The morning I woke up should have been like any other. When I forced my heavy eyelids open, everything had changed completely. I found myself in a totally unfamiliar place, having become the child of complete strangers.
That alone would have been enough to knock me flat, but there was more. The surroundings were clearly abnormal in ways that defied explanation. Two people who seemed to be my parents wielded stick-like objects, portrait figures moved freely and independently, and slightly unsettling small creatures scurried about tending to household tasks. The final touch was a terrorist referred to as "You-Know-Who" who had apparently vanished without a trace not long ago.
After exploring my surroundings and piecing together the evidence, I reached an inescapable conclusion: this was the world of that famous children's literature masterpiece, "Harry Potter." And here I was—a consciousness from a completely different time and place—being treated as if I were a baby born naturally into this world. I see. So this situation was what they call "reincarnation into another world with prior knowledge of the source material." One of those things.
While I wasn't particularly well-versed in light novels or fan fiction, this kind of development was probably commonplace in those genres. The selling point was simple and clear: the reincarnated protagonist could live their second life with absolute advantage, treating future events as known quantities. How to use that prior knowledge, and how to change the original story with it—that was probably the appeal of this genre.
But that was only true if you had *proper* knowledge of the source material. My current situation was clearly nothing so convenient.
The thing is, my knowledge of Harry Potter consisted entirely of "Sound-Breaking Potter BB[1]."
"But didn't they show Harry Potter on Friday Road Show all the time?" you might ask. There were apparently various subtitles, and I couldn't even figure out which was the first one, so I had no way to approach the series. Besides, I never had the chance to sit down and watch TV properly anyway. I think the original was children's literature? I'd seen it from a distance in the school library, but it looked thick as a brick and had the appearance of a blunt weapon, which put me off.
No matter how much of a worldwide masterpiece something might be, when a series gets long, it becomes hard for people without prior connection to jump in. Like Star Wars, Gundam, or Marvel works. Even after I started watching movies on streaming services in college, I don't remember seeing Harry Potter available. I think the last time I saw advertisements for new movies was a little after I entered elementary school, but even that memory is hazy.
That said, it's not as if the only thing I knew was the insane audio blasting over a pure blue background.
Though the memory was vague, I did recall seeing the scene that became the source material for Sound-Breaking Potter. It was probably an unauthorized video upload on Niconico that I'd watched while casually browsing the internet. A creepy man who looked like thin skin stretched over a skeleton and a bespectacled boy who seemed to be the protagonist were firing flashes of light from the tips of their wands in what felt like a rather surreal atmosphere to someone who didn't know the plot, all taking place in a dark, misty graveyard-like location.
But that was everything. I had absolutely no knowledge of which of the Harry Potter films that scene was from, what the relationship between those two characters was, or what the situation even meant.
At best, I remembered from movie theater posters that the bespectacled protagonist was usually part of a trio, the name "You-Know-Who"—or rather, Voldemort—that I'd occasionally glimpsed online seemed to be the final boss, and from some personality quiz that had polluted my social media trending topics, there were four color-coded houses. But all of this came with a qualifier of "I think that's how it was."
It was too late to regret not properly looking into it instead of making excuses about having no connection to the series. Once you're born, it's too late. In the most ridiculous way possible, about eighty percent of my source material knowledge consisted of Sound-Breaking Potter, and I'd been thrown into this unknown world.
The pathetically small amount of information was painful, but I wasn't immediately detected as abnormal by my parents after reincarnating, nor was I caught up in the "main plot" incidents and thrown into life-threatening situations.
I was already reasonably good with languages, and being a young child who would be strange if he could speak fluently worked in my favor. So far, I'd managed to get by without arousing suspicion and spend my days in relative peace.
Most of my care was handled by small creatures with somewhat unsettling appearances—house-elves—but both parents who frequently checked on me didn't seem particularly strict. Rather, they appeared to be the type to spoil their young child rotten. That made me feel somewhat uncomfortable in its own way, but it was reassuring that I wouldn't be immediately thrown into a harsh world without knowing left from right. Moreover, this family seemed incredibly wealthy.
I'd already sensed it from the intimidatingly high ceilings and lavishly gorgeous furnishings, but my new home was an extremely luxurious mansion. While I wasn't an expert, this castle-like building standing proudly in this naturally rich land was probably what they called a country house. So was my family landed nobility? This was Britain, where the House of Rose still reigned—a class-based society indeed.
However, I couldn't just naively celebrate being born into a wealthy family. As I learned about my family, concerning issues emerged.
Our family name was apparently Malfoy. "Bad faith" in French. If I'd had that surname in my original world, it would have been dismissed with "what kind of family line is that?" But unfortunately, this was a fictional world.
Even "You-Know-Who" was "vol de mort"—"flight of death" in French. I had no way of knowing now what kind of naming sense the author of "Harry Potter" had possessed. But thinking simply, in creative works, characters with villainous-sounding names were likely to be villains.
Moreover, the name I'd been given was Draco. Setting aside that it wasn't French-styled to match the surname, it was hard to think that someone given such an impressively heroic name would be assigned no role whatsoever in the story—a perfect background character.
My father was named Lucius and my mother Narcissa, both equally peculiar names, so I considered the possibility that "this" was the standard for this world. However, the protagonist of this story was named Harry, which was fairly common even in my original world. In a world like that, it would be overly optimistic to think that elaborately crafted names held no meaning.
Given that my father, who honestly didn't seem to have a very good personality, appeared to be quite an important figure, I had nothing but bad premonitions about what our names might suggest.
From eavesdropping on my parents' conversations, it seemed rumors had been circulating for a while that "You-Know-Who" had disappeared. I entertained hopeful speculation that perhaps the original story had already ended. But then their conversation revealed that Harry Potter was the same age as me. In that case, the story's curtain couldn't close so early.
Given his deeds, the villainous leader Voldemort was either simply not dead, or would be resurrected from the dead. The aftereffects might be what caused him to become that ghastly pale-skinned bald figure. If so, he was somewhat pitiable.
In any case, I had to consider how to navigate this world that was far more dangerous and strange compared to my previous life.
Just recalling the scant information around Sound-Breaking Potter made it clear that the protagonist was forced into quite harsh battles at a young age. From bits of conversation I caught from my parents and the elf caring for me, Voldemort seemed to have had an exceptionally cruel personality. Despite being based on children's literature, I'd realized this world was full of life-and-death situations.
Right now, this nursery polished to a shine by the house-elf was peaceful, but if the original story was about to begin, I couldn't remain completely uninvolved. Of course, being a work of fiction, it was probably a story that the protagonist would primarily drive forward, and rightfully so.
But I was someone who had suddenly lost everything I once possessed. I hoped I'd be forgiven for gathering what few advantages I had and trying my best to survive. While being showered with an almost frightening amount of love from my parents, I resolved to use every power at my disposal to live in this world.
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[1] (Sound-Breaking Potter BB) is a meme that takes audio clips from Harry Potter movies and heavily distorts them - typically by cranking up the volume and bass to extreme levels, creating a "sound-breaking" effect that sounds completely garbled and chaotic. The "BB" stands for "Bro Base" or "Big Brother," which was a format used for creating remixes and parodies of various media.