Chapter Text
Just his luck. When Felix found out he was a wizard, it had been shocking enough. Dying and waking up again somehow—younger, and painfully aware that he shouldn’t be alive—had been worse. Perhaps this was a second chance of sorts.
He was in the world of Harry Potter. Or something close to it. The irony was that there was no Boy Who Lived. Not yet. It was 1971. An entire generation too early. Close enough to recognize, distant enough to be wrong. A Wizarding World adjacent to the one he remembered from a book series from another life. Only fiction back then, now not so much.
Gellert Grindelwald hadn’t been a threat for some time, so Felix’s parents were now comfortable reentering British wizarding society. Which meant Felix was inevitably being punted off to Hogwarts.
The owl arrived while Felix was halfway through breakfast.
There was a sharp tap tap tap at the kitchen window, followed by an indignant hoot. Felix looked up just in time to see a tawny owl glaring in at him like he was late for something.
“I think that’s for you,” his mother said, already getting up to open the window.
The owl swooped in, circled once, and dropped a thick envelope directly onto Felix’s plate, narrowly missing his toast.
“Hey,” Felix said automatically, more surprised than offended.
The owl ignored him, hopping to the back of a chair and fixing his mother with a look that suggested the job was done and payment was expected.
Felix picked up the envelope. “That’s… my Hogwarts letter,” he said, even though he already knew.
His father smiled, soft and careful. “Looks like it.”
Felix turned the letter over in his hands, the red wax seal catching the light. “So,” he said after a moment, “that’s it, then.”
“That’s it,” his mother agreed.
The owl hooted once, sharply, as if to say finally, and Felix couldn’t help thinking that knowing this day was coming hadn’t made it feel any less strange.
Starting at Hogwarts alongside the generation that would one day also probably produce Harry Potter’s parents was, admittedly, interesting. Growing up in a household where magic was used regularly had made certain things feel mundane, but Hogwarts promised something larger, louder, and harder to ignore.
At home spells were for lighting lamps, warming tea, fixing hems—small, domestic things that made life easier but never felt extraordinary. Magic wasn’t a calling; it was background noise.
Hogwarts, on the other hand, was supposed to be different. It was history and tradition and ambition wrapped in stone walls, a place where magic still meant something a bit more grandiose. Felix was old enough—mentally, at least—to know that schools like that didn’t just teach. They sorted, measured, and decided who you were allowed to become.
And that was the uncomfortable part.
This was a time period balanced on the quiet before a storm Felix knew was coming. The heroes and villains weren’t famous or infamous yet. The First British Wizarding War hadn’t started. Moldyshorts was still a rumour spoken carefully, if at all. To everyone else, this was peace. To Felix, it was a list of things that hadn’t gone wrong yet.
Names had power—enough, maybe, to turn the tide of things. But Felix was also just a ten-year-old boy, and he wanted to enjoy his first year without all of this hanging over his head. He wanted classes and exploring corridors and boring, ordinary problems.
His soul, unfortunately, did not cooperate. It was older than it had any right to be, shaped by a life that had already reached its conclusion. That age lingered in the pauses between his thoughts, in the way he measured his words, in how easily wonder gave way to caution. He remembered consequences before he remembered joy.
So he accepted the inevitability of Hogwarts, and tried not to think too hard about the fact that he was stepping into a story that hadn’t found its centre yet but was now reality—and that himself as Felix didn’t belong in any version of it.
Summer was waning, and the end of August crept closer with every warm breeze.
Felix sat cross-legged on his bed, methodically packing his suitcase with the usual essentials. Books stacked neatly in one corner, a hooded jumper folded just so, socks rolled tight enough to spring back into shape if needed, and even a full cauldron tucked in beside them.
A trunk would have been common place for sheer volume, but Felix preferred something lighter, something manageable with his own hands. The suitcase had cost more than a small fortune, though not enough to cause real concern—an indulgence his parents had been quietly willing to make.
It wasn’t just a suitcase. Enchanted with extension and storage charms, it was larger on the inside than it had any right to be. Not nearly to the legendary extent of Newt Scamander’s magical case, of course—there would be no miniaturized menageries or carefully curated terrariums lurking inside—but it could hold more than enough for a first-year.
Clothes, books, cauldron, parchment, ink, even a couple of extra knickknacks Felix considered indispensable: they all fit without so much as a crease.
Felix decided that a little courage could go a long way. After all, how much trouble could it really be to sneak a broom into his things? Rules were rules, but sometimes rules were meant to be bent—or at least tested.
He wasn’t exactly the biggest Quidditch fanatic—the way the game worked with the golden snitch seemed a bit stupid. He could tell a Quaffle from a Bludger, and that was about it. It was easy enough to follow the basics, but not enough to argue about strategies or star players.
Still, he couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to soar above the grounds, and then wander through Hogsmeade afterward: Butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, a stroll through the sweet shop, and the freedom to explore.
So, with a small surge of daring, he resolved that he would bring a broom with him to Hogwarts, rules be damned—even as a first-year. The thought made him smile; there was something thrilling about holding onto a piece of freedom in a place that was bound to have schedules, curfews, and more rules than he could count.
Another non-negotiable in his packing was his record player. Hogwarts might have moving staircases, enchanted ceilings, and a talking Sorting Hat, but that didn’t mean he was leaving behind the one thing that made silence a little less daunting.
“Do I really need a scarf? Eh… yes, absolutely. One never knows when a first-year will need a lucky scarf. Wait—do I have enough ink? Probably not. Better bring extra. Books! Check. Jumper… check. Extra socks—oh yes. Too many socks? Impossible. You can never have enough socks,” he rambled, tossing items onto the bed in a flurry of indecision.
As Felix clasped the suitcase closed, he felt a small surge of anticipation. Soon, the walls of his room, the familiarity of his home, and the familiar hum of family magic were about to be traded for the unknown challenges of Hogwarts.
He tried to picture it: stepping onto the train, meeting classmates who had no idea what awaited them. His heart beat with a mix of excitement and nerves.
This was supposed to be the start of something new. Something a little magical, and yet he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that his past life made him a little out of place.
He ran a hand over the leather surface of the suitcase, feeling the faint hum of magic that lingered beneath the smooth exterior. These charms weren’t flashy or showy—they didn’t shimmer or glow but they had the quiet assurance of reliability, the sort of magic that never let you down when you needed it most.
Felix had always preferred practical enchantments over spectacular ones. Flashy tricks were for impressing others; these were for surviving the little inconveniences of life, making the everyday easier without anyone noticing.
Light as a feather, absurdly practical, and just slightly smug: it was basically the first magical companion he could trust not to judge him for overpacking.
Felix lifted the suitcase and tilted it this way and that, half expecting it to argue back. Well, metaphorically that is, colloquialism and all that. It didn’t—thankfully—but it did seem to wink at him with its impossibly roomy interior.
Oh, yikes. This was really happening.
He was actually leaving home. No more familiar breakfasts, no more quiet afternoons in his room, no more sneaking extra cookies from the kitchen. Hogwarts awaited, and whether Felix was ready or not, this was his last night to savour the ordinary comforts of home before school turned everything upside down.
King’s Cross seemed normal enough—until the magical folk arrived.
Muggles jostled through the station, faces set in habitual determination. Families shepherded children by the hand, young couples argued quietly over train times, and businessmen scurried past, clutching briefcases, newspapers, or steaming cups of coffee. Everyone moved with purpose, absorbed in their routines.
While the wizards and witches moved like a riot of colour and motion. Robes swirled in every imaginable hue, hats wobbled precariously on heads, and scarves streamed behind them like tiny banners caught in a gust of wind.
Trunks rattled and teetered on trolleys, cages squawked, chirped, or yawned, and brooms jutted out at odd angles as though eager to take flight without their owners. Felix’s head spun trying to take it all in. The ordinary world seemed to melt away, replaced by a storm of magic, chaos, and possibility that made the air itself feel different.
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was both underwhelming and overwhelming at once. One moment, you were stepping through the barrier, and the familiar bustle of King’s Cross disappeared; the next, you were on a long, vaulted platform alive with magic.
Students rushed past in every direction, parents fretted over trunks and lettered parcels, and owls swooped overhead, gliding silently among the crowd. Steam hissed from the gleaming scarlet Hogwarts Express, carrying the promise of adventure, if not that then the quintessential cliche magical school experience.
Felix felt the fluttering thrill of standing on the threshold of a world he had only glimpsed in stories—and now, he was part of it. Or perhaps it wasn’t excitement at all—just nerves, poorly disguised.
He hugged his parents goodbye because it was expected of him—because this was how departures were meant to go—but also because he wasn’t willing to trade a moment of comfort for the illusion of maturity.
The embrace lingered, a little tighter than he’d intended. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; quite the opposite. Caring was the problem. Leaving meant admitting that things were about to change, that the quiet certainty of home wouldn’t always be waiting for him in the same way. So he held on for a moment longer, committing the familiar warmth to memory before finally letting go.
“Au revoir,” his father said, tone clipped and precise.
Then it was all aboard, and time to find a compartment.
Felix stepped onto the train and immediately began the careful, almost ritualistic search for a place to sit. Like Goldilocks (the one from the story with the three bears), he wasn’t looking for just any compartment—he wanted one that was just right. Not too empty, not too full, and definitely not occupied by the wrong sort of people.
The compartment with prefects was out of the question. He had no desire to spend the next several hours as the token annoying first-year under the watchful eyes of teenagers enjoying their first real taste of authority. He could already imagine the sighs, the pointed looks, the subtle reminders of rules they’d make a point of reiterating simply because they could.
On the other end of the spectrum were the compartments packed so tightly they looked like tins of sardines—shoved beside each other in their seats, voices layered over one another, laughter bouncing off the walls. That was just as unappealing. Felix liked his space, and he liked being able to think without having to shout over half a dozen strangers.
So he moved on, suitcase in hand, peering into compartment after compartment in search of that elusive middle ground: somewhere calm enough to breathe, but not so empty it felt conspicuous.
Eventually, he would get it right—or perhaps an empty compartment was preferable, where he could play his music, read a book, and nap through the entire ride without any concern for other occupants. That was just fine by him. That was just life, slipping by while Felix did nothing at all.