"Risky," George murmured, collapsing onto the four-poster bed in Merton's master bedroom. "But worth every second."
With Scrimgeour and Tonks gone and the shop sealed, the reality of his new fortune set in.
It wasn't just Merton's Gringotts vault, which held a lifetime of illicit earnings. It was the shop itself. The inventory of rare ingredients, the potions, the equipment—it was a goldmine. To a wealthy pureblood, it might be pocket change. But for a first-year student? It was the difference between scraping by and living like a king.
Imagine a twelve-year-old walking into school with a millionaire's bank account. He wasn't just funded; he was armed.
He briefly considered selling the shop and moving into a room at the Leaky Cauldron for safety. He dismissed the thought immediately. He needed a base of operations—a private sanctuary to practice magic that Hogwarts wouldn't approve of. Once sold, real estate in Diagon Alley was nearly impossible to buy back.
George sat up and walked to the full-length mirror. For the first time since waking up in this body, he really looked at himself.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, sharp features. He was handsome, in a fragile, aristocratic way. But the body was severely malnourished, the result of years of neglect.
"Nothing a few steaks won't fix," he muttered. "At least the engine under the hood is purring."
He crouched slightly, then exploded upward.
Whoosh.
He soared over three meters into the air, his fingers brushing the high ceiling before landing silently on the balls of his feet.
This wasn't magic. Wizards were durable, sure—they could take a Bludger to the face and live—but they weren't super-soldiers. Without a spell, a wizard was physically just a human.
But George was a chimera.
His soul bridged two realities. The physical attributes of Subject 757—an eighteen-year-old mutant super-soldier bred for war—were bleeding into this frail eleven-year-old body.
If Dorian's base strength was 50 pounds, and Subject 757's was 200, George now possessed a combined output of 250.
For the mutant body, a 50-pound boost was negligible. But for a fifty-pound child? Gaining the strength of a grown man was transformative. He was an eleven-year-old with the strength of a heavyweight boxer and the agility of a cat.
"I'm a super-soldier in a child's skin," he grinned, flexing a thin arm that rippled with unnatural, dense muscle fibre.
He spent the next hour tossing the bedroom, hunting for dark magic grimoires or secret journals. He found nothing but standard textbooks. It made sense; with Ministry inspections, Merton wouldn't keep illegal tomes on the nightstand.
"Fine. Rest first. Tomorrow, we work."
He let the wizard body sleep.
Subject 757, Marvel Universe.
It was lunch time in the facility. George sat alone, chewing his nutrient paste mechanically, but his eyes were scanning the room.
Earlier, in the corridor, he had witnessed a scene that confirmed his timeline.
A nurse—Gabriela—was being chewed out by the head of security. She had tried to bring in a cake to celebrate the children's birthdays.
The birthday cake incident.
In the Logan lore, this was the catalyst. Shortly after this, Gabriela would realize the children were scheduled for termination. She would organize the mass breakout.
The clock was ticking.
"I need to learn magic," George thought, watching Laura (X-23) eat in silence nearby. "I need spells that work without a wand, and I need them yesterday."
The afternoon training passed in a blur of violence. By nightfall, George lay in his cell, shifted his consciousness, and woke up in London.
George (Dorian), Wizarding World.
It was morning. The smell of bacon and eggs filled the apartment above the shop—a stark contrast to the nutrient slop of the lab or the starvation diet Dorian had lived on.
An owl tapped at the window, delivering the Daily Prophet. George unfolded the newspaper while eating.
GILDEROY LOCKHART
Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award...
Will be signing copies of his autobiography, MAGICAL ME, at Flourish and Blotts today, August 21st, from 12:30 PM to 4:30 PM.
George sighed, staring at the winking photo of the man in forget-me-not blue robes.
"1992," he calculated. "Harry Potter's second year. The Chamber of Secrets."
He had missed the Philosopher's Stone. He wouldn't be in the same year as the Golden Trio. He would be a year below them.
"Pros and cons," he mused, sipping his pumpkin juice.
The cons: He wouldn't be roommates with Harry or Ron, meaning less direct influence.
The pros: He wouldn't be directly in the line of fire for their yearly death-defying adventures. He could watch from the sidelines, intervene only when profitable, and loot the rewards without the risk.
"First things first," George stood up. "Gringotts. Then, a wand."