(More everyday life here, so there may not be much for those looking for fights. Also, to everyone calling this frustrating, you wouldn't say that if you'd just read a couple more lines. Most importantly, this is fanfiction, not the original, so don't judge it by the original's power system. Do you really need an overpowered protagonist steamrolling everyone to enjoy a story, followed by the same old botched ending? I have my own power system. It won't feel out of place, and the ending won't fall apart.)
London rarely saw rain this heavy in the early morning.
Gloucestershire.
The Fuli family's manor stood on a gentle slope in the Cotswold Hills, far from the city's bustle, surrounded by an expanse of oak woodland. The manor was three hundred years old. Ivy covered its honey-colored limestone walls, gleaming green under the rain. The wrought-iron gates bore the Fuli family crest-a raven spreading its wings beside an oak tree. Beneath it, the Latin motto had grown somewhat indistinct with age.
A white-haired old man stood outside the gates of Foley Manor, holding an umbrella, and rang the bell.
In a small dining room in the manor's east wing, Su Yu sat in a chair with a bowl of spicy pepper soup and two baskets of pan-fried buns before him.
"You're doing this just to annoy me!"
Kurama's furious voice rang inside Su Yu's head, low and hoarse. The nine-tailed demon fox sealed within his soul space lay atop a mass of golden chakra, his nine tails irritably slapping the ground. Every strike stirred ripples of spiritual energy. His eyes were amber, their slit pupils glowing faintly in the dark as he stared at Su Yu-or, more precisely, at the pan-fried bun held between Su Yu's chopsticks.
"I'm not doing anything on purpose." Su Yu bit into the bun. Its golden, crisp skin broke with a satisfying crunch. He deliberately chewed slowly, as though savoring some rare delicacy. "I'm just having breakfast. What you want to eat has nothing to do with what I eat."
"How does it have nothing to do with me?" Kurama's tails struck harder, raising a small storm of spiritual energy within the soul space. "When you eat, we share your sense of taste! When you eat that... that thing, I taste it too!"
"Oh?" Su Yu took another bite, deliberately turning the exposed filling toward his chest. The gesture was pointless, since Kurama didn't perceive the outside world through sight, but Su Yu found it amusing. "Then you should thank me. You get to taste good food without the trouble of chewing or swallowing. What a bargain."
Kurama let out a low growl that buzzed through Su Yu's skull. "What I want is cheesecake. I've been saying it all morning-cheesecake. The soft, creamy kind, with that caramel color-"
"Only cheesecake would feel good!"
"It would feel like swallowing a brick." Su Yu lifted his bowl and took a sip of pepper soup. The spicy broth slid down his throat, spreading warmth through his stomach. "Besides, Carson isn't going to make you cheesecake at seven in the morning. He's as stubborn as a rock when it comes to etiquette and rules."
Kurama fell silent for about three seconds.
"You could have told him last night to make it this morning."
"Why would I tell him?"
"Because I told you! I said it last night!"
"Did you?" Su Yu tilted his head, putting on a thoughtful expression. "I don't remember."
"You don't remember-" Kurama's voice suddenly rose. All nine tails bristled at once, and the entire soul space shook. "You're doing it on purpose! You always do it on purpose! You heard me! You heard every word I said!"
Su Yu didn't answer. He picked up another pan-fried bun, dipped it in the soup, then brought it to his mouth very, very slowly. The moment he bit down, he even let out a satisfied sigh.
Kurama rolled over in the soul space, buried his face in his tails, and unleashed a string of muffled curses. He looked exactly like a helpless husband sulking in the living room, furious but utterly unable to do anything about the other person.
"You know," Su Yu said casually as he chewed, "I had Father find a secret recipe for these buns over at East University. Carson spent three months working on it before he got the flavor more or less right."
Kurama peeked out from behind his tails with one eye.
"Your father." A trace of disdain colored his voice. "The man who dumped you here and ran off around the world with your mother?"
"That's him. He and Mother should be in Egypt now. Their last letter said they were in Luxor. He was studying some ancient Egyptian cultivation method, and Mother was sketching beside him. It sounded pretty romantic."
"Romantic." Kurama sneered. "Leaving you alone in this huge house with a bunch of servants and a butler is romantic?"
"I have you too."
Kurama froze. His tails stopped moving.
"...Don't give me that." Kurama turned his head away, his voice suddenly awkward. "You think saying something like that will make me forgive you? I'm telling you, Su Yu, I-I'm never helping you again!"
"You said that last time too."
"This time I mean it!"
"And the time before that."
"Su Yu!"
"All right, all right," Su Yu said indistinctly as he bit into the last bun. "You'll get cheesecake tomorrow morning. Happy?"
Kurama was silent for a while.
"...With caramel."
"Fine, with caramel."
"And strawberries on the side."
"Sure."
"Two."
"Fine. Two."
Kurama fell silent again, then let out a contented sigh and buried his face in his tails once more. The storm of spiritual energy gradually subsided, and the golden chakra softened again, like a sea warmed by sunlight.
Su Yu laughed inwardly but didn't let it show. He knew Kurama's temper. This demon fox, who had lived for over a thousand years, seemed irritable and quick to anger, but was actually easier to appease than anyone. Give him a way to back down, and he took it immediately. In that respect, he was remarkably like someone Su Yu had once known.
No-someone he had once read about in a book.
Su Yu wiped his mouth on the tablecloth.
It was a habitual gesture-or rather, a deliberate one. Neatly folded linen napkins sat beside him, their silver rings engraved with his initials, but he couldn't be bothered to reach for them. The tablecloth was so convenient, right at hand. One quick wipe, and he was done.
"Forgive me for interrupting your breakfast, young master."
The butler Carson's voice came from the dining room doorway, measured and unhurried, like a precision clock announcing the hour. He wore a black tailcoat pressed without a single crease, his silver-gray hair meticulously combed back. His expression always carried just the right degree of respect. He had served the Fuli family for sixty-three years, overseeing the manor since the days of Su Yu's maternal grandfather. After Su Yu's mother followed her heart to the distant Eastern Continent, Carson had kept the manor running and raised Su Yu himself.
If anyone in this world could still count as family to Su Yu, Carson probably came closest to that definition.
"There's a..." Carson paused, an unusual occurrence, as though weighing his words. "Er... an elderly scholar? A professor? A teacher?"
Su Yu raised his head and looked at Carson.
"My apologies, young master. I can't quite describe him either." Carson's brow creased slightly, one of his few changes of expression. "But he says his name is Albus Dumbledore, and that he's from Hogwarts, here for a home visit." He paused. "Shall I invite him in?"
Su Yu set down his chopsticks.
Kurama snorted inside the soul space. "Who? Who's here?"
"Shut up," Su Yu said inwardly.
"What did you say? You're telling me to-"
"I said shut up." Su Yu stood, his chair making a faint sound against the floor. "Not you. I'm talking to Kurama."
Carson nodded slightly in understanding. He had long since grown accustomed to Su Yu's habit of talking to himself. After all, ever since the young master seemed to awaken something at six years old, he occasionally spoke to thin air. Carson never asked questions. In his view, a competent butler should know what to ask and what not to ask.
Kurama snorted again, much more quietly this time. "I'm telling you, I absolutely won't help you. Whatever that man wants, deal with it yourself."
Su Yu ignored him.
"Show him to the study," Su Yu said, still in that languid tone. "I'll head over too."
Carson bowed slightly. "Certainly, young master." He straightened, his gaze falling on the tablecloth fibers clinging to the corner of Su Yu's mouth. After a second of silence, he added, "However, young master, though I've said this many times, please refrain from wiping your mouth on the tablecloth next time. It's very unhygienic."
Su Yu waved a hand, already heading out of the dining room. "All right, Carson. I'll remember, Carson."
Carson remained where he was, watching Su Yu disappear around the corner of the corridor, then shook his head helplessly. The young master had so many fine qualities-intelligent, perceptive, lazy, utterly lacking in ambition-but sometimes he truly had no grasp of etiquette. No, that wasn't right. He understood it; he simply never observed it. In that respect, he was exactly like his mother, who had abandoned everything for love.
Carson sighed and turned toward the gates.
The rain was still falling. As he crossed the entrance hall, he glanced through a window at the weather outside. Dumbledore stood beyond the manor's iron gates in a deep purple robe. Some of his silver beard had gotten wet, but he seemed unconcerned. He was looking up at the Fuli family crest on the gates, a few raindrops on his half-moon spectacles glimmering faintly in the gray daylight.
"Please come in, sir." Carson opened the iron gates and bowed slightly. "The young master is waiting in the study."
Dumbledore lowered his head and gave him a kindly smile. "Thank you, Mr. Carson. Foley Manor is even lovelier in the rain than Hogwarts."
"You're too kind, sir," Carson replied without a change of expression. "This way, please."
The study was on the second floor of the manor's main building. A heavy oak desk stood in the middle of the room, several open books spread across it. Opposite the desk were two dark green armchairs with a small tea table between them. A roaring fire warmed the entire room. Now and then, the logs crackled, as though whispering secrets.
Su Yu was sprawled in one of the armchairs.
His posture-if it could be called a posture-fell somewhere between lying down and sliding off. His spine formed roughly a forty-five-degree angle with the chair back, his legs stretched out on the footstool, his head tilted to one side. He looked like a sack of flour someone had tossed onto the chair.
He had just eaten, and he really couldn't be bothered to move.
Carson's expression didn't change when he opened the door. He was used to it. He led Dumbledore into the study and announced with his usual composed dignity, "Young master, Mr. Albus Dumbledore has arrived."
Dumbledore stood in the doorway, his gaze moving from Su Yu's posture to his face, a subtle expression crossing his own.
Carson poured them each a cup of black tea, then bowed slightly and left the room.
Su Yu didn't stand. He didn't even adjust his posture. He merely lifted a hand and gave Dumbledore a lazy wave.
"Hello, esteemed Headmaster Dumbledore," he said, drawing out the last syllables in a curious tone somewhere between teasing and sincerity. "Your arrival is like moonlight beside the Seine, scattering glimmers across the ripples of knowledge; like the parchment scrolls of Oxford's libraries, each page flowing with the ink-scent of wisdom."
Dumbledore froze.
Then he laughed. It wasn't a polite smile, but a laugh of genuine amusement. His blue eyes twinkled behind his half-moon spectacles, and his silver beard trembled slightly with his laughter.
"Well, Mr. Su Fuli," he said, sitting in the opposite armchair and casually placing his wand on the tea table, "I'm deeply honored by your words." He paused, his gaze shifting from Su Yu's face to the fireplace and back. "However, I've come today to discuss your upcoming enrollment at Hogwarts."
Su Yu didn't move. He didn't even open his eyes.
"Very well, then," Dumbledore said, his voice still kindly but now a little more formal. "Let me ask you, Mr. Su Fuli, have you prepared everything you'll need before starting school?"
"Oh," Su Yu drawled. "For troublesome things like that, you're better off asking Carson than me. He packs all my things."
Dumbledore fell silent for about two seconds.
This boy possessed a unique ability-the ability to make every conscientious, responsible person want to sigh.
But Dumbledore was Dumbledore, after all. He had been headmaster of Hogwarts for over thirty years. What sort of student hadn't he seen? He cleared his throat and tried another approach.
"Mr. Su Fuli," he said, still patient and gentle, "as a member of one of the twenty-eight pure-blood families, I'm sure you're already familiar with a great many things. Do you need to visit Diagon Alley to buy a wand or an owl? I'd be delighted to take you."
This time, Su Yu moved.
He shifted slowly in his chair and reached behind him with his right hand-more precisely, into the gap between the armchair's cushion and backrest. His fingers searched for two seconds before pulling out a wand.
It was a deep red, but a faint blue glow shimmered over that red base. The two colors intertwined along the wand, flowing in an endless cycle.
"Professor," Su Yu said, holding up the wand and waving it toward Dumbledore, "I already have one. Fourteen and a third inches, unburnable wood, kirin horn." He spun it between his fingers. "Symbolizing immortality and cycles."
"As for an owl," Su Yu continued, casually stuffing the wand back beneath the cushion, "you know, Professor Dumbledore, those aren't popular over at East University. Father found me a Qingluan. She's still in the backyard. I'm just waiting for her to take human form."
Dumbledore's eyebrows rose.
Then stayed there.
What did any of that mean? How had this turned into a discussion of taking human form? Was this even magic anymore? And what on earth was unburnable wood? Where had that kirin horn come from?
He drew a deep breath and suppressed the succession of questions rising within him.
But something else mattered more than those questions.
From the moment he entered the study, Dumbledore's magical senses had been sending him signals. Within Su Yu was an immense, overwhelming presence, brimming with primal power, held down by a seal unlike anything he had ever seen, quietly lying dormant in the depths of Su Yu's soul.
At first, Dumbledore had almost mistaken it for an obscurus. But after sensing it more carefully, he felt it wasn't the same. An obscurus was chaotic, tormented, filled with destructive impulses, whereas this power... it was angry, yes, but it had a will. Its anger was even rational.
He knew he shouldn't do this. But as headmaster of Hogwarts, he was also responsible for every student there, and for the future of the magical world.
He needed to know what that thing inside Su Yu was.
Dumbledore's gaze sharpened slightly. His wand remained still, but his consciousness silently reached outward like a fine thread, probing toward Su Yu's mind.
Legilimency.
This was one of Dumbledore's strongest spells. His Legilimency was so refined that he could read another person's surface memories without them noticing. He didn't intend to delve into Su Yu's private affairs. He only wanted a glimpse of that thing's origins, enough to judge whether it was dangerous.
Then...
Then he felt himself sink.
It was a strange sensation. Dumbledore truly felt himself sinking, as though the ground beneath his feet had suddenly vanished and he had fallen into a boundless expanse of water.
The water was shallow, barely covering his ankles.
Dumbledore glanced down. He stood in pale gray shallows, the water's surface as still as a mirror. He raised his head and looked ahead.
A gate stood before him.
An enormous gate of vertical bars, with barred fencing stretching endlessly to either side. The fence was black wrought iron, cast with patterns he couldn't decipher-not Western magical runes, but something more like an ancient cursed seal from the Eastern Continent. The gate was shut, a dark red glow seeping through its gap as though something burned within.
Su Yu stood before that gate.
He was no longer a slouching boy. There was a sharpness to his bearing that Dumbledore had never seen in the waking world. His hands were in his pockets, but now it wasn't a sign of casual indifference. It was a poised silence, like a blade sheathed and ready.
Then Su Yu raised his head.
His eyes were red. His eyes spun wildly in their sockets, and his lips parted slightly as he exhaled a breath of white mist. In this pale gray world, that breath was so distinct it seemed tangible.
Dumbledore felt a chill. It came not from his surroundings, but from deep within his instincts. In more than a century of life, he had witnessed the oppressive presence of the Dark Lord Grindelwald at his peak and the darkness of Voldemort's rise. But what he sensed behind this gate was unlike either. It was older, more primal, more-pure. Pure fury, pure killing intent, pure power, unadorned and disdainful of disguise.
A fox appeared beyond the gate.
A red fox so vast he blotted out the sky.
His size-no, beyond that gate, size had ceased to mean anything. He was so enormous that Dumbledore couldn't tell where his outline ended. His fur was flame-red, every hair radiating scorching light that illuminated the dark red space behind the gate. Behind him, nine tails thrashed wildly, each sweep raising a furious surge of spiritual energy that made this world of consciousness tremble.
He bared his teeth, golden slit pupils fixed on Dumbledore, a low growl rumbling in his throat.
Dumbledore felt himself retreating. No-his consciousness was instinctively distancing itself from that being. His mind screamed at him that this was not a place he should enter, that the very existence of the creature before him exceeded his understanding of magic.
"Professor Dumbledore."
Su Yu's voice rang out, still in that same lazy, casual tone.
"Using Legilimency without someone's permission," Su Yu said, tilting his head. His wildly spinning red eyes abruptly stopped and met Dumbledore's gaze directly. "Is a very bad habit."
He smiled.
There was a young man's recklessness in that smile.
"And as it happens, Kurama is very angry. Aren't you, Kurama?"
Kurama couldn't hold back any longer.
The gap in the gate abruptly widened, and the colossal red fox opened his jaws. His mouth stretched beyond the limits of physics, as though the entire world lay between his upper and lower jaws. Dumbledore saw his teeth, each one like a burning sword, each wreathed in golden chakra flames.
Then he swallowed Dumbledore in a single bite.
Darkness.
Scorching heat.
Then-
In the study, Dumbledore's eyes snapped open.
His back was soaked. Cold sweat slid down the curve of his spine, leaving a dark, damp patch on his deep purple robe. His hands gripped the sides of the armchair, knuckles white with strain. He gasped for breath, his chest heaving as though he had just been pulled from deep water.
The fire still burned quietly in the hearth. The black tea on the table still gave off faint wisps of steam. Rain still fell outside, its drops tapping the glass in soft, rhythmic patters.
Everything was normal.
Except for Dumbledore's heartbeat.
Su Yu looked as lazy as ever.
He was still sprawled in the armchair.
Watching Dumbledore, he smiled softly.
"His name is Kurama," Su Yu said. "He's my pet. He says he'll let you off this time for my sake, but you won't be so lucky next time." He paused, then added, "Don't worry, though. Kurama doesn't usually eat people. I'll keep an eye on him."
Dumbledore drew a deep breath and slowly released it. He closed his eyes, allowing his heartbeat to settle. When he opened them again, his blue eyes had regained their usual calm and wisdom. Yet beneath that calm surface, something had quietly changed.
"My boy," Dumbledore said hoarsely. He cleared his throat, restoring his gentle, reassuring tone. "I hope you'll keep your word."
He stood and smoothed the creases in his robe. His knees were still a little weak, but he wouldn't let anyone see it.
"Since you've prepared everything," he said, looking down at Su Yu, the fire reflected in his half-moon spectacles, "I won't disturb you any longer. Remember, term begins on the first of next month."
He turned and headed toward the study door. At the doorway, he paused and looked back.
"I look forward to welcoming you to Hogwarts."
The door closed.
Kurama was silent in the soul space for a long time before finally speaking. "That old man has some nerve."
"Yeah," Su Yu said lazily. "He has some nerve."
"But he's not a bad man."
"Mm."
Kurama fell silent again for a while.
"...Were you serious about that cheesecake just now?"
Su Yu rested his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.
"Carson!" he called toward the door.
The door opened almost immediately. Carson stood in the doorway, holding a fresh cup of black tea.
"Young master."
"Cheesecake tomorrow morning. Caramel-colored, with two strawberries on the side."
Carson bowed slightly. "Of course, young master."
Before you continue