4 Privet Drive.
"Haha, with the little devil gone, I'm the biggest one in the house!"
Vernon felt as though he'd been set free. He even contacted a restaurant in London to order a feast, paid a hefty delivery fee, and had it brought all the way to Surrey.
"Dudley, stop training. You'll never see Tom again."
Vernon watched his son doing push-ups in the living room and tried to reason with him, his heart aching.
Ever since Tom's personality had changed drastically, his round, adorable son had grown thinner by the day. He was practically a bamboo stick, liable to blow away in the wind.
That accursed Tom Riddle!
"No. Big Brother Tom just went off to school; he didn't die and get reincarnated. We'll see each other again. When he comes back, I want to be able to see his back." Dudley shook his head.
He felt that his stamina had improved again lately, so he'd added a lot more to his training.
Every day, he watched the boss effortlessly do "a hundred push-ups, a hundred sit-ups, a hundred squats, and a ten-kilometer run." His workout kept getting longer every day, and Dudley was genuinely envious.
Ding-dong!!
The doorbell rang.
Vernon thought the feast had arrived and hurried to the door to greet the delivery person. Instead, he saw a terrifying demon and his sidekick.
Vernon backed away repeatedly. "Weren't you going to Hogwarts?"
"I went to school. I didn't die and get reincarnated. Why wouldn't I come back?" Tom said, exasperated.
"Then when are you going to kick the bucket?"
"..." Tom was exasperated again. Was that any way to talk?
He'd only taken a few punches from him. And yet the supervisor of Grunnings, of all people, had no grasp of basic etiquette.
"Move aside?"
"Okay, I'll move right away."
Under Tom's gaze, Vernon's hefty frame took a few steps back, and he reluctantly cleared the doorway he'd been blocking.
There was no helping it. At the Dursleys', he was just a "loli."
Ignoring Vernon, Tom exchanged a greeting with Dudley in the living room as he passed, then he and Harry each hauled their own piles of luggage straight back to their rooms.
With a thought, he summoned the panel.
Looking at his 10 achievement points, Tom felt a nervous excitement. He really wanted to know what he'd get this time. The two Personae he'd drawn before had both been incredibly useful.
[Robust] had given him a strong body, while the other, [Overbearing], was...
[Overbearing (Lv. 1): Fierce and formidable, terrifying to behold. Those who oppose you will feel fear and lose the will to fight back.]
With [Overbearing], once someone had taken one of his punches, they generally wouldn't come looking for trouble again.
This ability was especially useful in Great Britain, where school bullying was everywhere. It had helped him solve quite a few problems and get through school life more easily.
"I wonder what I'll get on my third draw."
With a thought, his 10 achievement points instantly vanished, and a brand-new entry turned from transparent to solid, slowly appearing on the panel.
[Laziness (Lv. 1): The pinnacle of idleness. Greater rest efficiency. You need only 4 hours of sleep to get the rest others get from 8.]
"What a great ability!" Tom was thrilled.
One of the biggest problems Tom faced at the moment was how weak his body was.
There were so many things he wanted to do, but because he was so young and his body hadn't finished developing, he needed more rest than an adult. Otherwise, it could affect his physical strength when he grew up.
But with [Laziness], he could save more time by cutting his rest time in half.
If he could find a way to raise the [Laziness] Persona to its peak, perhaps one minute of rest would be enough for a whole day.
With the Persona draw taken care of, the next thing was...
Learning spells.
Before this, his use of magic had been limited to moving things from a distance. Although magic was all-powerful, and Harry had once managed Apparition and hair growth during a bout of accidental magic, those spells had happened by chance and couldn't be controlled.
To cast magic reliably, he still had to stand on the shoulders of those who came before him.
"Reh-PAH-roh!"
Following the book, Tom snapped a pencil in half and pointed his wand at it, moving it in a clockwise circle.
Reparo, a common repair spell used by wizards, could mend ordinary Muggle objects that weren't too badly damaged. Repairing magical objects depended on the circumstances.
Nothing happened.
The pencil didn't move at all.
As expected.
Although he had a textbook, he'd never had any systematic instruction. He had no reference for things like how large a circle to make with the wand, or how fast and forcefully to move it.
All he could do was test things over and over.
Even with talent on the Dark Lord's level, it was still difficult to learn a simple spell without a teacher.
Hermione had managed to learn a series of simple spells before starting school. She must have done a great deal of research and practice on her own at home.
Looks like she was the same kind of study maniac.
He shook his head... Then Tom kept circling his wand and cast Reparo on the broken pencil dozens of times, but every attempt failed.
His wand didn't even give off the slightest spark.
"Let's see what the other spells are like." Tom decided not to keep banging his head against the wall. He had his own way of learning.
Magic was an extremely subjective thing, so he needed a flash of inspiration.
If he tried out some other spells, perhaps one of them would have casting requirements that matched his everyday habits, allowing him to pull it off.
Once he managed to cast one spell, he could learn by analogy and gradually master the others.
The Floating Charm, Alohomora, Lumos...
Tom tried out all the first-year spells, but none of them worked. Then, when he tested the second-year spells...
"Dih-FIN-doh!"
Diffindo, an offensive spell that could cut objects apart. It was strictly forbidden to use on people.
But the instant he swung his wand—
Snap!
Half of the pencil on the table suddenly burst into even smaller pieces.
The spell had worked!
"Fantastic! I've finally cast my first proper spell!" Tom was overjoyed.
The wondrous, magical world of magic had just opened a crack in the door for him.
"Dih-FIN-doh!"
He immediately swung his wand again, but nothing happened this time.
Tom tried to recall how it had felt when he first cast the spell successfully. It was as if he needed to slice through something with his wand: move it quickly, speak decisively and sharply, and picture the pencil being cut apart in his mind.
Snap!
Another piece of the pencil broke into even smaller bits.
At last, he'd gotten the hang of what it took to cast Diffindo. Next came repeated practice.
A powerful wizard could slice through any object with a finger, without saying a word.
Once he'd practiced Diffindo to that level, perhaps it would be easier to learn other spells.
He aimed at the remains of the pencil...
"Dih-FIN-doh!"
"Dih-FIN-doh!"
"Dih...
Meanwhile.
Far away, at Hogwarts.
The door to the Headmaster's Office swung open from the outside, and a greasy-haired middle-aged man walked in.
"Headmaster Dumbledore, you wanted to see me?"
Severus Snape walked in and closed the door behind him.
"Yes. Although I don't think it's necessary, it's still very necessary. So I've decided to give you a little advance warning before September first arrives."
Dumbledore rubbed his fingers together, thinking about how to phrase it.
"?" Snape was completely baffled.
What was the old codger talking about?
Before you continue