4. Diagon Alley!

'Lumos' Ryan thought while keeping his finger pointed ahead, and a ball of light of medium intensity glowed above his finger.

Seeing he succeeded, he sighed in relief and said 'Nox' in his head and shut the light down.

But Ryan's relief wasn't because he had finally succeeded, no. He had succeeded on the first try. In excitement, he extended his pam above and shouted Lumos out loud, which resulted in an intense burst of light. Thus, he had unknowingly tested that his eyes could not be blinded for long, and according to Raphael, the light's intensity was more than enough to make someone blind multiple times over.

Ryan was having a hard time controlling his magic. Well, by himself, that is. Raphael nailed them all on the first try. By himself, Ryan felt it was like regulating the amount of water drained from a dam, except on the other side of the dam was an infinite ocean of mana. Still, according to Raphael, his progress was faster than most Hogwarts students.

Speaking of Hogwarts, Raphael had obtained the reference of comparison from Voldy's soul shards. Yes, shards. The shards didn't contain complete memories, but the memories left in them depended on Voldy's age when he made the Horcruxes and his mental state. This meant that the shard in the ring had memories of his later days at Hogwarts while the one that used to be in his head was filled with dark gibberish because of Voldy becoming crazy after rupturing his soul so many times.

Well, some was still better than nothing. Unfortunately, all Raphael got from the mess of the shard were dark curses and Voldy feeling euphoric after a massacre. And Ryan didn't want those memories anywhere near his mind.

During that time, he also solved the problem of not having a roof over his head. At first, Raphael had found a house with an empty attic for Ryan, which would have been good enough for him. But Ryan's feeling of guilt for doing this, and the feeling of emptiness of hearing the laughter of the family made him move out the second he found a better place before he started giving in to the feeling. Growing up as an orphan for a while hammers in the void left without parents.

But Ryan didn't complain to god for making him an orphan. He had already got a second chance, why should he act like a spoiled brat?

The second place was an abandoned railway car he had found. Not the best, but better than a moldy attic and just the ground. He had Raphael place a few muggle-repelling charms to keep people away. Then with a few Scourgify, the washing charm, and a few Reparo, he had a clean and repaired cabin.

Raphael had also managed to make transfiguration look like matter manipulation, customizing the cabin to install a comfortable bed and other useful things, but due to being based on wizarding magic, it was all temporary and was constantly supplied with Ryan's magic.

All this had made him a bit worried about Wizards apparating near him since Raphael had told him from Voldy's memories that the trace on wands was not the only sensory method of tracking magic at the ministry, and the sheer power and density of his magic didn't help to stay low. But Raphael had already taken precautions as he mimicked the hiding properties of stealth and expanded it to cover the place.

Still, Raphael was working on a skill to mimic the process of transfiguration through telekinesis constantly to learn matter manipulation. Unlike the Tensura world, where the voice of the world was responsible for creating skills, there existed no such thing in this universe, making Raphael use trial and error methods. Of course, being even faster than a quantum computer, Ryan was sure it would take only a day or two at most.

Except for the new magic, Ryan experienced all benefits of his enhanced condition. Being superhuman was ecstatic. His punch punctured through the tree and when he removed it, there wasn't even a scratch. He was able to reach the top of a house in a single jump. He was flexible as hell which he discovered through mimicking all tricks he saw in videos. And he was fast. Not speedster level fast, but still fast as fuck.

He enjoyed the wind while running so much that he ran about 20 kilometers and was still laughing while his old self wouldn't have lasted even half a kilometer. Ryan loved the feeling of the wind wooshing while he ran.

For days he still wondered if he was in some dream world, but accepted his reality soon as the sensations were way too real. He now lived in a world where magic existed, so he needed to stop getting surprised at every small stuff.

Secondly, he had gotten some more insects as shadows, and also a few birds and smaller animal corpses he had found in the woods. He didn't find any snakes, which he wanted to find to see if he truly was a parslemouth.

Ryan also found that Raphael was able to use Legilimacy from the eyes of his summons, a trait passed through the sub-skill food chain, due to which he was able to find a lot of drug and kidnapping gangs. He was able to beat most of the gang himself thanks to stealth and strength.

The reason Ryan attacked gangs was because he needed money and the bastards had a lot of it, and he considered stealing from criminals a much more positive option than gathering it through jobs or normal families. Plus, who didn't ever dream of becoming a vigilante once or twice?

His stealth skill was insanely broken, making it so that people would ignore him even if he bumped into them. But his newfound joy after feeling such an increase in strength shimmered down when he attacked them and... his mildly focused punch broke a guy's arm. No, it literally tore off. Ryan was stunned due to this, standing still while watching the blood flowing through the arm of the guy who was lying down and screaming. His now enhanced nose picked up the smell of blood and his mind replayed the crunch he heard over and over.

Ryan felt the world almost come to a still, but was snapped out of it with a bang. He had not yet obtained some battle sense and his instinct wasn't that sharp either, which led to him feeling something impact his head, trying to drill through his head. The momentum transferred through his head and neck, jerking it sideways, while his hand reflexively went to his head, and he winced in pain. Ryan blinked as felt something on his hand, and then saw his fingertips covered in dark red blood. His blood.

"Shit, it's a freak." Ryan heard, and suddenly memories of Vernon flashed through his head, almost as a reflex. His body had again paused and started shaking due to the subconscious of his most recent years as Harry took over.

The next moment Raphael switched over as it found changes in Ryan's mental state, and entered auto-battle mode. Sensing its master was not willing to kill, he knocked them out with telepathy and erased the man's memories. Raphael then quickly formulated a healing spell to reattach the arm of the guy and stored all money found there in the shadow storage, and sunk into the shadows, teleporting away.

It took a while for Ryan to come to terms with what had just happened, but he quickly calmed down. He should have expected that, after all, he asked for the powers of multiversal-level beings, it was obvious normal humans wouldn't stand a chance against him. His strength had increased... and he was evolving away from being a baseline human. He was a bit unsure about what to feel about this but settled himself to just be careful in the future. He wasn't going to stop using his strength just because of the mistake, that would be stupid. What made him himself was his beliefs and morality, the sensibility that those around him had instilled, not DNA or normal strength.

Ryan also gained an insight into how he subconsciously still thought of himself as the boy living under a cupboard and felt disgusted about how just one word had made him feel weak. If he didn't have his powers, that pause might as well have resulted in his death. It seemed his subconscious still had not been completely overridden by the old him. But currently, he wasn't his old self either, since all he was left with were fragmented memories due to the void.

Just as he had given himself a new name, Ryan needed to be his new self. He couldn't just overrule his last 9 years since he had lived through them himself while his memories were sealed.

Using Raphael's advice, he used the knowledge of Occulmacy and Raphael's help to delve into his mind and sort out all his problems, which resulted in his now-enhanced mind, having statistics beyond a normal human brain. He also obtained enhanced perception with his senses and brain working together efficiently. Thus, before learning magic, Ryan started to gain control of his abilities. Magic was too broad of a subject, so it was better to start learning what he already knew was possible through his abilities.

He started with shadow manipulation, which made him able to make slight shadow constructs by solidifying shadows, making it hard enough to block bullets easily and travel through shadows.

Using telepathy that he easily mastered to control thanks to his upgraded enhanced mind, he stole the money and made some officers get suspicious of the areas, making them raid the bases and find beat-up guys... But Ryan was aware he had sent others to do it because he was still scared because of the last incident. The word 'freak' still seemed to be subconsciously affecting him, which he did not like one bit.

Then there was the current state of his psyche. When he had finally snapped out from the shock of the debacle, Ryan was angry. Angry at the Dursleys for their torment and for making him feel weak, and angry at the mobsters for shooting him in the end. He wanted to kill them. He was a newborn Ruler, who are they to make him feel fear?

Thankfully, Raphael was immediately able to point out that Ryan was overacting and would regret his actions later. And he indeed would have. His parents had raised him better.

Plus, he had just met a god, with a capital 'G'. Just a little power-up shouldn't have made him act arrogant and brash like that, and he was disappointed that he still became it. Just in a few days, he was corrupted by power. Ryan could feel that he had gained some form of superiority complex and a main character syndrome.

Thankfully Raphael was well aware of Ryan's needs and line of thinking and thus was able to give good arguments to stop him from making mistakes. Raphael's main purpose was the protection of his master, physically and mentally.

Raphael was able to gather information about the town, as well as useful things like cooking knowledge from chefs and housewives. It was also due to this that Ryan found out Vernon was arrested for keeping dangerous explosives since the house exploded, but he was making it look like he was innocent and Petunia kept crying while saying her nephew had died.

'This damn Walrus family' Ryan felt his anger return, but he didn't let it dictate his actions. Instead, he tried using his mind. Ryan made Raphael use telepathy and made Dudley talk with an officer who asked about the nephew while Petunia wasn't paying attention and made Dudley tell him everything they did.

He also lowered Vernon's inhibitions, making him scream 'freak, freak' soon enough after the interrogation. He smirked seeing this. For the man who wanted to keep up appearances, Vernon's life was now in shambles, with everyone now thinking he did illegal trading of firearms, especially after they had discovered so many gangs recently.

Wondering if he should make the gangsters he had stole from talk about Vernon to increase his sentence, Ryan sent a shadow bird towards the crater to see what had happened there. Through the bird, he saw that the crater had green flames that were still burning, with a few people in red robes of old times surrounding the crater.

Ryan's eyes gleamed at the discovery of wizards and had the bird shadow sneakily drop a few shadow ants to track them down and get information about the ministry. He knew one of them must visit Diagon Alley or Muggle London, giving him access to that place to teleport to. But for that, the shadow should be able to travel with the wizard, who was probably an Auror. Ryan didn't know whether the shadows could follow the wizards if they apparated, and thankfully they did. He knew that the shadows resided in a dimension connected through him, but he was still getting used to being supernatural so he didn't try to assume things until proven.

Raphael was also taking big measures against deviation from the knowledge of Harry Potter that Ryan knew of, like Dumbledore being mad or good, and so on. Ryan had also tried to look into the neighboring houses to look for a lady living alone to see if the squib lady sending Dumbledore information is there but found no one like that.

'I have two hallows that should have been in his protection, so there is no way he wouldn't be alerted. Same with Dursley's home being destroyed, unless... I'm not the boy who lived, but Neville is. In that case, why was I left with Dursleys?... No, it doesn't make any sense. I had the Horcrux in my head.' Ryan thought to himself. He was currently waiting for his little shadows to get in Diagon Alley for the next step.

Raphael had gotten knowledge of the rules of Gringotts, and Ryan was planning to get his inheritance after testing the waters. The major problem he had was two cases. One, Dumbles had become his legal guardian, thus he would be notified of Ryan taking the test. Second, Heirship cannot be upgraded to lordship until the age of 16, unless the previous lord hands the lordship by magic, and no adult would hand their power to a kid. There was also the devious nature of Goblins, but Raphael told him that Voldy's memories seemed too biased to make an accurate conjecture.

Ryan waited for a few more days while training his shadow manipulation and ruler's aura, as he needed more control over his powers before trying to fly using them. He had always wanted to fly like Superman and other heroes, so it was a big priority for him. Soon, Raphael told him that a few shadows were able to get to muggle London, right outside Diagon Alley, and found a safe place to teleport to.

Ryan's eyes sparkled, hoping to finally see the wizarding world with his eyes. There were dangers in going there, but it was a risk he was willing to take.

Ryan looked through the eyes of his shadow and saw the ant on a roof, waiting for instructions. He grinned and said, "Exchange."

The next moment he disappeared from where he was standing, and a small shadow ant stood where he was before, while Ryan looked from the roof at the shop which looked very different from the buildings around it, yet no one seemed to notice it.

Ryan applied stealth and jumped down. Using the ruler's aura, he reduced the momentum and smoothly landed down and then walked towards the shop named Leaky Cauldron.

Ryan frowned a bit because of his enhanced senses, as the smoke bothered him. Other than that,

'Stealth O.P.' He thought to himself.

Ryan collided with one guy, and the person just looked around weirdly for a second but still moved along. 'Anyway, Galleons look... unique. Huh, where did I get it? I took it as compensation for him colliding with me and leaving without a sorry.' Ryan continued his monologue, with no care about the fourth wall.

Ryan then entered behind a guy, and then immediately jumped and stuck on the roof like Spider-man. 'Woah, this is trippy.' He thought while looking upside down thanks to using Ruler's aura and Raphael used the analysis of the sticking charm to help Ryan channel his inner spider.

Ryan observed wizards and their fashion sense, then saw some people going towards the back, so crawled towards them, still stuck on the ceiling.

He saw them do the iconic wand tap on the wall, and the brick slid away, forming a door. So he used the chance to sneak behind them and tried standing away from the crowd... which was hard.

'Damn, this place has its charm. Probably because everything looks so surreal even when it was so disorganized. You won't see people buying slugs while picking them and looking closely... did that guy seriously lick the fingers he was holding the slug by?' Ryan thought on his first step into a place filled with wizards.