1st POV
So here I was, a four-year-old child named Henry Francis Warwick Augustus, living in the magical world of Harry Potter. 'I have a long name,' I think to myself, as I take a slow and careful sip of a glass of milk, mindful that the glass doesn't slip from my tiny little hands.
Henry is my first name, and the name Francis is there because of my father. Warwick for the place I was born in, and finally, my family's last name, Augustus.
So, this is my life now, a different name, different parents, yet it feels like I have always lived this life.
In this life, my parents are named Clare and Francis Augustus. My father, Francis, as his name suggests, is of French origin; his parents, my grandparents, are from France, and they moved to Britain in their youth. They named him Francis, so my father could always have something to connect him to his roots, no matter how far they were from home.
My mother, Clare, did her name justice; the name Clare is derived from the Latin word clarus, meaning "clear, bright". For as long as I can remember, which isn't long, she has always had a bright and happy attitude towards anything she does. It doesn't matter if she is magicking breakfast, doing housework, or even changing my nappies, which was highly embarrassing as I didn't have the body control to hold it, now that's not the case anymore as I am four. I am potty-trained, so to speak, and have been for a year.
Continuing to the topic of names of my parents and their lives, from what I have been able to gather from conversations and inferring some information, she had a difficult childhood. Her parents, my maternal grandparents, were not that well off, and with three kids, it seems to have only made life harsher.
She was the middle child, one who didn't receive much attention, unlike the oldest or the youngest. My father, on the other hand, was the only child, somewhat of a spoiled rich kid in his youth, thanks to his parents, who owned a vineyard. So these are my parents: a girl who almost raised herself and had to mature early, and a rich boy who grew up being taught everything he needed to know to succeed in life.
Naturally, the question is: how did these two, so drastically different, meet and get together?
They met thanks to the melting pot that is Hogwarts. They were both magicals who attended Hogwarts in the same year. They met and studied together, got married two years after graduating from school, and had a kid one year after that.
They both started attending in 1967 and graduated in 1974, seven years before the fall of Voldemort.
My mother was Ravenclaw, and my father was a Gryffindor. The hardships and similarities of being kids without magical parents might have helped them find a common ground, even though they were in different houses.
Plus, when you know someone from when you were eleven years old, it is easier to be friends and find things you both like. That is the age Hogwarts accepts kids and teaches them magic, so that is the age I can start going to Hogwarts.
I am most excited to attend Hogwarts, it is supposed to be the most premier wizarding school in the world, but I have my doubts. However, it is still a magical school and the dream of so many kids who have read Harry Potter, mine included.
I am soon finished with my breakfast of toast, beans, egg, and milk, a classic English breakfast.
After some time, that same afternoon, I am sitting in my mother's lap as she reads me a story from The Tales of Beedle the Bard. All my focus is on her words as she tells a story about a boy and his pet mooncalf. I imagined myself as the boy who could do magic with a wave of his hand. I envy the boy so much for being able to use magic so freely and easily.
I myself had made numerous attempts at using magic. My very first attempt was right after I saw my mother use magic to lift laundry and clean it with a wave of a wand and an uttered word.
After that magical, mind-shattering experience, I was on the lookout for anything involving magic. I searched my room with my eyes and checked everything on the ground that my small self could reach to see if what she did was a normal thing.
I got my answer a couple of days later, when my father mentioned heightened Death Eater activity and how Bagnold was running his department ragged. It turned out he worked for the Magic of Ministry as an International Liaison. He was part of the French division.
That was the day I realized I was in the magical world of wizarding Britain. I was just two then, about to turn three.
I obviously made numerous attempts to use magic after that, as many fanfics have their characters do. I first tried to levitate a toy that I usually play with, which was a figurine of G.I. Joe that was already widely popular.
So the question was, how do I use magic? The answer to that question comes down to two words in every single fanfic I have read in my previous life. To use magic, you need to use your "will and intent".
Let's talk about that. What is "will"?
'Will' to me means to want something; I think I had plenty of it. After all, who wouldn't want to use magic in the world of Harry Potter? I, for one, wanted to use magic very much, so I focused on that thought.
I tried to will the toy to lift, to want it to lift. I stared at the toy and imagined it lifting. I tried to lift the toy with my thoughts. I even tried the classic two-finger-to-the-temple to really hone in on my thought of lifting my toy.
Nothing.
Silence greeted me as the toy stared back at me unnervingly.
After a couple of days of failed attempts, I switched my tactics. I used intent. 'Intent' to me is an earnest determination to make something happen on purpose.
So I used that thought when attempting to use magic. The problem with that was that I had no idea how to direct 'Intent' toward magic. After all, the only form of intent I am familiar with is when I want to do something or make something happen on purpose, I do it, physically.
But my goal wasn't to make it lift physically; it was to make it lift using magic, which is a new territory to me.
For example, if my goal is to learn how to skateboard, I watch a video with the intention of learning how to rest my feet on the board properly. I use my will to practice day after day, until I can stand on a board comfortably and move back and forth.
I had no reference with magic on how to use 'Intent and Will'. So for the next couple of months, I gave it my all to try to make my toys levitate or have specific snacks come to me when sitting on a sofa with my parents. I focused all my thoughts on it.
My next attempt started blending 'Will, Intent, and Imagination'. The imagination part was easy. Afterall, all imagination is using your mind to picture something.
I imagined the toy slowly levitating off the ground and moving in a straight line toward me. I did it so many times, I could even see it in my mind's eye when I closed my eyes. I could imagine the whole process, step by step.
I even said the words that I so fondly remember, 'Wingardium Leviosa'. I even tried 'Levioso'.
Alas, I got nothing.
Here I was, a four-year-old boy, almost five in a couple of months, living in a magical world without having done any magic.
The thought scared me to no end; it terrified me.
What if I never did any magic? What if I am a squib? What would be the point of this life, to be so close to magic and unable to use it?
At least in my previous life, magic was only a fairytale; it only lived within the confines of my mind. However, here I had seen proof of magic, I knew it existed. I knew I was a part of the magical world, and yet I couldn't do magic.
So yes, I am envious of the boy in the story my mother was reading to me. I, too, want to use magic; it didn't have to be anything grand. Just something, some proof that I am a magical child, that I won't have to stare at magic and never be able to touch it.
As my mother continues to read me the story, my attention shifts from the boy in the book to my own situation. My thoughts only get darker as I continue to picture my future without magic.
I close my eyes to banish these thoughts, to use the darkness when I close my eyelids and throw these horrible thoughts into the void.
But it's hard, it's overwhelming, and I am getting scared and terrified for my own future.
The thoughts are too much.
So I do what all humans do in desperation.
Pray.
I don't even know what or who I am praying to; I have never been religious.
That is all I can think to do in my desperate state, after a couple of years of continuous failures and no sign of magic.
I start praying and pleading with my eyes tightly closed, and soon I am clenching my fists.
'Please let me have magic, please let me be magical.'
'Please let me do magic, please don't let me be a squib.'
'Please'
'Please'
All my thoughts, all my fears, all my wishes, and all my desperation go into one word as I pray out to the universe.
I am awakened from my stupor as I feel my mother shaking and saying something to me to get my attention. I open my eyes and see a bowl with some biscuits, cookies, and some other small snacks floating in front of me.
I guess I got so lost in my thoughts that it's already snack time.
I start to turn around and look up at her, and as soon as I turn to make eye contact with my mother, I hear a noise. It reaches me before I can turn around fully. It sounds like ceramic breaking, which grabs my attention.
I turn back and look forward at the source of the noise and sudden disturbance. The snack bowl is on the ground, with some cookies and biscuits scattered around. The porcelain bowl that held them is broken from its fall.
"Blimey!" I hear behind me as my mother exclaims and holds my shoulder with both hands.
'Wait a minute, both hands?'
I look to my left shoulder, where her hand rests and cups my shoulder tightly, then my right, it's much the same.
Both of her hands are empty as she is holding me firmly, then I look towards the mantle, where I remember her putting her wand after lighting the fireplace.
It's still there, her wand.
It's still there from when she lit the fireplace with an upward motion and set her wand down in favor of picking me up and placing me on her lap to read.
She didn't do this, I realize, she didn't have her wand with her.
It was me.
I did it.