"If you insist on attending that Hogwarts school, you can pay the tuition yourself! This orphanage won't give you a single Galleon!"
"I understand, Caregiver Anna."
...Ben watched Caregiver Anna disappear into the common room before gently closing the door behind him.
If he made too much noise, she might think he had an attitude, and his dinner would instantly downgrade from cheap sausages to baked beans on stale bread. Without a drink, a meal like that could choke a person.
Then again, the tap water was always murky and unsafe. Drinking too much of it inevitably led to sickness. And for a child in this destitute orphanage in the South District, getting sick was often a death sentence.
How did Ben know this with such certainty? Because his own predecessor in this body had perished from that very combination of sickness, a severe cold, and malnutrition. The Ben who had arrived last winter in this world took this as a constant, grim warning. Yes Ben was transmigrator who took over this boys body.
He did everything he could to get his hands on good food and would even fight the older children for a cup of instant coffee, despite the one or two nights of insomnia it would cost him.
Over the past six months, he had pieced together the reality of his situation.
It was late August 1991.
He was in the Croydon district of London, in the world of Harry Potter. This was one of the city's most impoverished areas. And the Hollese Orphanage, his home, was the most neglected institution within it.
There was only one orphanage here, a token project established for political clout. It was just like the Britain he remembered from his past life. In late 1990, the "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher had stepped down. Her policies had reformed the economy but had also carved a massive chasm between the rich and the poor. The City of London thrived on deregulation, its gentlemen growing richer, while traditional industrial zones and inner-city slums faced rampant unemployment and slashed public services.
The effects were starkly visible in Croydon. The Hollese Orphanage hadn't received any real funding in five years, leading to a desperate financial state. Every child not only lacked access to clean drinking water but also had to survive the winter with just a single, threadbare blanket.
In these conditions, Hogwarts wasn't just a school; it was his only chance at survival. His body had always been frail, and without the opportunity to escape, he likely wouldn't live to see adulthood. A simple cold or fever could be fatal. It wasn't that London's medical care was backward, but rather that the callous caregivers might not "promptly notice" a sick child until it was too late.
"Hogwarts tuition is free for first year," Ben muttered to himself, pulling a worn bag from the deepest recess of his bunk bed. "And Professor McGonagall helped me apply for a scholarship to cover the other fees." But from next year onwards he would have to take a student loan to study further as Hogwarts only covers first year fees of every needy student.
He patter his bag to make sure his items were still there, inside the bag were one hundred forty-three Galleons, a wand, a set of robes, and other necessities. He had purchased only the bare minimum required by the school's list. Even so, the supplies had cost a staggering one hundred fifty-seven Galleons, wiping out more than half of his funds before the school year had even begun.
And tomorrow was the first day of school.
"I have to be faster. If my performance isn't good enough to earn a scholarship, I'm done for... this money won't last..."
When he had received his admission letter, Professor McGonagall had mentioned the possibility of an award for outstanding young wizards. But would he, Ben, perform outstandingly? The hope felt slim. It had taken him five hundred excruciating attempts just to master the Levitation Charm.
Thankfully, he had a secret weapon.
Name: Ben
Identity: Wizard
Title: None
Proficiency:
Levitation Charm: Apprentice (1/300)
Lumos Charm: Apprentice (1/300)
Scouring Charm: Unlocked (27/30)
Three Apprentice-level Charms can unlock the Apprentice title in the Charms domain.
Advancement: Three Novice-level Charms can unlock the Novice title in the Charms domain.
Yes, Ben had a proficiency panel. Its function was beautifully simple: correct practice was rewarded with points. An Apprentice-level Charm required just 30 correct casts, and mastering three of them would unlock a title. It sounded easy, but it had taken him two grueling months to get this far, averaging about one and a half successful casts per day.
His magical talent was, to put it mildly, atrocious. He wasn't sure if it was a side effect of his transmigration, but he couldn't shake the feeling that the magical world, which he had yet to truly encounter, was already working against him. Not that it likely had time to bother with someone like him.
"Tonight, I have to unlock that title!"
Full of resolve, Ben took out his wand. He stepped carefully across the warped floorboards and peered through the drafty, single-pane window. The Victorian-era row house, nestled in the impoverished South District, was silent.
"Good, everyone's asleep. If I'm quiet, no one will notice."
If the previous occupant of his body had left him anything useful, it was this isolated, single dormitory. He had been assigned it to prevent the spread of disease, but for the current Ben, it was a blessing. It gave him the private space he desperately needed to practice magic.
"Scourgify!"
Ben enunciated the spell clearly, pointing his wand at a grimy poster and tracing an S-shaped pattern in the air.
Nothing. The count on his panel remained unchanged.
He didn't let it deter him, chanting the spell and waving his wand again. It wasn't until he started learning magic himself that he truly understood how obscure and difficult it was. Take the Scouring Charm: where should the emphasis fall in the incantation? How forceful should it be? What kind of 'S' should the wand trace—large or small? Where should the motion be faster, and slower?
Ben knew that "scour" meant to clean and "-ify" was a suffix meaning to make or cause to become. Logically, the pause should be between "Scour" and "-ify." As for the S-shaped gesture, that was mostly guesswork. Thankfully, the panel let him know when he succeeded, allowing him to build on the memory of each correct attempt.
"Scour—g—ify!"
He chanted the spell for the fifth time, moving his wand based on his muscle memory from the last success.
"Faster at the start, then slower, and the final curve needs to be wider..." he muttered, concentrating intensely on replicating the motion.
Suddenly, a faint light emanated from his wand tip, and the stains on the poster vanished in an instant!
You have practiced the Scouring Charm to the Novice standard, proficiency +3.
Scouring Charm unlocked.
New Charms domain title unlocked, please check.
A Wizard talent unlocked, please check.
Success!
Ben picked up the newly cleaned poster, marveling at the quiet wonder of magic. He now understood that just as spells had different effects, correct practice had different standards: Apprentice and Novice. Apprentice-level success granted 1 proficiency point, while Novice granted 3. He wondered if there were levels beyond Novice, but with his abysmal talent, achieving even this felt like a gift from Merlin himself.
"Let's see the new title."
He eagerly opened the panel, and three new lines of text appeared:
Title: Charms Novice
Slightly increases perception of Charms, slightly enhances Charms talent.
Ben scrolled down further.
Wizard: Ben ,
Charms Talent: Green (Buffed by Charms Novice title, original talent was White)
Note: Average wizard talent is Green.
Ben sucked in a sharp breath.
White? As in, bottom-of-the-barrel, completely inept? No wonder he couldn't learn a thing. His natural talent was so bad it was practically non-existent.
He was incredibly fortunate to have his panel; without it, his future studies would have been an unimaginable nightmare. After the initial shock faded, a new determination hardened in his eyes.
No talent? Then he would just have to repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
"Alright, panel," he whispered, a fierce grin spreading across his face. "Let's see what your limit is!"