Chapter 12: Identity Created
The System's gift lay spread across Adam's makeshift table like a testament to impossible power: birth certificate, educational records, guardian documentation, and a magical ID card that bore his photograph despite him never posing for it. Every detail was perfect, from the Ministry watermarks to the aged parchment that suggested years of proper storage.
"Marcus Wright, deceased guardian. Homeschooled wizard orphan. It's brilliant and terrifying."
Adam studied his new identity with the focus of someone whose life depended on memorizing every detail. According to the System's fiction, he'd been raised by a reclusive wizard who'd educated him privately before dying in a potion accident six months ago. No surviving family. No institutional connections. Just another orphan trying to find his place in magical society.
The documents felt real beneath his fingers—not just physically, but magically. They radiated the subtle warmth of genuine magical artifacts, complete with protective charms and authentication spells. When Adam concentrated on them, he could sense the history the System had created: memories of lessons never taken, conversations never held, a guardian who had never existed but whose death was now registered in official records.
"The System didn't just forge papers. It rewrote reality."
That afternoon, Adam approached the Leaky Cauldron with his false ID clutched in sweating palms. For months, this door had been an impassable barrier, rejecting him as surely as Platform Nine and Three-Quarters had. But now—
The handle turned beneath his touch. The door swung open with a soft creak, revealing the pub's dim interior and the warm glow of magical flames. Tom the Barkeeper glanced up from polishing glasses, his weathered face creasing into a professional smile.
"First time, lad? Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron."
Adam's knees nearly buckled. After months of rejection, months of being invisible and unwanted and wrong, someone in the magical world had welcomed him. The words hit him like a physical blow, carrying implications he'd dreamed of but never quite believed possible.
"Thank you," he managed, his voice barely above a whisper.
The pub was everything he'd imagined and nothing like he'd expected. Dingy wooden tables, a floor that had seen better centuries, the lingering smell of cabbage and spilled ale. It was shabby and tired and absolutely magical, crackling with energy that made his newly awakened senses sing.
"Looking for Diagon Alley, then?" Tom asked, noting Adam's wide-eyed stare and obvious nervousness.
"Yes, sir. Please."
Tom gestured toward the brick wall behind the pub with the casual ease of someone who'd performed this ritual thousands of times. "Just tap the bricks—three up, two across from the dustbin. First time through can be a bit overwhelming, so take it slow."
Adam's hands shook so badly he could barely draw his wand. The hawthorn wood felt warm against his palm, responding to his excitement and terror in equal measure. He approached the wall with the reverence of someone approaching a shrine.
Three up. Two across.
The wand tip touched aged brick, and reality melted away.
The wall dissolved like mist, revealing a sight that stole Adam's breath and nearly brought him to his knees. Diagon Alley stretched before him in full glory: a cobblestone street lined with shops that defied physics and probability alike. Wizards and witches moved through the crowds with casual magic, their robes swirling, their conversations punctuated by spells that sparkled in the afternoon air.
Ollivanders stood narrow and dark, its dusty windows promising wands for every witch and wizard. Flourish and Blotts displayed books that moved and whispered, their pages fluttering with contained knowledge. And at the alley's far end, Gringotts towered white and imposing, its goblin guards gleaming in the sunlight.
Adam stepped through the portal and felt tears stream down his face. This was what he'd dreamed of during those long nights in the orphanage, what he'd fought for through months of homelessness and desperation. He belonged here. Finally, impossibly, he belonged.
A witch in emerald robes bumped into him, her packages rustling with contained magic. "Watch where you're going, boy," she said automatically, then continued on her way without a second glance.
She hadn't Obliviated him. Hadn't questioned his presence. Hadn't recognized him as an intruder who needed to be expelled. To her, he was just another young wizard—unremarkable, unremarkable, belonging.
"I'm not invisible anymore. I'm real."
But reality came with practical concerns. Adam's Muggle clothes drew stares from passing shoppers—not hostile, but curious enough to make him uncomfortable. He needed proper wizarding attire, something that would let him blend into magical society without marking him as an outsider.
Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions beckoned with its cheerful storefront and displays of elegant clothing. Adam pushed through the door, his Mokeskin Pouch heavy with stolen Galleons.
"Hogwarts robes?" Madam Malkin asked cheerfully, her measuring tape already dancing through the air around him.
Adam froze. His false identity claimed homeschooling, not institutional education. "No, ma'am. Just... general robes. For everyday wear."
"Of course, dear. Stand still while I get your measurements."
The fitting process was surreal—magical measuring tapes that worked independently, pins that flew to their proper positions, fabric that adjusted itself to his frame. When Madam Malkin finished, Adam barely recognized himself in the mirror.
Gone was the street kid in tattered Muggle clothes. In his place stood a young wizard in simple black robes, clean and properly attired and looking like he belonged in this world. The transformation was more than physical—it was psychological, a visible sign that he'd left his old life behind.
"Five Galleons," Madam Malkin said warmly. "You'll want to get a few more sets once you're settled. Growing boys always outgrow their clothes faster than their parents expect."
Adam paid without haggling, grateful for the normal transaction. But Madam Malkin's casual question echoed in his mind as he left the shop: Hogwarts robes. The assumption that any magical child would be attending school, part of the established system, following the approved path.
His false identity claimed homeschooling, but how long could he maintain that fiction? People would ask questions about his education, his plans, his guardian's teaching methods. He needed a cover story that was consistent, believable, and didn't invite too much scrutiny.
"Identity is a performance. I need to perfect my act."
That evening, Adam secured lodging in Knockturn Alley—a dingy room above a shop that sold questionable potions and asked no questions about its tenants. Two hundred Galleons per month for four walls, a bed, and an address in the magical world. It was expensive and probably illegal, but it was his.
Adam lay on the narrow bed—his first real bed in months—and stared at the cracked ceiling while magical London hummed around him. He was inside now. He had money, power, a legitimate identity, and a base of operations. But Hogwarts remained tantalizingly out of reach, protected by age requirements and enrollment procedures he couldn't bypass.
Unless he created his own path.
The System chimed softly:
[New Mission Available: "Establish Merchant Cover" - Reward: 2,000 SP].
Adam grinned in the darkness. Time to become a businessman.
If he couldn't enter Hogwarts as a student, he'd find another way in. As a supplier, perhaps. A merchant with legitimate business at the school. Someone who belonged in the magical world and had every right to visit the castle where the real story was unfolding.
The war was far from over. In fact, it was just beginning.
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