September 1st. London, King's Cross Station.
Beside the bustling Platform 9¾, a gleaming scarlet steam engine was docked, blowing thick clouds of white smoke over the crowd. A wrought-iron archway overhead proudly read: Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock.
Today was the first day of the school year. The station was exceptionally lively, as taking the Express was the traditional way for young witches and wizards to journey to Hogwarts.
Owls hooted softly from their brass cages, while cats and other familiars darted under the feet of the tearful, bustling crowd.
Damian felt a wave of faint nostalgia. He had taken trains in his past life, too. He vividly remembered his very first time riding one—he hadn't been able to secure a seat, making those dozen or so hours a miserable, cramped ordeal.
By now, the front carriages were already packed to the brim with chattering students. Holding Preserved Egg against his chest, Damian walked down the narrow corridor until he found an empty compartment near the very back of the train.
The moment Damian took a seat by the window, the black Kneazle eagerly leaped out of his arms.
"The train will be leaving soon," Damian warned. "Don't get off, Preserved Egg!"
"Meow~" the Kneazle replied smoothly, slipping out the compartment door to go explore the corridors.
Damian watched the tearful goodbyes on the platform for a while. Not spotting anyone he recognized, he reached into his magically extended pocket and pulled out a fresh copy of The Quibbler.
Luna had mentioned earlier that she had successfully published an article in this edition.
Flipping through the eccentric pages, he found Luna's piece tucked into the bottom right corner of page two. It featured a highly eye-catching moving photograph: a pair of small hands feeding earthworms to a sparking, fluffy baby Thunderbird.
The article itself was exactly that—a detailed, diary-like log of the feeding process.
Damian frowned slightly. Blatantly publishing photos of a highly restricted, Class XXXX creature might attract unwanted attention from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Still, since Luna was already in contact with Newt Scamander, the famous magizoologist could likely smooth over any legal trouble.
Before Damian could dwell on the Ministry's bureaucracy, two familiar red-headed twins slid into the doorway of his compartment.
"Hey, Fred, look who it is!"
Damian turned his head just in time to see George performing a highly exaggerated, theatrical bow. George flourished his hands toward his brother.
Fred clutched his heart with one hand and dramatically wiped away a fake tear with the other. "Who could it be?" Fred gasped.
"Why, it's the new King of Slytherin!" George announced, trumpeting his hands like a royal horn.
Fred immediately dropped to one knee, bowing repeatedly toward the window. "All hail Damian Black!"
Damian felt a profound urge for the floor of the train to swallow him whole. "What are you two doing?" he asked helplessly. "Please stop giving me such weird titles!"
Fred dropped the theatrical act, looking genuinely surprised. "You haven't heard? We didn't come up with it."
"We heard it from Percy," George added, slipping into the seat across from him. "He said you've become quite famous among the upperclassmen."
Damian's frown deepened. A bad feeling settled in his gut. A title like "King of Slytherin" was basically roasting him over an open fire. The fact that it was circulating heavily among the upperclassmen meant someone was deliberately fanning the flames.
It aligned perfectly with Old Tom's warning at the Leaky Cauldron: someone was keeping a very close eye on him.
Still, Damian wasn't afraid. He had hidden his true capabilities impeccably well. While he had committed his fair share of ruthless acts under the guise of "Gelman" in Knockturn Alley, his public identity was merely that of an exceptionally talented third-year student.
That massive gap in information would ensure anyone plotting against Damian was in for a bloody awakening.
Shifting the topic, Damian pulled the tarnished wooden music box from his pocket. "This artifact can slightly interfere with a wizard's magical circulation, but it's currently damaged. See if you two can fix it."
Fred and George had a natural, almost terrifying talent for magical tinkering and pranks. Damian wasn't sure if the box would retain its exact properties once repaired, but the twins were his best bet.
Fred carefully wound the key, feeling the slight stutter in his own magic. His eyes lit up. "Oh, I love a good challenge!"
Tucking the box safely away, Fred grinned. "The Daily Prophet says Harry Potter is starting this year. We're going to go hunt down the compartment he's sitting in. Want to come see the Savior with us?"
Damian shook his head, declining the offer. "I'll see him at the Sorting Feast later."
After the twins dashed off down the corridor, Damian pulled a folded copy of The Daily Prophet from his robes.
LATEST REPORT ON THE ILLEGAL BREAK-IN AT GRINGOTTS... The headline blared in bold ink. The vault burglary from the end of July was still dominating the front page. The entire article was essentially the goblins and the Auror Office pointing fingers and shifting the blame onto each other.
THE BOY WHO LIVED ENROLLS AT HOGWARTS! This secondary article took up the rest of the page. The author was clearly milking the hype, describing the "epic details" of Harry Potter's fabled battle with You-Know-Who in vivid, dramatic prose. If you ignored the glaring fact that Harry had only been a one-year-old baby at the time, it was almost a decent read.
Damian casually recalled the plot from his past life. Lord Voldemort was currently possessing the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Quirrell. The Gringotts burglary was absolutely their doing; Voldemort was hunting the Philosopher's Stone to resurrect himself.
Quirrell would soon try to sneak the Stone out from right under Dumbledore's nose. Damian had zero intention of getting involved in that mess. He was more than happy to let the "Savior" handle the plotline.
Closing the paper, Damian mentally checked the ring-shaped metal disc in his mind. The crystal was practically overflowing with absorbed energy. It wouldn't be long before he could activate his return ticket.
Exploring the magic of that alternate world remained his absolute top priority.
"Ah, so this is where you're hiding."
A brown-haired boy with bright, observant eyes slid the compartment door open. He dragged his trunk inside and collapsed onto the bench directly opposite Damian.
"Hey, Jerry."
Jerry Abbott was a third-year Slytherin and one of Damian's two roommates.
Damian put down the newspaper, looking at the empty space beside his friend. "Just you? Aren't you and Geralt both from Godric's Hollow? Why didn't you arrive together?"
"Geralt?" Jerry rolled his eyes dramatically. "He made it to the platform with me, sure. But the second we passed the barrier, he claimed he needed to go 'comfort his new girlfriend' and told me to find you myself."
Geralt Bohan was Damian's other roommate. With a name like that, it was fitting he had so much in common with a certain womanizing monster-hunter from fiction. The boy's list of ex-girlfriends likely outnumbered the total spells known by the entire first-year class.
"A new girlfriend? Is it still Emma, the girl he met right before the holidays?" Damian rummaged through his expanded pocket, pulling out two chilled bottles of pumpkin soda and tossing one to Jerry.
Jerry caught the bottle, popped the cap, and took a long gulp. "Your intel is horribly outdated, mate. He switched to someone new halfway through the summer. Poor Amanda... she spent the entire break acting as Geralt's personal messenger pigeon. I'm genuinely worried that bird is going to die of exhaustion."
Amanda, of course, was Geralt's highly overworked barn owl.
"Fair enough." Damian unscrewed his own cap and took a sip. He didn't comment further on Geralt's romantic exploits; after two years of sharing a dorm, he was entirely used to the drama.
Jerry, however, wasn't quite done complaining. "At the sheer speed Geralt cycles through girls, by the time we graduate, I swear we'll bump into at least nine of his exes just taking a casual stroll through the Ministry of Magic!"
Leaning forward, Jerry abruptly changed the subject, dropping his voice to a mysterious whisper. "I actually saw someone interesting when I was boarding the train."
"Oh? Who?" Damian asked, amused and willing to play along.
"The Savior himself—Harry Potter!" Jerry announced in a grand, theatrical whisper.
Every 100 stones = 1 EXTRA CHAPTER