1 The Boy Who Was Reborn

The night was tranquil, the silence absolute, until a sharp gasp pierced the darkness. Lucas bolted upright, eyes flying open as every muscle in his body tensed. Disorientation overwhelmed him—where was he? The hard surface beneath him was nothing like his familiar bed back home. A chill caressed his face as he frantically scanned the unfamiliar shadowy surroundings.

A dim streetlamp cast a faint glow over the front step where he lay swaddled in thick blankets. He tried turning his head, but the constricting fabric made movement difficult. That's when his gaze fell upon a strange crest embroidered on the blanket—a lion, snake, badger, and eagle encircling a prominent letter H. A fleeting spark of recognition flickered in his mind, a memory dancing just out of reach.

The sudden creak of an opening door grabbed his attention. A thin, severe-looking woman peered out, eyes widening in shock at the bundled form on her doorstep. "Vernon!" she cried shrilly, shattering the quiet night. "Come quickly!"

Heavy footsteps approached, the sound of a large, imposing man drawing near. He appeared beside the woman, brow furrowed in confusion. "What is the meaning of this, Petunia?" he demanded gruffly.

"It's...a child," Petunia replied, trembling hands lifting the bundle—lifting Lucas. "There's a letter..."

What's happening to me? How can she lift me like that? Am I dreaming?

She retrieved an envelope tucked among the folds and began reading, eyes rapidly scanning the page. Lucas watched apprehensively as a range of emotions played across her face.

Tears spilled down her cheeks and Petunia's hands shook violently when she finished. "It's...Lily's son. Harry Potter. She's...d-dead." Her voice cracked on the last word.

Vernon recoiled as if struck. "You mean...your sister and that good-for-nothing husband of hers...they're gone?"

A mute nod was Petunia's only response as she clutched Lucas closer, shoulders shaking with sobs. "Murdered...by that dark wizard."

Rage contorted Vernon's face as his fists clenched. "Should've known those freakish people and their hocus pocus rubbish would bring no good!"

The words slammed into Lucas with brutal clarity. Blankets, letters, talks of magic and murder...impossible, and yet, as he stared at his tiny hands peeking out, felt the fabric cocooning his small form...a cold, inescapable realization settled into the pit of his being.

Harry Potter...I've been reborn as Harry bloody Potter.

oo0ooOoo0oo

Lucas was wrapped up tight in the dark nursery, the Dursleys' loud snores coming from down the hall. Even though he was just a tiny toddler, there was no mistaking the fact that his mind stayed sharp and clear. He wiggled his chubby fingers, feeling the weight of being reborn settle on him. His consciousness, his soul, had moved from one life into another.

I'm actually in the Harry Potter world. This is really happening.

Memories of reading the books and watching the movies came flooding back. A magical world, with witches and wizards fighting the evil Voldemort. The story he loved was now his reality. But he wasn't just Harry Potter. He was Lucas - reborn into this body.

My soul must be real. How else could I keep my adult mind, all my memories and experiences intact?

Lucas's eyes narrowed, and he frowned as he considered the deeper meaning. To be reborn - his very existence proved the soul journeys beyond the physical body. 

To be reborn changed everything. He didn't know if he would reincarnate again with his memories intact after this life, but one thing was certain – he would do everything in his power to gain mastery over magic, and through that power, achieve immortality. The idea of death held no appeal and he had no desire to ever face oblivion if he could help it.

But what force, what higher power, could be responsible for his rebirth as Harry Potter? The only plausible explanation was the existence of an entity capable of dimensional travel – a being that was responsible for his transition into this magical world.

Not just immortality, then, he thought to himself. I'll add dimensional travel to my ambitions as well. Being immortal in one world would be boring if I could instead travel to various worlds. And I might be able to find my family...

oo0ooOoo0oo

The cramped cupboard felt like it was closing in, the walls trapping Lucas like bars of a cage. He sat cross-legged on his thin excuse for a mattress with his eyes locked onto the little green plastic soldier standing still in front of him. A single bulb cast a sickly yellow glow over the small space.

"Move," Lucas growled through gritted teeth. "Just...move!"

Sweat beaded on his brow as he glared with intense focus at the unmoving toy, straining every fibre of his being to will it into obeying his command. Months had trudged by in this maddening quest, this all-consuming obsession to make the soldier rise through sheer force of will alone.

For the briefest moment, a thought passed through his mind. If only I had some kind of System...

But Lucas quickly dismissed that thought. He would not rely on any system or external force, no matter how tempting. Such a priceless thing didn't come without strings attached, and he did not want to get caught in those strings.

His eyes bored into the soldier, his entire reality narrowing to this singular point of focus. The burning need consumed every rational thought until only the primal desire to move the toy remained.

Move...MOVE!

Lucas's whole body tensed, tendons straining taut against his skin as he poured every ounce of his being into that one command.

MOVE, DAMN IT!

In that moment, something shifted. The barriers of normal perception crumbled as Lucas surrendered fully to the obsession. He felt his consciousness detaching, separating from his physical form in a surreal, out-of-body experience.

From this ethereal vantage point, he could see through the cupboard walls into the house beyond. Three figures moved about – Petunia, faintly glowing with some unknown light. Vernon and Dudley, utterly empty and devoid of any radiance at all.

Yet when Lucas's gaze turned back to his own body, he was baffled. His self was a contradiction – radiating brilliant light, yet appearing simultaneously, utterly empty.

Then, in a blinding rush, the light emanating from his body reacted to an unseen force. It began looping at his head, coiling back through his entire being. The strange duality faded as light dominated, banishing the emptiness.

With a sickening lurch, Lucas's consciousness slammed back into his body. His eyes flew open, wide and manic, every nerve ending afire with rampant force. In that moment of perfect, insane focus, it happened.

The toy soldier rose into the air, defying gravity to hover shakily before Lucas's disbelieving stare. It shook and bobbed, caught in the grip of whatever invisible power had wrenched it aloft.

Lucas stared intensely at that one levitating object as a tremor ran through him. After months of futility, of soul-crushing failure...he had finally unleashed his magic.

A ragged, half-mad laugh tore from his throat as the soldier clattered back to the floor, the magic sustaining it guttering out. Lucas laughed until his sides ached, until tears streamed down his face, until his throat felt raw and abused from the cathartic release.

Lucas's laughter slowly subsided into ragged gasps as the adrenaline coursing through his veins began to ebb. He stared at the soldier lying motionless once more, silently contemplating something.

In those manic moments before the toy levitated, he had seen...something. Brief glimpses beyond the normal realm of perception.

Petunia had a small amount of inner light inside of her, like candle flames flickering within her being. But Vernon and Dudley...they had been utterly devoid of that luminescence, a void of emptiness.

Lucas's brow furrowed as he pondered the implications. Could that light represent...magic? If so, it would explain the small amount within Petunia - she must be a Squib.

His gaze drifted down to study his own body. He had appeared simultaneously empty yet overflowing with brilliant light in those fleeting moments of heightened awareness. At first, the contradiction made no sense, but when he thought about it more deeply…

This body belonged to Harry Potter, a wizard child. Of course it would be magical. But his soul...his soul did not originate from this world. It stood to reason that his existence, transplanted into this form, would appear as both overflowing light and hollow emptiness.

A slow nod of understanding passed over his features. His inability to wield magic until this point was not due to any lack of understanding or willpower, but rather a fundamental disconnection between his soul and this body. Whatever forces had reincarnated him here had simply dropped his consciousness into an ill-fitting vessel without any means to use its inherent magic.

Lucas stared intently at the plastic soldier lying motionless on the floor. If his theory was correct, his unrelenting desire, his sheer force of will during those fevered moments, had somehow bridged the gap between his soul and this body's innate magic.

He focused his mind, picturing the soldier rising into the air, and willed it to obey. But the toy remained stubbornly still, refusing to budge an inch no matter how fiercely he concentrated.

Lucas sighed in disappointment, but he had come too far, pushed himself to the very brink of madness in pursuit of this goal. He knew magic would not yield itself so easily.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Lucas centred himself. The seething undercurrent of frustration still festered beneath the surface from his months of failure. He allowed those pent-up emotions to rise, transforming the unstable feelings into a single point of focus.

The toy soldier rose shakily into the air once more, responding to the focused surge of frustration from Lucas. He let out a relieved sigh as it hovered briefly before clattering back down. Even if he had to rely on emotions to access magic for now, it was a start.

But that raised another question - how could he remove this dependency and wield magic through sheer force of will alone? Frustration had worked to levitate the soldier, but it didn't seem ideally suited for that particular application of magic.

Lucas's little hands clenched tight as he studied the toy soldier intently. Perhaps a lighter, more buoyant emotion would allow for smoother levitation? He closed his eyes and memories of soaring high above the clouds in an airplane filled his mind. The breathtaking vista of the world far below, the sense of freeing weightlessness...

His eyes snapped open, maintaining that feeling of airy lightness as he focused his will on the soldier. To his satisfaction, the toy rose in a smooth, controlled hover a few inches off the floor. Lucas couldn't suppress a smile as he willed it gently back down.

Okay, so different emotions seemed suited to different magical effects. That made a certain intuitive sense. But constantly riding the ebb and flow of unstable feelings didn't seem like the best path to follow. He'd be dependent on them for his magic, and they could easily be disrupted by external circumstances. Not to mention that if any magic in the future required something like anger to function, he'd probably get more and more angry by force of habit. That was something he needed to avoid at all costs.

Lucas spent the next few hours experimenting, levitating the soldier over and over again while forcing himself to go through various emotional states. Excitement made the toy jerk erratically, while calmness kept it drifting in a lazy circle. Each emotion produced a different manifestation of levitation magic.

Finally, he leaned back with an exhausted sigh. While exploring this emotional conduit to magic was insightful, it remained an unreliable, unpredictable crutch. There had to be a way to do magic through pure focus and willpower alone.

A couple of weeks passed in the small cupboard, the days blurring together as Lucas remained consumed by his singular obsession. His focus never faltered from the unassuming green soldier lying motionless before him.

While he'd managed to learn how to levitate the toy through various emotional states, true emotionless magic continued to escape his grasp. Frustration rose within him as attempt after attempt ended in failure, the soldier stubbornly refusing to obey his will alone.

However, in his relentless experimentation, Lucas did manage to achieve a new usage of magic - repulsion. By tapping into negative emotions like anger and disgust, he found he could push objects away from himself.

The first time it happened, a surge of revulsion toward the Dursleys' neglectful treatment of him, a literal toddler, welled up unbidden. As if in response, the toy soldier flew backward, slamming against the cupboard door with a dull thud.

Over the following days, he cycled through a myriad of negative emotions - bitterness, resentment, loathing - gauging their effects. Hatred proved the most potent, violently flinging the soldier with enough force to leave dents in the flimsy wood. Annoyance generated a weaker but more controlled repulsion.

Lucas carefully went through each emotion and its resulting manifestation of force. Like levitation, different feelings produced varying expressions of this repulsion magic. But no matter how he tried to twist his feelings, no matter how he grasped at the core will behind them, the magic remained inherently tied to those unstable states.

Slumping back against the dull cupboard wall in exhaustion, Lucas narrowed his eyes in thought. He could levitate via positive emotions like joy and serenity. He could repulse via negative emotions like anger and disgust. But emotionless, pure willpower alone proved insufficient to work any magic.

His eyes drifted shut as he struggled to pinpoint the missing element, the piece of the puzzle he couldn't quite grasp. There had to be something more, some way to finally break free of this emotional restriction and wield magic through pure Will.

Occlumency…

From what he understood, it involved clearing the mind of all thoughts and achieving an almost meditative-like state of pure, focused calm. Could cultivating such mental discipline be what was needed for emotionless magic?

The more he considered it, the more plausible it seemed. If Occlumency allowed one to shed all emotional turmoil and exist in a realm of perfect concentration, then using magic through Will alone might be possible in that heightened state of mind. It was certainly worth exploring.

But Occlumency alone didn't seem like the complete solution. From what he could recall, it focused primarily on defence against external Legilimency and achieving an empty, emotionless state. While valuable, he needed an active component as well - something to visualize and shape his magic, to make it an extension of his will.

What about a mindscape? A metaphysical construct within my consciousness could potentially serve that purpose. And if I visualize such a mindscape and combine it with the focused clarity of Occlumency, perhaps I can finally achieve emotionless magic.

From what he had figured out so far, it seemed that magic required him to fulfil three base requirements.

Will, the desire to make something happen.

Intent, the specific outcome he wants to achieve.

Emotion, the driving force that compels his magic to respond to his Will and Intent. This also changed how his Intent would manifest in the outside world depending on the emotion being used.

If Lucas took the mindscape as the centre of his Occlumency practice, and forced his Emotion-filled magic to work within this mindscape, perhaps he could gradually lessen the amount of Emotion involved in this equation. Even if only slightly, just enough that the magic still recognized his Will and Intent to do 'something'.

And at that point, it would only be a matter of practice until Will and Intent are all that he needed. Though this will probably require him to repeat the process each time his Intent differed. But if that was what it took… he would gladly repeat that process if it meant he didn't have to rely on emotions to fuel his magic.

The question then became...what form should his mindscape take? An empty void seemed too hollow and lifeless to properly represent magic. A flame, while suitable for feeding distracting thoughts into it, felt too wild and uncontrolled. He needed something more cohesive, something that captured the fluidity of magic while still allowing for order and discipline.

Memories surfaced from his previous life - lazy days spent wandering along the beach near his childhood home. The rhythmic ebb and flow of the ocean's waves had always instilled a deep sense of tranquil calm within him. No matter what minor stresses plagued his mind, those long walks left him feeling focused and at peace.

A faint smile tugged at his lips. A vast sea... Yes, that could be the perfect representation for his mindscape's form.