This was much harder than learning magic.
Why was it so difficult? Wasn't he supposed to be extraordinarily intelligent?
By the day before term began, Harry had nearly given up.
Since things were what they were, he decided to handle other matters first. Perhaps there was a spell that could help him learn Chinese quickly.
As planned, he had also recruited a few of the most loyal adult wizards he could find to serve as his subordinates—agents to manage Knockturn Alley on his behalf.
Finally, the territory interface appeared:
Faction: Knockturn Alley
Special Buildings: None
King's Power: 0 (steadily increasing)
Legion: Dedalus Diggle, Doris Crawford, Tom…
Clicking on the legion revealed each person's potential. Their talents were generally average, but Harry had already done his best to choose the most capable. Though meagre now, it was a beginning—everything would improve with time.
As for the name of his faction, it was, of course, the Night's Watch. Harry didn't see the need to invent something new.
In short, he had accomplished quite a lot over the summer; it had not been wasted.
On the first of September, Harry arrived at King's Cross Station, ready to take the train to Hogwarts.
It amused him that Hogwarts used a train rather than some grand magical conveyance. A little behind the times, perhaps?
He'd long noticed that many wizards seemed to live centuries in the past. For some of them, even trains might have been a novelty. Most were not entirely unfamiliar with Muggle inventions, but their understanding was often shallow—using only the most common technologies, usually altered or reinterpreted through magical logic.
Take photographs, for instance. Wizards expected them to move, and believed still photographs were the strange variant. To them, movement was natural, stillness was odd.
Magic was, in essence, a kind of idealism.
Hagrid had already given him his ticket: departure from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
Surely not a misprint. Literally, it probably meant the third opening in the four divisions between Platform Nine and Platform Ten.
Muggles couldn't see the platform, of course, but Harry was used to that sort of concealment. Centuries of persecution had made wizards masters of disguise and concealment.
Muggle-repelling charms and similar spells were likely remnants of collective defensive magic from that long age of witch-hunts—manifestations of humanity's desperate wish to remain unseen.
Although most wizards now looked down on Muggles, it hadn't always been that way. Once, wizards had been the persecuted ones. The word "Muggle" itself, while newly coined in wizarding culture, had originated as a regional slang for "fool."
If Harry could already read Chinese—and had read the Harry Potter novels—he would have thought the Chinese translation of "Muggle" rather fitting: vivid, faithful, and full of bite.
Among modern wizards, the polite stance was that one could not openly discriminate against Muggle-born wizards, but discrimination against Muggles themselves was still considered acceptable.
Harry found that somewhat reasonable. After all, wizards had endured centuries of persecution without revenge. If the worst they did was use a mildly insulting term, that was remarkably restrained.
He hadn't yet read that far in his magical history book—he'd only reached the Goblin Wars. He hadn't gotten to the chapter on Grindelwald, who founded the Wizarding Supremacy Party and dreamed of a world ruled by magic.
Not that it mattered; the movement had failed anyway.
Besides, whether a word was insulting depended on intent. Two phrases could sound nearly identical—like "Wori" and "Wori ni x"—yet their difference in tone made all the difference. Most wizards didn't even consider "Muggle" an insult.
Words were idealistic things. What mattered was not their sound, but the voice behind them.
It's easy to defeat the bandit in the mountains, Harry thought, but far harder to defeat the bandit in one's heart.
King's Cross Station bustled with noise and movement.
One platform bore a large plastic sign marked 9, and the next was 10. Nothing lay between them.
That must be it—the three-quarters mark.
Harry observed that this wasn't like the Leaky Cauldron, where Muggles couldn't see the entrance. Here, even magical folk couldn't see the platform without knowing how.
Perhaps it was because the station was so crowded that Muggles might accidentally stumble through. The enchantment probably allowed only magical people to pass, using the real wall as the boundary.
Harry looked around for other first-years.
Just then, a group passed behind him, and he caught fragments of their conversation:
"—of course it's packed with Muggles—"
He turned and saw a short, plump woman surrounded by four red-haired boys, each pushing a trunk like his own and carrying an owl.
Wizards, unmistakably.
They were moving away, but Harry's hearing was sharp. Once he focused, he didn't need to move closer to catch every word.
"All right, which platform is it?" the mother asked.
"Nine and three-quarters!" a small red-haired girl squealed. "Mummy, can I go—?"
"You're too young, Ginny," the woman said. "Now, be quiet. Percy, you go first."
The oldest boy walked briskly toward the space between Platforms Nine and Ten—and vanished.
Next went the twins, Fred and George, disappearing just as smoothly.
Harry confirmed the spot precisely. Without waiting for the youngest boy to go, he strode forward towards the dividing wall.
Well, if it was a wall, he could break through it. He had a head of copper and iron.
He charged forward confidently, the wall rushing closer—
—and then everything changed.
"A child?"
"A foreigner."
"Can you speak English?"
"Send him to the police station."
…
"This child has no identification. Why isn't he speaking?"
"The doctor says it's temporary aphonia. We discovered he's linked to that explosion case—possibly kidnapped by an international criminal group."
"The Boy Who Lived!"
…
"Poor thing. Can we adopt him?"
"Of course you can."
"Child, would you like to?"
Harry felt as though he were watching a film, unable to interfere with its beginning.
He knew perfectly well that what was unfolding had nothing to do with him directly. It was the system, with its vast computational power, rewriting the world around him. The world itself was fabricating an explanation so he could blend in naturally.
Thus, when the moment came, heaven and earth conspired: he was conveniently adopted by a couple who already had children.
Just like the last time he had transmigrated—to the world of A Song of Ice and Fire—the system had provided him with a seamless new identity.
The line between illusion and reality blurred. His travelling soul cast echoes of past selves into each new world.
Every world had its own main storyline, and in this one, the point where all destinies converged was—once again—school.
The intervals between worlds differed, and the triggers remained a mystery, but the underlying connection was clear.
This new world was titled by the system as [Chinese Parents]—an utterly baffling name.
Only recently, Harry had been lamenting how hard Chinese was to learn, with no time or environment to practise. And now, fate—or the system—had thrown him into this world.
Perhaps this was the system's idea of a study-abroad programme.
He wondered how long he would remain here.
Three months should be enough to learn Chinese, shouldn't it?