The Ashford family manor was a crumbling Victorian relic slowly rotting away in the perpetual fog of Kent.
Most of the portraits on the walls kept their eyes shut, pretending to sleep. One house-elf named Cliff—dry as old bark—spent his days head-butting the walls and muttering pure-blood slogans like a broken record.
As for the boy's father, Cassius Ashford…
He avoided Lucian like the plague. Couldn't even meet those gray eyes. Meals and basic beginner spellbooks arrived via house-elf, nothing more. The man clearly hoped his son would "return to normal" if left alone long enough.
For Lucian, the silence was perfect.
As his body adjusted, he finally grasped the full scope of the gift that had come with his rebirth: heart-phase vision.
It was a sensory mutation, an elevation of perception. The world stripped away its surface colors and textures, revealing a translucent lattice of lines and structures. He no longer saw light and sound—he saw the meridians of magic, the nodes of matter. Stray energy drifted as colored currents. Every flaw, crack, and blockage glowed in bright, merciless highlight.
It was a beautiful nightmare. The wizarding world looked like a mass-produced porcelain vase that had been dropped one too many times. Faulty circuits, half-assed logic, visible damage everywhere. Worst of all, he couldn't turn the overlay off.
To figure out just how broken the foundations of this world really were, he practically moved into the long-abandoned family library.
Weeks later, when he finally closed the last book, he stared at the pages covered in furious red ink and let out a long sigh.
"Arrogant and fucking stupid…" He shut Advanced Potion-Making with a soft thud. "The entire text is bloated with pointless redundancy. The critical steps? Just blanks filled in by dumb luck."
In his last life he'd turned down a spot at Peking University's computer science program to study archaeology and cultural heritage preservation. Because nothing thrilled him more than sifting through historical ruins, peeling back the lies, and bringing truth back to life.
"If I'd had this kind of magic back then… every damaged artifact could have been restored to its original glory. These wizards are committing crimes against beauty."
He closed the book.
He only had fragments of the world's future: the Boy Who Lived, the noseless Dark Lord, the greatest white wizard, and that terrifyingly clever Granger girl.
The gears had already begun turning. Lucian had spotted the name Harry Potter in A History of Magic, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and Important Magical Events of the Twentieth Century.
The old saying was right: when you've already arrived, you might as well stay for the show.
…
One quiet afternoon.
He tried breathing according to the "inner alchemy" techniques from his previous life.
Back in the spiritually barren modern era, inner alchemy had mostly been meditation for health—sharper senses, longer life, that sort of thing.
Here, though…
The moment he guided the raging Obscurial energy along the eight extraordinary meridians, searing pain flooded back in, threatening to incinerate his mind.
Lucian stayed perfectly calm. Willpower took the helm. In heart-phase vision he traced the magic's grain exactly as he once handled fragile porcelain. Enduring the burn of meridians being scorched and torn, he carefully peeled free the thinnest thread of energy, then spent every ounce of focus soothing, straightening, guiding it.
Sweat soaked the carpet. After what felt like hours, the first strand completed its "small heavenly cycle," shifting from black to deep gray, and settled into his dantian like a perfect pearl.
Lucian exhaled, nearly collapsing.
With a thought, the tamed thread obeyed instantly.
On the table, the shattered porcelain teacup began to mend. In heart-phase vision its flaws realigned under the guided magic until the vessel was whole again—lines seamless, structure flawless.
Lucian understood.
This was not the "Reparo" described in The Standard Book of Spells:
"Reparo… mends broken objects. Note: cannot repair items damaged by powerful dark magic…"
He'd once scribbled next to that passage in disdain: "That's not restoration. That's fucking glue."
Now he wrote a new, careful annotation beside it:
"This is material reconstruction."
He had found his path.
In a world of waving wooden sticks and shouting fake Latin, he would be something different: a cultivator of truth. Or, to use the local term—an alchemist who had opened the door to reality itself.
But even this level of control came with heavy loss.
"Looks like I'll need a wand after all."
…
On the last morning of July, a long-eared owl slammed clumsily into the dining-room window, delivering a thick parchment letter.
Hogwarts acceptance.
The wax seal showed the four beasts—lion, snake, eagle, badger. Lucian ran his fingers over the rough paper, thinking of the Founders' legacies, the Restricted Section…
"Interesting," he murmured. "Very interesting."
…
Outside the Leaky Cauldron, in the back courtyard.
Even in the summer heat, Cassius Ashford wore a heavy black cloak. His face was thunderous. He tapped his wand mechanically against the bricks above the dustbin, eyes darting sideways.
Beside him stood Lucian in a sleek, minimalist black high-collared coat—he'd refused the bulky traditional robes. In his hand was a simple walking stick he'd snapped from the manor garden and polished himself. He looked less like a first-year and more like a young Victorian lord on a private tour.
The bricks swirled and parted. A winding cobblestone street stretched into infinity.
Diagon Alley.
The air smelled of fresh bread, rotting potion ingredients, and pure excitement. Colorful robes, self-stirring cauldrons, screaming books in shop windows—the wizarding world's busiest shopping street.
To Lucian it was visual noise.
Chaotic magic waves tangled overhead: failed spells coughing black smoke, raw auras from magical creatures, constant radiation from enchanted goods.
He pulled a pair of silver-rimmed plain-glass spectacles from his coat pocket.
A month's work. Countless failures. He'd used up nearly every crystal in the manor and triggered several minor magical surges before etching the crude runes onto the lenses.
They weren't perfect—they drained his hard-won magic steadily—but they filtered out the overload. The world instantly quieted. The glaring magical lines softened into gentle grayscale.
"We'll split up," Cassius said abruptly, voice tight. "I have… business in Knockturn Alley. You handle the school list. Gold's at Gringotts. Here's the key."
He shoved a black key into Lucian's hand and vanished down a side alley without waiting for a reply, like a man who'd finally shaken off a curse.
Lucian watched his father's retreating back and gave a small shrug. His thumb brushed the key's engraved crest—a burning white ash tree.
"Just as well," he said softly.
"Exactly what I wanted."