Harry Potter: The Soldier of Hogwarts

The dormitory was steeped in silence, broken only by the distant lap of the Black Lake against the stone walls of the Slytherin common room. Dim, cold green light filtered through the enchanted underwater windows, painting everything in a ghostly hue.

It was 5:03 AM.

Ryan Ashford was already awake.

His body moved on instinct, honed from a lifetime before this one—an echo of discipline drilled into him from a far crueler world. The soft rustle of his blanket was the only sound as he slid from bed, his movements fluid and precise. He didn't bother changing from his sleeping clothes—simple black trousers and a gray shirt; they were good enough.

He cleared a patch of space between his bed and the footlocker, then dropped into a plank position. The stone floor was cold against his palms, but he welcomed the chill. It sharpened the mind.

"One hundred," he whispered under his breath.

And then he began.

Push-ups first. Elbows tucked, back straight, body aligned. Controlled breathing. No wasted movement.

Next, sit-ups, then squats, then knuckle push-ups. He didn't rush. This wasn't about speed. It was about control, about grounding himself. Hogwarts might have given him a wand and a robe, but discipline? That was still his.

By the time he finished, sweat clung to his brow, and his heart beat steady and strong in his chest. The stone floor beneath his feet felt cold against the warmth of his skin, but he welcomed the contrast. It grounded him.

Ryan stood, stretching out his limbs slowly. The soreness was familiar a quiet ache that reminded him of discipline, of effort, of progress. He had trained most of his past life in silence and solitude. That part, at least, hadn't changed in this new world.

He grabbed a towel from his trunk, wiped the sweat from his neck and face, and let out a breath as he sat down cross-legged on the floor.

His roommate someone he hadn't properly met yet slept silently across the room. Ryan made no effort to wake him.

He reached forward and placed his wand gently on the floor before him. The wand was dark, polished, and slightly warm to the touch.

Ryan didn't know how much he believed in wandlore, but the moment this one had touched his fingers, he'd felt a reaction almost like a heartbeat not his own.

"I don't know how much you understand me," he said softly, not wanting to break the stillness of the room. "But I don't plan to stay weak."

The wand didn't respond, of course.

"I won't use you for spells just yet," Ryan continued, brushing his fingers across the wand's length. "I need to understand what you are first. What we are. If magic is part of me now... then I want a real connection. A bond."

He closed his eyes.

Inhale. Exhale.

He tried to feel his magic—not cast it, not push it, just feel it. That slow current that hummed beneath the skin, that glimmer he'd sensed when he'd first held his wand in Diagon Alley.

At first, there was nothing.

But Ryan had meditated often in his past life. He knew how to wait.

The castle breathed around him—soft creaks in the stone, the gentle thrum of distant pipes, maybe from the lake. The air felt dense, not with heat but with age. History. Power. The kind of quiet authority only a place like Hogwarts could carry.

Then something shifted.

A tingling sensation crept up his spine—not unpleasant, but subtle, like static before a lightning strike. It pooled behind his navel, then spread slowly outward, a warmth that bloomed in his chest and fingers.

He opened his eyes.

The wand remained still. But he felt it. Like something coiled inside it had stirred in response to his awareness.

He placed his hand near it again.

And this time, when he pushed gently not with force, but intention he felt a tug. Like two threads brushing against one another, testing tension, seeing if they could knot together.

His lips curled into a faint smile.

"So you do respond."

It wasn't a conversation, not really. But it felt like one. A silent acknowledgment between wielder and wand. He didn't fully understand what the bond meant not yet but the beginnings were there. 

"Alright," he murmured. "Let's try something simple."

He raised the wand not dramatically, just a subtle point and focused. He remembered the book he'd read in St. Mungo during his recovery: The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk.

The spell he'd chosen to try first wasn't flashy. It wasn't even combat-related. It was simply: Lumos.

A spell for light.

He took a deep breath and focused his intent—not just the word, but the meaning behind it. He imagined light spilling out of the wand's tip, pushing against the dark.

"Lumos," he said clearly.

Nothing.

He blinked, then tried again.

"Lumos."

A faint spark flickered—just for a second—at the wand's tip. Then it died out.

He smiled again, not frustrated, but intrigued. "Alright. Not as easy as I thought."

Ryan wasn't used to failure, but this wasn't quite failure. This was a system he didn't yet understand. Magic wasn't brute force; it was structure, emotion, and intention. It was knowledge wrapped in instinct. He had the instinct, but the knowledge was still catching up.

He tried again, this time exhaling as he spoke, allowing his body to remain loose, his focus tight.

"Lumos."

The wand flared this time more than a spark. A steady glow burst from its tip, not bright but unmistakable. The faint white light lit up the stone floor beneath his feet, casting long shadows against the wall.

Ryan's eyes widened. A grin tugged at the corners of his lips.

"I did it," he whispered, more to himself than the wand.

The glow faded after a few seconds, dimming back into stillness. That was fine. Ryan hadn't expected it to last. What mattered was that it had happened at all and more importantly, it hadn't been by accident. It was his will that lit the wand, not emotion, not instinct. Intent. Control.

That meant progress.

A connection was forming. Fragile, but real.

He exhaled slowly and sat back down on the floor, this time with the wand resting across his lap. The wooden shaft no longer felt foreign in his hands. It didn't yet feel like an extension of himself, not like the weapons he used to wield in his past life.

This bond... it wasn't like forging a sword. He couldn't temper it in fire and hammer it into shape. No—this required consistency. Understanding. Resonance.

"Practice and repetition," he muttered aloud.

That was the key. If he wanted his control over magic to be absolute, if he truly intended to shape it as naturally as breathing, he would have to wield it constantly. Not haphazardly or when convenient—but deliberately. Even the smallest spells would help strengthen his foundation.

He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand, lost in thought.

"How do I get there?"

His mind raced with possibilities. He could memorize the textbook, sure. He could recite incantations and perfect his wand movements. But that was surface-level. That was basic. He didn't want to be competent—he wanted to understand magic on a fundamental level, to comprehend it.

That word stuck with him.

Comprehension.

"Why not try to comprehend magic itself?" he said quietly.

Knowledge was power, but more than that—it was clarity. If he wanted to master this world's magic, then he had to go deeper. Past the spells, past the techniques. He needed to grasp the essence, the underlying principles that governed how and why magic worked.

And to do that, he needed teachers.

He would start with Professors, perhaps. Then Professor McGonagall. But most of all... Albus Dumbledore.

The Headmaster was a legend even in this new life. The books spoke of him with reverence. Intelligent, powerful, wise—and unpredictable. Ryan didn't care about the man's eccentricities or the mystery surrounding him. He only cared about what Dumbledore knew.

The man had walked through the deepest layers of magic. If anyone could speak of its soul, of its body and breath, it was him.

"I need to learn their perspectives," Ryan said, as if speaking aloud would help organize his thoughts. "Not just theory... but how they perceive magic. How it flows. How it behaves in the body and in the air. What they see when they cast."

His eyes sharpened.

He understood how energy interacted with will, with intent, with the physical body. He had mastered that then. But magic here was different. Stranger. Wilder. But not unknowable.

No power was unknowable. Not to him.