The footsteps hit the stairs two at a time, sharp little drumbeats that cut straight through the last clinging threads of a dream.
Elias Sorenson didn’t move.
The white-haired boy stayed sprawled face-down on his bed, one arm dangling off the mattress, the afternoon light a dull gold behind his eyelids.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
“Elias! Are you up?”
He knew that voice.
He’d been hearing it for eleven years, and it had never once come with good news before noon.
The door flew open without waiting for an answer.
Sunlight flooded the room like a physical force, and Hermione Granger planted her knees on the edge of his mattress, already reaching for the blanket.
“We promised a barbecue in the yard today. Stop sleeping! Get up and prepare the ingredients!”
A muffled groan rose from the pillow.
“Alright, alright. Give me five minutes, Hermione.”
“No. The moment I leave you’ll pass out again.”
She yanked the duvet down with practiced efficiency.
Elias flopped onto his back, hair a tangled white mess, blinking up at her.
Experience told him resistance was futile.
“Fine.”
He hauled himself upright, scratching at his scalp.
Hermione, mission accomplished, steered him toward the bathroom with a satisfied little smile before hurrying downstairs.
Elias brushed his teeth with the deliberate slowness of a man who had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.
The shower ran hot.
Half an hour later, still in his flannel pajama bottoms, he shuffled into the kitchen and shoved two slices of bread into his mouth.
Hermione had already built a small mountain of washed vegetables on the counter.
She stood at the chopping board, knife moving with surgical precision — chop, chop, chop — measuring each potato slice against the tip of the blade.
“You’re finally down,” she said.
“I’ll do the skewers. These are yours.”
Elias washed the bread down with cold milk and gave a wordless nod.
It was their usual division of labor.
He waited until she’d gathered her equipment and carried it into the living room.
Then he closed the kitchen door with a soft click and turned to face his own pile of ingredients.
His right hand flicked once.
A potato hopped out of the basket like a startled toad and bobbed through the air toward the sink.
Another flick, and its companions followed — aubergines, carrots, onions — a bouncing parade of vegetables queuing up to dive under the running tap.
His left hand, meanwhile, had its own work.
A slab of pork belly twisted in the second sink, rolling and spinning like an energetic bather as invisible fingers scrubbed it clean.
When the washing was done, the ingredients arranged themselves on the chopping board.
Four knives rose and moved with impossible speed, a blur of peeling, slicing, dicing.
In under two minutes, two large bowls sat heaped with perfectly uniform cuts of meat and vegetables.
Elias marinated the pork with a pinch of salt, a splash of soy, and a few spices from the rack before hefting both bowls and nudging the kitchen door open with his hip.
He ambled into the living room as if he’d spent the last half hour doing everything by hand.
They sat across from each other, threading food onto metal skewers.
The steady rhythm of their work filled the room.
“It seems we prepared a bit too much,” Hermione observed, surveying the trays.
“We can save it for tomorrow. Or share with the neighbors.”
“Hermione, have you decided where you’ll go to school?”
“Probably Eton College. My dad’s already made the arrangements. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
“I expect so.”
They chatted idly.
Sunlight pooled on the floor.
Elias turned a skewer in his fingers, and a sudden idea sparked.
[Greed +1]
“Hermione, look here.”
He lifted the metal stick.
Hermione set her work down, her attention snapping to him with the focused, slightly wary interest of someone who’d seen him do impossible things before and knew better than to blink.
Elias’s fingers danced over the skewer.
A twist, a flick.
The dull metal shimmered, and in its place bloomed a rose — petals thin as breath, catching the light in a thousand tiny crimson folds.
“For you, beautiful lady.”
Hermione accepted the conjured flower with an exaggerated curtsy, but the smile tugging at her lips was genuine.
She brought it close to her face, turning it under the light, searching.
“I still can’t see the flaw.”
She shook her head and handed it back.
She’d learned years ago that his creations never lasted.
Sure enough, Elias took the rose, and with a casual snap of his wrist, it was just a skewer again.
“I really want to learn this! Will you teach me?” Hermione widened her eyes, her voice dipping into that pleading tone that usually got her what she wanted.
“Of course not.” His answer came without hesitation.
“It’s not something I can just explain. You’d need to feel it yourself — and besides, I’m not entirely sure I understand it myself.”
He waggled a finger at her like a lecturing professor.
Hermione’s expression flickered.
[Envy +1]
“Hmph. The same old excuse.” She turned back to her work, shoulders stiff.
He always showed her just enough to make her ache, then snatched it away.
What a complete and utter jerk.
Elias, long practiced in reading the exact angle of her shoulders, shifted tactics immediately.
He teased her gently, offered a few self-deprecating remarks about his own confusion, and soon enough the tension drained from her frame.
She wouldn’t go complaining to her parents.
This time.
They finished the skewering in silence, movements now quick and efficient, the tray filling with neat rows of meat and vegetables.
A sharp rapping against the window made them both flinch.
Two owls perched on the sill.
Brownish-grey, round-eyed, entirely unbothered by the fact that this was a London suburb in broad daylight.
That was new.
Elias rose.
The owls rapped again, impatient.
He opened the window, and they swooped inside in a rush of feathers, making a beeline for the dining table.
Two envelopes fluttered from their legs, dropping like dead leaves and smacking both humans square on the head.
“Ow!”
“Ow!”
Elias lunged to intercept the owls before they could plunder their dinner.
A tense negotiation followed — hoots, head-tilts, a compromise where they were permitted only the meat that had already been set aside in a bowl.
The larger owl fixed him with a yellow glare that said this was a temporary truce.
Hermione, meanwhile, had picked up both letters.
She tore hers open, scanning the parchment with the speed of someone who read textbooks for fun.
Her eyes went very wide.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore…
Dear Miss Granger,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment…
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
For three full seconds, she didn’t breathe.
A prank.
It had to be.
And then her memory began replaying every impossible thing she’d watched Elias do over the past decade — the floating objects, the vanishing acts, the little miracles he’d always dismissed as “just tricks.”
Her fist clenched.
She handed the second letter to Elias, who was still engaged in a staring contest with the senior owl.
He took the envelope without looking, tore it open.
The words hit him like a cold tide.
Hogwarts.
His mind, sluggish from sleep and eleven years of comfortable routine, snapped into perfect clarity.
He was in that world.
The one from his past life, the one with the boy who lived and the dark wizard and the—
He looked at Hermione.
Hermione Granger.
The name had never meant anything before.
Now pieces began clicking into place, memories he’d let rot for a decade surfacing through the fog.
[Sloth +1]
“It really is magical,” he murmured, half to himself.
“Yes,” Hermione said, her voice simmering.
“It really is.”
[Wrath +1]
She launched herself at him, small fists pummeling his shoulder, his arm, whatever she could reach.
“You’ve been lying to me for eleven years! You said it was trickery!”
He caught the first blow on reflex.
The second landed harder than he expected — hard enough to sting.
She’d been holding that one in for a long time.
Elias didn’t try to stop her.
He’d earned this.
Probably.
He was in that world.
The one from his past life.
And the name Hermione Granger had never meant anything….
until now.
Elias Sorenson has spent eleven years perfecting the art of looking ordinary.
He cooks with telekinesis, conjures roses from skewers, and lets everyone assume it’s tricks.
Then two owls rap on the window and a decade of comfortable deception unravels in a single afternoon.