He woke in his bed, sunlight streaming through his intact window. For a moment, James lay there, disoriented, his body heavy with the lingering effects of the sleeping spell. Had it been a dream? Some elaborate nightmare brought on by too much studying and too little sleep?
Then he sat up, and he remembered. Every detail.
The explosion. The robed figures with the wands. The magic. The memory charm had failed to take hold.
Magic.
James's hands were trembling. He stared at them, these small hands that had apparently generated enough magical force to destroy glass and electronics for six blocks.
Downstairs, he could hear his parents moving about. His mother was humming. His father's deeper voice rumbled in response. They sounded normal, cheerful even, completely unaware of what had happened last night.
They'd been obliviated. Their memories of the accident, of the mysterious visitors, were erased.
But not his.
Occlumency, part of his mind supplied, drawing on knowledge he had from his previous life. The protection of the mind, his organized thoughts, and his perfect recall were all a result of Occlumency.
His eidetic memory was actually Occlumency and far more complicated than he had originally thought. It hadn't just preserved what he remembered of his past life. It had also protected him from magical manipulation in this life as well.
James rose from his bed on unsteady legs and walked towards his bookshelf. His hands moved automatically, pulling out volumes he'd read months ago, fantasy novels he'd consumed with casual interest. The Lord of the Rings. The Chronicles of Narnia. And many more, and wondered how many such worlds exist.
He also thanked fate or whoever is responsible for him ending up in this world, because this is the world with the most possibilities.
The wizarding world brings uncountable opportunities, it's the best of any fantasy world he could think of. Even the immortality of elves wasn't comparable to the potential of magic in this world.
The woman last night had said that he would receive a letter when he was eleven years old.
November 1st, 1979, he thought, doing the mathematics automatically. I was born on November 1st, 1979. Harry Potter was born on July 31st, 1980. That makes me almost a year older than him.
His hands tightened on the book.
"James?" His mother's voice drifted up the stairs. "Breakfast is ready, darling!"
"Coming!" he called back, his voice steadier than he felt.
He looked around his room. At the philosophy books that had been his attempt to understand rebirth. At the manga that had opened his mind to the supernatural. At the programming manuals and finance journals that represented his carefully laid plans for wealth and success. At the books on quantum mechanics and theoretical physics, his adult mind's attempt to understand a world that had suddenly become far stranger than quantum uncertainty.
None of it was useless. But suddenly, none of it was as important as it was yesterday.
His priorities have changed now.
Because he wasn't living in an alternate version of his original world.
He was living in the Harry Potter universe where the laws of physics themselves were bendable.
Magic is real, he thought, and began to laugh. Quietly at first, then harder, until tears streamed down his face. All those books on philosophy and the nature of consciousness, all that studying of finance and programming, all those plans to become rich through foreknowledge...
And he'd missed the most important truth of all: he'd been reborn into a fictional universe.
"James? Are you alright up there?"
James wiped his eyes and carefully placed the books back on the shelf. "I'm fine, Mum. Just remembered something funny."
He walked downstairs on legs that felt disconnected from his body. His parents were in the kitchen. Michael Acton sat at the table in his suit and tie, already dressed for the law firm, reading the morning paper. His father was tall, classically English in appearance. Next to him sat Yara, his mother in this life.
They were his parents. They loved him. They thought he was a prodigy, a genius, their miraculous child.
They had no idea what had happened last night. No memory of the terror, the destruction, the visitors in purple robes.
"Morning, love," Yara said cheerfully. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, Mum," James replied automatically. "I slept fine."
"Something happened last night," Michael said without looking up from his paper. "Massive power surge throughout the neighborhood. Blew out the power on many blocks. The electric company is blaming it on a transformer malfunction."
"Really?" James sat at the table, accepted the toast his mother offered. "I didn't notice anything."
"You must have slept through it. There were people outside, lots of commotion. The strangest part is that several people are claiming their windows shattered, but when they checked this morning, everything was fine." Michael finally looked up, his eyes sharp with curiosity. "Mass hysteria, perhaps. Or some kind of shared delusion brought on by the power surge."
"The human mind is a strange thing," Yara agreed, sipping her tea. "It can convince us we've seen or experienced things that never happened."
If only you knew, James thought.
He ate his breakfast in silence while his parents chatted about mundane things, asking about his studies and the new books he was reading. The upcoming week's plans. His mother's surgery schedule. His father's new case.
Everything was as usual.
Except nothing would ever be the same again.
Because James Acton, formerly Blake Gaines, twice-born and now aware he was living in a fictional universe, had to recalculate everything.
31st October, 1981, he thought.
Voldemort fell six years ago. Harry Potter defeated him and somehow became the Boy Who Lived. The First Wizarding War is over. This should be the peaceful time before everything goes wrong again.
He knew the broad strokes.
The Philosopher's Stone.
The Chamber of Secrets.
The Prisoner of Azkaban
The Goblet of Fire.
The Order of Phoenix
The Half Blood Prince.
The Deathly Hollows.
The tournament, the graveyard, Voldemort's return. The war that would come.
But knowing the story and living in it were two entirely different things.
"James?" His mother was looking at him with concern. "You're very quiet this morning. Are you feeling alright?"
"Just thinking, Mum."
"About what?"
About magic. About wizards. About the fact that everything I thought I knew about reality was wrong.
"About my studies," he said instead. "I was thinking I might start learning about magical theory."
Michael laughed. "Getting interested in fantasy, are we? I suppose it's better than quantum physics. You've been reading those textbooks like they're light entertainment."
"Fantasy," James repeated, and smiled. "Yeah, something like that."
He finished his breakfast and excused himself, returning to his room. He closed the door, locked it, and sat on his bed, staring at the wall where the pencil had embedded itself last night. The wall was smooth and unmarked now, perfectly repaired by magic.
Reparo.
One word, one gesture, and reality had rearranged itself.
James reached out with his mind, that power he'd thought was telekinesis, and lifted the pencil from his desk. It floated in the air, steady and controlled.
Not telekinesis.
Magic.
He thought about everything he knew, everything he'd read in those books downstairs. The magic system, the wands, the spells. The schools and the Ministry. The pure-blood prejudice and the wars. The prophecy and the boy who lived.
And he thought about himself. An adult mind in a child's body. Perfect memory that could resist magical manipulation. Power that had almost destroyed the block in a single burst.
Almost five years until his Hogwarts letter arrived. Five years to prepare for a world he thought was fiction.
He began to plan again, but this time, his plans included magic.
The future he'd envisioned was gone. But a new one, impossible and magical and dangerous, was just beginning.
And this time, he wouldn't waste it being average.