was tucked into a pocket I'd carefully sown into the sleeve of my favourite jacket, a warm purple fleece.

Everything was ready, except for me.

I wanted to go to Hogwarts. Needed to go there, really. I wanted to learn more about magic and leave the banality I'd suffered through for all my previous life and much of my current one, behind.

But I knew that once I'd left the home, I'd never fit in again. I'd never be able to truly relax there, forbidden from using magic, not after months of not just being allowed, but encouraged and taught to use it.

I was making excuses. I'd never fit in at the home in the first place. Not in this one or any of the previous ones. I'd probably run into the same social issues in Hogwarts too, even if the magic and the Library would almost certainly make up for it. I knew that was a fallacy as well, but it was one I needed.

I picked up my trunk and half-carried, half-dragged it down to the entrance where one of the carers was waiting to take me to the station. She was one of the nicer ones, with the patience and compassion to not be angry at me for dallying.

The drive to King's Cross Station was mostly quiet, broken only by the occasional reassurances that the new school would be lots of fun. I appreciated the effort, even if the speech wouldn't have worked even when I was as young as I looked.

Actually getting onto the platform was a bit trickier, since she insisted on seeing me to the train. I eventually managed to lead her to the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10 before distracting her and slipping through while she wasn't looking. It was a bit cruel of me and I'd have to make sure to send a letter—through the normal Muggle methods—to reassure her that nothing had happened to me. But I made it onto the Hogwarts Express in time.

I didn't speak much on the journey. I ended up sharing a carriage with four other students, two of them first years like myself and the other two in second-year. I tuned out the not-so-subtle attempts to psych out the Muggle-born—or at least Muggle-raised—firstie and opened up the book Professor McGonagall had given me. As she'd said, the magic described was far above my level to use, though I was understanding a bit more of the theory behind them with every day. Compared to the nightmare that had been my attempts to decypher poorly-written Calculus notes in university in my previous life, the book was orders of magnitude more comprehensible and interesting.

In spite of my reclusiveness, my carriagemates managed to guilt me out of my book halfway through the journey with the bribe of Chocolate Frogs and other magical goodies. Of the edible variety, that is.

Time passed and I changed into my school robes and retreated into my book once more. The older students' stories seemed to be getting to my fellow first years' nerves and they nearly jumped out of their seats when the train finally came to a halt.

I had my own off-moment just minutes later.

Dismounting the train in Hogsmeade, Hagrid carrying a lantern through the crowd with the ragged refrain of "Firs' year! Firs' years!", the castle in the distance... It drove the point home more thoroughly than Professor McGonagall had managed.

Magic was real. And now it was a part of my life to stay.