Henry had begun to notice more than just fleeting coincidences. The world around him seemed unusually responsive, though he could not yet explain why. Small things shifted when he concentrated, objects moving ever so slightly, as if drawn toward him by invisible threads. At first, he thought it was his imagination after all, who could believe in something so absurd?
One afternoon, he sat on the wooden porch, idly tossing a pebble from hand to hand. His gaze lingered on a small, fragile bird hopping along the edge of the courtyard. Without thinking, he willed it to move away from the sun-baked dirt where it might get hurt.
To his shock, the bird twitched, paused, and then stepped backward as if guided by an unseen hand. Henry froze, his heart hammering. Surely, it was just coincidence… but he had never seen such precision before.
The next day, in the dormitory, a stack of bowls teetered on the edge of a shelf. Henry walked past, and for a brief, inexplicable moment, the stack righted itself. No one had touched it. Henry blinked. His pulse quickened. Was it possible that he… did something?
At night, he sat on his bed, staring at his hands, imagining the things he had read about in his old life, the wands, the spells, the magical duels. He thought about the Gamp family, about the minor pure-bloods mentioned in movies and books, about the heroes and villains he had admired from afar. A strange heat began to gather in his chest whenever he concentrated on an object. A warmth, almost comforting, that whispered of potential.
Henry did not understand it, and he did not dare speak of it. If this was magic, then it was raw and uncontrolled, and he had no idea what it might do. Yet the sensation was addictive, a quiet thrill, a promise of power he had never known in his former life.
That night, as the jungle exhaled its humid breath and the stars blinked into existence overhead, Henry lay awake thinking. Something inside him was stirring, something that belonged to a world he had once only imagined. He did not know it yet, but the blood of the Gamp family, long thought extinct, pulsed quietly within him. And with it, the seeds of magic, of possibility, of destiny, had begun to awaken.
For now, he was just a boy in an orphanage, surrounded by strangers and jungle. But soon… soon, he would begin to realize that this second life was far more extraordinary than he could ever have imagined.