Mist of Shadows
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Myst at Hogwarts (Ver 2.0)
🕑 Added 2019-03-07 01:08:18 +0000 UTCAN: My Editor thought I was skipping too many details and rushing certain scenes so certain bits got changed and almost three thousand words added... so yeah, the new and improved chapter is being reposted for free... so yeah, have a free chapter.
Myst twitched and fell over as he was hit by a decade of memories not his own. Hundreds of scenes of dealing with the Dursleys flowed through his head as he tried to figure out what the hell had happened or why he had all of Harry Fuckin’ Potter’s less than fun memories of being... Harry. He scowled as he looked down at his hands and realized they’d shrunk to the size of a child’s hands. “Bloody hell…” he trailed off as he realized he sounded like a kid, and a British one at that.
“I’m going to kill someone,” Myst grumbled as he looked down at his skinny arms and oversized cast off clothes. He’d alway despised stories where the idiots spent the first half of the chapter denying reality and looking for a rational explanation for something that clearly didn’t have one. He’d be damned if he acted like one of them! He forced himself to accept the situation he was now in and tried to figure out what he was suppose to do next.
He sighed as he ‘remembered’ that he was supposed to be weeding the garden. He reached down, grabbed one of the weeds and pulled it out then blinked as instead of a weed he got a tomato despite the fact that the weed was most assuredly not a tomato plant. ‘What the fuck? First I’m dropped into Harry’s body and now I’m pulling up tomatoes when they don’t even grow underground.’
He reached over and grabbed another weed and blinked when he got a copper coin rather than a weed. ‘Okay, pretty sure that’s not normal even in the wizarding world.’ He reached over and smashed a wasp before it could sting him then blinked as it ‘dropped’ a piece of wrapped salt water taffy. He had been dropped in place of the main character of a story he knew quite well, so perhaps he’d been granted the Gamer ability as well.
“Yeah, status?” He frowned slightly as nothing happened. “Inventory?” he asked hopefully then sighed as nothing happened. “Crafting?” He frowned as nothing happened. “Jump Chan? Loki? Bob? Other random being with cosmic power that likes relocating people between worlds?”
“Tutorial? Save game?” he asked hopefully, not terribly surprised that it wasn’t working. “Upgrade?” He sighed as that also didn’t seem to do anything. ‘Okay, wandless magic, if a baby can do it, I should be able to.’ He spent a couple minutes trying to get something to move then sighed and went back to pulling weeds, trying to figure out if he was using magic to get loot.
Sadly, as far as he could tell, there wasn’t any active magic or at least he couldn’t sense anything though really it wasn’t like he had a clue how magic worked so he could just be missing something. On the upside, he’d managed to get an orange and an ice cream bar from from the weeds in addition to some random vegetables and possibly enough change for the train that would take him to King’s Cross which was somewhat near the Leaky Cauldron.
Which was good because he was not going to put up with living with the Dursleys for longer than it took to get the hell out of Dodge. Harry may have put up with their crap not knowing any better, but Myst sure as hell did. No one on their right mind would stay in this situation unless physically forced to.
“Hey freak, what are you doing?” Dudley taunted.
Myst looked at Dudley, a plan beginning to take form in his head. “Taking this tomato and hitting you in the face.”
“What?” Dudley asked in surprise as Harry hit him in the face with the tomato. “I’m going to kill you!”
Myst lunged forward and kicked Dudley in the nuts, feeling a great deal of satisfaction from the fat bastard collapsing on the ground clutching at his ‘boys’. He reached down and grabbed Dudley’s wallet out of his back pocket then headed down the street toward the train station at a decent walk. He wanted to make sure he was out of the area before Dudley recovered and told Vernon on the off chance that kicking Dudley in the nuts was enough to motivate him to get off his fat ass and chase him down.
He grinned slightly as he saw a pay phone at the bus stop. ‘Let’s see how useful the police are.’ He dialed 999 then waited for an operator.
“What is the nature of your emergency?” the woman on the line asked.
“I’d like to report an escaped criminal, we usually keep the freak under the stairs but he got away,” Myst said doing a fair imitation of Dudley’s voice.
“Can I have your name sir?” the officer asked suspiciously, figuring it was a crank call.
“Dudley Dursley, Number 4 Privet Drive, Surrey. Look he has to cook dinner tonight. I don’t want to listen to the screaming if my father has to teach him his place again.”
“Teach him his place?” the woman asked warily.
“Belt, backside, you know how it is. The neighbors are usually pretty good about letting us know when he’s out but the bastard kicked me in the nuts and slipped away. Just catch him, I want my dinner on time.” Myst hung up the phone then wiped his fingerprints off the phone with his shirt and kept walking, knowing that they’d be sending someone very soon.
Thankfully he was already down a sidestreet when he saw a police car with flashing lights zoom by. ‘Best of luck explaining that one.’ He was still smiling when he got on the train heading for King’s Cross. ‘Okay, I’m stuck in Harry Potter land as Harry Potter. Negatives: bad sight, Dursleys, idiotic dark lords and minions and I’m ten almost eleven. Upsides: magic, my knee is fixed and I’m not an emotionally damaged child like Harry, despite being in his body.’
‘I need money which means I need to visit the goblins, sadly I don’t actually have my key yet which is going to complicate things. I can get loot for pulling weeds and killing bugs, but it’s not a whole lot and certainly not enough for what I need. I’m going to have to talk to the goblins… this is going to suck.’ He pulled Dudley’s wallet out of his pocket and looked at how much money he’d stolen from Dudley. ‘He had 130 pounds? I guess it’s from his birthday coming up. His loss, my gain,’ Myst thought as he put the wallet away in his pocket. ‘At five pounds a galleon if I remember the exchange rate, I should be able to afford a wand and some books.’
He closed his eyes and tried to figure out what to do next. ‘First stop is the bank, next is Ollivander’s then I need a magic trunk and a mokeskin bag. If I’m going to get drops off random stuff, I’m going to need somewhere to hide them in. Not to mention that would probably help deal with the Slytherins and other students who had sticky fingers.’ He reached up and scratched the scar on his forehead, suddenly realizing it was going to be a problem. ‘Yeah, that’s going to be a hassle, I don’t need a bunch of people saying that Harry Potter is running around Diagon Alley. I also don’t need people assuming I’m a street urchin either, which means I should probably grab some clothes before I hit the alley.’
0o0o0
Myst was happy that he could find decent jeans, a pair of new socks, a shirt and a stocking cap for under five pounds which let him toss the crap that he’d been wearing, as they’d gotten him more than a couple of strange looks on the train. Thankfully with his stocking cap in place to cover his scar it was dirt simple to just follow a family through the Leaky Cauldron like he was one of their kids and into the Alley. He glanced around the magical alley, feeling like a kid in a candy store with twenty dollars to spend, back when that actually meant something.
‘Okay, goblins first.’ He couldn’t help the smile on his face as he headed to the bank, enjoying the sights. His smile took a couple hits when people kept getting in his way, which was something he wasn’t used to as people normally got out of his way. ‘I’m going to miss being six feet tall.’ He walked into the bank and looked around at all of the wizards and goblins. He walked over to one of the tellers. “I lost my key, I need a replacement.”
“Name,” the goblin replied boredly.
“Potter, Harry,” Myst said quietly as he pulled his hat up, showing his scar.
The goblin reached under the table and grabbed a red quill, a piece of enchanted parchment and set them on the counter. “Please sign this with your name and I can tell you what you have access to.”
Myst winced slightly as he signed Harry Potter with what was obviously a blood quill. Thankfully, without writing multiple lines it didn’t actually cause any damage to his hand, just lightly scratching the skin.
“Trust vault, we’ll cancel the outstanding key and make you a new one. Don’t lose it again or you’ll be charged. Come with me.”
Myst followed the goblin to the carts then gleefully rode one down to his vault, it was every bit as fun as the Indiana Jones ride at Paramount, more so as it was real. The car screeched to a halt and the Goblin got out and did something to the massive vault door, causing it to swing open and reveal… enough gold to make a decent hoard for a teenage dragon!
He was more than a little amazed despite himself with the sheer amount of galleons in Harry’s vault. ‘Yeah, that’s a king’s ransom and it’s mine!’ He collected a ‘decent’ amount in a money bag he found sitting next to one of the many stacks of coins. Mostly he wanted enough to gold to buy all of his supplies and pick up a decent sized library. Unlike Harry he was planning on getting at least a Moody size trunk as he wasn’t sure how much stuff he was going to buy, but it was going to be a lot. He figured the amount of books he was planning on getting alone would have overflowed a normal trunk.
Thankfully the ride out his vault was just as magical as the ride in. Hell, even the goblin seemed to grin for a brief second as the light from a dragon breathing fire behind them lit up the tunnel.
“Get out,” the goblin said the instant they’d come to a stop in the lobby, back to normal.
Myst smirked and hurried off, not bothering with pleasantries since the goblins didn’t use them. He briefly wondered if they considered them rude, as it was a waste of time, or if they simply didn’t think wizards were worth wasting the effort on.
Braving the crowds of rude and absent minded tall people around him, Myst swam through the lunchtime crowd to find a secondhand shop, spotting one on the edge of the alley labeled Needful Things. ‘I doubt it’s the same one from the story… but if they tell me I don’t need to pay in gold and can just do them a favor, I am getting the fuck out of there!’
Entering the shop he heard a bell ring from above the door, but the shopkeeper was too busy to come and see who it was as she was busy dealing with an older man who was arguing about something involving gnomes of some sort and a can of powder. She looked to be about thirty with long blonde hair and an impressive rack, but there was a slight shimmer around her that made him doubt that was her real appearance. ‘Probably a glamour,’ he thought.
He browsed the shop, taking note of the various tables and bookshelves filled with the bric a brac of the wizarding world, much of it unrecognizable to him, though he did note a stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling in one corner that made him feel a bit better about shopping there for some reason he couldn’t place.
On a large wooden table he picked up an old leather shoulder bag that he easily fit the top half of his body in when he checked it despite its small size. It had the initials H.G.W on it in faded gold script. He put it on his shoulder and looked through the shelves of a nearby case that held an assortment of trunks, many decorated like a magpie had been involved either in the choosing of the colors or for the feathers. It took several minutes to find a dull dark green trunk with tarnished brass latches on either side as well as on the top and bottom. Flicking one open he looked inside and saw it held about ten times the amount it should have in and had a ladder leading inside. It was lined with dusty bookcases and had a beat up old armchair and scarred side table holding an oil lamp. ‘Perfect,’ he thought before closing it and latching it shut.
He cautiously flipped it over and opened up the other side revealing a similar room, but one that held racks for clothes, a full length mirror with a crack in it, and an intricately carved wardrobe. He didn’t bother checking the other two compartments as those two rooms alone would suffice for what he needed and anything more was a bonus. He noticed the trunk had the same initials as the bag, which made sense as whoever it had been was apparently one of the few witches or wizards who weren’t colorblind and attracted to shiny objects like a small child.
Picking up the trunk by the handle it wrapped itself around his wrist becoming a small leather armband. ‘Hope she knows how to work it or this is going to be embarrassing,’ he thought to himself, glancing at the clerk before continuing looking for what he needed.
Spotting a collection of what he presumed was magical camping supplies, he cautiously examined what was available, and was relieved to spot an old canvas tent that looked to have seen some use and poked his head inside. It was larger than his apartment in college by a decent amount and he didn’t bother examining it further. All the other tents looked to have been stolen from the circus, while this one actually looked like it was suppose to and had plenty of room, as long as she didn’t want more than a handful of gold or his soul, he was going to buy it.
He suppose he’d best check in with the storekeep so she knew he wasn’t trying to lift anything without paying for it, he decided as he hefted the tent onto his shoulder and it reformed into a battered leather duster that fit him perfectly. ‘Magic is awesome!’
“Excuse me, Miss,” Myst said politely.
She smiled down at him. “Hello young man,” she said said cheerfully, her voice sounding about thirty years older than her appearance would suggest. “Come to spend your allowance on some odds and ends?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Myst said cheerfully. “Found some old and battered stuff that would make camping in the backyard loads of fun. I have a bag, a tent, and a hat like a proper explorer.”
He played up his youth for all it was worth.
She waved her wand and the three unpaid for items glowed red. “Yes, I can see that. You look like a right proper explorer you do. How about two galleons apiece for all of it?”
“Sure, I don’t suppose you have anything else that goes with this? It all says H.G.W. on it and my Mum won’t get on me for getting dirty like she did with the stuff she bought me. Also… I need to know how to make it all work.”
She giggled. “Let me check my ledger.” She pulled a massive leather tome from beneath the counter and tapped it with her wand, before waving it at Myst and then back at the book once more. It opened with a thump and she looked at the entry. “A few things, can’t let you have the bloody big knife, or hunting rifle, but there was a book full of maps and some camping supplies. You’ll have to get a wand or have one of your parents set things up for you, but it works like any other wizarding gear, just tap it with your wand and picture it working.”
“That would be lovely,” Myst said with a smile that he was sure was going to cause him cavities, but she seemed to buy it. “How much do I owe you?”
“Ten for everything,” she said flicking her wand and turning it a quarter turn.
A load of random items seem to zip from every corner of the shop, clothes that he probably wouldn’t grow into unless he started stealing Hagrid’s blood, an elephant rifle, a machete that looked more like a short sword and was stuck in a fossilized stump, a stack of journals, a water skin, an old fashioned pocket watch, a few small leather pouches filled with vials of unidentified materials and spice containers that were too faded to read, and lastly… a tiny bonsai tree with a miniature bird in it.
“Can’t sell you the rifle or the machete,” she said kindly before banshing them back to where they had come from.
“Is that…. a pear tree?” Myst asked cautiously.
“Bonsai pear tree with a bonsai partridge,” she agreed with a smile.
“I’ll take it,” Myst said pleased with the price. “Can you save the rifle and machete until I get older?”
“Sure,” she replied, “not much call for it around here.”
“I don’t suppose you have already marked school books? I need something to make Mum think that I’m studying the boring stuff, like history when I’m reading fiction.”
The woman laughed. “Standard first year then?”
“I should probably get some reference books if you have them, that should impress Mum,” Myst mused.
The shopkeeper rubbed her chin. “I have an entire set of books from first to third year from a student that just graduated five or six years ago. I can let you have them as a set for… eight galleons and seven sickles.”
“Oh, skipping ahead, that should impress her and it’s not like I won’t need them eventually,” Myst replied as he started counting out change.
“Excellent, shall I add some reference manuals to your stack?” she asked helpfully, seeing he was better off than his clothes suggested.
“Yes, please,” Myst replied, trying not to let off an evil laugh as she was basically selling him the secrets of the universe for a few slivers of metal.
0o0o0
Myst stepped into the wandmakers shop almost vibrating with excitement, in fact, he might have even been floating but as he was getting the key to cornholing reality he didn’t really care.
“Potter, Harry,” Ollivander noted, “a bit early aren’t you?”
“A wizard is never late. Nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to,” Myst quoted Gandalf.
Ollivander laughed. “You’ll fit in just fine. Shall we get started?”
“Of course, I’ve been waiting for this,” Myst said eagerly. Thankfully waving the first couple wands proved without a doubt that he had magic but all he did was get a load of different color sparks, much to his disappointment.
“I don’t set up the show spells until a week before the new students are due in,” Ollivander said with a grin.
“Show spells?” Myst asked confused.
“Do you really think I could afford to replace half the shop every time I sold a new wand?” the old man asked silver eyes twinkling.
“Does that mean you already know which wand I’m going to get?” Myst asked suspiciously.
“I have a fairly good idea, you’re a Potter and I sold your mother her first wand. Ten and a quarter willow, swishy, good for charms.” Ollivander grinned as he grabbed a holly and phoenix wand out of the display. “Give it a wave.”
Myst took the wand, pointed it at a blank wall and gave it a wave, producing a small amount of silver sparks.
“Yeah, not that one,” Ollivander said with a touch of annoyance while Myst smirked at him. “It’s an art, not a science,” he admitted with a grumble as he took the wand back and handed Myst an ebony wand. “Try that.”
Myst waved the wand and blinked as purple sparks burst out of the wand and set the ceiling alight.
“Aguamenta,” Ollivander said as he urgently waved his wand at the ceiling sending a thick blast of water that rained down on the entire area. “I knew I could expect great but terrible things in your future.”
“Really? Do you say that to everyone?” Myst asked with amusement as the rain rolled off his hat and duster like water off a duck’s back.
“No but your father was a massive prankster and your mother had a temper like a dragon with a toothache at times, so yeah, great but terrible things.”
“Fair enough, how much do I owe you?”
“Six galleons, two sickles,” Ollivander replied as he vanished the water he’d used to put out the fire.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Myst replied as he counted out the coins, eager to learn magic. “How much for the wand care supplies and do you have any wand holsters?”
“Amusingly enough, I believe the last first year that asked about wand holsters was your mother. They’re normally only used by professional duelists.”
“I’d rather not risk sticking my wand in my pocket and breaking it.”
“I can’t say I blame you but I do a decent business in replacement wands,” Ollivander admitted as he set a wand care kid on the counter and grabbed a black leather dealing holster. “Total comes to eight galleons, four sickles and three knuts.”
“Fair enough,” Myst replied as he gave him eight galleons and five sickles. “Do you have a book on wand care and do you know where to find a book for making wands?”
“There used to be a couple of guides floating around that would allow you to make ‘serviceable’ wands but one of the other wand makers got them banned a couple decades back, so it mostly fell to various families to pass on the secrets.”
Myst twitched. “You’re telling me, that wand making, which the entire magical world needs, is half a dozen heart attacks from becoming a lost art?”
“There are more than that,” Ollivander defended with a frown as he considered the matter.
“Are they Ollivander quality wand makers?” Myst asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Not… exactly,” the old wizard admitted knowing Gregorovitch was the only one that came close in Europe and his wands weren’t on the same level.
“So… for the sake of future generations shouldn’t you be kinda hedging your bets here? I wouldn’t mind learning it for the sake of learning it and I could take a vow not to go into business as long as there was an Ollivander setting up shop, I could even promise to pass it down to anyone in your family line who asked…” Myst weedled.
Ollivander chuckled. “Come back in a couple years when you have a Newt in Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and Runes with at least an Owl in Potions and Charms.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Myst replied as he put his new wand holster on his left wrist and put his wand away. “Have a good day.”
“And to you as well, Mr. Potter,” Ollivander replied, expecting great things from the kid and some pretty horrible pranks.
0o0o00o0
Myst smiled as the unmistakable scent of books hit his nose as he walked into the bookstore. ‘Hopefully I can find something on making wands and brooms.’ He smiled at the attractive black haired woman in her mid twenties that was standing behind the counter playing cat’s cradle with some yarn.
The woman smiled at Myst as she noticed his outfit. “Ah, an explorer of dangerous places, what can I do for you?”
“I’m supposed to ask for my older sister, do you have any books on charming brooms or carpets?”
The clerk shook her head. “Using flying carpets is illegal in England.”
“Is that a no?” Myst asked with a pout.
“Try the section on foreign books, you might find something there if you speak German or French.”
Myst sighed. “Do you have any books with translation spells?”
“Yeah but they’re a bit advanced and a little hit and miss at times.”
“A little bit and miss?” Myst asked warily.
“They can be a bit basic and tend to mistranslate spells, which mean that most wizards don’t bother with them.”
“Even having a basic understanding would be a decent place to start,” Myst offered.
She glanced at his less than stellar looking glasses. “Tell you what, I’ll cast the translation spell on a pair of magical glasses if you’re looking to get some better glasses.”
“How long would the translation spell last?” Myst asked suspiciously.
“Probably a week.”
“What do the glasses do?” Myst asked, curious what type of charms they had on them.
“They’re resistant to damage and scratches and they adjust to give you slightly better than average vision.”
“In other words, much better than I have,” Myst said, thinking about the crappy bargain bin glasses he was currently wearing.
“I can let them go for a galleon,” the woman said as she pulled a pair of horn rimmed glasses out from under the counter.
“Deal,” Myst agreed, wanting to get rid of the last reminder of the Dursleys.
“On the upside, if you use them enough, you’ll learn the language, more or less,” she replied with a grin as she tapped the glasses with her wand and charmed them. “Besides, your glasses look like they’re about to fall apart anyways.”
Myst laughed as he tossed her a gold coin. “I already said deal.” He glanced around the shop at the stacks of books. “If you had to start looking for interesting books somewhere, where would you start?”
“You could grab some of the Harry Potter stories, they’re fairly popular. Now if you’re looking for interesting things to bribe your sister with, I’m going to need to know what year she’s in.”
“Sixth year, Charms, Transfiguration, and Runes, she’s a Ravenclaw and bit of a nerd,” Myst lied.
“Ravenclaw,” the clerk said with amusement and certain amount of fondness. “Ah yes, I know the type. I’d start with the foreign section, there are all sorts of useful spells, including translation spells, spells to attract guys, makeup charms and charms of all sorts.” She pulled out a pamphlet and set it on the counter. “Here’s a spell she’d like, it’s for animating backscratchers and gloves for massage, don’t worry, she’ll love it.”
‘Back scratches, right,’ Myst thought as he glanced at the price. ‘7 sickles, a couple pounds for spells she found or researched, nice side business.’ He nodded. “Add it to my pile, I’ll take a look to see what I can find.”
“Of course,” the shopkeeper replied, smirking slightly as he headed for the foreign books section.
The translation spell reminded him a bit of looking at web pages that had been translated using Google’s translation software. Still, his persistence paid off with a couple useful looking books, including a book on dealing with ghosts and another on copying books and defeating various English copy protection spells that would certainly prove useful if he could get them to work.
He ended up buying a journal about the translation spell from the woman as well as a couple dozen spellbooks and basic reference guides, including a book on making basic flying carpets and brooms for the hobbyist which might come in useful, and a book on occlumency which he was planning on putting into practice as soon as possible as he didn’t trust Snape as far as he could throw Hogwarts.
“Let me guess, muggleborn?” she asked as she glanced over his collection of books.
“Close enough,” Myst replied.
“In that case, let me get a pamphlet that all muggleborn should read, it explains things like wizarding oaths, truth serums, and how certain magic detection nets work.” She pulled a pamphlet out from under the counter and set it on counter next to the glasses. “Of course, such a pamphlet doesn’t technically exist, so keep that in mind.”
“No problem.” Myst said paid for his purchases and stuffed them in his bag, rather happy with his collection of books and his new glasses. ‘I’m still going to need to get my eyes fixed at some point but this works for the moment.’ “Thanks for the help.”
“You’re welcome, come back any time and I’ll refresh the spell if you buy more books.”
“I’m planning on it.” Myst smiled as he left the shop and looked around the alley. He ignored the robes shop and hit the various other secondhand shops for the rest of his supplies then headed to the Leaky Cauldron where he grabbed a room for the rest of the summer. He was more than a little surprised that the barkeep didn’t ask him why he needed a room for the summer, merely took the money and handed him a key.
Myst sat down on the bed and cracked open his basic first year spell book and started reading. Hermione had tested a couple spells and managed to repair Harry’s glasses on the train which meant that at least some of the spells should be easy enough to learn without a teacher. Thankfully skimming the back of the book helped, as it had a pronunciation guide that Harry and Ron had never been shown to read in the book as well as some moving diagrams that explained the names for various wand movements and various other things that probably would have made Harry’s time at Hogwarts a lot more useful.
Even the potions book was simple enough to understand, at least for someone that had taken a few years of chemistry in college. Sure, there were some new terms but they were all explained in the side book he’d picked up or scattered through the normal potions book. It was simple enough if you had a clue and he could almost understand Snape’s frustration with people, except that he could have easily stuck the second book on the list of required books and saved himself a lot of hassle and frustration.
Myst was fairly sure that most wizards and witches picked a couple areas to work on and just didn’t bother with learning a wide selection of spells. Why bother learning to defend yourself when they could pay other people to do it. Or at least that was the only reason he could think of that most wizards couldn’t cast a simple shield charm when he managed to get it sort of partially functional after fifteen minutes of work and more than a couple accidents.
Of course the accidents had been interesting as one of them had been his attempt at wandlessly casting a shield charm which had basically created an unstable gust of wind that caused the candle to flicker. While most wizards would have viewed the entire experience as a failure, he viewed it as an opportunity to pretend to be a ninja for a moment or two. ‘Okay, being stuck in a kid’s body may be affecting me a bit,’ Myst decided, before thrusting out his hand with a grin that turned into an actual smile when the flame flickered again and almost went out. If he’d actually been standing closer to the desk he might have blown it off but he wasn’t which meant magic!
Of course his experiments didn’t stop there as every time he got bored he worked on moving a quill on the desk with a levitation charm. Knowing that Tom the toothless barkeep could use wandless magic frustrated the hell out of him because it certainly wasn’t as easy as pointing at the feather and making it work. Even with a wand it, was a combination of will and a mental trigger. Still, it wasn’t horrible practice, just sort of frustrating that he wasn’t able to get it to work without his wand. Still his little gust of wind trick made him hopeful that he’d figure it out.
0o0o0
Fountain pens were a lovely invention as far as he was concerned and didn’t make him want to stab people that insisted on living in the dark ages. Of course, he grabbed plenty of muggle notebooks and pens while he was out because it was a lot easier than trying to write with a quill. Sure, he’d probably have to swap to the fountain pen or a quill for the essays or homework but he was only going to humor the wizarding world so much.
Myst was a touch nervous about getting his Hogwarts letter at the Third Room on the second floor of Leaky Cauldron but after a couple hours of no one showing up, he realized that the first letter had to be automated. That made him feel slightly better about no one freaking out about Harry living under the stairs in the book but only slightly as Dumbledore should have checked on him at some point.
Thankfully he had no problems spending Harry’s money on his growing library of used books and the young woman that ran the junk store was a master at repairing stuff which helped him perfect or at least learn the repair spell to a reasonable level. He also learned a fair bit about fixing brooms and other magical items listening and watching her work her magic on the various damaged magical items that people sold her. He smiled as he walked into the bookstore and saw a pair of red haired twins that looked a lot like the actors that had played them in the Harry Potter movies then looked over at Alice behind the counter. “Alice.”
Alice smiled at Myst. “What can I do for you today?”
“I was curious if you could charm a fountain pen to never need refilling.” Myst wasn’t sure if it was possible but the gemino charm existed so it gave him hope.
Alice glanced over at where a middle aged woman with red hair was looking through a collection of books then looked back at Harry. “Near enough, why have one you need charmed?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Myst said as he took his fountain pen out of his pocket and handed it to her.
Alice waved her wand over the pen and silently cast the spell to make the ink last twenty times as long as it normally would. “Expanded the ink chamber, that should get you through a couple years, once you’ve filled it.”
“Can you do that with quills?” Fred asked.
“No, the magic in the quill and the lack of ink reservoir makes it impossible.”
“If it’s that easy to charm a pen, why use quills?” George asked, thinking of some of the pens his father had picked up to play with.
“Tradition and it’s a lot easier to cast anti cheating spells on the quills,” Alice replied as she pocketed the silver coins Myst had handed her for her trouble. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Myst replied as he put the fountain pen back in his bag. “Anything I should avoid at Hogwarts when I start in a couple weeks?”
Fred scratched his chin. “You should probably avoid Slytherins, the Forbidden Forest, and the bloodthirsty ghosts.”
Alice snorted. “Don’t listen to him, the ghosts are perfectly nice, other than Peeves but he doesn’t count as he’s a poltergeist rather than a proper ghost.”
“Let me guess, the Forbidden Forest is forbidden because it has horrible monsters in it, right?” Myst asked, curious if there were any obvious changes from the books.
“Pretty much,” Fred agreed.
“Fred, don’t scare the first year student, Hogwarts is perfectly safe and there are wards to keep the monsters off the grounds,” Mrs. Weasley assured the first year her son had been trying to scare.
“That’s a relief,” Myst replied, not overly worried about the forest as he was fairly sure Hagrid would stop anything too dangerous from showing up. Of course his ability to judge how dangerous monsters were needed a bit of work, but everyone had their little blind spots, look at how Dumbledore trusted anyone who claimed to have changed. He took a couple steps back from the counter as Mrs. Weasley brought a stack of books over to the counter. “Either way, thanks for the advise, now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find another potions guide.”
“Have fun,” George replied, wishing they had enough to gold to get a couple extra books rather than the bare minimum but at least Hogwarts had an amazing library.
“I’m planning on it,” Myst replied as he headed toward the back of the shop to check out the rest of the foreign spellbooks as they seemed like a decent way to learn interesting spells.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
It certainly seems that way, doesn't it?
James Long
I was just rereading this, and I gotta wonder. Did Harry/Myst just pick up H G Wells' old camping gear?
Mist of Shadows
Just giving more credit to the family name. Bond, James...
Trip
Is there significance to the "Potter, Harry" introductions by name in this chapter? In an Asian setting I wouldn't even notice but as it's the reverse of the English default, it stood out.
