Myst at Hogwarts

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’s less than fun memories of being Harry Potter. 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.

“I’m going to kill someone,” Myst grumbled as he looked down at his skinny arms and ragged clothes. 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 bug then blinked as it ‘dropped’ a piece of wrapped salt water taffy. “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.

“Hey freak, what are you doing?” Dudley taunted.

Myst looked at Dudley. “Taking this tomato and hitting you in the head.”

“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 him 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 cops 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.”

“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.”

“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 out. 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 the cops 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 get loot for pulling weeds and killing bugs, 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 is 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. Not to mention that would probably help deal with the Slytherins.’ He reached up and touched the scar on his forehead. ‘Yeah, that’s going to be a problem, 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 decently 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 he’d gotten more than a couple 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 barrier 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 as he pulled his hat up, showing his scar.

The goblin reached under the table and grabbed a blood quill and piece of special paper 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.

“Trust vault, we’ll cancel the outstanding keys and make you a new key. Don’t lose it again or you’ll be charged. Come with me.”

Myst followed the goblin to the carts then gleefully rode the carts down to his vault. 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.

Thankfully the ride out his vault was just as fun as the ride in. From there it was easy to hit the secondhand store and pick up a shoulder bag, a large multi-compartment trunk, a magical tent that was larger than his apartment in college by a decent amount, a mokeskin pouch and a couple dozen books that should provide decent background and get him started on second and third year material if everything went well with the first year material.

Mostly because the first year books were written for eleven year olds and idiots. He looked at the decently attractive woman in her twenties behind the counter. “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.”

“Do you have any translation spells?” 

“No but I have an ear clip that translates the spoken word and some glasses that translate what you see. If you use them enough, you’ll learn the language without even trying. Besides, your glasses look like they’re about to fall apart anyways.”

“Sounds worthwhile, depending on the price,” Myst agreed cautiously, not sure where he’d run into other languages but figuring the option might be useful.

“Cheap enough,” the woman said as she grabbed a pair of blue tinted sunglasses and a silver ear clip that didn’t look too strange and set them on the counter.

“Anything else you can suggest?” Myst asked.

“Buy the glasses then look at the foreign section, there are spells for all sorts of things the ministry doesn’t approve of. Of course, they’re English so they never bother to check the foreign titles.”

“Tell you what, let me borrow the glasses for five minutes to make sure they work and you have yourself a deal.”

The woman laughed. “Let me guess, muggleborn?”

“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 as he swapped his glasses for the enchanted glasses then headed toward the foreign section, rather happy with the upgrade as he could actually see the writing on the spines of the books without squinting. ‘Yeah, I’m going to have to get my eyes fixed.’

He smirked as he carefully skimmed through several of the foreign spellbooks, finding a number of useful spells and tricks, including a section 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 the translation items and a couple dozen spellbooks, including a book on making flying carpets and brooms 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.

Ollivander’s was less than amusing with all of the exploding boxes and other various things that could have been avoided by having a blank wall to wave at. Thankfully or not, Ollivander had eventually handed him the Holly and Phoenix feather wand from the series and he’d went on his merry way after paying and getting confirmation that his wand was connected to Fawkes and thus Voldemort. Thankfully it was easy enough to put his eventual confrontation with Riddle out of his mind as he’d either have a couple years to work on his magic before he had to deal with Voldemort’s ghost or things would be enough different from the books that he’d die painfully and horribly when something didn’t line up.

Myst ignored the robes shop and hit the various 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 bothered to read in the book as well as some moving diagrams that explained the names for various wand movements and various other things that 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 various 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 that 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 paid 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 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 a projectile ball of force that had shot out of his hand, hit the desk and sent it crashing into the wall with enough force to break two of its legs. While most wizards would have viewed the entire experience as a failure, he viewed it as an opportunity to practice the repair charm and work on his wandless force ball until he could cast it perfectly every time he needed to.

It was a combination of will and a mental trigger, sort of like moving your fingers in just the right way to hit the right key on a keyboard, once you had it, you had it. 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 wandless levitation charm. Knowing that Tom the toothless barkeep could use wandless magic encouraged him to keep with it until he could move the feather around. From there, he’d moved onto coins and then onto a pair of juggling balls he’d picked out on one of his trips to get some writing implements that didn’t make him want to stab people.

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 secondhand 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 Harry. “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 something 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. “That should get you through a couple years.”

“Can you do that with quills?” Fred asked.

“No, the magic in the quill and the lack of ink reservoir make 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 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 issues. 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.