Disclaimer:
I don't own the characters or the world appearing in this story. They are creations and property of J.K. Rowling. I'm not sure if I can claim any OCs as my own, so I'll play it safe and dedicate them to her as well.
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Author's Note:
Hello! This story follows Arthur Aalto, a Muggle-born with an interesting twist. More details will follow below, but for now, I'll let you get on with the chapter.
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"…and for goodness sake, try not to break any bones on the first day. Your mother will have my hide."
Arthur Aalto grinned back at his father, the familiar weight of competition settling comfortably across his shoulders. Around them, Platform 9¾ churned with magical chaos—thick white steam billowed from the scarlet Hogwarts Express like dragon's breath, whilst owls hooted indignantly from their cages and parents fussed over reluctant children. The air crackled with excitement and magic, making Arthur's skin tingle in the way it always did when he stood too close to something properly extraordinary.
"Right then, Dad," Arthur said, adjusting his grip on his trunk. "I'll try to keep the casualty count down."
His mother ruffled his honey-blond hair with the sort of fond exasperation that came from eleven years of watching her son treat danger like a particularly entertaining game. "You write to us, Arthur. Every week. And don't let that twin of yours think he's won anything just because you're not there to keep him honest."
Arthur's grin widened. Lucas stepped forward then, identical in everything except the complete absence of magic coursing through his veins. Where Arthur buzzed with barely-contained energy, Lucas carried himself with the cool calculation of someone who measured every risk before taking it. It was the only way anyone had ever been able to tell them apart.
"Aalto." Lucas's voice was clipped, matter-of-fact.
"Aalto." Arthur's response came back just as sharp.
They sized each other up for a moment, blue eyes meeting blue eyes, before Lucas's mouth quirked into something that wasn't quite a smirk. "Try not to get expelled before Christmas, Aalto. It'd be embarrassing."
"Try not to crash before I get back for holidays," Arthur shot back. "Wouldn't want Ferrari thinking the wrong twin's got the talent."
They shared a grin then—sharp and competitive and full of the sort of understanding that came from sharing everything, right up until the moment magic had split their paths in two. Lucas held out his hand, and Arthur clasped it briefly, their grips tight enough to bruise.
"Don't let the wizard thing go to your head," Lucas said.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
The train's whistle shrieked across the platform, and Arthur felt his pulse jump in response. This was it. Six years of waiting, six years of glimpses into a world he'd barely been able to touch, and now—
"Go on then," his father said, voice gruff with pride. "Show them what an Aalto can do."
Arthur shouldered his way through the crowd, trunk dragging behind him as he made for the nearest carriage door. The Hogwarts Express loomed above him, all gleaming scarlet paint and polished brass, and for a moment he felt properly small. Then the feeling passed, replaced by the familiar thrill of stepping into something fast and dangerous and brilliant.
The corridors were already packed with students—some looking green around the edges with nerves, others chattering away like they owned the place. Arthur pushed past a gaggle of older girls discussing someone called Lockhart (apparently he'd been a fraud, which seemed like rather important information to be sharing so casually), found an empty compartment halfway down the train, and settled himself by the window.
The platform was still chaos, but from here it looked manageable. Controlled. Arthur could see his parents standing with Lucas, his mother dabbing at her eyes whilst his father pointed out various interesting magical creatures to anyone who'd listen. Lucas was scanning the crowd with the same analytical intensity he brought to studying racing lines, probably filing away details about every witch and wizard in sight.
The train lurched into motion with a great hiss of steam, and Arthur pressed his face to the window to wave. His family waved back, Lucas offering a two-fingered salute that was probably rude in several languages, and then they were pulling away from the platform, away from the only world Arthur had ever properly known.
He should have been nervous. Every other Muggle-born on the train was probably having some sort of crisis about now, wondering if they'd packed the right things or learned enough from their Hogwarts letters or—
But Arthur had been part of this world for six years already. He knew about Chocolate Frogs and Quidditch and the fact that portraits could hold entire conversations if you were polite enough to listen. He knew that wizards had absolutely no idea how televisions worked and that his wandless magic was apparently something worth gawking at. He was ready for this.
The compartment door slid open with a sharp bang, and Arthur turned from the window to find two boys about his age standing in the doorway. The first was tall for eleven, with messy black hair that stuck up at odd angles and the sort of confident posture that suggested he was used to being noticed. The second was shorter, stockier, with red hair and a grin that seemed to be permanently fixed in place.
"Mind if we sit?" the dark-haired boy asked, though he was already moving into the compartment like the question was purely academic. "Everywhere else is packed with second-years moaning about their OWLs."
"Course not," Arthur said, shifting his legs to make room as the boys settled across from him. "Arthur Aalto."
The redhead stuck out his hand first. "Fred. Fred Weasley."
Arthur shook it, noting the firm grip and the calluses that suggested Fred wasn't afraid of hard work. "Nice to meet you."
The other boy leaned back against the seat, a practiced sort of casual that didn't quite hide the way his eyes were cataloguing Arthur's response. "I'm James," he said, letting the pause stretch just long enough to be noticeable. "James Potter."
Arthur felt his eyebrows climb towards his hairline. James Potter. As in, son of the Harry Potter who'd been the subject of hushed, reverent conversations in the Leaky Cauldron for as long as Arthur could remember. The Harry Potter whose name made grown wizards go quiet and respectful, whose story Arthur's father had devoured in every issue of the Daily Prophet he could get his hands on.
"Wicked," Arthur said, and meant it. "My dad's a bit of a Harry Potter fan. Read all about him in the Prophet."
James blinked, clearly thrown off his rhythm. Arthur supposed he'd been expecting something different—awe, maybe, or the sort of breathless hero-worship that probably followed him around like a particularly persistent house-elf. Instead, Arthur just grinned at him, genuinely pleased to meet someone whose father had done something properly impressive.
"Right," James said after a moment, and his posture relaxed into something more natural. "Well. That's... refreshing, actually."
"Get a lot of people going mental when you introduce yourself?" Arthur asked.
"You'd be surprised how many people suddenly forget how to talk," Fred said with a snort. "It's brilliant, actually. James just has to mention his name and half the girls in our year go all pink and giggly."
"Shut it, Fred," James muttered, but he was grinning now, the practiced confidence replaced by something that looked more like genuine amusement. "What about you, then? Aalto's not exactly a name I recognize."
"Muggle-born," Arthur said easily. It wasn't something to be ashamed of, despite what Lucas had warned him some people might think. "My parents run electronics shops. But we've been regulars at the Leaky Cauldron since I was five, so it's not like this is all completely mad."
Fred perked up at that. "Electronics? Like those tellyvision things?"
"Televisions," Arthur corrected automatically. "Yeah, among other things. But my real thing's karting. Racing, I mean. Been doing it since I was old enough to reach the pedals."
James and Fred exchanged glances, the sort of wordless communication Arthur recognized from his years racing alongside Lucas. Then James leaned forward, interest sharpening his expression.
"Racing? Like, actual racing? With cars?"
"Go-karts, mostly, though I've had a few goes in proper single-seaters. Nothing like Formula 1 obviously, but..." Arthur shrugged. "Working on it. Or was working on it."
"Bloody hell," Fred said, eyes wide. "How fast do those things go?"
"Depends on the class. The one I usually race can hit about seventy on a straight, but it's not really about top speed. It's about the corners, the precision. Taking a turn at fifty when you should probably be doing thirty, finding the line that's two inches wider than what everyone else is using..."
Arthur trailed off, realizing he was getting carried away, but both James and Fred were staring at him like he'd just announced he spent his weekends wrestling dragons.
"So you willingly strap yourself into a metal box that goes seventy miles an hour?" James said slowly. "And I thought chasing the Snitch was mental."
"The Snitch?" Arthur's pulse quickened. "You play Quidditch?"
"Course I do," James said, puffing up slightly. "Been flying since I was three. Dad reckons I'll make the house team by third year, maybe sooner if—"
"What's it like?" Arthur interrupted, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice. "Flying, I mean. Properly flying."
James blinked at him. "You've never been on a broom?"
"Muggle-born, remember?" Arthur said. "I've watched a few games at the pub, but..."
"Right, well—" James launched into an enthusiastic description of his first Quidditch match, hands moving as he described the feel of wind through his hair and the heart-stopping moment when a Bludger came screaming towards his head. Fred chimed in with stories of his own, talking about the makeshift pitch behind something called the Burrow and the time he'd nearly broken his neck trying to catch a Snitch that turned out to be a particularly aggressive garden gnome.
The trolley witch appeared at their door as James was describing a particularly spectacular crash ("Mum went absolutely spare, there was blood everywhere"), and James immediately pulled out a handful of gold coins, buying enough sweets to stock a small shop.
"Blimey," Arthur said as James divided the haul between them. "Your parents give you that much pocket money?"
"Dad's an Auror," James said with a casual shrug that didn't quite hide his pride. "Mum writes for the Prophet. They do all right."
Arthur bit into a Chocolate Frog and watched it try to hop away, catching it just before it could escape out the window. The wizard on the card was someone called Agrippa, who apparently invented something important but looked remarkably grumpy about it.
"These are mental," Arthur said, chasing the frog around his palm. "In the best possible way."
"You should try a Bertie Bott's," Fred said with a wicked grin, offering Arthur the colorful box. "They're Every Flavour Beans. And I do mean every flavour."
Arthur selected a green one and popped it into his mouth, then immediately regretted it as the taste of what could only be sprouts filled his mouth. He managed not to spit it out, but judging by James and Fred's laughter, his expression had been worth watching.
"Sprouts," he said once he'd swallowed. "That's just cruel."
"Wait until you get earwax," James said cheerfully. "Or worse."
They spent the next hour trading sweets and stories, the conversation flowing easier than Arthur had expected. James told them about the time he'd accidentally set fire to his aunt's garden shed trying to impress a girl ("She wasn't impressed, and Aunt Hermione made me de-gnome the garden for a month"), whilst Fred regaled them with tales of his father's joke shop and the various products he'd been allowed to test ("The Puking Pastilles are brilliant, but you've got to time it just right or you'll be sick for real").
Arthur found himself talking about racing more than he had in months, explaining the physics of downforce and the way fear could either sharpen your reflexes or get you killed, depending on how you handled it. James and Fred listened with the sort of fascination Arthur usually reserved for discussions of Quidditch tactics, asking questions about G-forces and crash barriers that showed they understood the appeal of controlled danger.
"So," Fred said as he unwrapped another Chocolate Frog, "what's the most stupid thing you've ever done?"
Arthur considered this. "Probably the time I tried to overtake three people on the inside of a hairpin turn. At Silverstone, during a championship race. I was eight."
"Did it work?" James asked.
"Oh, it worked brilliantly. Right up until I ran out of track and went spinning into the gravel trap. Took out two other drivers with me and got myself banned from the next three races."
Fred was grinning like Arthur had just described the most wonderful thing in the world. "I like him, James. He's got a healthy disrespect for his own safety."
"Cheers," Arthur said dryly. "What about you two? What's the stupidest thing you've done?"
James and Fred exchanged another look, and Arthur got the distinct impression they were mentally rifling through a fairly extensive catalogue of bad decisions.
"Well," James said slowly, "there was the time we decided to see if we could fly Dad's old racing broom to France..."
"You didn't," Arthur said.
"We got about fifty miles before the Ministry caught up with us," Fred said proudly. "Mum made us shine all of her china, but it was worth it. Nearly made it to Dover."
"Mental," Arthur said admiringly. "Absolutely mental."
The train had left London behind hours ago, and through the window Arthur could see rolling hills and small villages flashing past. The countryside was getting wilder, more remote, and he found himself pressing closer to the glass as they passed through what looked like a forest that went on forever.
"How much further?" he asked.
"Not long now," James said, checking what looked like a pocket watch made of brass and silver. "We should see the lake soon, and then—"
The train began to slow, and all three boys crowded to the window. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink, and as they rounded a bend in the tracks Arthur caught his first glimpse of black water stretching out like a mirror.
"There," Fred said, pointing. "Look."
And then Arthur saw it, rising from the far shore of the lake like something out of a fever dream. Towers and turrets and impossible spires, all lit from within with a warm golden glow that made it look like a constellation that had fallen to earth and decided to stay. It was massive and ancient and completely, utterly magical in a way that made Arthur's chest tight with something he couldn't quite name.
"Bloody hell," he breathed.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," James said, grinning at Arthur's expression. "Think you're going to like it here?"
Arthur couldn't look away from the castle, couldn't process the sheer scale of it, the way it seemed to grow larger and more impossible with every second they spent approaching it. This was it. This was where he'd spend the next seven years, where he'd learn to do magic properly instead of just making playing cards appear out of thin air. This was where he'd become the wizard he'd been dreaming of being since he was five years old and stumbled into the Leaky Cauldron.
And as the train slowed, rounding a final bend, he saw it fully for the first time, impossibly vast against the darkening sky: Hogwarts.
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Author's note:
Hey again! I'd love to know what you thought of the beginning. As you might be aware by now, this story starts in 2015 and is set in the next generation rather than Harry's year. My goal is to explore the peace and general challenges of growing up magical, in contrast to the highly exciting childhood Harry led.
I plan to write my way through all seven years, with each year spanning 13–14 chapters. The first year will be a little slow, since the magic and experience are far too elementary to be truly exciting. But things will pick up as we move forward—believe it!
As always, thank you for reading, and feel free to check out any of my other stories while you're at it.
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