The following weeks were very busy for Leon.
His ‘parents’ were busy on the Muggle side of things.
But with Gasket around, Leon had transportation and no need to worry about food.
Sorting the multitude of magical artifacts that the Prewett’s had scattered about their different intact residences took two weeks in an of itself.
99% of the artifacts were basically just trinkets.
Interesting, but not really helpful.
The books and the family Library, however, were an amazing source of information.
The Prewett family it seemed, had a long history and tradition of Combat Transfiguration and Ward-Weaving.
Most of the Family Library was filled with what looked like combat manuals from the Middle Ages.
Though instead of teaching swordplay, they taught spells and techniques for using said spells in combat situations.
And the vast majority of those spells were transfiguration oriented.
Not much charm work.
It was a combat style of turning the very environment into a killing tool.
From everything that he had learned so far about the Prewett family.
Leon was pretty impressed.
Gideon and Fabian Prewett had apparently been cornered and killed by five Death Eaters.
The five that cornered them were supposedly elites.
Extremely powerful in their own right, and each individually should have been a match for the brothers one on one.
Yet it had taken five of them nearly an hour to kill them.
Leon didn’t remember any of the wizarding families maintaining a martial tradition but the Prewett’s certainly had.
Then there was the Ward-Weaving.
Ward-Weaving was an artform and science wrapped up together.
It combined magical materials, engraved enchantments, and ritual magics to lay down permanent wards with a massive variety of functions that were capable of being ‘woven’ into each other.
Allowing one to layer hundreds or thousands of wards in an area that should only be able to contain one or two.
Ward-Weaving was apparently passed down from the Hogwarts founders time, and it wasn’t really a Prewett only thing.
But their collection of family made wards was extensive.
Unique combinations that they had discovered themselves and recorded to be passed down only to their descendants.
The magic in most of the books was too advanced for Leon to start practicing any of it at present.
But just having the books was good.
At the moment, Leon was splitting his time between Coldharbour Magicka experiments, and reading the first year curriculum for Hogwarts.
His school supplies had just taken a quick trip alongside Gasket to retrieve and with the school year coming up quickly, Leon wasn’t about go in completely blind to the subjects he was going to be in classes for.
Reading the various first year textbooks was enlightening.
And also made him want to laugh at most of the Fanfic he remembered reading.
The ones where the first year MC would basically transcend Hogwarts curriculum within a matter of months and basically be Dumbledore’s equal by the fourth year of some shit.
Not happening.
Even if Leon was ten to twenty times better at absorbing information than someone like Hermione he doubted that he could crack beyond maybe two years ahead of the curriculum as a first year.
He had the books for all years already and the learning curve was not linear.
It was exponential.
The spells, potions, and transfigurations complexity and difficulty went from being trivially easy in the first year, to literal mastery at the seventh year.
Then there was the fact that an 11 year old simply could not pull of many of the spells from later years because their magic itself was not yet fully matured.
A lot of the spells were literally impossible to use unless you were a specific age or older.
A wizards magic wasn’t like a core or a mana pool.
It was more like a field of influence that underwent a very predictable and obvious growth cycle connected to age.
A 100 year old wizard would always be more powerful than a 20 year old wizard.
And from what Leon read, there was a whole plethora of spells that were simply impossible to cast until a wizard was in their 50s.
But that wasn’t to say that just because an older wizard’s magic was more powerful that they were impossible to fight for younger wizards.
The power of the magic increasing was balanced by the physical body growing weaker with age.
And the vast majority of spells only required one to be around 15 years old to cast.
Meaning that knowledge, wit, and cunning were all factors.
Magical theory provided explanations and even showed that it wasn’t universal.
There were rituals that one could conduct to strengthen their magic.
Tonics and potions that could accelerate the development.
Even environmental factors could affect magical development positively.
But the gains were minimal, and the risks high.
Harry Potter in Canon, having a piece of Lord Moldybutt’s soul attached to his own was essentially cheating his magical development.
Unknowingly, Voldy’s soul shard imparted Harry with quadruple the development speed at minimum.
Though Leon suspected that it probably accelerated it even further than that.
At 17, Harry was Voldy’s equal in terms of raw power if not skill.
Technically he might have been his equal at 15 with the whole goblet of fire incident and the Priori Incantatem effect where Harry’s magic overpowered Voldy’s.
At a minimum, Harry’s magic had to be developing at least 4 to 5 times faster than it should be.
Aside from the development and power of a Wizard or Witches magic, there was also the fact that, from what he was seeing of the fifth year curriculum.
There was no way Canon Potter, Weasley, or even Granger would have passed their O.W.L.s with what was shown in either the books or movies.
By fifth year, the student body was expected know literally hundreds of spells by heart.
Household/chores magic was like 80% of the Charms curriculum.
Gardening and Lawn Care charms were part of Herbology too and made up a huge portion of the class.
Even Potions had a ton of spells that were mandatory, for everything from controlling heat, preparing ingredients, and cleaning equipment and more.
There was so much to study and learn that one would basically need to be a supercomputer to retain everything perfectly in only a couple of months.
In the end, all of those Fanfics were power trip fantasies anyway.
But now, looking back at all the ones he’d read.
Leon couldn’t help but chuckle at understanding just how extremely OP those characters had to have been.
Leon was a literal Daedric Prince.
The Father of Coldharbour and soon to be the Lord of the Hunt as well.
He could wield Magicka and enchant weapons and armor, could create potions from the Elder Scrolls universe easily.
And had a significantly better memory than he should have.
And yet, looking at that mountain of information in front of him made him glad that he had years before he needed to worry about the majority of it.
Leon was OP already, at just 11 years old.
But he was under no illusions that he would be a genuine match for someone like Dumbles within the next couple of years.
Could he kill Dumbles?
Sure, but you don’t need to be powerful to kill someone who is powerful, you just need to stab them in the back when they are not prepared.
Poison, a knife in the dark, a curse from the Elder Scrolls universe… there were myriad ways to kill people.
Just being able to kill someone doesn’t make you their equal in terms of power, skill, or knowledge.
That was not how any world worked.
A regular human is literally billions of times stronger than a bacteria.
But a bacteria can still kill a human after all.
With school coming up fast, Leon used the daytime hours studying the coursework and his nights in Coldharbour practicing spells.
His inventorying of all the collected artifacts was tedious and boring, but it made for good break times between studying.
There were a dozen tents with expanded interiors, ranging from one that just took a tent that looked a single person setup to having enough space for five people within it, to a tent that seemed to have a literal castle/palace inside of it.
There were also dozens of flying Brooms from seemingly all eras of magic.
And tons of little knickknacks that had little or bizarre effects but were useless, probably toys for children.
On top of studying and taking stock of his newly gained fortune, Leon was planning out what he wanted to accomplish over the next couple of years and how he was going to do it.
Basically, the first thing he wanted to do once he got to Hogwarts was go to the Room of Requirements and steal everything that wasn’t nailed down, though, more particularly, he wanted to see what would happen if he threw the Ravenclaw Diadem into the Waters of Oblivion.
Would a fragment of Voldemort’s Soul be enough to create a Dremora?
From all of his knowledge of souls is absolutely should.
Which led to Leon feeling like each of the Horcruxes would probably be high value pokemon for him.
Having multiple Voldy’s, with all their genius directed towards his goals, was a tempting thing indeed.
He even had a plan for what to call them.
The Council of Mortys.
Another reason for the hope of actually getting a Dremora Voldemort was that it may allow him to capture the Basilisk and turn it physically into a Dremora.
Having a perfectly loyal Basilisk would be a tremendous boon, but at the moment he had no way of managing to pull it into Coldharbour.
If it came willingly, he might be able to manage.
Another thing that Leon wanted to check on was whether or not the Vivarium from Legacy was real.
If it was, it could solve his population issue in Coldharbour, depending on how the real-life version compared to the game one.
Only time would tell.
“Master!
The Weasley’s are here!” Gasket spoke excitedly as he popped in beside Leon one afternoon.
Leon blinked at that, he was honestly surprised that their visit had taken this long.
He’d sent that letter to them at the beginning of August.
It was now the 22nd and they were only just getting around to visiting?
He didn’t judge all that much, he had no idea what was going on in their lives so maybe this was the fastest that they could come?
Or maybe they had needed to do some investigating to figure out whether or not the letter had been real…
“How quickly can we set up a small feast for everyone?
How many of them came?” Leon asked.
Standing up and straightening up his attire.
“All of them sir!
Molly her husband and all of her children!!!!!!
OOOHHHHH Gasket is so excited to serve the young mistress again and her children.
Sir.
Gasket never thought he’d see the day!” The conjoined twin elves were practically vibrating and speaking in such perfect synchrony that their two voices sound like a single voice.
“Take me to them then.” Leon said, reaching out for Gaskets hand.
A moment later, Leon found himself standing in the courtyard facing the gate.
Where a crowd of red heads stood peering through the gates.
Leon recognized them all at a glance.
They looked exactly like their movie counterparts.
Arthur and Molly, William(Bill), Charles, Percy, Fred, George, Ronald(Ron) and Ginerva(Ginny).
Weasley’s the lot of them.
Leon smiled as he walked over to the gate and tapped it with his wand.
It glided open soundlessly.
Leon didn’t even get a chance to say hello or really do anything else before he suddenly found himself dangling in the arms of a sobbing redheaded woman.
It was astonishing how quickly Molly had scooped him up into a hug.
And she kept saying things at such a rapid pace that Leon was certain that currently existed in a different temporal frame of reference.
“Molly.
Molly!
Let the boy breathe!
He won’t be able to answer any questions like that!” Leon heard Arthur trying his best to establish some semblance of order.
He caught a look at the Weasley children over Molly’s shoulder.
Fred, George, and Ron were giving him a pitying look.
Percy looked bored, Bill and Charli both had faint smirks on their faces, and Ginny just looked utterly confused as to what was going on.
After what felt like an eternity of being squeezed by deranged redhead.
Molly finally set Leon onto the ground , tears still in her eyes.
“You look just like your father… But you got lucky with your mother’s nose.” She looked around, “Where is your mother by the way?”
Leon coughed and gave himself a moment.
“Well, it is good to meet you Aunt Molly.
I’m Leon.
After that whole mess at the ministry I’ve got a hyphenated last name now.
McKinnon-Prewett.
As for my mother, she is taking care of business in the Muggle World.
She made a life for herself there and cannot simply abandon it to return.
I’m staying here so I can practice magic before school.
But I’ve got Gasket to keep me company.”
“Gasket is still alive?” Molly asked, her eyes widening as she turned to look for the Elf in question.
“Why did you never come to see me?” She asked when she spotted the odd elf.
Gasket hunched over, looking ashamed, “Gasket wanted to mistress.
But Gasket’s last orders from Master Gideon were to stay on Prewett property and make sure everything was in good condition.
Gasket could not leave.
And you never came back.”
Now the house elf was balling and bashing its heads together in shame and sadness.
Leon looked at the creature that chastising itself, “Gasket, when I go to Hogwarts you will visit Molly and assist her in maintaining her home while I am away.
Just make sure to continue maintaining the Prewett estates while you are at it.”
“Gasket thanks the young master!” Gasket broke down sobbing even harder before snapping its fingers and vanishing.
“He’s always been a… dramatic little elf.
Or should I say they have always been dramatic Elves?
I’ve never been able to make up my mind on that.” Molly spoke with a look of nostaligia on her face for a moment before she seemed to realize something her head snapped towards her gaggle of children, “We’ve been rude!
Forgotten myself I have!
Come introduce yourselves to your cousin.”
Leon held back a laugh as the herd of Weasleys lined up and began introducing themselves.
Fred and George couldn’t resist doing their usual gag of trying to confuse people with their names.
But to Leon’s eyes, on the magical/spiritual level, it was impossible to mistake them for each other.
They might look identical physically.
But spiritually?
They were unique.
Leon’s senses were heavily influenced by the fact that at his core, he was a Daedric Prince now.
Magical energies were everywhere all the time, and when he looked at any given creature or person, he saw not only their physical body, but also their soul and the metaphysical energies floating around and within them.
After the introductions were in order, Leon led them into the house and to the dining hall where Gasket was already loading the table with various finger foods, fried chicken, and other foods meant for a casual get-together.
Leon planned to have Gasket go around the world at some point to learn how to prepare all of his favorite meals and just generally broaden the spectrum of food that the elf knew how to cook.
The gathering was rather boring for most involved, except Gasket who was ecstatic to be serving Molly and her children.
Arthur and Molly were disappointed to not get to see Matilda, and Leon was not very interested in being friends with Ron or Ginny.
Oh, he had given it a shot.
But Ron was just as ignorant and irritating of a person as he had feared he would be.
In the books Ron had basically just been a dead weight comedic relief in the golden trio.
He was a pretty shit friend, abandoning Harry and Hermione during the hunt for the Horcruxes.
He was a shit friend in school.
All around Ron only had a few clutch moments.
Then he somehow managed to bag Hermione in the end.
Leon just didn’t have anything in common with Ginny.
Being a ten-year-old girl, Leon had no idea how to connect with her at all and he frankly wasn’t interested in trying.
She was gifted in combat magic, but otherwise, aside from her looks in the future, she didn’t seem like she was worth the effort at the moment.
Nor did she show any interest in even being here.
So, Leon had been mainly socializing with the twins.
The adults essentially just treated the get together as a reunion and conversed among themselves.
While Percy occupied a strange middle ground of trying to converse with Leon and the Twins but being awkward about it and falling into reading a book that he had brought with him.
The Weasley’s stayed for a few hours before departing.
Molly promised to send an owl before she visited next time and offered for Leon to stay with her and her family at The Burrow if he needed company.
Leon thanked them for their visit and sighed in relief when they left the front gate.
He would have preferred a quick visit from them.
The twins were fun.
Ron was annoying.
And though he had things that he could have talked to the adults about, he couldn’t do it without seeming really out of place.
A child his age should not know the things that he did.
Leon shook his head with a defeated sigh.
The next couple of years were looking to be a frustrating experience.
The kids would mature in time.
And Leon could deal with it.
He had dealt with it in muggle primary school, he would deal with it at Hogwarts.
Honestly, it wasn’t all that bad if he spent enough time in his Earthly Avatar.
The brain chemistry of his Avatar was, in fact, that of a child.
It was inescapable.
But whenever he transferred his mind back to Coldharbour it seemed to reset his Avatar’s baseline.
Allowing for more rational and less childlike thought patterns.
Staying in his Earthly Avatar for more than a day without returning to Coldharbour had him basically becoming a very knowledgeable child.
All those Isekai stories that he had read of an MC reincarnating and being morally concerned about age and all that shit were definitely bullshit.
Biologically, the brain goes through changes as it develops.
A child’s brain simply can’t think like an adult’s brain.
No matter how much knowledge and life experience you shove into their head it won’t change their baseline functionality.
Leon only had an escape and reset that allowed him to kind of bypass his biological limitations by transferring his mind back and forth between Coldharbour.
Without that ability… Leon shuddered to think about what he would actually be like if he were forced to stay in his avatar the whole time.
His plans would lack real forethought.
He would probably be in a rush to accumulate power as fast as he could.
Impulsive.
He would take risks that would inevitably bring conflicts that he wasn’t technically ready for.
Instead of taking the wiser routes and just taking his time and building a foundation that was impossible to topple, he would have built a precarious tower that swayed with the wind and constantly had to fix stuff.
As it stood, Leon was on track to being an inevitable calamity for planet Earth.
And he aimed to keep it that way.
As long as he remained patient and built up forces for long enough, the level of resistance simply would not matter.
He would set up the Dark Anchors.
Fortunately for Leon, Dark Anchors had been included in the realm of Coldharbour.
And he had the device, The Winch, Mortuum Vivens, which he could use to haul things into Coldharbour.
Unfortunately, He did not have enough Dark Anchors to take the entire planet.
Which was his first real hurdle.
One that he needed to take care of.
He didn’t want to steal pieces of the world.
He wanted to take the entire thing all at once.
His Dremora workforce was pitifully small at the moment.
Aside from Mother and Father, his only Dremora were lower order scamps and atronarchs which were not ideal for producing an artifice such as a Dark Anchor.
But for now, Scamps and Atronarchs were working the mines of Coldharbour, extracting Ebony and the other metals necessary to forge more Dark Anchors.
Currently, the biggest hurdle was the need to set up and prepare ritual sights on Earth itself.
Leon himself knew the barest fraction of what he needed to know about setting off even a localized Plane Meld.
It was an act of Alteration, Conjuration, Mysticism, and Shadow Magics combined into Ritual Magics that required immense magicka and soul sacrifices.
And none of Leon’s Dremora knew much of anything about Magicka.
Which meant that either Leon himself needed to be the one activating the rituals at every sight.
Or he needed to spend time acquiring more Dremora and having them learn the necessary magics.
Unlike Molag Bal, Leon did not have a force of master mages ready and able to perform whenever he needed them.
Oddly enough, Leon was really looking forward to going to Hogwarts.
There was… a huge amount of potential there.
For one, the Forbidden Forest with its Acromantual population.
Acromantula would at least have Grand souls in adulthood.
And they reproduced at an alarming rate.
If he could capture a good amount of them and provide them with a habitat within Coldharbour?
They would be a source of High Caste Dremora…
Leon suddenly paused.
Looking down at the floor as an idea occurred to him that he had never had before.
“Gasket!” he called.
“Yes master?” Gasket said as he appeared beside Leon.
“Fetch me a dozen live rats, six males, six females.”
“Yes Sir!” Gasket exclaimed eagerly while snapping his fingers and vanishing.
Leon’s idea was simple.
He had never thought of it before though.
When he physically converted a being into a Dremora they became tireless, hungerless, and thirstless.
Their bodies sustained by the essence of Oblivion.
But their physical bodies remained exactly the same.
They could still eat and drink and experience all of the normal bodily functions.
But the biggest question that had just popped into his mind.
Could they breed?
If they could… it would change everything.
He had also never tested whether or not a baby/infant creature converted into a Dremora would grow up normally if they did, would that be a way to produce High Caste Dremora utilizing the Accromantula?
“Why didn’t I think of this back when I first started testing things?” Leon lamented.
Creatures that were converted to Dremora could live in Coldharbour without a single issue.
Its environment not affecting them negatively.
He might have had the solution to creating an ecosystem this entire time!
Gasket returned shortly with a cage packed with sleeping rats and Leon thanked him before initiating his experiments.
It would take a little time.
But hopefully it would pan out.
If it did?
Oh, the possibilities.
But it was all contingent on the results of the experiments, and he wouldn’t get his hopes up quite yet.
While Loen was waiting for the results of his experiments, he continued his studies, up until September 1st.
It was time to get on the train and head to Hogwarts.
“Gasket, its time.” Leon said, taking the elf’s proffered hand and experiencing the now familiar sensation of being yanked through space by his navel.
A moment later, Leon found himself at platform 9 ¾ having skipped the whole going through the wall thing by apparating directly in via house-elf.
All of his school supplies were stored safely in Coldharbour.
No need to haul around a big ass trunk.
The ministry heavily controlled the production and use of ‘bag of holding’ type things.
Newt Scamander was partially responsible for those restrictions and bans.
But it was mainly because of all the smuggling and dangerous things that could happen with such enchantments.
The vast majority of approved uses for expanded spaces were in permanent structures like homes, or semi-permanent like tents.
The ministry was quite strict about such things.
Not that it was impossible to get ahold of an enchanted trunk with an expanded space that was easily transportable.
But purchasing from the shops in Diagon and Knockturn Alley?
Those places were heavily regulated.
Knockturn Alley was known for its shady dealings and its veritable lawlessness.
But even there, to really conduct the kind of business that people associated with the place, one needed to know the right people, and it all happened behind closed doors.
Even Borgen and Burks, famous from the books, was a law-abiding shop in its storefront.
Sure, they delt in dark and cursed objects.
But all of it was permitted and monitored by the ministry.
The actual shady deals were something that only a select few could take advantage of, and even then, such business would never be carried out in the actual storefront.
Needless to say, Leon was glad that he could circumvent the need for normal storage mediums.
Coldharbour was convenient for more than just keeping his mind clear.
The Hogwarts Express was quite the sight to behold in person.
Not only in the physical reality of the thing, but in the vast, seemingly unending magic that flowed through and around it.
The entire train was bursting at the seams with magic.
Layered wards covered every square inch of it.
And to Leon’s senses, the train felt like it was on the verge of coming alive with pure magic.
Leon felt a small buzz of Childlike excitement.
As pragmatic and ruthless as he had become, this was still a fantasy that he had always held onto in his previous life.
Getting to actually experience this was a literal dream come true.
He had even purposefully stayed in his Earthly avatar for a little longer than usual just so he could experience this more like a child actually would.
He planned to actually stay in his Earthly Avatar, at least until after the welcome feast, just to get the full experience.
Feeling more and more childlike as the day passed would only amplify the good feels of these memories.
What was the point of being a world ending cosmic horror if he didn’t get to enjoy the little things every once in a while?
Rule #32 and all that.
Leon boarded the train, taking in the sights, sounds and smells of the environment.
Wondering how much effort had been put into building all the layered enchantments that he could feel humming beneath the surface.
He wandered down the hall, dodging children of various age groups until he found an abandoned compartment and slipped inside of it.
Once inside, Leon made himself comfortable and pulled out A History of Magic from where it was stored in Coldharbour and began reading where he had left off.
Only a few minutes later, the door slid open and a black haired boy with round glasses popped into the compartment.
Only to stop short and clear his throat.
Leon gave him a smile before gesturing to the bench, “Plenty of room.
Take a seat.” He said to The-Boy-Who-Lived.
The world was absolutely full of coincidences it appeared.
“Thank you!
I’m Harry.” Harry said as he sat across from Leon.
“I’m Leon.
Nice to meet you.” Leon said as he put a bookmark in and closed A History Of Magic, “You wouldn’t happen to be Harry Potter by any chance, would you?”
The question was actually genuine.
The Harry in front of him did resemble the Harry from the movies.
But definitely didn’t look anything like what the books had described.
This Harry looked healthy, strong even.
He was tall for an eleven-year-old.
And carried himself with an almost boisterous confidence that Leon associated with the ‘cool kids’ from the muggle schools.
And his glasses look brand new.
Harry smiled and nodded, “That’s me!
It’s really weird that basically everyone knows of me around here.” he said shaking his head.
Leon chuckled, “It seems being raised in the Muggle world wasn’t the unpleasant nightmare that people say it was for you.”
Harry burst out laughing at that, “Who ever came up with that?
I haven’t heard anything about it.
My Aunt raised me.
We weren’t exactly rich, but we weren’t poor.
She always treated me like was her own son.
And I couldn’t be more grateful for it.
She used to tell me stories about my mum for bedtime.
She didn’t like my dad, said he was a bully in school…
mean to one of her friends who went to school with my mum.
So, I knew about magic, and the magical world.
Just never actually saw any of it till recently.”
Leon nodded, “I was unaware of magic until my letter arrived… My mother was hiding from the war with Voldemort and had never told me anything.
Aparently my father was killed by Death Eaters but I never met him.
So, I was completely shocked by all of this.” Leon shrugged, “You said your Aunt raised you?
Is she married?
Any cousins?”
Harry shook his head, “No.
My aunt said that she dated a man named Vernon for a while.
But things didn’t work out and then raising me…” Harry had a little bit of a guilty look on his face, “So, nope, no cousins.”
Leon’s mind raced.
An AU where Harry has a good relationship with his aunt was a rarity.
One where Vernon and Dudley were completely out of the picture?
Those were usually… Smut… Leon would have to keep an eye on this version of Harry.
Leon was about to ask another question when the compartment door opened, and a familiar face popped in through the doorway.
“Sorry the rest were full, mind if I come in?” the redhead said before recognition entered his eyes as he took in Leon, “Oh hi Leon!”
Ronald Weasley pushed the door all the way open and hopped into the compartment now completely at ease.
Leon gestured to Ron, “Harry, this is Ron.
Ronald Weasley.
But everyone just calls him Ron.
He’s my cousin on my father’s side.
Don’t let his bad habits infect you with laziness.”
“Hey!
I’m not that bad!” Ron said with a huff.
“That remains to be seen.” Leon responded.
If Ron really did remain as he remembered, and the Golden Trio really formed with that major weak link… Leon may have to intervene.
But this Harry was so different already that Leon didn’t know what to expect.
“Prick, bet you end up in Slytherin.” Ron huffed.
Leon chuckled, “I definitely am ambitious, and I would like to think that I have a bit of cunning in me.
But I’m pretty sure I’ll be in Hufflepuff.”
“Why do you say that?” Harry asked.
“Because I want to go there, and if that stupid hat doesn’t put me there it won’t be making it to the next sorting ceremony.” Leon replied casually.
“What hat?
Do you know how we get sorted?
No one will ever tell me!
Fred and George said that it was really painful.
But I think they are lying.
They even said that they had to wrestle a troll.” Ron said, looking excited and a little scared.
Leon shrugged, “Nah, I just want to be in Hufflepuff.
Their dorm is right beside the kitchens and their dorm rooms are supposed to be the best out of the whole castle.
Also they are closest to all of the classrooms and the Library.
Makes it easier to get around.
Ravenclaw has it the worst.
Slytherin is gloomy, but they get an awesome underwater view of the Black Lake and can see the Merpeople sometimes.
And Gryffindor is full of pranksters and are generally too rowdy for my taste.”
“How do you know so much?
You’re a first year, like us.” Ron asked.
“I like to be informed.
And, Hogwarts: A History, covers a lot about the castle itself and the general culture of the four houses.
It’s a really dry read.
But it was informative.
Also, I have a diary from someone who went to Hogwarts during the last Goblin rebellion.
He wrote about the different houses, especially Gryffindor since he was in that house.” Leon explained.
“You sound more like a Ravenclaw than a Hufflepuff.” Ron pointed out, “But I suppose we’ll find out tonight.”
“Anything from the Trolly Dears?” a voice suddenly rang out as the compartment door slid open.
Leon glanced at the cart and old woman pushing it and froze.
The Trolley Witch.
She looked like an old lady in his normal sight.
But to his metaphysical senses?
She was literally a part of the train.
Her spiritual essence and even her soul seemed fused with the train itself.
She was intertwined with it in a way that made Leon think that the train itself might be a Horcrux and the Trolley Witch a manifestation of the soul shard that was attached to it.
Like she was not the actual witch, but the anchor holding her main self to the land of the living.
The Trolley Witch turned her attention to Leon and he swore that he saw an unnatural, predatory smile with sharp teeth appear on her face for a fraction of an instant before she spoke, “Anything sweet for you deary?”
Leon shook his head, not really interested in the sweets.
Harry on the other hand attempted to clear out her stock.
Piling candy into the compartment and offering to share with both Ron and Leon.
Leon was busy trying to decipher what he was seeing of the old lady.
He knew from the books that she was a regular fixture of the train… But he had never read anything covering any weird theories about her.
At least not that he remembered.
He’d never read or watched The Cursed Child, and was only vaguely familiar with it, something about time getting broken.
But he’d never paid attention to it, and none of the Fanfics that he’d ever read made anything out to be special about her except that she was exceptionally old.
Though that in and of itself was not unusual in the wizarding world.
The average lifespans of witches and wizards, barring wars and such, tended to be around 200 years.
But lifespans of up to 4 or 5 hundred were not unheard of.
Even Nicolas Flamel at 696 years old, utilizing the Elixir of Life from the Philosophers stone was not the longest-lived known wizard.
That honor went to Barry Wee Willie Winkle who was born in 1236 and was still alive at this moment, making him at least 755 years old.
And Barry Wee Willie Winkle didn’t have a philosophers stone as far as anyone knew, he also threw a major birthday bash every year, the party’s were known to be legendary and Barry was quite spry for someone who had almost lived through the entirety of second millennium.
Leon’s train of thought had really veered off course at this point.
The Trolley Witch had disappeared down the row while he was thinking and Ron and Harry were busy gorging themselves on all sorts of chocolates.
From Leon’s memories, Hermione Granger should have shown up already searching for Nevilles toad Trevor.
But she hadn’t appeared.
It wasn’t long into his musings before the door was thrown open with a jarring thump and standing in the doorway was a platinum blonde… girl?
Flanked by two girls built like cave trolls from the LOTR movies, just in miniature.
“Ok what the hell is going on?
Am I dreaming.” Leon thought to himself as the girl cleared her throat.
“I heard that Harry Potter was here, I’ve come to introduce myself and make friends… But it seems you’ve already been contaminated by the Blood Traitors.
Hopefully its not too late.
You should know that hanging around the wrong sort of people can lead to… unfortunate outcomes, Potter.” She said with a weirdly harsh emphasis on the P, making it pop in a way that Leon was sure he would fail to emulate.
Harry was just looking at the girl with a dumbfounded expression on his face, “Some way to make friends.
First, you don’t even introduce yourself.
Then you insult both me and my new friends?
What, were you raised in a barn?
No one ever taught you manners?”
The girls face went red and she snorted, a grimace on her face, “I am Darcy Malfoy, Potter, remember it and what I said.” Darcy said before spinning on her heel and imperiously walking away like she owned the world around her.
“What was that about?” Harry asked, looking thoroughly perplexed.
Ron shook his head, “Everyone knows that the Malfoy’s are bad news.
Sided with You-know-Who in the war.
Dark Wizards and Slytherins the lot of them.”
“She didn’t seem so bad when we spoke at Madam Malkin’s.” Harry said, “Even mentioned that she didn’t understand her father’s obsession with Blood Purity.”
“Wait!
You’ve met her before?” Ron asked, “Yeah, I guess she didn’t recognize me.
We happened to be getting fitted for Robes at the same time.
She was a little haughty but didn’t act like that.”
Leon sighed, he was seeing some bad signs.
Harry having a good relationship with Aunt Petunia?
Malfoy being gender bent?
If he was in a smut AU he swore that he was going to abandon this avatar completely and just endure being a baby again.
Although a missing Hermione didn’t seem to lend to the smut category, she was a fan favorite.
Breaking the prim and proper girl and turning her into a dirty little slut was a classic as far as smut fanfics went.
Maybe there was some hope that it wasn’t going to be that kind of Hogwarts.
With a deep sigh, Leon shook his head.
Even if this was a smutty AU, learning the magical system of this realm and Plane Melding it was still a good idea.
Even if the creator of this realm was playing a cruel joke on him.
But he took comfort in the fact that Ron was male.
If Ron had been gender bent that would have been almost all the evidence he needed to conclude that this realm was a hopeless abyss.
Depending on how crazed the creator was, it could have gone as far as making Voldemort into Mamamort, and no one wanted to see that… well maybe someone wanted to see that, but not Leon!