It was the start of June and the start of the summer season in Britain. Quinn sat in the backyard of the West Manor, enjoying the first sunny morning of the season. He thought about his life since coming to this world. And, having been in this world for a few months, he could say that except for the presence of magic and seeing it used every day, his life was the same as a four-year-old child.
He was learning how to read and write, draw, and did all the activities a four-year-old child did. But, there were some other things that he thought were not usual for a child his age. He was being taught two languages at the same time. While everybody else in the West Manor talked to Quinn in English, Quinn's grandfather, George, talked to him in French.
Quinn's late grandmother, George's wife, Maria, was born and raised in France. Maria's mother tongue was French, so George had learned French for her. Now, he was teaching his grandchildren to speak the language that his wife spoke. Quinn's sister, Lia, studied in Beauxbatons Academy Of Magic, so reading and writing french was a prerequisite for studying at that school.
Other than learning two languages, he was also learning how to play the piano and weekly lessons of formal ballroom dancing.
He practiced the correct posture of sitting, standing, and walking. He had to eat every meal with correct table manners. Quinn learned formal speech, how to speak according to different situations, and family history. He also learned basic maths.
Quinn had to be honest; learning all these new things was fun and challenging. West Manor didn't have a TV, so Quinn had to do something to keep himself occupied, and learning all the things kept him occupied, so he didn't get bored, but there was one takeaway, Quinn had to pretend to learn at a slower pace to maintain his cover as a small child. But, it turned out that pretending all day long was extremely taxing and frustrating. Pretending to forget concepts, making mistakes, learning things that he understood at once was frustrating beyond words.
Quinn had motor skills and mental capacity far surpassing that of a child, so he learned to dance quickly, but he had to pretend by stepping on his instructor's toes. He had to make mistakes on the piano despite having learned the material correctly. He had to pretend to count on his fingers when doing maths and mispronounce names of people and places taught in family history.
And it turned out that all of this wasn't enough, as even with Quinn pretending to make mistakes, he was still learning at an exceptional pace. Subjects like formal dancing, piano lessons, French, and Family History were new to Quinn, so he didn't know the normal pace of learning for a four-year-old, but he was clear about Maths. So, when he was suddenly taught a concept at a much higher level for a four-year-old, he realized that he had paced himself incorrectly.
But, it was too late, and Quinn couldn't slow down his learning at this point, and Quinn didn't think that he could slow down, as anything slower than this would drive him crazy. So, Quinn decided to learn whatever the adults taught him and hope they won't go overboard, or he would seriously have to pretend to be dumber, and that was antagonizing.
All of this was the plus side of things in Quinn's life. Now, let's come to the downside of his life. Quinn couldn't do any magic; no matter how much he tried to get access to his magic, he couldn't move a single thing or perform any magic.
Now, if Quinn was a mainstream Harry Potter fan, who only watched the movies and read the books, then he wouldn't have felt down about not being able to perform magic, but you see, Quinn wasn't your mainstream fan. But no, Quinn was an extensive fanfiction reader. Quinn, in his previous life, had read more fanfiction than the original work. He had read fanfiction characters doing wandless magic, and he wanted to accomplish that, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn't do a single piece of magic.
But, it was not Quinn's fault that he couldn't do magic. He didn't know anything about magic theory and didn't have any access to any text regarding magic. And, he didn't have access to wands as people were protective of their wands and didn't like to hand them over to anyone. Plus, Quinn was educated not to ask anyone of their wands, so asking someone for their wand was out of the question.
All Quinn could do was keep trying to bring out the magic within himself, but nothing worked. Every day he failed to do magic. But, Quinn wasn't going to give up his pursuit of wandless magic. He knew that it was possible, and he knew it was possible to do it at a young age, as a young Tom Marvalo Riddle was able to do magic without a wand before ever knowing that he had magic.
Quinn positively believed that he would be able to achieve wandless magic soon, but what Quinn didn't know was that it would be a while before he could start on his magical journey.
Another thing that irked Quinn was that he was under constant supervision, at anytime an adult was around him, watching him so that the accident wouldn't repeat itself. But, that was a huge hindrance for Quinn as it turned out that a child glaring at a ball for tens of minutes was weird, so Quinn couldn't practice magic without them asking questions, which Quinn would rather not answer.
Quinn realized that if he wanted to make quick progress with his magic, he would need to understand how magic worked, and he knew exactly how to get the resources to get his magical knowledge kickstarted. He just needed to wait for a couple of weeks to start his plan.
(Scene Break)
Quinn sat on the living room sofa, swinging his feet while drinking a glass of apple juice. He was excited as today was the start of his plan of getting a start on learning magic. A faint smile graced his face as he bought up the glass to take another sip of the juice.
Elliot, who was sitting on a chair near Quinn, saw him smiling, and a smile of his own made its way on his own face as he could guess why Quinn was smiling, but he decided to ask,
"Young master, why are you smiling?"
Quinn looked at Elliot, and his smile turned to a grin, "I get to see Lia after so long. I am excited to see her."
This wasn't the first time he would meet her, she had returned home for the Easter holiday, and he had gotten to spend time with his elder sister, and he had gotten to know her, and it was true that Quinn was excited to meet Lia. Quinn's planned heavily depended on Lia's personality, and he was sure that if things went according to plan, by the end of this week, he would have his hand on the things he needed to get started on learning magic.
Elliot, who heard Quinn, wouldn't believe it if someone told him the things that were going inside the mind of his young master.
It took another half hour before Polly, the house-elf, informed them that the master and young miss had arrived home via the floo. Quinn got down from the couch and patiently waited for Lia and George to enter the living room with bright eyes. It was when a brunette young girl with stone grey eyes ran into the living room and gave a bright smile the moment she saw Quinn and hugged him the moment she reached Quinn.
Quinn laughed as she spun him around, and she responded with giggles of her own.
Unlike Quinn, Lia was eleven years old when she lost their parents and was at school when she got the news that news. This caused a huge impact on her, as after that, she became quite overprotective of Quinn. The elder sister request letters on Quinn every single week and was quite doting on her younger brother. When Lia heard about the incident, while happy for Quinn for doing accidental magic for the first time, she was also quite angry because of the circumstances that the magic had shown itself in a dangerous incident.
From what Quinn had heard, Lia had written a strong-worded letter to George regarding what she thought of this incident and criticized him for the lack of care for Quinn, and when she had returned home for Easter break, she had kept a strict eye on the new arrangements. Lia was scared of losing her baby brother after losing her parents that caused her to spoil Quinn whenever she got the chance.
(Scene Break)
Quinn knew about Lia's doting behavior, so he decided to take advantage of that, and after giving her a couple of days to decompress at home, he decided to make his move. And, an excellent opportunity presented itself to Quinn.
One day, Quinn and Lia were playing in her room, but after some time, Lia felt a little sleepy, and before she knew it, she had nodded off, and that gave Quinn the perfect opportunity to execute his plan, so he went to the bookshelf in Lia's room. He browsed the bookshelf and tried to find the first-year textbook on Magic Theory, but the moment he looked at the books he froze, and a moment later slapped himself on the back of his head.
Quinn planned to pick the textbook on Magic Theory and then pretend to treat it like a toy, and when Lia tried to take it from him, he would throw a tantrum so that Lia would let him keep the book as she had already passed her fourth year, and wouldn't need a first-year textbook. He knew that Lia would go soft on him and let him keep it, and then he would carry that book everywhere so that everyone would know that the book was from Lia and no one would try to take it from him.
But, he had forgotten a simple detail that had just screwed up his whole plan, which was that all of Lia's books were in French.
"You moron!". Quinn whispered to himself as he slapped himself on the forehead. "How could I forgot that Beauxbaton Academy Of Magic is in friggin' France! Of course, the books would be in French!"
Quinn started to pace in the room as he felt miserable about himself and his failed plan. He was so sure about himself and that his plan would work without a hitch, but his first plan had failed spectacularly. After failing to do magic for months, this plan's failure had put Quinn's morale down.
He hadn't been in Lia's room a lot, and this was the first time after thinking of this plan, so he hadn't thought about the books being in French. The location of Beauxbaton Academy Of Magic had completely slipped his mind, and Quinn knew that this was an idiotic mistake, but one that had derailed his whole plan. Even though Quinn was learning French from his grandfather, he wasn't nearly as good as to read a book of that level and completely understand it.
He sighed as he sat down on Lia's bed, and in the silent room, he found himself retrospecting, something he hadn't done in a couple of months, or to be accurate, he had avoided retrospecting about his life and how he got here.
There had been a few times when the atmosphere in the West Manor had been exceptionally joyous, and the merry vibe had sometimes made Quinn think of himself as an outsider. He would think that he had stolen life from the original Quinn. Seeing people around him laughing and having fun would lead him to think that if he really belonged here.
Something that haunted Quinn was that from the memories of the original. He knew that the fall from the window wasn't the reason for the original's death. Quinn had seen that magic had broken the impact, and it was after that the original had blacked out. It made Quinn think about if he was the one who had taken over the body while the original was weak after using magic and somehow eradicated the original's soul. Quinn had tried to assure himself that he wasn't in this body willingly and that he shouldn't be held accountable, but nevertheless, Quinn couldn't help but feel the guilt and shame on his part as even if unwillingly, he had taken a child's life from him.
Quinn sighed as he laid on Lia's bed, and while his retrospection went into negative loathing, he too fell asleep and thus came to an end of Quinn's plan to get started on magic as soon as possible.
(Scene Break)
It had taken Quinn a while to get back up on his feet and start working on magic again.
He knew that he couldn't get access to his grandfather's office where the manor's library resided. And, even if he could, he wasn't sure if he could gain what he needed as there might not be a basic-level magic theory book in that library.
He also knew that it would take a good while for his French to get to an appropriate level. So, Quinn decided to scrap the plan of gaining insight via theory and was back to his previous hit-and-trial method, and the result came exactly one year after coming to this world. And, even though Quinn didn't know it at that time, he had witnessed one of the most basic yet one of greatest mystery and core concepts of magic.
It was exactly one year after Quinn had transmigrated into the world of Harry Potter. He had worked on gaining magic every day for a whole year, but he had nothing to show as a result of his hard work. Plus, being raised in a magical household made it all more antagonizing for Quinn. He was surrounded by magic every day.
And, it turned out that the fanfiction trope about the trace on children from magical families not working because of being surrounded by magic performing adults was true, as his sister Lia was allowed to do magic in the house.
The only reason a lot of children from magical backgrounds didn't do magic at home was that parents didn't allow it home as tweens and teens with magic could cause a lot of mess at home that they would not rather clean up after, and rather than a rule of not performing magic at home, it was more of a matter of discipline at home. Lia was allowed to use magic as long as it was in a specific large empty room in the manor because that way any possible damage would be minimized and contained.
Now, we could see Quinn lying in his room, absentmindedly staring at the ceiling drowning in frustration as he had just find out that today was the day exactly one year after his transfer. He had started his day all merry, his studies were going great, except for magic he was making great progress on all fronts. And, even though some of that stuff was easy for someone of his mental capacity, it still somewhat helped his bruised ego, but then lo and behold, he took another punch to the gut when he saw the date on the clock in the dining room, and his mood went into the dump.
Quinn flipped himself on the bed and mushed his face into the pillow, groaning into it to show his frustration with himself. He then spent another ten-minutes groaning in his room, and after doing that, he sat upon his bed and stared at the ball in front of him.
Quinn had a lot of mixed feelings towards this specific ball. It was your average rubber ball toy, and Quinn had used this ball, trying to move it with magic, but for a whole year, he had just glared/stared at the ball, and the ball just sat there unmoving.
Adults around Quinn thought that this ball was Quinn's favorite toy as he spent a lot of time with it and carried it around with him all the time, but not for the reason they thought. They thought that Quinn liked the ball very much, while Quinn himself only kept the ball so that he could sneak in some practice when no one was looking.
As Quinn stared at the ball, something inside of him snapped, and anger welled inside of him, and he ended up yelling at the ball,
"Urgh! Why won't you move!"
And, it was then Quinn felt something move inside him. He felt a soft vibration in his body followed by a feeling of flow, and then Quinn's eyes widened as he saw the ball shot across the room and slammed itself on the wall in front of Quinn with great force, and then bounce off the wall and came back to hit Quinn on the face. He didn't dodge the ball because of the shock and took the hit.
"Oww!.. Hahaha!". Quinn laughed while tearing up because while his nose hurt, he was elated that he was able to do magic even though he knew it was accidental magic fueled by anger. Quinn knew that it was a start on his magical journey.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- (Ah, the good old star-hypen line.)
Quinn West - Main Character - 5 years old.
Lia West - Elder Sister - 15 years old (5th-year student)- Beauxbatons Academy Of Magic.
George West - Grandfather - Pushing 80 years old, Businessman.
Elliot Dalton - West Family Butler - Over 70 years old.
*
Adam West - Father of Quinn and Lia West. (Deceased)
Aria West - Mother of Quinn and Lia West. (Deceased)
Maria West - Grandmother of Quinn and Lia West, George West's wife. (Deceased)
