Harry Potter: Heir of Darkness

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In a rather large house in the center of London, a toddler was starring intensely at a floating toy, and as the seconds passed his face started turning red from exertion.

But even after the intense effort, nothing more happened, and as he gave up, the magical runes kept the toy flying.

The toy was a dragon, a miniature one that is, and could be seen in most wizarding houses in the world. Dragons had something about them that made them ever so intriguing, which was why this toy was so popular.

But what really mattered here was not the toy, but the toddler. His name was Ethan Rimor, and he was a reincarnator.

Well, he wasn't really sure of the term as he didn't remember dying or even how he crossed over, but he had somehow landed in another world, one way or another.

He had started out as early as within his mother's belly, and got the 'luck' to experience his own birth. That was a terrifying experience he did not want to think of ever again, it wasn't just painful, it was… indescribably dreadful.

The following months, and even the first year, weren't very pleasant either, as it turned out a baby had a very poor control over their body, older soul or not, and that resulted in shameful accidents.

There was one thing he could rejoice over though, and that was the discovery of the world he was in, the magical world of Harry Potter.

It didn't take long for Ethan to know he was different from his past life. Different names aside, he was pretty sure he hadn't released a burst of force around him at birth in his past life.

After that, it didn't take that long for Ethan to guess he had been reincarnated into one of his favourite worlds of fiction, Harry Potter. Even better, he did not even have to live with the fear of being a muggle or a squib, having already shown a feat of magic early on.

Imagine being sent into a magical world, even worse being stranded into a magical family, but be unable to use magic in any way, that would be quite the torturous life. At least, it would be for Ethan.

In his past life, Ethan had been quite a fan of Harry Potter, he hadn't just read the books and watched the movies, he had also read his fair share of fanfictions, and so after learning he had magic, and having to spend his days unable to move, he immediately went for magic.

Maybe it was an instinctual thing, or maybe it was because of all the fanfictions Ethan had read, but the first thing he had tried to accomplish was telekinesis. For some reason, this was the simplest form of magic that came to his mind.

Unfortunately for Ethan, those fanfictions had either made magic much simpler than it actually was, which was probable since none of them actually knew what magic was like, or Ethan wasn't a heaven defying talent capable of defeating a full powered Voldemort at the age of 11. Probably a bit of both.

Well, although he was a bit disappointed, this didn't hamper Ethan's drive to master his magic. It wasn't like he had much else to do anyway, and he had already confirmed he had magic.

But even now, after four years into this world, Ethan had made a pathetic amount of progress as he wasn't even able to move a toy with his magic.

But while Ethan had been terribly disappointed the first few years, that disappeared once he understood the reason. When he was three, he gradually 'learned' to read with his parents, and this led him to read a book called 'What is Magic?'.

This book wasn't written by a singular author, and was instead more of a collection of thoughts and quotes from famous wizards across history, going from Dumbledore to Andros, passing by famous figures like Merlin.

It wasn't an incredibly difficult book that delved into the mysteries of magic though. As the title suggested, it was a book that roughly explained what magic was.

This was usually given to the parents of muggle born children so they may understand magic better, and how they should handle their child suddenly grasping such a power.

Most of the stuff written in this book turned out to be useless to Ethan, but he did learn a few things that clarified him on many things.

Most magical schools like Hogwarts took in children starting at the age of 11 for a good reason, that being that this was the age at which the magic within their bodies would experience a stupendous change.

Prior to the age of 11, the magic within a child's body would be volatile, resulting in it being easily influenced by the child's emotions, which resulted in what was commonly known as accidental magic, such as what Ethan did when he was born, and plenty of other magical children showed through their childhood.

As they turned 11, the volatile magic within the child's body would experience a mutation, a change that would calm it down, thus congregating to form a stable core. This allowed magic to be probably anchored within the body, and to be accessed more easily through will, and more resistant to emotions.

Willpower was a very important component of magic, and could even be said to be at its core, but before the age of 11 it was very hard to manipulate magic through sheer willpower because of its nature. Ethan remembered reading that will was born from the spirit, while emotions were born from the soul. One was grounded, while the other was fleeting, explaining why it was easier to perform a certain kind of magic at different ages.

In other words, under 11, magic would easily be affected by the soul and the emotions it released, while it would be hard for the spirit to get a proper grasp on it through will. After 11 however, the situation did not exactly reverse. Instead, a balance would be formed, with every aspect being strengthened. This was why some of the most powerful magic even adults could cast were tied to strong emotions. But this balance allowed for better control, which was why adults did not release bursts of accidental magic, if they were well trained at least.

This was the first explanation as to why Ethan struggled so much with his magic. But it was not the only one.

The other was the magical focus.

Wizards and witches above 11 years old would usually buy a wand, or any other magical focus, which would serve them as a focus for them to channel their magic through. It made manipulating magic many times easier. To use magic without a wand was a feat known as Wandless Magic, and was something usually only mastered by the very best of wizards, or those who were trained in it from their childhood.

Ethan read about a school in Africa that took in its students when they were only 8 to spend three years to teach them Wandless Magic from an early age.

This brought up the argument about the usefulness of wands, as many wizards would be rendered completely defenceless if they were disarmed of their wand, making some see it as a weakening crutch more than anything, but it also made magic much more accessible, and more powerful. After all, if it wasn't useful, it wasn't be used by nearly every wizard and witch in the world.

In any case, that was only to show that what Ethan was trying to do was very difficult. Even in that African school, the students would only start when they were 8, and they would receive the continued guidance of teachers for three years. Meanwhile, Ethan was only a toddler, and he was on his own.

Still, Ethan didn't despair as he made some progress through the years.

Although he still hadn't managed to do any actual magic, Ethan had managed to get a much better understanding of his body and his magic through the last four years of intense training.

Ethan had used underage magic twice since that one time right after his birth, one was when he was two years old, he had grown so frustrated with his lack of progress that his emotions made his magic burst out of his body, destroying one of his favourite toys. He had been sad for a whole two hours, which he blamed on his baby brain.

The other was a year ago, when he was three. Not long after Ethan had convinced his parents he was capable of reading, he had managed to get a hold of his father's newspaper, and what he read from it shocked him so much he accidentally tore it apart with his magic.

And Ethan was understandably shocked, as that day, he had learned that he wasn't just in the world of Harry Potter, but he was also within an Alternate Universe, commonly known as AU in fanfictions.

In this world, Harry Potter was still the Boy-Who-Lived, but his parents were also still alive, and he even had a twin sister to make matters worse, bringing quite a change to the timeline.

It meant that most of Ethan's foreknowledge had suddenly turned useless, so indeed, that was quite the shock for him, and resulted in another bout of underage magic.

Anyway, those two instances had allowed Ethan to get a better feel of his magic, and so he actually knew what to search in his body when executing magic.

Nowadays, although Ethan wasn't able to perform magic, he could at least move a small amount of magic through his body, and project it onto the world. All he had to do now was to find a way to gather more magic for it to start producing a meaningful effect. What he was doing at the moment was comparable to blowing air.

Fortunately, he still had 7 years until Hogwarts, and he was confident of mastering at least one spell before then.

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Author's Note: Welcome to this story, I hope you will enjoy it. You can head to the 'Patréon' (Spooky forbidden work, got to add the accent, just remove it for the link) if you want to support me. I'm not sure of the release rate yet, I guess we'll see how things go, although I suppose a few stones would help...