September first.
The London weather was gray and overcast.
Low clouds hung over the city, and a thin morning mist drifted through the streets.
Aaron stood at the entrance of the orphanage, holding an old leather trunk.
Mrs.
Cole had dug the trunk out of the storage room.
Its brown leather surface was scuffed and scratched, one of its clasps was half-broken, and it creaked loudly with every step he took.
Inside were all the textbooks, cauldron, school robes, and the black walnut wand he had bought from Diagon Alley.
“Leaving then?”
Mrs.
Cole stood by the door with her arms crossed, a complicated look on her face—a mix of relief and a tiny bit of concern.
Having one less mouth to feed was a good thing for the orphanage, but he was only a ten-year-old child, after all.
“Yes.”
“That boarding school… is it reliable?”
“It’s very nice.”
“Write a letter to the orphanage when you get there.”
“Okay.”
Mrs.
Cole gave a grunt, turned back into the hallway, and muttered something about budget reports.
Aaron took one last look at the drab, gray old building.
Behind a window on the second floor, Tommy’s face was pressed against the glass, his expression a mix of wariness and confusion.
He had completely forgotten what happened that night, but his body remembered.
Since that day, he had not spoken a single word to Aaron, and he even sat as far away from Aaron as possible during meals.
Aaron didn’t say goodbye to him.
He turned and walked out of the orphanage’s iron gates.
King’s Cross Station wasn’t far from the orphanage.
Instead of taking the Knight Bus, Aaron walked.
After passing through a few old residential streets and walking along the road for about twenty minutes, he saw the massive steel arch of the train station.
The station was packed.
Businessmen on their way to work, travelers rushing for trains, and housewives pushing luggage trolleys.
The world of ordinary people spun on as usual, with no one knowing that in a hidden corner of this very station, there was an entrance to another world.
Aaron navigated through the crowd, carrying his old trunk.
No one spared him a second glance.
A skinny boy in a gray shirt carrying an old trunk was a common sight in a London train station.
Besides, he had deliberately suppressed his divine aura, compressing all his power into the deepest depths of his godhood.
Platform Nine.
Platform Ten.
Between the two platforms stood a massive stone pillar, with an unassuming brick wall right next to it.
Aaron stood in front of the brick wall.
A few families dressed in wizarding robes—who were trying, but failing miserably, to pass as Muggles—were gathering nearby.
A plump witch was pushing a trolley stacked with two trunks, with an owl cage perched on top.
The owl inside was letting out disgruntled hooting noises.
Aaron didn’t wait.
He walked toward the brick wall at an easy pace.
No closing his eyes, no deep breaths, no running start.
He simply walked forward with a steady, relaxed stride, as if he were walking down the street outside his own home.
And then, he passed right through.
The sensation of the brick wall—if it could even be called a sensation—lasted for less than a tenth of a second.
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters opened up before him.
Great clouds of white steam billowed from the engine, making the gold letters on the train—”Hogwarts Express”—flicker in and out of sight.
The platform was crowded.
Wizard parents in various colored robes held their children’s hands, giving them last-minute instructions for the school year.
Young witches and wizards pushed luggage trolleys back and forth, some shouting with excitement, others pale with nerves.
The hooting of owls, the croaking of toads, and the meowing of cats filled the air.
Cages and pets were everywhere—some had black cats cradled in their arms, others had toads peeking out of their pockets, and several owls flapped their wings inside their cages.
It was noisy, bustling, and full of life.
Aaron stood at the edge of the platform, trunk in hand, and swept his gaze across the crowd.
And then, a ripple of his aura leaked.
It wasn’t intentional.
After fusing with the Resonator, his baseline divine power had increased tenfold.
Even though he had suppressed it, his divine nature had briefly resonated with the magical barrier of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters as he passed through it.
It was only a tiny fraction of a ripple.
But that tiny fraction was more than enough.
The animals were the first to react.
The owl closest to Aaron—a brown barn owl—had been flapping its wings anxiously in its cage.
The moment the ripple of divinity reached it, the barn owl froze.
Its body stiffened for a split second, and then it did something completely contrary to an owl’s nature.
It bowed its head.
It pressed its head flat against the iron bars at the bottom of the cage, tucked its wings tight against its sides, and curled its entire body into a tight ball.
It wasn’t a defensive curl out of fear.
It was worship.
Then came the second one.
A gray eagle owl perched on its owner’s shoulder was pecking at an owl treat.
When the ripple reached it, the treat dropped from its beak.
It fluttered down from its owner’s shoulder, landed on the ground, spread its wings flat, and touched its head to the stone floor.
A third, a fourth, a fifth.
The ripple expanded outward with Aaron as the center.
It wasn’t fast, but its reach grew steadily.
One by one, the owls in their cages stopped flapping.
They all lowered their bodies, bowing their heads toward Aaron.
And it wasn’t just the owls.
A black cat held in a tall, thin boy’s arms suddenly squirmed free, leaped to the ground, arched its back, pressed its front paws flat, and prostrated itself toward Aaron.
A toad peeking out of someone’s pocket jumped straight out, splatting flat on the ground, unmoving.
A ginger cat inside a girl’s cage tucked its tail under its body, huddled in the corner, and let out a tiny, whimpering mew.
Within ten seconds, every single pet on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters—owls, black cats, ginger cats, toads, gray rats—regardless of size or breed, whether shut in cages or held in arms, performed the exact same gesture.
They prostrated themselves.
All facing the exact same direction.
The direction where Aaron stood.
The platform fell quiet.
It wasn’t absolute silence, but the volume of the crowd suddenly dropped as every witch and wizard noticed the bizarre behavior of their pets.
“Trevor? What’s wrong with you?” A round-faced boy knelt to pick up his toad, but the toad lay flat on the ground, refusing to budge.
“Trevor! Get up!”
“Mum, why isn’t she listening to me?” A little girl with pigtails tapped on her owl cage.
“Ada? Ada, can you hear me?”
“…Merlin’s beard,” a parent in a high-crowned hat muttered, staring blankly at the gray eagle owl lying half-dead on his shoulder.
“He’s never done this before.”
It wasn’t a loud panic, but a creeping, inexplicable discomfort.
Every wizard felt something was off, but no one could explain what was happening.
A red-haired boy stood in the middle of the platform, his mouth hanging open.
He was pushing a rickety luggage trolley stacked with an old trunk and a rusty birdcage.
The old screech owl originally shut inside the birdcage was currently splayed at the bottom of the cage, its talons spread and its head low.
“Scabbers?” the red-haired boy poked the cage.
“What kind of spell are you under?”
Behind him stood a plump, red-haired witch—his mother—who was talking to two identical red-haired boys.
“Fred, you hide that.”
“Mum, I’m George.”
“Oh, don’t start with me. Wait, what’s wrong with your owl?”
Fred—or George—looked down.
Errol, the family owl they shared, was so old he could barely fly, usually looking like a gray rag in his cage.
But right now, the old owl was uncharacteristically alert.
He wasn’t alertly flying or hooting, but alertly…
kneeling.
He had assumed the closest posture to “kneeling” an owl could possibly manage.
Fred and George saw this at the same time.
“Mate,” Fred nudged George.
“Am I seeing things, or is Errol bowing?”
“You’re not seeing things,” George said, staring at the old owl.
“And he’s not the only one.”
He pointed around them.
Fred looked around and saw the entire platform filled with animals prostrating themselves.
His lips twitched.
“Blimey. Who cast that? That’s brilliant. Every pet on the platform got hit at once.”
“Doesn’t feel like a spell,” George said, his expression a bit more serious than Fred’s.
“Have you ever seen a spell that affects this many animals at once? And different species, too.”
“…Fair point.” Fred’s grin faded slightly.
They both looked toward the direction the animals were bowing.
At the edge of the crowd, a thin boy with black hair and gray-blue eyes was holding an old leather trunk, smiling at a terrified red-haired boy nearby—Ron.
The boy nodded at Ron, as if greeting him.
Then, he casually bypassed Ron’s trolley and walked toward the train door.
Fred stared at the boy’s back for a few seconds.
“George.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you feel that just now?”
“Feel what?”
“When he walked past… the hairs on my arms stood up.”
George didn’t answer.
Because the hairs on his arms had stood up, too.
Aaron carried his trunk onto the train, walking down the corridor.
As he passed each compartment, the pets of the students who had already boarded reacted the same way—owls bowed, toads went flat, and cats prostrated.
But as soon as he walked past and drew farther away, the animals slowly returned to normal.
The ripple was temporary; it wouldn’t last.
At least for now, this was the limit of his control.
Once he settled into Hogwarts and had more time to adapt to the changes brought by the Resonator, his control would become much more precise.