Chapter 5: The Street Education
October arrived with cold fingers and the smell of dying leaves. Three weeks on the streets had taught Adam Wright that freedom and survival weren't the same thing—not even close. Freedom was choosing where to sleep. Survival was finding anywhere warm enough that you wouldn't freeze before dawn.
Adam crouched in the doorway of a shuttered electronics shop, watching his breath mist in the pre-dawn air. His stolen jacket hung loose on his shrinking frame. The weight loss was becoming noticeable—hollow cheeks, sharp angles where there used to be softness. Street life carved the weakness out of you with surgical precision.
But he was learning. That was something.
His routine had evolved through trial and bloody error. Dawn meant raiding the bakery bins behind Harrods—yesterday's pastries that rich people wouldn't lower themselves to eat. Morning was for practicing magic in abandoned warehouses where no one would see the impossible light dancing between his fingers. Afternoon brought System missions: small chaos for small rewards. Evening was about finding shelter and staying invisible.
The System chimed softly in his head: [Daily Mission Complete: Cause Minor Chaos. Reward: 15 SP]. Yesterday's work—using Accio to pull loose change from tourists' pockets while they weren't looking. Fifteen pounds richer, fifteen SP better armed.
His current total stood at 1,680 SP. Enough for real upgrades, real power. But also enough to make him cautious. Losing everything now would hurt worse than starting with nothing.
"Accio's been good to me. Time for something with teeth."
Adam navigated to the System Shop and found his target: Stupefy - 1,000 SP. The Stunning Spell. Defensive magic that could drop a grown man in his tracks. He'd needed it twice already—once when a group of older homeless men had cornered him in an alley, thinking an eleven-year-old would be easy prey, and once when a shop owner had chased him with a cricket bat after catching him stealing.
Both times, he'd escaped through speed and luck. Next time, he might not be so fortunate.
The purchase confirmed, knowledge flooded his mind: wand movement (sharp jab forward), incantation (clear and forceful), the sensation of magical energy compressed into a bolt of unconsciousness. It felt heavier than his other spells, more consequential. This was magic meant to harm.
A footstep scraped behind him.
Adam spun, heart hammering, to find Old Tom emerging from the shadows. The homeless veteran looked like something that had crawled out of London's gutters—graying beard, clothes held together by stubbornness and safety pins, eyes that had seen too much. But those eyes were kind, and he'd never tried to rob Adam or hurt him.
"Easy there, kid." Old Tom's voice carried the rasp of too many cigarettes and too many cold nights. "Just me."
"Couldn't sleep either?"
"Sleep's for people who don't have to worry about having their throat cut." Old Tom settled beside him in the doorway, close enough to share body heat but far enough to respect personal space. "You're looking better. Less like death warmed over."
It was true. Three weeks of Accio-assisted theft had improved his nutrition considerably. The spell made acquiring food almost trivially easy—a whispered incantation, a careful gesture, and packets of sandwiches flew from market stalls into his waiting hands. The shop owners blamed butterfingers and bad luck. Adam ate well.
"Learning the ropes," Adam said.
Old Tom studied him with eyes that missed nothing. "Learning something, anyway. You move different now. Quieter. More careful."
"If only you knew."
They sat in comfortable silence, watching London wake up around them. Early commuters hurried past with their faces buried in newspapers, none of them sparing a glance for the human debris in shop doorways. Adam had learned to be invisible to them. Just another piece of urban decay.
But sometimes, if he watched carefully, he saw things others missed. Yesterday, near King's Cross Station, he'd spotted a man in robes that weren't quite right for the weather. Too formal, too archaic, like something from a period drama. The man had ducked into an alley that Adam was certain led nowhere.
When Adam had investigated, the alley was empty. No exit, no hiding places. Just brick walls and the lingering smell of ozone.
Magic.
"Tom," Adam said carefully, "you ever see anything... strange around King's Cross?"
The older man's expression shifted, becoming guarded. "Strange how?"
"People who don't quite fit. Clothes that are too old-fashioned. Shops that weren't there yesterday."
Old Tom was quiet for a long moment. Then: "You're not the first to ask about that area. Word of advice, kid—some doors are better left closed. Whatever you think you saw, forget about it."
But Adam couldn't forget. Wouldn't forget. Those glimpses of the impossible were proof that his transmigrated memories were real, that magic existed just beyond his reach. Every day brought him closer to finding a way in.
The System chimed again: [New Daily Mission Available: Observe Magical Activity. Reward: 25 SP].
Adam accepted immediately.
That afternoon, he positioned himself across from King's Cross with a stolen newspaper and the patience of a professional surveillance operative. Most wizards probably Apparated directly into Diagon Alley, but some had to use the Muggle entrance. He just needed to spot them.
Hours passed. His legs cramped. His stomach growled. But Adam held his position with the stubborn determination of someone who had nowhere else to be.
Then—there.
A man in midnight-blue robes stepped out of a shop Adam had walked past a hundred times. The sign read "ANTIQUARIAN BOOKS," and Adam was certain it had been empty yesterday. The wizard glanced around nervously, then hurried toward a narrow alley.
Adam followed at a distance, his heart hammering against his ribs. This was it. This was his chance to—
The wizard Apparated with a sharp crack that echoed off the alley walls. One second he was there, the next he was gone, leaving behind only the acrid smell of displaced air.
And something else.
A small leather pouch lay on the ground where the wizard had vanished. Adam waited thirty seconds, making sure no one was watching, then darted forward and snatched it up.
The pouch was heavy. Very heavy. And when Adam opened it in the privacy of his current hideout—an abandoned office building with decent sight lines—his breath caught in his throat.
Gold coins. Hundreds of them. Each one stamped with intricate designs: a witch's hat, a cauldron, symbols that screamed "wizarding currency" to anyone who'd read the right books.
Galleons. Real, actual Galleons.
Adam counted them with shaking hands. Five hundred coins, each one solid gold. More wealth than he'd ever imagined possessing. Enough to buy food for years, shelter, clothes, everything he needed to—
Wait.
Adam opened the System Shop and navigated to a section he'd never explored: Currency Exchange.
[Convert Galleons to SP: Rate 1,000 Galleons = 1 SP]
He stared at the exchange rate for a full minute, his brain refusing to process the mathematics. Five hundred Galleons. Worth exactly half a System Point.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me."
All that risk, all that triumph, all those beautiful gold coins—and they were worth less than a single point in the System's economy. The crushing disparity hit him like a physical blow. The magical world was wealthy beyond measure, but System Points were apparently precious beyond calculation.
But understanding the exchange rate opened new possibilities. If a single SP was worth a thousand Galleons, and wealthy pure-blood families had thousands of Galleons lying around, then robbing them became mathematically appealing. The Malfoys, corrupt Ministry officials, anyone connected to Voldemort's network—they were sitting on fortunes that could translate to real power.
Adam's moral compass recalibrated with cold precision. Stealing from ordinary people felt wrong. Stealing from Death Eaters and their associates? He'd sleep just fine.
Still, five hundred Galleons was five hundred Galleons. Even if the System valued them at practically nothing, they were real gold. He could sell them to Muggle pawn shops for pounds if desperation required it. Or he could save them, accumulate more, eventually convert them into the currency that actually mattered.
That night, Adam sat in his hideout counting coins and planning heists. The magical world had rejected him, tried to erase him, dismissed him as irrelevant. But they'd made a critical error: they'd left their money lying around where a desperate, invisible boy could steal it.
"Big mistake. Huge."
The System chimed: [Mission Complete: Observe Magical Activity. Reward: 25 SP].
Adam smiled in the darkness. Every day brought him closer to real power. Every day brought him closer to making them pay for what they'd done.
The war was just beginning.
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