Chapter Ⅰ

The Three Magus

Ron Weasley trudged through the crowds of Diagon Alley, his ill-fitting clothes very uncomfortable. His mum had charmed them so that they could fit him better but there was only so much magic could do with clothes that had been charmed so many times.

All he was getting was his potions kits, and some books that his brother's don't have. He was pretty sure he was just getting an old family wand, or a used wand from Ollivander's. He prayed for Ollivander's, because even if it is used, it wasn't from the family and it was his. His.

He trailed after his mother, trying to keep his eyes on the twins that way he knew when they would try to prank him or something. Last time, they had charmed all his shirts into spiders, causing him to nearly have a panic attack. Ron couldn't remember a time he saw his father so angry; the twins weren't able to sit down for a few days without wincing.

He sighed, as his mother paid for his potions kit and put the shrunken bag in her pocket. The books were already bought, only needing 3 books that his brothers didn't have previously. (Something angry burned inside of him briefly)

"Mum, can I get new books too? Please?" Ron locked his jaw when he heard his mother's adoring answer of 'Next year, Ginny dear. You can get all of them next year.' His sister, the pretty princess of the family, was spoiled rotten by his mother, having been the youngest child and only girl. She got new everything; new clothes, new toys, new supplies, new, new, new… He tried to ignore the envy crawling up his spine.

Ron clenched his fists when his mother looked at him in sorrow; he knew what was coming up now. "Ronald, (It's Ron, woman. RonRonRon!) we might not have enough to pay for your Ollivander's wand. You might just have to take one of the family wands." Something bitter filled Ron and he nodded tightly. His mother gave him a light smile, though there was nothing regretful in her stance or her eyes.

He trailed after her slowly, trying to shove down whatever anger there was in his body; he was used to this, he was nothing important in his family. Bill and Charlie made their parents proud with their proper, dignified, well-paying jobs (his mother's words not his) ; Percy was a perfect, probably Head Boy too. Fred and George are prank extraordinaries, but he had nothing to give him his own name. Just a gift at chess but that's it. And that wasn't enough, he knew it wasn't.

Ron crept down the hall, his footsteps silent after years of practice, even with the normally creaky stairway. He stopped by the doorway of the kitchen, where his parents were located. His Hogwarts letter had come, and he hadn't missed the look they exchanged, despite the excitement that had been buzzing inside of him.

"Arthur, are you sure? Truly, I wouldn't mind home-schooling Ron. We are tight on money, and we will not be able to afford the tuition for Hogwarts. And Ronald really isn't as bright as his brothers. We can just save up for Ginny to go next year." Betrayal shot through him, a burning anger coiling in his gut. Tears pricked his eyes, and he pressed his ear against the door.

"It would be unfair for him to go, Molly, especially after all his excitement this morning. You know Albus will give him a scholarship, and even if he doesn't, we will forge ahead like we always do." Ron felt the betrayal and anger go away but he noticed that his father hadn't really said anything about him being bright or smart. It felt like someone had grabbed his lungs and squeezed it; it hurt to know his parents thought this of him.

"If you're sure…" A lump formed in his throat at the hesitance in his mother's voice.

"I am… Come on, let's go to bed Molly."

Ron turned swiftly and raced up the stairs as quickly and as quietly as he could. He shut the door to his room and scrambled into his bed. He curled up into a ball and tears leaked from his eyes.

That night he cried himself to sleep.

Ron looked up at the sign that stated 'Ollivander's Wands. Quality Wands since 51 BCE' He figured they must have been in business for a long while now. He stepped inside, standing slightly behind his mother, not really sure what to expect; his brothers had told him much, but he wasn't sure what was true and what wasn't.

A crash sounded from the back of the store, and he swiveled around trying to catch a glimpse of the wand maker; When he spun back around, he probably leaped 3ft in the air when a man stuck his face near his, shiny, glazed eyes surveying his form. Instinctively, he made himself seem smaller; it helped with the twins sometimes. A measure tape flew towards him and began measuring multiple lengths, including between his nose. His brother, Charlie had once said Ollivander was eccentric; Ron decided crazy was a better word for it.

"Used or Pre-made Wand."

He wanted to shouted 'Pre-Made!' but he merely responded with 'Used' as his mother was standing right behind him. Ollivander nodded solemnly thought there as this odd sparkle in his eyes; Ron wasn't sure if he should be excited or scared. He decided on both.

"Alder with a Unicorn Core, 9 ½ inches, reasonably pliant." Ron gripped the wand, and his eyes went wide when the wood cracked, and the Unicorn hair turned black. He put the wand down hastily and Ollivander merely put the wand away before grabbing another box.

"Beech Wood with a Phoenix Core, 10 inches, very stiff." He waved the wand and jumped when the stool in the corner caught on fire.

His mother looked startled before giving Ron a harsh look. He flinched slightly and waited for the cuckoo man to give him another wand.

"Pine and dragon-heart string, 8 inches, fairly flexible." He gave a hesitant wave and watched at the wood spilt but the core glowed brightly.

Ollivander looked ecstatic and snatched the wand from his hand. "Interesting, Interesting. The wood doesn't seem to agree with you, but the core seemed to have bonded with your magic… come with me to the back of the store and we will see what wood wants to be yours…" The way he said it reminded him of the way the twins had faked trying to decided which House at Hogwarts he would be in.

He spared one glance at his mother, and at the wary surprise on his mother's face, he followed Ollivander. About 5 minutes later, he was holding a block of willow wood.

Ollivander smiled brightly at him, and he shooed him back to his mother with a leaving statement of: "Come back in 30 minutes when your wand is properly done and finished."

His mother gave a curt nod and led him to Fortescue's Ice Cream, where his brother's were waiting. Fred and George ordered their normal ice cream to share, Percy got a simple cone, Ginny received her ice cream with toppings (something they were normally never allowed), and Ron got a little 2 scoop cone of Thunderstorm.

"So little brother…"

"…what kind"

"of wand did you…"

"…get matched with?"

He opened his mouth, but his mother beat him to the punch. "He got a used wand of course. Cedar and Dragon-Heart strings. One of the wands he waved messed with his voice a touch so he can't speak until we're sure it's gone."

The twins gave smiles of amusement with a joy gleaming in their eyes, even though Ron felt like he'd been punched. That wasn't true at all! But he still said nothing; if he did, he'd definitely get a punishment from his mother. So he merely nodded, not really having to fake the humiliated look on his face.

Later, after he'd gotten his wand (Ollivander reduced the price, because 'it's not every day I get a customer like you Mister Weasley!') and they returned from the burrow, he asked his mother why she'd said that. Her response made him want to cry and rage all at once.

"You got a custom wand, your brother's never got that. I didn't want to make them feel bad and to think that you got special treatment for some reason." Ron stared at her, not really sure if he heard her correctly. Apparently, she either didn't notice his trouble or just didn't care because she continued. "You understand, Ronnie, don't you?"

He could only nod, though he wanted to scream and shout that he didn't understand! This was something of his that wasn't passed down, that wasn't his brothers. Why was it so bad? But he nodded and walked away.

When he got to his room, he held out his Willow wand, dragon-heart string core, 10 ½ inches, reasonably firm. Sparks crackled off the end, and the scent of fresh rain filled the room; for a second, he thought he heard the faint sound of thunder, with lightning flashing in his eyes. He knew he must have been seeing, hearing, things.

After all, he was Ronald Weasley, the 6th child of the Weasley family, the youngest male, and the shadow of every single one of his brothers.

xXXxXXxXXx

Hermione Granger huddled in her spot; a large book tucked underneath her arm. She was hiding from her wicked, wicked, stepmother, Eleanor Granger nee Stone. She'd married her father, Maxwell Granger, who was a successful dentist and came from an old family. Meaning his practice wasn't really needed but he did it because he felt as though he needed to help in some way. Even if it was, looking at people's teeth.

She opened her book, Hogwarts: A History, but didn't really comprehend the words. A professor, Professor McGonagall, had come and taken her to Diagon Alley where she had gotten her school supplies.

Her stepmother had looked at her like she was Devil himself, always giving her a wide girth until she felt as though Hermione had done something wrong. Then came the almighty screeching of the Banshee herself.

Her father merely smiled at her, brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead. "My princess will take the world by storm." He handed her a roll of pounds to convert to wizard money, then asked for her to tell him everything after she got back from shopping. For a second, Hermione felt like she was floating.

Her biological mother, Alena Lebezheninov is Russian. Hermione gets to see her twice a year, one month during summer and during the week of her birthday. But this year, she wasn't sure she was going to be to see her with her new school, Hogwarts. The thought made her chest feel heavy.

Her mother was the best woman she knew; so confident, kind, loving, elegant, and so, so beautiful. She came from a wealthy family too, who she was the only heiress too as she had no siblings. But Hermione knew she had no wish to take on the tradition of being a lawyer, a doctor, a politician, or anything of the sort. She was very happy being a personal trainer, and defense teacher.

Hermione vaguely wondered how she would react to knowing that her daughter was a witch; she thought her mother would look at her like she always did (with her deep brown eyes and kind smile) and brush her hair back and say, 'I always told you that you were special, Rugosa.'

She sighed and trailed her finger over the cover of her book. She'd noticed the dirty looks some of the people there had given her, the ones dressed in lavish robes of crushed velvet it looked like, their posture screaming grace, poise, and a high ranking within the society.

She held herself the way her mother had taught her too, back straight, shoulders back, chin up, and eyes level. She spoke in an even and polite voice, while constantly maintaining eye-contact. The decorum that was demanded of a proper heiress, or at least someone who lived in an upper-class society like she did. Only when she entered the book shop, did all of her propriety leave her. She bounced around the book shop, searching the bookshop for every book that caught her interests.

She had come out with pockets filled with shrunken bags and promised herself to pay her father back for all the money he had given her for the shopping trip.

Hermione sighed and twirled a strand of her brown hair; she'd ended up looking more like her father than her mother, only getting her mother's eyes. She shook her head as she began reading.

She read about the four founders' of Hogwarts; Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Godric Gryffindor. She read about the myths of Hogwarts, the tales of the ghosts, the charmed ceiling of the Great Hall, the Black Lake that housed so many different types of creatures. She read about the History of everything that has taken place there; the traits that make up the houses; everything that the book had.

Then she tore through all her others, taking in every scrap of information that the book could offer. And somehow, it made Wizarding World seem boring an exciting all at the same time… but he was still entering a new world! A new world that les on brooms, that communicates through owls, that defies the laws of gravity, physics, and matter, with just a flick of a wand and an incantation! And she was the first one of her family that could do that!

Pride swelled in her at the thought, and she took out her wand (Pine with dragon-heart string, 10 ½ inches, reasonably flexible), beginning to attempt some of the spells; Lumos, Wingardium Leviosa, starting with the spells that seemed easiest before moving onto the ones that were harder.

Before long, she had decimated 3 piles of twigs, scorched a tree, gotten her stepmother's favorite chair stuck in the tallest tree on the estate (she laughed heartily at that), candles around the yard burning with a blue fire… Hermione was ecstatic.

"Brat! Where are you?!" She scrambled to shove her books in a hiding place, and she came out, stuffing her wand into her pocket. Her stepmother, blue eyes blazing like fire, grabbed her ear and shook her head.

She cried out in pain and scratched at the hand holding her ear. Tears pooled in her eyes, and she whimpered when the shaking stop but the grip on her ear got tighter. "Where were you?" She looked up at her stepmother, her arched eyebrows giving her an evil look and her flawless dirty blonde hair giving her a slight innocence.

"Reading ma'-. I was reading ma'am." She corrected herself, knowing full well her stepmother hated when she didn't speak in what she perceived as proper.

A perfectly sculpted eyebrow rose. "Oh? And pray tell, what were you reading?"

She drew her head down, only to wince when it was tugged back up. "M-my books… for, um, for school." Her ears was let go, and she was shoved back harshly.

Hermione stared as her stepmother crossed herself, her icy eyes glaring down at her. "Get out of my sight, you demon." She flinched before bolting. She ran to her spot collecting her books, stuffing as many as she could into her satchel and tucking her other one under her arm; her quill was stuck into her hair and she ran into the house, staying as far away from her stepmother as possible.

She huddled into her room, taking the long way to avoid any confrontation, and took her books out again. She stuffed most of them into her truck and pressed the clip of 'Muggle Worthy'. Sighing looked in the mirror, her eyes drawn to her red pounding ear. Allowing her hand to hover over it, Hermione felt anger when she felt heat radiating from it.

For a moment, she wondered mindlessly, if she was imagining things, when she heard the sound of the earth breaking and cracking, the sound of clashing metal. She mut have, for nothing that sounded as such was around her.

She made herself a cool cloth and pressed that to her ear, hoping that would stop it from hurting relatively quickly. She tied it with a little string to hold it in place and then curled up in her closet to begin reading, knowing full well she was going to learn everything so she could get out of here.

Because she was Hermione Granger, the first with of her family, and she was going to change the world with her knowledge.

xXXxXXxXXx

Harry Potter stared at the ground as he waited for his relatives to finish the food he had made. His cousins ratty clothes hung off his thin frame, about 10 times too large for him considering Dudley's large, heavyset figure.

He took the plates from the table once he was done, cleaned them, and went back to the dining room where a balled-up piece of paper was sitting on the table. He picked it up with a sigh, knowing it would contain an impossible list of chores. He began the painstaking tasks, completing each with practiced ease, but not even that perfected ease could not help him complete all the tasks before his Uncle arrived from work again.

He ignored his cousin's barbs, all while keeping himself calm by imaging the time when he could leave this hell. The castle of the beauty called Hogwarts, the school that would become his escape; the school that taught magic, the very thing that flowed through his veins, that made him different than the filthy animals he lived with.

And that fueled a dangerous fire within him, knowing that he would learn to hone that difference, and he could make them cower before him. While it might take a while, he would do it fueled by his hatred for his relatives.

So when he could, he poured all of his attention into his acquired books, absorbing everything that he could be offered by the books. He took notes upon notes, made memorization games for himself, practiced incantations as his wand (holly with a phoenix feather core) was currently stuck with his Uncle and he wasn't sure if he could find it within himself to attempt that suicide mission.

Harry made his way to the garden and began seeding the plots of soil he had readied yesterday. He poked the holes with his fingers, carefully placing the seeds in, and covering them again. He repeated the actions until he was done, back soaked with sweat and skin feeling tight and boiling. Trudging to the window, he knocked politely, waiting for his Aunt Petunia to come in.

She sat in her chair, reading the newest fashion magazine. She could see and hear him perfectly fine, he knew that, but he still waited 10 minutes to let him in. A shrill demand of 'strip of the filthy clothes and go to the bath, boy' later, he was bathing himself in cold water, scrubbing himself clean of dirt before stepping out.

He dried quickly, dressing himself in the clothes his Aunt had throw into the bathroom. He trudged out, going to the China Cabinet to polish all of his Aunt's silverware.

Dudley waddled in, a dangerous look on his face. His watery blue eyes gleamed dangerously and Harry side-eyed him. "Hey freak!" Harry raised an eyebrow before going back to what he was doing, all while thinking of every way he could escape the situation in the most painless way possible.

He almost felt thankful when his Aunt called Dudley for snack-time. The obese boy quickly disregarded Harry and made his way to the sunroom. Harry wasn't sure how offended he should be as being deemed less important than food, but considering who Dudley was, Harry decided it wasn't much of an insult.

Finishing the silverware, he stood to make lunch, doing to normal sandwiches, juice, and side salad, before going to his corner where he waited until the food was gone. He ignored the smug looks Dudley sent him as his Aunt lavished her son with love and praise. (He pushed away the annoying longing that refused to go away; no matter how much he beat it down) He watched straight faced, knowing full well any sort of emotion would get him punished, and he knew what he needed to survive.

Surviving was the one thing Harry knew best, well other than darkness but that's okay. He knew that to survive he would need to adapt, find a way to change himself to make himself seem inconspicuous or conspicuous. But at the Dursleys, he knew all the rules, knew that if he made what could be perceived as a mistake, he would be punished harshly.

He knew he could only rely on himself, every adult proving to be blind, when they seemed to not notice his scars, his stature, his clothes, the holes in his uncles and aunts lies. Every. Single. Thing. So he didn't dare trust a single adult, and most kids were basically to naïve to even think his scars ere from his relatives and others just bullied him because of his small stature.

Before he received his letter, he was fairly sure the only reason he was alive was because he was living off of spite. He lived because he knew that his death would bring his relatives give and he wasn't going to give them that satisfaction. He was going to force himself to live to 18, to become somebody that could smile at his relatives and say 'fuck you' without having to worry about the repercussions.

He wanted to live each day knowing that he caused his Uncle and Aunt pain with the fact that he still lived in their house, still sullied their normalness with his freakishness, that they could never be normal no matter how hard they tried because he still lived and breathed in their household. And he didn't care that it was at his expense that these things came to be, it still brought him savage glee.

Harry knew that at the school he would learn magic, a word forbidden in the household. But he would learn it, and when he was done learning, he would show the Dursley's the same fear they had instilled in him.

And for a split second, he could hear the screams that he would pull from their mouths, the boiling fear he would bring into their eyes.

He knew, when he got into the Wizarding World and Hogwarts, he would make his name known.

His name, Harry Potter, would be known for far more than a backfiring curse, it would cause fear, respect, awe, and he would be free to do as he wished.