"Will this cover it?"
Rowan set a bulging pouch of galleons on the counter without hesitation. Choosing the massive eagle owl had never been about showing off. It was a calculated choice.
A creature of that size had real striking power. In a fight, it could buy him precious seconds—or save his life outright. More importantly, its strength and wingspan promised something rare: the potential to carry him aloft. A living escape route strong enough to lift more than a human child.
A perfect emergency mount.
The clerk, seeing the weight of the pouch—far more than the one hundred galleons needed—immediately brightened and rushed to move the owl into Rowan's trolley before the boy could reconsider. Feeding such a beast was expensive; losing a sale would have been painful.
With his new familiar secured, Rowan headed for the last and most important stop: Flourish and Blotts.
He needed the first-year books, yes, but far more urgent were any volumes on wandless and gesture-based casting. Without a wand in the Marvel world, he needed a backup method. Otherwise, his magic would remain useless the moment things turned dangerous.
Inside, the shop was busy but not chaotic. Lockhart's signing was still weeks away.
"Gesture-casting manuals?" the clerk repeated. "Haven't stocked those in ages. Everyone uses wands now."
Rowan held back a sigh. "I'm still interested. Could you help me locate one?" He placed twenty galleons on the counter, letting them speak for him.
The clerk hesitated, then subtly raised four fingers. "Special order. Supply's… expensive."
"Done."
Rowan added the full forty galleons. He knew he was being overcharged. He didn't care. Some knowledge was worth far more than gold.
"Three days," the clerk said quickly, scooping the coins away.
Rowan nodded and spent another half-hour picking out supplementary texts before pushing his overflowing trolley back toward Knockturn Alley. Even the giant owl perched atop the load didn't soften the stares he received along the way.
Back at the shop, he set the eagle owl on the bedroom table and handed it a fresh rabbit bought from the owl emporium. "Stay put. Mind yourself."
The owl dipped its head obediently—far too obediently for an animal of its temperament.
Rowan smiled faintly. Xavier's psychic gifts, even diminished to a whisper in this child's body, had their uses. Human minds were labyrinths, but animals were uncomplicated. Guiding them was as easy as nudging water downhill. If he ever dedicated himself to magical creatures, he could probably rival Newt or Hagrid someday.
But first: magic.
He pulled two books from the pile. Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 and Magical Theory. These were the foundation stones, the ones he needed to master before anything advanced.
By the time dusk crept across the room, his eyes burned and his head throbbed.
Magic was far harder than films made it look.
Casting wasn't waving a stick and muttering a word. It was choreography, discipline, and resonance. Bloodline determined whether you could channel magic at all. Then came clarity of incantation—tone, speed, intent. Even slight deviations weakened or distorted results. And every spell had its own wand movement, a precise arc or angle that shaped the magic's flow.
Mastery meant perfect alignment of all three components.
And true masters needed none of them. Their control ran deep enough to cast silently and without wands—shaping magic from the marrow outward.
He was not a master. Not yet.
"Softening Charm, Severing Charm, Unlocking Charm, Levitation, Locking Charm, Mending… Unlocking first."
He thumbed to the Alohomora chapter.
First-year spells were simple, designed to build confidence rather than win fights. A weak Severing Charm would barely slice paper. There was no point wasting time on flashy spells that wouldn't matter in the real world.
Unlocking spells, though… those mattered.
His Marvel body wore a suppression collar. His cell doors and lab chambers used tech far more sophisticated than locks in Hogwarts. But technology was still built on mechanical or electronic gating. If he could coax the spell into interfering with those systems—cracking the simplest piece of the chain—he could pry the rest open.
Transformation magic tempted him. Break one key component of a device, and you render it useless. But Transfiguration was a mountain. Hermione Granger, brilliant as she was, hadn't mastered it before enrollment.
Rowan didn't have time to climb mountains.
He needed spells he could learn fast, use well, and rely on when the world snapped.
Unlocking came first.