Warmth enveloped him like a blanket freshly pulled from the sun. A blanket… too soft.
Ryan frowned without opening his eyes. He didn't remember anything remotely like Egyptian cotton at the orphanage.
The last thing he remembered was going to bed with a half-empty stomach and his phone at 3% battery. He had been reading a low-quality Chinese magic novel.
'Why does everything smell so clean?' he wondered, still submerged in the fog of sleep.
He opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was a high ceiling of polished wood. Beams with carvings. Heavy curtains. Bookshelves. Real books. No Telegram-downloaded PDFs. And a tall window with actual glass, not yellowed plastic, where sunlight streamed in.
He sat up with a jolt.
"What… the hell?" he murmured involuntarily.
The room was… luxurious. Huge. A fireplace gently puffed smoke to his right. Thick carpet. Folded clothes on a chair. A wand on the nightstand.
A wand?
He looked at his hands. He recognized them. Then his body. Same size. Same skin tone. The same teenage face he barely remembered from the dirty bathroom mirrors at the orphanage.
He staggered toward a full-length mirror.
It was him. Still him. But something in his reflection gleamed differently. Cleaner. Not so skinny.
He had gained some weight. In a good way. For the first time in his life, he didn't look malnourished.
And just as he was wondering if this was a fever dream or some drug trip he couldn't remember taking, it hit.
A whip of memories lashed through him like a silent explosion.
A brutal torrent of thoughts that weren't his… but were.
He bent forward, one hand on the wall, gasping.
Scenes flashed before his eyes like a sped-up movie: Hogwarts.
A man with silver eyes teaching him about wands.
A strict but caring mother.
An uncle who didn't use magic, but spoke like a sage.
And the name.
"Ryan… Ollivander?" he muttered, frowning.
Ryan Ollivander.
The name was the same.
But that last name… that wasn't his.
And yet, now it was.
A chill crept down his spine.
"Wait. Is this real?" he whispered, stepping back, dazed. "Am I a wizard…? A Harry Potter wizard?"
The laugh that escaped him was nervous, disbelieving.
When had he transmigrated?
Where was the damn god who shows up with a menu of broken skills and a flashy system interface?
Silence.
The last thing he remembered was falling asleep after reading a bad novel.
He had been an orphan in the 21st century and now he had woken up as Ryan Ollivander, heir to the most powerful wand-making empire in the wizarding world, at least in Europe.
He looked in the mirror again, still half-expecting a hidden camera to pop out of the wardrobe.
But no. The reflection didn't change and the wand on the table… was still there.
He stepped closer.
He picked it up.
It was warm to the touch. A shiver ran down his spine. It was real. All of it was real.
He sat up abruptly in bed. His heart was pounding like it was about to explode.
And then, as silence wrapped around him, the pain of loss hit.
He had no family, of course, he was an orphan.
But he did have friends. Kids at the orphanage he considered his brothers. He covered his face with his hands.
Ryan stayed quiet, staring at the floor and muttering curses for over ten minutes.
"Shit… they didn't even let me say goodbye. No warning. Not even one last night…" he whispered.
He swallowed hard. Closed his eyes. Forced himself not to cry, and then it happened.
A spark.
An idea.
A soft, almost ironic laugh escaped through his nose.
"Seriously?" he said aloud, lifting his head. "I died… and ended up transmigrating into the world of Harry Potter… as a rich, spoiled kid with a legendary last name. Every otaku's wet dream! And not just that," he started laughing for real now, "I've got magic! Real magic! And a private room bigger than the whole orphanage! Okay, maybe not that big…"
He fell back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling with eyes wide open.
The laughter faded, and his mind kicked in. Fast. A survivor's speed.
Ryan Ollivander.
Yeah. That was his name now. And not just any name.
Grandson of none other than Garrick Ollivander, the wand god. The old man who sold Harry his wand.
Wait… had Harry even been born yet?
What year was it?
"1971…" he murmured suddenly.
The memories of the other Ryan were settling in his mind like puzzle pieces.
Memories that didn't belong to him, but now felt like they did.
His mother, Iris, a witch brilliant in academics, beautiful, sharp, and sarcastic, cared deeply for Ryan. They had a strong mother-son bond.
His father had left before Ryan could remember, so Iris never married and gave Ryan the Ollivander surname.
Joseph Ollivander, his uncle. A Squib. The odd one in the family, but also the wisest. He had a close relationship with the original Ryan.
Margot, his grandmother. Strong-willed but loving in her own way.
Lastly, old Garrick.
A bit cold. Demanding. Disappointed in the grandson who showed no passion for the family craft. For wands. For the business.
And he understood him. The original Ryan had been lazy. Intelligent, yes. With a prodigious memory just like Garrick. But aimless. Unmotivated.
Until now.
Now he was here. And unlike the original Ryan, he had motivation. And ambition. A lot of it.
As an orphan, he had always fought to survive. Now he was in a much better position. In fact, he was a pampered child: only son, only grandson of Garrick Ollivander…
But his ambition wasn't just personal. It was because he knew the future.
The dark future that loomed ahead.
"1971. Fifth year. Hogwarts."
He whispered the words like coordinates to a ticking bomb, sorting through the memories of the other Ryan. These were the ones that stood out:
The Marauders: James, Sirius, Remus, Peter. All about to start their fourth year at Hogwarts.
Lily Evans, the future mother of the Boy Who Lived, also in fourth year. Same with Snape.
Then came the Black sisters: Narcissa, in fourth year; Andromeda, in fifth, same as him; Bellatrix, in sixth. All in Slytherin.
That wasn't all.
There were also the classmates from his own year.
The ones around him every day.
The ones he remembered best.
Even if the original Ryan hadn't exactly been a social butterfly, more like a satellite drifting around Hogwarts' solar system, he had been there.
Four years of shared classes, exams, group projects, flying lessons, meals, and the common room.
The first person who came to mind was Alicia Fortescue.
Always with her infraction notebook in hand like it was just another wand.
He could spot her coming from the end of a corridor, with that face that said: I smell a broken rule and I know it was you, Ollivander.
She had scolded the old Ryan a thousand times, and rightfully so.
Late arrivals, missing homework, other things that cost Gryffindor house points.
Alice was smart, strict, a little intense, but also fair. She never accused him of anything he hadn't done.
And even if the original Ryan had never thanked her, he would. At least silently.
The strangest part was since third year, she seemed to have kept an eye on him. Not with hate.
It was… different. Like she wanted him to do better. Too much interest for it to be just about house rules.
But the detail that grabbed his attention the most wasn't that.
It was her name: Alicia.
Alicia Fortescue.
The surname. The talent. The age. It all fit.
She would become the mother of Neville Longbottom.
Ryan frowned, "Shit…"
A classmate.
Someone with strong morals, who tried hard, who loved life...
In less than a decade, she would be a victim of the Death Eaters.
Tortured until she broke.
Until her mind shattered and she became a woman who remembered almost nothing.
Her future son, Neville, would visit her in the hospital and she would barely recognize him. Only for a few seconds. On the good days.
And thinking about Alice's fate brought someone else to mind:
Frank Longbottom. Sixth year.
Formal. Noble. As stiff as a top-tier racing broom.
A future Auror. Already showing discipline, strength of character, seriousness…
He, too, would be tortured.
He, too, would be lost.
Two of the best wizards of their generation, destroyed. By three fanatics.
After the war had already ended.
After Voldemort had already lost.
Other names surfaced in his mind: Fabian and Gideon Prewett. Same year as him. Brothers of Molly Weasley, though he wasn't sure if she was already married to Arthur.
Dead. Attacked by five Death Eaters at once.
His other classmates were also marked. Even if he couldn't recall all their names, he could see their faces.
Brave boys and girls.
Idealists.
The kind who would join the Order of the Phoenix without hesitation.
And that could only mean one thing: Most of them would die.
All of them had an invisible countdown ticking behind their necks.
Tick, tock.
"What kind of tragic prequel did I get thrown into…" Ryan muttered, with a grimace that mixed resignation, irony, and a touch of bitterness.
James and Lily: dead because they trusted too much.
Severus Snape: Consumed by a love that became his penance. Turned into a pawn on Dumbledore's chessboard, doomed to live with a soul split in two.
Sirius Black: Betrayed by a friend. Imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. Over ten years in Azkaban with only dementors for company.
Peter Pettigrew. The traitor. The coward.
Ryan couldn't help but mentally label him as if he were already wearing a sign around his neck: "Danger: Snake disguised as a rat."
And yes, the thought of killing him early had already crossed his mind.
Regulus Black: Quiet, introspective, always in the shadow of his older brother. He would die trying to do the right thing, but no one would know until many years later.
A hidden redemption.
Bellatrix: A monster in the making. Fanatic, murderer, darkness worshipper. She would end up laughing over the corpses of the innocent, loyal to madness.
Andromeda: The exception, alongside Sirius, from the very beginning.
The only one of the Black sisters who dared to break with her bloodline. Who fell in love with the wrong man and chose him over everything.
She paid the price.
She was disowned, erased from the family tapestry.
But she lived, and survived the war with her husband and daughter.
And yet, the one who came out best of all was Narcissa.
The youngest of the three Black sisters. Cold, calculating, elegant even in her contempt.
She never got her hands dirty. Never threw herself into the abyss.
She played chess while the others gambled their lives in battles of life and death.
Ryan ran a hand down his face, letting out a long sigh.
All of it.
That entire mental map of deaths, betrayals, madness, and redemption...
It was just a few years away.
But he didn't know exactly when, and that was the real problem.
Sure, he knew the key points.
The end of the road.
That Peter betrays.
That Voldemort loses his body trying to kill Harry.
That Regulus dies attempting to destroy a Horcrux.
That Snape loves Lily.
That Sirius is innocent.
That Dumbledore isn't as innocent as he seems, though clearly not evil either. A man painted in shades of gray.
All of that was clear, but the path…
The how, the when, the exact why of each event…
That was still lost in the fog.
And worse: the timeline didn't match.
According to what he remembered from the books and movies, James, Lily, Sirius, Snape… all of them should be starting their first year in 1971.
And yet, he remembered them at Hogwarts with him. They were now about to begin their fourth year.
They had already spent three years at Hogwarts together, Ryan as their senior.
They were starting fourth year, and he was starting fifth. Which meant James, Lily, and Snape were 14 years old.
"What the hell is going on with the timeline?" he muttered, frowning.
A glitch in the universe? A multiverse? An alternate canon?
Harry Potter was supposed to be born in 1980, with Lily and James being around 20 or 21 years old at the time.
But if they had him at the same age here, that would place his birth around 1977 or 1978.
The window of time Ryan thought he had was shrinking with each inconsistency.
He had dreamed a thousand times of waking up in the Harry Potter world, but he always imagined it would be in the story he knew.
The one from the books.
The seven years at Hogwarts. The Boy Who Lived, the Philosopher's Stone, the Triwizard Tournament.
A world where knowledge was power.
Where the pieces were already on the board.
Where you could predict things with precision.
But no.
He had landed in the prequel. The ambiguous, darker era. Full of blanks.
No one knew exactly how the First Wizarding War unfolded.
There were only whispers that Voldemort began rising slowly, like a rumor. Recruiting powerful witches and wizards, infiltrating the Ministry, forging pacts with dark creatures…
Attacking Muggle-borns, half-bloods, and anyone who opposed him.
Even targeting the Muggle world, forcing the Ministry to alter memories by the thousands.
Then came the other truth, if he followed the classic path: If he chose to face Voldemort as a hero, on the side of good…
What exactly was he supposed to do against Voldemort? An adult wizard with over fifty years of experience.
One of the most gifted of his generation. A master of curses, potions, ritual magic, mind control, and political manipulation.
And to top it off: horcruxes. Pieces of soul hidden like insurance policies.
Ryan scoffed.
What could a 22-year-old kid do against that?
Because if the war erupted in 1975 and peaked around 1978, he'd be 22.
And if it dragged on until 1980, like in the original timeline, he'd be just 24.
Harry Potter defeated Voldemort, sure, but not through strength.
It was an accident. A mother's sacrifice. Ancient magic. A soul-deep connection he never asked for.
And in the end, Voldemort had been an arrogant idiot who pointed the wrong wand at the wrong moment.
Ryan had none of those advantages.
He wasn't the Chosen One.
He didn't have a soul bond with his enemy.
He didn't have Dumbledore planning every step like a wizened chess master.
Ryan sighed and looked out the window at the dark sky.
"Fifteen years old, and in a few short years I'm supposed to face a genocidal psychopath and his band of lunatic killers…"
He hadn't even gotten an age advantage.
In his original life he was already 15.
If he'd been born as a baby, he could've prepared since childhood to become a true genius, he'd have had a mature mind in a young body.
But not even that...
He sat in silence for a moment… then brought a hand to his chin, thoughtful.
"What if I just leave Britain?" he asked aloud.
He could move to the U.S. Apply to Ilvermorny, the American wizarding school.
It didn't sound so crazy. Convincing his mother wouldn't be hard.
They had money.
They had a name.
And if he played his cards right, she could even get a job if needed, though money wasn't an issue at the moment.
His Squib uncle could go with them too. He had always been the most flexible one, and he'd probably love the idea of experiencing American magical culture firsthand.
The problem was the old man: Garrick Ollivander.
A man who breathed wands the way others breathed air.
Convincing him to leave his shop, his legacy, his family's history…
Blah, blah, blah.
Difficult.
Maybe not impossible, but definitely difficult.
But if the old man refused to come, they could leave without him.
Was the pride of one old man really worth more than the safety of the entire family?
In America, yes, everything was uncertain. He had no idea what the magical world was like there in 1971.
But it was unlikely they had a Dark Lord with horcruxes lurking in the shadows, recruiting Death Eaters in every corner, preparing for a wizarding civil war.
There, maybe, he could study in peace. Improve his skills. Become an expert in defense, potions, enchantments.
And then… return right when the canon begins. In his thirties. When Harry first boarded the Hogwarts Express.
Ryan could be the mysterious professor.
An eccentric wizard with a piercing gaze, a black wooden cane, and an interesting scar over one eyebrow.
The kind of man who appears out of nowhere, interrupts the main plot, and drops cryptic lines like:
"I know your story, Potter… and I know how it ends. I'll be your professor."
He smiled to himself. The image was tempting.
"I'd be the weird professor," he muttered theatrically, "A mentor with a dark past and an enigmatic stare."
He laughed, but not for long. Because the truth was, he didn't want to run. He could, but he didn't want to.
He wasn't a coward.
He'd grown up in an orphanage and there you learned something important: You take care of your own.
He wasn't a sociopath.
He wasn't a cold manipulator.
Now he had the memories of the original Ryan fluttering in his mind.
And with them, names, faces, moments.
Alice Fortescue.
Strict, intense classmate who dreamed of becoming an Auror and making the world a better place.
Maybe they weren't close friends, but Ryan remembered her gestures, her looks, the way she always seemed to want him to do better.
James and Lily. Young. Brave. Full of life. They deserved a future, not a coffin.
The Prewetts. Gideon and Fabian. Twin storms with wands.
Brave until the very end, killed for fighting on the right side.
Severus Snape. The boy who turned into a shadow. Outcast, humiliated, and eventually consumed by his own darkness.
Condemned by his choices… and by his pain.
And so many others.
Boys and girls with dreams.
Classmates he'd now look at knowing, feeling, that they were fated to die.
And he was here.
Sitting.
With the chance to do something.
No.
He didn't want to watch them fall.
He didn't want to be a cowardly observer who knew everything and didn't lift a finger.
And if he couldn't save them all, then he'd at least save some.
What was the worst that could happen?
Die again?
He smiled.
Then, something happened.
A soft metallic sound floated in the air, like magical gears clicking into place in the void.
A bluish light appeared in front of him.
A mechanical, neutral voice with ancient undertones echoed in his mind:
[Arcane Creation System Activated.
Welcome, Ryan Ollivander.
Initial installation complete.
Version 0.1.1... loading modules...]
"What the…?" Ryan murmured, blinking in confusion.
...
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