Chapter 2

I open my eyes, there's cat litter in my mouth, the image is floating, the over-performance stamping shop is working in my skull. Alive. A vague spot appears in my field of vision, something is poured into my mouth, what bitter dirt, but I have no strength, and I realize that I have to drink. I choke, but I swallow. It gets easier, the pain doesn't go away, but it recedes, it becomes more bearable. A new dose of medicine and I close my eyes. Long live healthy sleep. It was strange to sleep and feel the flame of a magical source ignite within me. Myriads of electrical discharges rush through my soul. Behind each channel remains, through which mana begins to circulate. And the most important thing — an indescribable feeling of itching all over my body. Very unusual.

Wizard-medicine works wonders, only three days and I was completely healthy physically and energetically quite well. I had a lot more magic in me, even though magic was about a quarter less that John. And John, being Muggle-born, was a mediocre wizard. I'm going to have a hard time with this. Well, as they say, bones are bones and flesh will grow.

The badgers turned out to be really friendly guys, every day someone from the faculty came to check on me more than once. They brought books, shared notes and fed me delicious food from Madame Pomfrey. Despite my thirty-something years, I almost cried. I guess my childhood physical and mental exchanges had affected me more than I'd thought. Although I wasn't an unfeeling brute in my former life. Men just don't cry.

At the end of the week, after an hour of diagnostics and a serving of tonic, tonic and vitamin potions, I was finally released from the school infirmary. Hallelujah! I had a lot of work to do, and the boys came to visit, but it was boring to read in bed all day. And most importantly, I was allowed to do magic! I don't care if I can't do it yet. I'll learn.

The headmistress met me personally and almost escorted me to the faculty lounge. Logically, the castle is a labyrinth, and again, worry about the first drink. A word for badgers. A series of patting, questioning, faculty and school news, if it were not for the need to do homework, until the evening would not get to his room. And there it was, the big moment. I pick up my wand and feel it begin to draw magic from me. It's not a pleasant feeling, I have to say, it's a bit strange. I swing, but alas, no miracle has happened, a thin bundle of sparks comes out of the end and dies without flying a meter. Not only is it weak, but the wand doesn't quite fit. It's bad, but who said it would be easy? We'll get through this!

I put the wand away and started my homework. From the point of view of a grown man who had received a few higher educations in his time, it was nothing complicated. I never complained about my memory, so the problem was not what and how to write, but with what. There are no particular complaints about the paper in the form of a roll, of course I'm more accustomed to notebooks, but in general these are trifles. The pen and ink gave me many unforgettable sensations. I was not so much writing as drawing precisely. And what's interesting is that each line cost me a tiny drop of magic.

I immediately remembered a lot of folk art I had read in my past life, where the wretches like me actively used pens and pencils. No way, gentlemen, wizards may be retrograde, but they would obviously abandon pens in favor of more advanced tools if they didn't have some unclear functions. I personally have no idea why these microscopically small pieces of magic are necessary, but it was clear that they existed and that things were not as simple as they seemed. Generally, I had to kill an hour of time for each essay, and as a result, my fingers were whining, my eyes were watering, and my tongue was sore. The latter was the result of a bite. Along with the body, I got my motor memory, and the previous owner of the body had a bad habit of biting the tip of his tongue when he was concentrating on something. So I overdid it a bit.

The school day began. First graders, like mother goose, were escorted everywhere by headmasters. I, for obvious reasons, paid more attention to me, just in case I tried to kill myself again. None of the freshmen were shameless and didn't try to show their adulthood. Anyway, there were no idiots in our faculty. Until October we went in a group under supervision, in October we were entrusted to go to the cafeteria, classes and the library independently. But with the condition not to go alone. November was marked by the complete removal of control, which I liked very much because it untied my hands.

The studies themselves were ordinary, unlike the subjects we studied. In almost every lesson we were given not only theory but also time for practice. That's why the class lasted a full hour. Basically, I could study on my own and excel at anything that didn't require the use of a magic wand. After all, an adult mind is a huge advantage. But why stand out and attract attention? The image of the diligent but sadly weak and star-struck student appealed to me.

On an unfriendly Sunday morning in November, I reached the eighth floor and was happy to see a picture of a troll ballet. Crossing my mind that the Room of Requirement was real, I concentrated on what I wanted and started walking past the epic painting. At the third passage a door appeared in the wall. I exhaled, for I hadn't even noticed that I was holding my breath, pulled the handle with a pounding heart and stepped inside, squeezing my eyes shut. Catching himself in a childish act, I became angry and finally opened eyes. Shock. A shelf full of books, a massive and even seemingly comfortable chair, plus a heavy, wide table with a couple of magical lamps. Took a few steps, counted the number of books in the measured span of those who entered, walked around, counted. Sat down at the table, damn comfortable chair, thought about it.

So, the request to give an orderly set of literature to get the most complete, comprehensive and quality education possible, the rescue room fulfilled. Well, it's not even a piano, it's a whole organ in the bushes. There are about eighteen thousand books. Even if you read one a day, you'd be done for a miserable half century. Which, of course, can't be satisfying at all. Here we should not forget one point: to know does not mean to be able. Purely bookish, completely theoretical education is not applicable everywhere. Besides, without a perfect memory, so many books will not be of much use.

I had to think about the wording of the request and went back and forth. In principle nothing had changed, only two books appeared on the table. Both were written by Candida Cogtevran, the founder of the Faculty of Wisdom. The first, remarkably enough, was her first-year textbook on mental magic. More like a well-fed pamphlet. The second book was a practical manual on artifacting, a kind of DIY book. It would have been nothing, but it was written in English.

I had to go a third time, unfortunately, the room did not translate anything, but added a thick self-tutorial on the table. Which, moreover, and did not get out. It disintegrated, the bastard, right in the doorway. I had to go to the regular library and ask Madame Pince for a similar book. Thanks to Merlin, I found the book I was looking for, and in several versions at that. I took all three, just to see how different subjects were explained.

There were no freebies, so in order to learn, I first had to learn how to learn, such an unfunny tautology. The fucking truth of life. Okay, in my time I learned English, I learned three programming languages on a serious level, I'll make it somehow. Christmas vacation made me think about summer. I didn't want to go to the orphanage. It's clear that they won't leave me at school, and I can't find friends to stay with.

There's a whole faculty of friends, yes, badgers, that's normal here, but friends-friends, alas, no such thing. It's my own fault, of course, but what can you do, my brain is grown up, I can let go of the brakes and be a little kid without any problems. But I do not want to fall back into childhood, and to be honest, it does not work. As banal as it may sound, everything depends on money.

Inquiries from the upperclassmen allowed me to estimate the cost. About a hundred gallions to rent a room in the Magic Quarter for the summer. With meals, one hundred twenty to one hundred thirty gold coins, or at the exchange rate, about six hundred and fifty pounds. And where can you earn that as a young boy? By the way, that is a pretty decent salary for an adult worker. The first thing I did was to go to the dean's office. Mrs. Sprout was not pleased. Anything I could grow with magic would cost a gallon a kilo at best, and she couldn't give me a plot in the greenhouse that would yield an acre and a half. Even allowing for the fact that I'd be harvesting three crops by summer, the upper limit was fifty galleons.

A good option was a trip to the forbidden forest, there was nothing useful there, only hair and wool scraps of magical animals could be worth not only a hundred, but a thousand galleons. But dead people don't need money. And with my current magical abilities, this outcome was very real. Again, not enough knowledge for such a quest. Not an option. If Snape had been a Potions Master, I would have risked offering him my services.

Unfortunately, Slughorn didn't need an employee from the "serve and fetch and stay out of the way" series. The only option left was to make potions myself. You can try, of course, but again, anything serious requires an investment in ingredients, there is no guarantee that it will work, and with the realization of problems. Unless it's a hangover cure for the older students and something cosmetic for the younger girls. A few extra ingredients can always be stolen from the class, and some can be found in the greenhouses.

The results of careful and not too careful questioning, assessment of my own abilities, conclusion: I need to work on three fronts at once. There were plenty of empty classrooms that could be used as laboratories, so it was easy to find a place to brew potions. The necessary recipes were in the textbooks, and the ingredients were honestly stolen.

The process continued, and the first weekend yielded three galleons. Luckily, a senior in our faculty had a birthday party and managed to sneak a fair amount of alcohol into the school. In the mornings, I worked as a rescue angel, bringing the inebriated students back to life. The debut was successful, but the miracle did not happen, and by the summer, the potions only brought twenty-eight gold coins. Competition played a role, and there were difficulties with the supply of firewater. And the seniors themselves turned out to be rather lukewarm, compared to the way we had fun in our youth in the dormitory — just a lot of teetotalers and ulcers.

A bed and seeds Madame Sprout allocated, and work on it even as a personal project promised to credit. A nice little bonus. The exams didn't bother me too much, though. I can't say that I had to plow the plot, but I got the harvest through sweat and literally blood. Sprout had managed to get me some seeds of some dangerous herbs, something like sedge, so the loosening that this herb loved very much ended with at least a couple of cuts every week. Mixing dragon dung with other kinds of dung was not so much disgusting as it was difficult, as it was very viscous. The professor herself used magic, but I had to work with my hands. The reward for my work was sixty galleons and an excellent herbology vending machine. It was not in vain, oh, not in vain.

The third front of efforts was swarming in the Room of Requirement in a variation of the warehouse of forgotten and lost things. They were not materialized illusions and could be taken out without problems. I worked with the highest security precautions. I wore only dragon skin gloves and kept my hands away from smoking objects, especially suspicious diadems. I can't see magic, but I can feel it. In a way, it's like having absolute musical hearing.

Any wizard can feel the spells, just as a person who is not deaf can hear the music, but not everyone can feel the falsities or especially high notes. In fact, the risk was still considerable, and the magic of the room refused to sort the contents. It would have been nice to ask them to separate the wheat from the chaff and just put the valuable stuff in the bag.

In the end, I got the missing galleons by selling a bunch of old robes, pants, belts, shirts, cloaks, and other junk to junk dealers. There were some relatively modern textbooks, but not many. In fact, most of the rubble consisted of this assortment, as well as notes. I found some small jewelry, and everything felt like magic, so I didn't risk taking it. During the excavation I found a pile of broken magic wands. There was a lot of substandard furniture and burnt cauldrons. In one more or less complete closet, I placed a battery of vials and phials of found potions.

There was a lot of stuff, including statuettes and wigs. I left for summer vacation loaded like a whole caravan of mules. Thanks to the seventh-year boys, in gratitude for the regular senses after parties, they enchanted me with a dozen bags to expand the space and lighten the weight. It's clear that the student is not a master of artifacts, capable of packing almost a hectare of land in an ordinary medium-sized suitcase, but they were enough for five to seven cubic meters.

I passed the exams satisfactorily with a few higher than expected, demonstrating diligent mediocrity, but nothing else from me and did not expect. On the eve of my departure for London, the dean came to see me, handed me a letter and a lanyard, and worked her magic on my trunk. The first was to be given to the director of the orphanage, I don't know what kind of spells were cast, probably something to do with trust and scattered attention.

The rope was to be carried around, preferably tied to an arm or leg. It wouldn't make me invisible to normal people, i.e. Muggles, but neither I nor the chest would be of any interest for the next three or four months. The main thing was not to upset the people around me. They took care of the orphan in a strange way. I guess I'll have to go to the orphanage myself. Wizards are such wizards, I can't believe it. Is it okay for an 11-year-old to have to travel a third of the country? Somehow John didn't end up in an orphanage in the capital. Either they forgot, or they didn't care. Well, let them. With Voldemort disappeared, everyone's still running and inadequate. The Eater trials are going on, the Aurors are shaking everyone up, and it's a madhouse, according to the newspapers. It's all right at school. But just in case, I'll have an excuse for why I'm in the wrong place this summer.