4 New chance

It took Richard a few days to get familiar to himself after his stint in DXD. As he had arranged it beforehand,  his name was Richard Cloverfield. An orphan in a small orphanage in the outskirts of London.

He was currently ten years old and set to turn eleven by the twenty first of the next  month to be exact. Looking back through his memories, he was pleased to see how his soul substitute had lived for the past ten years.

Not too smart or stupid in the studies. With enough activity for an average primary schooler. He had seen others being bullied, but didn't poke his nose where it didn't belong. A perfectly blended in image for a background character.

There were no accidental magic around him either, the reason being the absence of the real soul. The food quantity he had recived from the orphanage was adequate for a child of his age, so there were no signs of malnutrition or growth defects.

With the self evaluation done, Richard turned to the next activity in his itinerary. Physical enhancement.

Before he descended down to the world, he made many changes to the world, so that he can exploit them for his own advantage. And because he changed the lore, he knew the history that was never recorded.

For instance, the human wizard history was divided into four eras. Era of beast, Era light, era of ignorance and the era of enlightenment.

The first era was the time when magic was used in its most primal way. Just like how magical beasts  used magic, humans of those era used magic instinctively. Only in the most primary manner. Be it increasing physical attributes or creating small miracles, the magic of that era was limited in every way.

Then came the era of light. After human civilization settled down and began to explore knowledge, the usage of magic began to bloom. With battle hardened physiques, and great minds that created complex machinery,  human mages managed to make use of magic to its fullest.

The era included the time of the first great civilizations like Egyptian, Greek , Roman and the Norse.

Great warriors and visionaries alike were able to use the magicks to create miracles.

Then came the era of ignorance. The inevitable clash between religion and magic. Many young seeds were persecuted on the name of religion,  reducing the wide spread magical blood to a minimum. This and the comforts of normal lives stripped the magical humans of much of their magical knowledge and the physiques that were more sensitive to magic.

Thankfully four great wizards of that time, Godric Griffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin came together to create Hogwarts. The first magical school.

This of course lead to the era of enlightenment. While the wizardkind had lost much, they began to make up for them through ingenuity. To adapt to their less sensitive bodies, they created wands. The mind became the source of magic, ushering a new era that flourished till the present.

And so, Richard had added a small hidden detail. An Easter egg one could say. Though it was vague, he had added that a better physical conditioning allowed for faster and better spell casting.

And so, Richard, laid flat in his room before silently starting to do push-ups.

(By the way, magic awakens naturally when wizards in this HP universe pass the age of ten)

Dear Mr Cloverfield,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1st. We await your owl by  no later than July 31st .

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

Richard, read the letter once more to make sure he didn't miss any of the details.

"Ya done readin' that letter?" The director of the orphanage asked Richard after waiting for a while. She was a witch too. Something Richard had no prior knowledge of, but still was a pleasent suprise. He was not ready to meet McGonagall just yet.

The arrival of the letter was not a matter to be suprised about for Richard.  After all he had tried a variety of methods to see how how his magic would react to external stimulus. With only a few of them being sucessful, creating small bursts of uncontrolled magic. But there's no need for Mrs Hagner to know that.

"So this isn't a prank?"

The fat woman looked at him with a smirk. " No. I've been to Hogwarts myself when I was your age. Could've been an aurour, was the best witch of my class, i tell you" somehow Richard had a hard time believing that boast. "Just write a reply letter and I'll lend you Ruin. He's better than any of those barmy postmen."

Ruin was a large barn owl that lived in the attic of the orphanage . It was quite large, and had a scary appearance that made many of the children stay away from the attic. Richard had believed that it was a stray till now, but it seemed that he was in the wrong.

So of course when the time to buy supplies came around, Mrs Hagner choose to take him to Diagon alley herself.

"Make sure to remember the bricks, I ain't taking you back here the next year." Mrs Hagner told Richard before tapping bricks on the wall in the back of the leaky cauldron.

"Tap, tap... tap tap tap"

The small stick on Mrs Hagner's hand tapped against specific bricks , making small sounds at each movement. Finally stopping at one brick before her face lit up with satisfaction.

"You might want to step back" she warned as she finished, causing Richard to stumble back a little.

The brick began wriggling, then moving before a hole appeared in the middle of it. And in a blink of an eye, the hole enlargened into a large archway, big enough to fit a small elephant.

Youth seemed to have returned to Mrs Hagner's eyes as she saw the cobbled streets and quirky shops, along with the crowd dressed in robes. 

"Let's go boy, this is  Diagon alley!"

Though Richard had braced himself for the inevitable,  the sight still managed to make him suprised. It was as if he had stepped into a different world altogether.

Everything was different. Instead of the straight and geometrically designed buildings, the alley was filled with shops and houses that looked as if they were made in cartoons. The streets were full of weird and wonderful merchandise that managed to steal the eyes of any man for whatever reasons. Instead of the modern and smart clothes, everyone was dressed in robes and other less sophisticated but still homely clothes.

Looking at his expression full of awe, Mrs Hagner chuckled.

"Better close your mouth cause you've seen nothing yet."

And so she pulled a bag full of clanking coins before taking Richard and engaging in a never ending shopping experience. This led Richard to a profound piece of wisdom he hadn't yet known. No matter the universe, muggle or witch, every woman loves shopping.

After an exhausting four hours, Mrs Hagner finally stopped for lunch, Much to the delight of a near starving Richard.

"Come now, you can't be tired yet?" The woman questioned Richard as he dragged his exhausted body back to the leaky cauldron for some lunch.

"We didn't even start buying your school stuff"

'Then what were you doing all this time you she devil' Richard wailed in his mind, but instead asked Mrs Hagner,

"But I don't have any money.  So how am I going to pay for all this stuff?"

He quickly pulled out the letter and straightened it out revealing a long list of school items.

"Don't worry about that, the ministry has that covered."

"There's a ministry of wizards?"

"Well its the ministry of magic actually."

...

....

After a little after meal chatter, Mrs Hagner took Richard to Gringotts where he was given a contract for a student loan with maximum withdrawal reaching hundred galleons a year.

After that they once more engaged in a shopping spree, thankfully much shorter this time because specific instructions were already given in the letter. Soon Richard was carrying a new cloak, cauldron, books that looked like they could block a bullet and many other oddities that would've made a muggle question his sanity.

All that was left, was the wand.