The station was already thick with the noise of rushing families and shrieking whistles by the time Richard arrived at King's Cross' Platform 9 and 3/4. Luggage carts rattled over the concrete floors, children cried over forgotten trunks, and harried parents shouted parting instructions at children already halfway through the crowd.
The scent of engine smoke, old stone, and too many perfumes mingled into a dense fog of sensation. Overhead, a pigeon cooed, oblivious to the small tidal wave of motion below.
The moment was heavier than Richard expected, not because of the unknown, but because of what he was leaving behind, an empire still in its infancy.
Ten months of strategy, of seed capital and speculative leaps.
Investments just beginning to ripple outward like the first tremors of a market quake. The fragile beginnings of influence, blooming slowly but inevitably.
And then there was the egg.
It had cracked open that morning, quietly, as if aware that the day was already heavy with meaning. The shell had split cleanly, almost surgically, and within lay feathers darker than pitch, still slick from birth. The two heads blinked in eerie unison, their eyes luminous with a violet sheen, a colour not found in nature, but in bloodlines, in will, in crafted power.
The creature had not cried nor struggled. One head tore into the meat he offered with methodical savagery; the other only watched, eyes locked on Richard's as though trying to read his thoughts.
There was something special in them, something that recognised him as more than just a caretaker.
Now they sat tucked within a reinforced travel perch; the metal frame was cold to the touch, even in the summer air. Both heads remained alert, scanning, mirroring the same restless intensity that buzzed behind Richard's own eyes.
The scarlet engine waited in a bloom of steam like a dragon poised to roar. Its windows glinted with gold, and the swell of young voices poured out like a river. Students swarmed like bees around its open doors, some chatting nervously, others hugging their parents goodbye, some already in robes, looking half-magical and half-ridiculous.
Richard didn't board immediately.
He paused, surveying the scene with narrowed eyes. Then he made his way to the very last carriage, the quietest, hoisted his trunk with minimal effort, and stepped aboard.
The inside of the train was alive with movement. Every compartment pulsed with noise: laughing, arguing, the rustling of snack wrappers, and the thuds of heavy trunks. The narrow corridor was a funnel of motion and energy, like a vein carrying too much blood.
Richard walked slowly, deliberately, glancing through the glass panes of each door.
Three boys were wrestling over whose trunk got the overhead space.
A girl sprawled with a book already in hand, mouthing words silently to herself.
A group of older students trading spells like party tricks, one of them nearly catching another's robe on fire.
Then the Index stirred.
It didn't blink or flash; it simply thrummed, low and cool, behind his eyes like a pressure change in the air. Names shimmered faintly in soft gold above the heads of certain girls, their compatibility ratings hovering like the labels on museum glass. The average score was 52; one person achieved a score of 91, which was a pleasant surprise.
The numbers were low, but the data was real.
The Index provided him with scores, which represented pure, raw correlation. No context. No emotion. Just numbers, impersonal and perfect.
He filed each reading away like puzzle pieces without corners.
At the front of the train, he found his space, an empty compartment with unscuffed cushions, clean glass, and the comforting hush of being away from the noise. He slid the door shut behind him, stowed his trunk beneath the seat, and unlatched the top of the perch.
The bird moved at once.
Both heads stretched, wings fluttering slightly as they stepped onto the windowsill. Their talons clicked once against the metal. One head tilted toward the train window; the other angled back toward Richard, unblinking.
"You'll learn more than observation soon," he murmured.
He reached into his coat and drew out a slim black notebook, flipping to a blank page. His pen moved quickly, notes spilling from thought to page like a ledger being filled.
The Index had shown promise from the start. Names appearing gave immense insight into the talent, health and mind of half the wizards I've seen. The numbers remained, but sometimes, a single number would flicker into existence before the person ever appeared.
That had happened earlier.
Caroline Davis – 91.
It had burst into his mind like a lightning strike and vanished just as quickly. No face, no body, not even a direction. Just a name, and the highest value he'd seen yet. He hadn't seen her face in my quick walk up the aisle.
He scrawled the name in ink, underlined it twice, and moved on.
One girl, nervous and curious, 79. Another, guarded, calculating, 66. His own impressions. Not the Index's, just context.
He was tracking and collecting assets. Understanding leverage.
He looked up.
The door slid open with a soft clack.
"Mind if I join?"
The boy who stood there looked apologetic, as if he'd already prepared for rejection. His robes hung a little too loose, and his owl, a small, anxious puffball, teetered on his shoulder like it was used to calming him more than delivering post.
Richard nodded, standing up and offering his hand. "Not at all. Richard Magus."
"Colin Farrow," the boy said, shaking it before dropping into the seat. "Mum's a Muggle. Dad's a wizard. Bit of a messy upbringing."
Richard again filed that away. That would carry weight in the right circles. Or the wrong ones.
"It's my first year," Colin said.
"Mine too," Richard replied.
"I'm so nervous," Colin said while taking a book out of his trunk.
"You'll be fine, I've read enough to know it will be alright," Richard said with a reassuring smile.
Colin laughed, "I'm hoping they don't throw me out if I blow something up in week one."
Richard allowed a hint of amusement. "If they did, Hogwarts would be a ghost town by October."
The quiet that followed was companionable. Richard didn't mind it.
By the time the train screeched to a halt, the light had drained from the sky. Torches lined the shore in soft golden arcs, casting long shadows across the surface of a black-glass lake.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"
The voice rolled like a landslide, and when Richard turned, the man it belonged to looked carved from mountain stone, with a shaggy beard and a lantern like a cauldron in hand.
Richard knew who this "man" was; it was actually a boy. Hagrid, to be precise, he'd been expelled and was now relegated to gamekeeper in-training.
The students were herded toward boats. Richard and Colin shared one with a pale-haired girl who smelled faintly of ink and a nervous boy who hadn't stopped blinking since the lake came into view.
As the boats drifted silently over the still water, the castle revealed itself.
Hogwarts.
A vast silhouette rising out of stone and starlight, its windows glowing like a hundred suspended suns. Towers curled skyward like ivy. Flags stirred in windless air.
Even Richard, who had trained himself not to show awe, couldn't quite help the word that escaped his lips.
"Magnificent."
The boats touched the dock without a sound. The massive doors opened before them, silent as tombstones.
They walked beneath arched ceilings, over stone floors polished smooth by centuries of students. Portraits whispered as they passed. Tapestries rustled, though no wind stirred. Ghosts hovered over them. Magic clung to the walls, not as a display, but as an inheritance.
They made it to the Great Hall.
A thousand candles floated in the air above the four long tables. Each table was already filling with hundreds of older students, dressed in black robes, silver cutlery, and murmured excitement. Above them, the ceiling reflected the night sky, perfect and impossibly deep.
At the far end, a raised platform held a long table, where the professors sat, their robes billowing gently as though catching a breeze that no one else could feel. Richard's gaze swept down the line of them, recognising with quiet intent, absorbing every face, every tick of posture. These were not just teachers; they were potential barriers or levers. And already, he began filing away details.
At the centre sat the Headmaster, Armando Dippet, stooped with age, his silvery hair brushed back from a long, sunken face that bore the patient lines of someone who had watched generations pass under his tenure. His robes were a muted navy, trimmed in gold, and he seemed barely aware of his surroundings, blinking slowly, as if he were watching ghosts.
To his right sat Deputy Headmistress Matilda Weasley, still in her familiar crimson robes, her eyes sharp as ever, surveying the new arrivals with professional warmth. She looked as if she had already memorised every name.
Tucked between the Matron and the towering Care of Magical Creatures professor sat a man less regal than rugged: Ogg, the Gamekeeper. He wore no professor's robes, only a thick wool coat patched at the elbows and fraying at the seams, his broad hands stained with earth and callus. His face was a landscape of creases and bristles, his nose crooked from what had clearly been a poorly-healed break, and a pipe stem clamped between his teeth smouldered faintly, though he never seemed to draw from it.
Next to him came a man twice as broad as anyone at the table, Rubeus Hagrid, though Richard knew him as the future Gamekeeper, he was only in training now. Wild-haired, eyes soft beneath bushy brows, his coat looked stitched together from old bear pelts. He beamed at the first-years with childlike pride.
Next to him, wearing a crisp white apron over grey healer's robes, sat Noreen Blainey, the Matron. Her lips were pressed in a firm line, but her eyes betrayed a watchfulness, as if already predicting which of the children would be the year's chronic fainters and potion-burn victims.
Down the line, Agnes Scribner, the Librarian, sat bolt upright, thin spectacles balanced on the edge of a long nose. Her robes were ink-stained and austere, and her fingers twitched constantly, as if sorting phantom pages. She radiated the terrifying calm of someone who could silence a room with a single cough.
Beside her, Apollyon Pringle, the Caretaker, wore a permanent grimace. His bald head gleamed under the candles, and a large ring of iron keys jangled softly at his belt. He had the look of someone who lived to find contraband and write names down in books that no one else was allowed to read.
The professor with the most lavish chair was unmistakably Horace Slughorn, the Potions Master and the Head of Slytherin. Round and rosy, with a thick moustache like an overgrown caterpillar, he chuckled at something he'd whispered to his neighbour. Gold chains glittered from his waistcoat like trophies, and his eyes darted toward the incoming students with practised interest, evaluating, not welcoming.
Next sat a man with stiff silver hair and a wand holster integrated into his sleeves, Professor Sylvester Bristlecone, the Charms Master. His spine was straight, his posture perfect, and his eyes gleamed like polished coins. His robe was subtly embroidered with constellations in silver thread, precision incarnate.
Then came a twitchy, round-shouldered wizard in robes the colour of burnt paper: Aegis Polliwog, the Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor. He tapped his fingers rhythmically along the table's edge, glancing side to side as though half-expecting an attack. The rings under his eyes were near-permanent. His wand was strapped down his arm with leather cords, ready at all times.
Cascade Clockwork, the Muggle Studies professor, looked strikingly out of place among the rest. Her short silver hair was cut close to the scalp, her robes an asymmetrical patchwork of rich emerald and black, stitched with metal piping that glinted unnaturally. Her jewellery ticked faintly with unseen clockwork mechanisms, and she watched the students like someone used to cataloguing anomalies.
The following wizard was pale and lanky: Archie Twigs, who taught Astronomy. His eyes were always slightly unfocused, as if watching stars that no one else could see. He leaned on a twisted cane made of meteoric iron and muttered celestial coordinates under his breath between sips of tea.
A lean man in bone-colored robes sat beside him: Patrick Wednesbury, of Ancient Runes and the Head of Ravenclaw, whose monocle glinted with runic overlays when he turned his head. His face was unreadable, carved in careful neutrality, but his robes were stitched with intricate inscriptions, quiet power concealed beneath a reserved manner.
Next was a wiry wizard with windswept hair and an odd tan that hinted at time spent flying too high above the clouds, Shale Minks, the Flying Instructor. A whistle rested against his chest like a badge of office. He leaned back in his chair with arms crossed, scanning the new students as if measuring wing-span potential.
Beside him sat a woman with a long veil of lace trailing from her headscarf, Cassandra Wolpert, of Divination. Her eyes, visible beneath the veil, were shockingly clear, pale silver, and never blinking. Her hands, adorned with rings of quartz and moonstone, hovered over her tea without touching it.
Near the far end, the wild-eyed, half-scorched figure of Silvanus Kettleburn, the Care of Magical Creatures professor, was. One sleeve of his robe was pinned up where an arm had clearly once been, and several long scratches marked the side of his face like tattoos. He grinned with obvious glee, as if daring the first-years to ask what he'd lost the arm to.
Next to him was a new presence, Ebony Logg, the Herbology Professor and Head of Hufflepuff. Dark-skinned, tall, and draped in layers of vine-green robes speckled with soil and pollen, she carried the scent of a sunlit greenhouse wherever she moved. Several flowers, live ones, grew from the lapel of her robe, adjusting to her breath like they recognised her.
Beside her, Tierra Bitterwood, Arithmancy, tapped quietly at a notched wooden abacus beside her plate. She had neat plaits bound in silver cuffs, parchment sleeves, and wore her glasses high on her nose. Her lips moved constantly, whispering equations to herself even as she poured her pumpkin juice.
And then, Albus Dumbledore. Head of Gryffindor and teacher of Transfiguration.
He was younger than the legend Richard knew of, his auburn hair long but still bright, and his beard carefully bound with a silver clasp. He wore robes of deep plum embroidered with transfiguring phoenixes, and his blue eyes twinkled with something ancient and amused. There was no question who he was, only the weight of what he might become.
Each professor etched themselves into Richard's mind like runes burned into stone; some he already knew from his past life, but most were new faces that he had come to learn about. These were not just faculty. They were fixed points in a new constellation.
The Sorting Hat twitched.
Soon, it would decide which House Richard would be spending his years in.
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1 Extra Chapter achieved. :)