It was early March. The cold, frigid air assaulted us as the three of us walked while eating croquettes. I was subtly using a warmth charm to keep my hands and face protected from the biting winter wind. I'd just turned fourteen a few months ago, and we were only a month away from our final year of middle school.
"Transferring, seriously, when?" I asked the short guy with black hair and timid features. His name was Hisya Miki. We had met him a few months ago when he overheard me and Oga talking about my manga in the halls.
"We're leaving during spring break. Moving to where my mom's family lives in Nara." He said while letting out a cold breath.
"Nara? That's pretty far away," I said before Oga jumped in, sounding oddly smug.
"Hey, I know that place! That's where that big Buddha statue is."
"Why do you sound so proud to know where a statue is?" I shot back.
The fatass Oga then tried to bite into the croquette in my hand, but I swiftly moved it before slapping him on the back of his head, causing him to stumble. "Try that again, and I'll never let you read advanced chapters of Shinobi again."
He looked absolutely horrified at the statement. "You wouldn't!" He pointed a trembling finger at me.
"Try me bitch." I'm sure I had the biggest shit eating grin on my face as I walked ahead, but who knows, I sure don't. Miki laughed at our shenanigans as we continued.
----
It started snowing, so we ducked into one of the nearby abandoned factories to get out of the cold. "Won't we get in trouble for coming in here?"
"What if we get in trouble for being here?" Miki asked.
"Don't worry. As long as you can run fast enough, you can go anywhere and not get in trouble," I said as I sat down and started pulling things out of the shopping bag from the convenience store.
"Hey, Taka, that Kit Kat is mine!" Oga pointed an accusative finger at me.
I raised an eyebrow and looked down at the chocolate bar in my hand. "I was the one who paid for it."
"Yeah, but I'm the one who put it in the basket," he said proudly. But me being me, I humbled him by whipping it at his face.
"Stop putting stuff in my cart!"
Oga went down with a Kit Kat imprint on his face, while I casually ate my own candy and shared some with Miki. We hung around in the building for about an hour before the snow finally stopped, and then we headed out.
'What magic should I learn next? I've already mastered most of the stuff from the Harry Potter series. Maybe I should work on Marvel-style sorcery next. Portals are way better than Apparition, by far.' Apparition felt weird to use; it disorients you for a second when cast, makes a loud pop (so forget about using it for stealth), and if you're not the one casting it, it'll leave you nauseated as hell.
There's also the fact that the wizarding world exists here, and that keeps me from fucking around too much with their spells. Yeah, wasn't that a shock to find out? When I turned eleven, a red-crowned crane from Mahoutokoro dropped a letter off at my open window. Once I read the letter, it gave me a clue as to how this wizarding world worked here.
In the normal Potterverse, young mages are more or less expected to attend one of the eleven magic schools scattered across the world once they discover they have magic. If they don't, they risk developing an Obscurus, a dark parasite that forms when magic is suppressed. But this letter suggested otherwise.
At the end of the letter, it clearly read: 'Should you choose to reject this offer to join our school, you may enrol at one of the other eleven magical institutions, or forgo formal magical training and become self-taught. Be warned that if you reject this offer, you will not be governed by our law, but you will also not be protected by it.'
To reject the letter, all I had to do was burn it, so that's what I did, and I was never contacted by them again. After that little debacle, I did a shit ton of research on the wizarding world, and I found out that they are mostly in their own bubble.
They don't really interact with other magical communities, and yes, there are more out there, but I'm still researching them. Most of the time, the wizarding world doesn't give a damn what anyone else does with magic, as long as it doesn't affect them negatively.
Finding all this information was a lot easier than I thought it would be, mainly because the wizarding world might have defences against their own kinds of magic, but they knew fuck all when it came to what I could do.
I used a simple mix of thought projection and invisibility magic from Fairy Tail to test the wards at Mahoutokoro, and when I wasn't immediately caught, I cautiously made my way through the school and after still not setting off any I looked for the library. It took me a while to find, but once I did I dived in.
I couldn't physically touch the books since I was just a thought projection, but with a bit of telekinetic magic, the whole knowledge heist was easy. I spent days combing through that library, memorizing every book I could find. I even slipped into personal quarters to take notes from the students and from the teachers' private research and journals, too.
Once I was done with Mahoutokoro, I figured, 'Why the hell not?' So I pulled the same heist on the other schools, too. For weeks, I ran through all eleven magical institutions, soaking up as much knowledge as I could get my hands on. Of course, I didn't do it all myself. After the first heist, I had a shadow clone try the projection method, and it worked perfectly.
I made fifty clones, ten for each of the remaining schools, and sent them off. Once they were done with those, I turned them loose on the old wizarding families, too. Any family with a bloodline stretching back three generations or more wasn't safe. Was this an invasion of privacy on the highest level? Yes. Did I care? Fuck no! Ain't my problem, they didn't account for cheating cheaters like me. ;)
By the end of it all, I had more information crammed into my head than I knew what to do with. A lot of it was overlapping information, but there was still so much that was new — stuff never even mentioned in the books, let alone the movies. One particularly interesting discovery was that while Hogwarts existed, the plot of Harry Potter didn't. There was no Boy Who Lived because there was no Dark Lord trying to take over the world.
Dumbledore was still around, but there was no mention anywhere in history of a dark wizard named Grindelwald. Tom Riddle had been a student at one point, but during his sixth year, he disappeared and was never seen again. There was also way less magical racism and classism in general. The rich were still rich, sure, but they didn't shove it in your face or act like they were better than you just because they had more money. Most of them just lived their lives and minded their own business.
I think the weirdest thing of all was Harry himself. He existed, sure, but he wasn't Harry Potter. See, during his fourth year, James Potter was dared to go into the Forbidden Forest alone. Three days later, they found his body half-eaten by a troll.
That means Harry shouldn't exist, right? Wrong! Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Harrison Alexander Snape, son of Severus and Lily Snape. Yeah, turns out that without James around to woo the woman away from his favourite bullying target, Snape didn't self-sabotage nearly as much. He actually managed to develop enough of a personality to charm the witch of his dreams.
So that's the wizarding world summed up. I was all but done with it since it did not have much left to give me. The only places I haven't robbed blind are from Gringotts and the Ministry of Magic.
The Ministry in this world is basically just offices for wizards and courts for trials. I didn't steal from Gringotts, though for a different reason. Most of the vaults only really hold money. I'm sure some of them have cool stuff, but it's no surprise that most witches and wizards don't trust those greedy little goblins to keep something like their family's unique magics and valuables safe in a vault. All the powerful and influential families have their own vaults at home in their estates, usually warded to hell and back.
So yeah, I'll be checking out Gringotts at a later date, but for now, it's low priority.
"Oh no... It's gone," I heard Miki's voice beside me and realized. 'Oh shit, right, I'm still with my friends. I gotta stop zoning out so much.'
"What's wrong?" I heard Oga ask, his words slightly muffled as he chewed on a gummy worm.
"I uh, I think I lost something back at the building! I'll be right back. You guys go on without me!" We watched as Miki turned and sprinted back in the direction of the abandoned factory.
"You think we should go with him?" I looked at Oga, who just shrugged and kept eating... "Where did you get those gummy worms?"
"...I mean, they were just sitting in your bag..."
"You bitch, those are mine!" I snareld. I'm gonna kick his ass.
----
Hisya Miki
The boy ran back to find the charm he had dropped, only to find that some gang had now taken up residence at the factory.
"Huh, who the hell is this kid?" Two thugs stepped in front of him. "This is our chill spot. You can't just walk in here like you own the place. What school are you from?"
"I-uh, I'm just here for—That charm! Please give it back!" Miki's voice trembled as he saw the gang leader holding the charm up between his fingers.
The gang boss's name was Reiji Kiriya, better known as The Viper. He was a well-known thug from a neighbouring school, tall, tanned, with a big, wavy afro and a small patch of hair on his chin. He should've been heading to college this year, but after being held back a few times, he was still only a second-year high schooler.
"Oh, you wanted this? Oops, I dropped it." His tone dripped with condescension as he stomped on the charm, grinding it into the dirt.
"STOP THAT!" Miki yelled as the two from earlier held him back.
"You're an annoyance. Get rid of him." The thugs yanked Miki back, but before they could lay a hand on him, a sharp thwack cut through the air, then a heavy thud. Moments later came the dull sounds of bodies hitting the ground, one after another.
"Yo, these guys your pals?" Oga stood nonchalantly, hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face.
"Why didn't you invite us?" Takayuki cracked his knuckles with an evil grin.
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Author's note.
This was supposed to be the whole Miki chapter, but I kinda got sidetracked with the whole schools of magic thing.
Last chapter for today, I'll start working on another after I wake up later. Bye, Love you ;)