[HP: Return from Game of Thrones]-Chapter 16: Parents (Patreon)

This was far harder than learning magic.

Why was it so difficult? Wasn't he supposed to be exceptionally clever?

By the day before the start of term, Harry had all but given up.

At this point, he decided to focus on other matters. Perhaps there was some magic that could help him master Chinese quickly.

As planned, he recruited a few of his most loyal adult wizards as subordinates, appointing them as his agents in the dark alleys of Knockturn Alley.

At last, he managed to establish the foundations of his territory—

Territory: Knockturn Alley

Special Buildings: None

Power of the King: Zero (steadily rising)

Legion: Dedalus Diggle, Doris Crockford, Tom…

Clicking on the Legion revealed each member’s talent ceiling, which was, frankly, quite average. Harry had done his best to select the cream of the crop, and though things looked rather meager now, he was confident they’d improve in time.

As for the name of his faction, he went with Night’s Watch. Harry had no desire to come up with something new.

All in all, he’d accomplished quite a bit. The summer hadn’t been a total waste.

On the first of September, Harry headed to King’s Cross Station to catch the train to Hogwarts.

Hogwarts, it seemed, was somewhat progressive in its own way, opting for a train rather than some magical artifact for transportation. He’d long noticed that some wizards seemed to live as though they were still in the Middle Ages. A train might well be a novelty to them. Of course, most weren’t completely ignorant of Muggle inventions—they just had a superficial understanding. They knew Muggles had created certain things, but only the most common were adopted, often with their own magical twists.

Take photographs, for instance. In the wizarding world, a photo was expected to move. Their perception was so warped that they considered it normal for pictures to be animated with special enchantments, while a still, ordinary photo was seen as the oddity.

Magic was so subjective.

Hagrid had already given him the train ticket, which read Platform 9¾.

It wasn’t a misprint. From the literal meaning, it likely referred to the third of four divisions between Platforms 9 and 10.

Muggles couldn’t see this platform, which Harry had grown accustomed to. Perhaps because of centuries of witch hunts, surviving wizards had become masters of concealment, blending seamlessly into the world.

Spells like Muggle-Repelling Charms were likely born from the collective willpower of wizards hiding from persecution—a kind of idealistic “we reckon it works” magic, developed over generations of being hunted.

Though many wizards now looked down on Muggles and discriminated against them, they themselves had once been the oppressed. The term Muggle, though a wizard-coined word, clearly stemmed from an old British dialect for “fool.” If Harry knew Chinese and had read the Harry Potter novels, he’d have appreciated how elegantly the term Muggle was translated.

The current wizarding political correctness forbade openly discriminating against Muggle-born witches and wizards, but discriminating against Muggles themselves was still considered acceptable.

Harry thought this retaliatory name-calling was reasonable enough. Wizards had been persecuted without ever seeking vengeance. A bit of verbal disdain was tame by comparison.

He had too much on his plate to dwell on it. He’d only read up to the Goblin Wars in his magical history studies and hadn’t yet reached the part about Grindelwald’s attempt to establish a wizard-supremacist regime and rule the world.

Not that it mattered—Grindelwald hadn’t succeeded.

Besides, whether a word was an insult depended on the speaker’s intent. The difference between saying “damn” and “damn, you’re cool” was vast. Most wizards didn’t even think Muggle was derogatory.

Words were subjective like that. What mattered wasn’t their surface meaning but the intent behind them.

Breaking the bandit in the mountains is easy; breaking the bandit in the heart is hard.

At King’s Cross Station, Harry arrived at his destination.

One platform bore a large plastic sign with the number 9, another with the number 10. Between them—nothing.

This must be it, the three-quarter mark.

Harry noticed that, unlike the Leaky Cauldron, which Muggles simply couldn’t see, this platform was invisible even to those with magical ability.

Perhaps because the station was so crowded, there was a risk of Muggles stumbling in by accident? So the charm here allowed only those with magic to pass through, while the wall itself was solid and real.

Harry scanned the area for other first-years. Just then, a group passed behind him, and a snippet of conversation drifted to his ears.

“—Of course, it’s packed with Muggles—”

Harry turned to see a short, plump woman speaking to four redheaded boys. Each pushed a trunk like his own, and one had an owl.

Wizards, no doubt.

They were moving away, but Harry’s keen hearing allowed him to eavesdrop without getting closer.

“Now, which platform is it?” the boys’ mother asked.

“Platform 9¾!” a redheaded girl holding her mother’s hand piped up shrilly. “Mum, can I go—?”

“You’re still too young, Ginny. Now, hush. Percy, you go first.”

The oldest-looking boy strode toward the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10.

He vanished.

Next went a pair of twins named Fred and George, who disappeared in the same way.

Harry confirmed the spot matched his guess. Without waiting for the woman’s youngest son to go, he marched toward the dividing wall between Platforms 9 and 10.

Harry was tough as nails—if he crashed, he’d probably break through anyway.

With fierce determination, he charged forward, the wall looming closer…

Nothing happened. He kept running… and opened his eyes.

The world had changed.

“A kid?”

“A foreigner.”

“Can you speak English?”

“Send him to the police.”

“This kid has no identity. Why isn’t he talking?”

“The doctor says it’s temporary aphasia. We found out he’s connected to that massive explosion case—might’ve been kidnapped by an international crime syndicate.”

“The boy who lived!”

“Poor thing. Can we adopt him?”

“Of course we can.”

“Kid, are you okay with that?”

Harry felt like he was watching a movie, unable to participate in the opening act. He was acutely aware that what was happening didn’t involve him directly. The system, with its staggering computational power, had forced its way into this world, and the world was weaving a narrative to fit him in.

As if by cosmic alignment, he was smoothly adopted by a couple with children.

Just like his last crossing into the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, he’d been given a convenient starting identity.

The line between illusion and reality blurred. The body he inhabited cast a shadow of its past into this new world…

Each world had its own main storyline. In this one, the nexus of all destinies was a school.

The intervals between crossings varied, and the triggers were unknown, but there seemed to be subtle connections.

This world, the system had named Chinese Parents—another bizarre title.

He’d been struggling with learning Chinese, lacking both time and the right environment. Now, he’d been dropped into a world that might just solve that problem… though he wasn’t sure how long he’d stay.

Three months should be enough to learn Chinese, right?