Chapter 2: The Past Four Years
Unfortunately, intel that was directly useful to him was exceedingly rare. The tip about the ruins yesterday morning was the first one involving artifacts or significant magical sites all month.
Take this morning, for example. The vision Ryan had seen was of Hagrid feeding the Acromantula colony.
The accompanying text read: [In three days, the giant and the great spider will whisper. He will have a great task to complete.]
This kind of information was utterly useless. At best, he could leak it to bolster his reputation as a Seer, enhancing the awe and trust others had in his "abilities." It couldn't even be used to help someone solve a problem.
Other prophecies, however, could be used to help people, and they were the primary source of both his reputation and his growing pile of Galleons.
The Edge of the Forbidden Forest.
"The Anti-Disapparition Jinx on Hogwarts is still overwhelmingly powerful," Ryan murmured to himself as he felt the magical pressure lift, freeing him to Apparate. "I wonder if any wizard could ever manage to force an Apparition inside the castle walls."
He sighed, marveling at the sheer power contained within the ancient, millennium-old fortress. It was difficult for Ryan to imagine any single wizard being able to stand against the accumulated magic of a thousand years.
Of course, the innate abilities of certain magical creatures were a different matter entirely.
In the next instant, he pictured the marshland from his vision, and with a sharp CRACK, he vanished from the spot.
The Marshland.
"According to the records I checked in the library yesterday, this area is near the River Exe. The texts mention that a wizard lived here in seclusion about eight hundred years ago," Ryan thought, surveying his surroundings. He conjured a large, thin wooden plank and stepped onto it, distributing his weight to keep from sinking into the muck. "That wizard was also a respected alchemist of his time. The magical artifacts he left behind should be very enlightening."
He began probing the area for any trace of magical fluctuations.
Ryan wasn't expecting the 800-year-old artifacts to be earth-shatteringly powerful. The wizard who created them wasn't a legendary figure whose name echoed through the ages; he was merely well-known in his own time, earning only a few scattered mentions in historical records. The items he left behind would have more archaeological value than practical use.
Therefore, Ryan's goal was simply to study the magical traces from that era, to broaden his own understanding and find new inspiration. Lost techniques were not necessarily obsolete; some could be revitalized with a modern touch. It was the convenience of modern magic, the current cultural climate of the wizarding world, and the "coddling education" at Hogwarts that had slowed the pace of magical innovation.
Sometimes, he felt the urge to give a speech on 'restoring magic to its former glory.'
But he didn't yet possess the power to drive such a revolution. For now, he could only continue to explore the fundamental truths of magic, accumulating power and prestige one step at a time.
"Traces Revealed," he whispered. An invisible ripple expanded from him, seeking out anything connected to magic. He followed this by casting a charm to heighten his senses, and a torrent of information—the sigh of the wind, the buzz of insects, the damp smell of decay—flooded his mind.
Ryan performed the spells without a wand. Ever since a warning incident during the summer after his first year, he had been diligently practicing wandless magic. He wanted to avoid the Ministry detecting underage spellcasting through the Trace, which would lead to a warning, followed by the threat of expulsion.
The whole affair had begun five years ago.
One moment, he was a university student getting hit by a truck; the next, he blinked and found himself in a dreary London orphanage, an eleven-year-old orphan. Soon after, he discovered the daily intel appearing in his mind. He was just starting to plan how to use it to play the stock market and become a tycoon when a letter arrived.
The envelope was sealed with wax, stamped with a shield crest bearing a large letter 'H' surrounded by a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a serpent.
Later, at the Sorting Ceremony, after mentally insisting with all his might that he belonged in Ravenclaw, the Sorting Hat finally gave up on its idea of having Ryan "matriculate at Azkaban" before pursuing "post-graduate studies at Nurmengard."
The trouble began during the summer after his first year. Back at the orphanage, he had followed a piece of intel on an adventure and used magic. Upon his return, he was met with a Ministry warning, threatening expulsion and the destruction of his wand.
The matter was ultimately resolved by Dumbledore. It was the first time Ryan had a private conversation with the Headmaster.
Soon after, a toad-faced woman from the Ministry, a subordinate of Fudge's, arrived to deliver a personal warning. In a sickly sweet voice, she had said, "You are guilty, you know. It was only because Minister Fudge fought against the popular opinion that you were let off. You should be grateful to him. And there mustn't be a next time, or it's off to Azkaban for you..."
Ryan sneered at the memory of the shameless tactics employed by Fudge and his cronies. After Ryan had made a name for himself as a Seer, Fudge had pestered him relentlessly, sending a letter nearly every month up until last year, "hoping" he might produce a prophecy declaring that "Fudge is the divinely chosen Minister for Magic."
"At the time, both Minister Millicent Bagnold and Dumbledore were against my expulsion," Ryan mused as he scanned his surroundings. "According to a few friends in the know, several of the pure-blood patriarchs were the ones demanding harsh punishment for anyone violating the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. Fudge, seeking their support, took a hard line as well. But the moment he saw Dumbledore was opposed, he switched sides."
"Fudge really is a masterful politician," Ryan said to himself. Taking a tough stance against an orphan, likely a Muggle-born, was exactly what the pure-blood families wanted to see. It won Fudge a great deal of support. That, combined with his talent for shifting his position and playing all sides, had allowed Cornelius Fudge to successfully become the Minister for Magic last year, in 1990.
Speaking of which, it was now July of 1991. In about two months, the famous Harry Potter would be starting at Hogwarts.
Although he had seen the Harry Potter movies in his past life, his knowledge of the details was hazy. Most of his memories of the original story came from viral video clips and memes, which probably didn't align perfectly with the real people. He mostly just remembered thinking some of the actors were good-looking.
Now, after living in the wizarding world for four years, the story he knew best was his own. The Harry Potter saga was someone else's tale.
The only reason he remembered Harry's enrollment was because someone had mentioned the incoming first-years before the holiday break. That had led to someone else mentioning that the Boy-Who-Lived, the vanquisher of the Dark Lord, should be of age. A furious debate had then erupted over which House Harry Potter would be sorted into, leading to a large crowd marching to the Ravenclaw common room to demand a prophecy from Ryan.
At the time, Ryan had thrown them all out.
"Now that I think about it, what was the plot of the first book again?" he wondered aloud. "Something about the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor getting into trouble... again."
He thought back on the revolving door of DADA professors over the past four years, each forced to leave after only a year for one reason or another. One had a magical experiment go disastrously wrong. Another had to leave for urgent personal matters. One poor soul had even tripped on a vanishing stair on his way to class, fell, and scrambled his magical core so badly he had to be institutionalized at St. Mungo's.
The most terrifying incident involved a professor who lost control of a dark creature during a lesson. If Ryan hadn't foreseen the event thanks to his daily intel, it might have resulted in the first student fatality during a class in over a century.
It was safe to say that the pool of talented wizards willing to take the cursed DADA position at Hogwarts was shrinking. It wasn't even a question of profound magical ability anymore; most competent adult wizards simply weren't willing to risk their lives for a year of good pay.
Suddenly, he stopped. Before him was a cluster of mossy stones half-sunk in the mire. While they gave off no obvious magical energy, his detection spell told him that these stones had witnessed magic.
"Protego."
With a sound like striking metal, a Triple-cast Shield Charm shimmered into existence around him. This was the current limit of his ability; the Shield Charm was the only spell he could cast three times simultaneously. It was a skill he had developed over three years of grueling daily practice, aided by insights from an ancient dueling manual he had discovered through his intel.
Multiple-casting was an exceptionally advanced technique. It allowed a wizard to layer the same spell for amplified effect or weave different spells together for complex results. It required a profound understanding of the charms involved. Ryan's version, a technique he called the "Triplex Charm," was a clever shortcut that only worked for stacking identical spells.
But the effect was astonishing. Even with the magical reserves of a student, his Triplex Shield was strong enough to repel spells from an average adult wizard. Six months ago, during the winter holidays, Ryan had a run-in with a Dark Wizard.
After the Dark Wizard's Cruciatus Curse slammed into the shield with a dull thud, the man had simply stared, dumbfounded, unable to believe his Unforgivable had been blocked by a mere student's Protego. Ryan's magic and skill had grown considerably since then; the Triplex Charm now manifested as a faint, shimmering suit of armor around his body.
Circling the stones, Ryan guessed they were the remnants of a magical formation or an alchemical matrix, a type of magic rarely used by modern wizards. Its power had faded, leaving only a residual effect that could conceal the area and repel Muggles. A complete version would have likely included powerful illusionary and defensive enchantments.
Modern wizards had the convenient Muggle-Repelling Charm, which accomplished the same basic task with a simple wave of the wand. Inefficient, complex magic circles like this one had faded from use, disappearing into the mists of time, mentioned only in ancient books.
"In the Ancient Alchemy section of the Hogwarts library," Ryan recalled, "An Introduction to Classical Alchemy mentioned that these kinds of formations act like a magical lock. Without using brute force, only someone who meets the specific criteria can enter."
"However," he mused, looking at the crumbling stones, "in its current decayed state, I could probably just blast my way through."
He thought back to yesterday's intel and everything clicked into place. The "lost traveler" who was destined to stumble upon this place must be someone who met the formation's entry requirements.
It was... amusing. He, a wizard, was barred from entry, while an ordinary person was destined to "wander in" and claim the treasure.