I hope to create an entire Series based on this.
This is Book 1 of hopefully a Four book Series.
This will be possible if you like the book and support it.
If by the time we reach 50 chapters, we reach the top 20 in various rankings, then I will confirm the Second book.
Hope you all like this. Do support.
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On the last day of winter, with the snow finally melting into muddy streams that ran down the garden paths, Edmund finished the third textbook on his list. *A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration* was the last of the first-year books he hadn't yet read, and when he set it down, the system chimed.
**Task 3: Read at least three first-year textbooks – Complete!**
*Reward: +25 XP*
**XP:** 70 / 100
He was close now. Another week or two of daily tasks, and he would reach Level 2. It felt like an achievement, even though he knew it was only the smallest step on a very long road.
He thought about the Blackwood Valley, about the stone circle on the island in the loch. He wanted to see it, someday. He wanted to understand what the system had meant by *places where magic sleeps beneath the earth*. But that was a future goal, something for a much older, much stronger, much more capable Edmund to pursue.
For now, he had his daily tasks. His spell practice. His reading. His slow, steady progress toward becoming a real wizard.
He could wait. He had time.
---
That night, he wrote in his journal:
*February 28, 1900*
*I've been in this world for four months. I still don't understand everything—I don't understand most things—but I'm starting to learn. Magic isn't something you master overnight. It's something you build, piece by piece, day by day.*
*The system isn't pushing me. It's guiding me. Small tasks, small rewards, small steps. I think that's the point. A school isn't built in a day. Neither is a wizard.*
*I'll be ready when the time comes.*
He closed the journal and blew out the candle.
Outside, the last snow was melting. Spring was coming.
---
Spring came slowly to the Scottish Borders.
Edmund watched it arrive from his window—first the snowmelt, then the first green shoots pushing through the mud, then the return of birds he hadn't noticed had left. The thistle garden, which had looked so dead in winter, began to show signs of life. It was still a mess, still overgrown and wild, but there was something hopeful about it. Things grew here. Things survived.
His correspondence with Arthur had become a regular thing. Every week or so, an owl would arrive with a letter in Arthur's cheerful scrawl, and Edmund would spend an evening writing back. They talked about spells, about books, about the things they were learning. Arthur's grandmother, it turned out, was more than willing to answer his questions, and he passed along her advice with the enthusiasm of a boy who had discovered a secret well of knowledge.
*Grandmother says the key to Transfiguration is understanding what you're changing, not just the spell. You can't turn a match into a needle if you don't know what a needle is, really know it, down to the metal and the point and the way it catches the light. She says most students rush and that's why they fail.*
Edmund read the letter three times. Then he found a match, set it on the garden wall, and stared at it. He thought about needles. The way they felt in his fingers, cold and smooth. The way they caught the light. The way the eye was a tiny hole, just big enough for thread. He thought about the match, the wood, the grain, the red tip that had once held fire.
He pointed his wand.
*"Lapis."*
Nothing happened.
He tried again. Nothing.
He wasn't discouraged. Transfiguration was a second-year subject; he wasn't supposed to be able to do it yet. But Arthur's grandmother had given him something valuable: a way to think about magic that went beyond waving a wand and saying words.
He wrote back, thanking Arthur for the advice, and tucked the match into his pocket. He would keep it. A reminder that some things took time.
---
**Daily Task:** Practice *Wingardium Leviosa* (7 days in a row)
*Bonus: +15 XP*
**XP:** 85 / 100
One more week. Maybe less.
---
He was in the library one afternoon, searching for a book on potion ingredients—the Prince library had several, remnants of the family's apothecary past—when he found something unexpected.
It was a letter, tucked into a volume on the medicinal uses of silver. The paper was yellowed, the ink faded, but the handwriting was clear enough.
*...and I have decided to send the boy to Beauxbatons. Hogwarts will not have him; the Book did not write his name, and the Board will not hear an appeal. They say his magic is too weak, that he would be wasted on their professors. I say they are fools who cannot see what is in front of them. He has the Prince gift for potions, strong as any in the family line. But because he is quiet, because his magic does not shout, they dismiss him.*
*Let them. He will find his place elsewhere, and when he does, they will regret their blindness.*
*—E.P., 1847*
Edmund read the letter slowly. *The Book did not write his name.* He had suspected this—the system's earlier tasks had hinted at it—but seeing it in writing, in his own family's history, was different. A Prince child, rejected by Hogwarts. A Prince child, sent abroad to Beauxbatons because there was no other school in Britain that would take him.
He set the letter aside and sat back in his chair.
There was a pattern here. The Book of Admittance did not write every name. Children were rejected—for weak magic, for being too quiet, for reasons no one fully understood. Some of them went abroad. Some were tutored at home. And some...
He didn't know what happened to the ones who had no money for Beauxbatons, no family to tutor them. The letter didn't say.
He added it to his journal, a note for later, and returned the letter to its book. There was nothing he could do about it now. But he could remember. He could keep asking questions.
---
The system pinged as he was closing the volume.
**New Long-term Objective Unlocked: Understand the Book of Admittance**
*This objective has no time limit. Pursue it at your own pace.*
*Suggestion: When you arrive at Hogwarts, seek out the Restricted Section. Some answers are not found in standard textbooks.*
Edmund read the notification twice. No time limit. Pursue at your own pace. The system was patient. It understood that he was ten, that he had years ahead of him, that there was no need to rush.
He could respect that.
---
The day he reached Level 2 was unremarkable.
He had spent the morning reading about potion ingredients—dried nettles, crushed snake fangs, the precise way to slice roots for maximum potency—and the afternoon practicing *Wingardium Leviosa* on a stone he had come to think of as his nemesis. The stone rose, held steady for a full minute, and settled gently back to the ground.
The system chimed.
**Task 2: Practice basic spells – 3/3 spells mastered (*Lumos*, *Reparo*, *Wingardium Leviosa*)**
*Reward: +20 XP*
**XP:** 105 / 100
**Level Up!**
**Level:** 2
**XP:** 5 / 150
**New Skill Unlocked:** Basic Warding (Locked – requires study of warding theory)
**New Daily Task Type Available:** Theory Study
He sat down on the garden wall, staring at the interface. Level 2. It wasn't much—he was still a beginner, still at the very bottom of the magical ladder—but it was something. Proof that he was moving forward.
He wondered, briefly, where other wizards were on this scale. A first-year from a magical family, with a few years of informal training, might be Level 2 or 3 before they ever set foot in Hogwarts. A fifth-year studying for O.W.L.s might be Level 10 or 12. A seventh-year, head boy or head girl, perhaps Level 15 or 16. A professor, with decades of experience, maybe Level 30 or 40.
And Dumbledore? Grindelwald? He didn't know. He couldn't know. The system didn't offer comparisons, and he was too far from that level to even guess.
But he was moving. That was what mattered.
He picked up his wand and went back inside.
---
That night, he wrote to Arthur again.
*Arthur,*
*I finally got* Wingardium Leviosa *to hold steady for a full minute. Your grandmother's advice about the swish was exactly right. Thank her for me, if you can.*
*I found an old letter in the library today. A Prince child, one of my ancestors, was rejected by Hogwarts. The Book didn't write his name. He was sent to Beauxbatons instead. Did you know that could happen? That the Book doesn't write everyone?*
*—Edmund*
He sent the letter with Perseus and waited.
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