A Stark in the Wizarding World

"The fifty-eighth winning number drawn this time is 4-3-9-6-2-8-0-0!!"

William was lying in his rented room, wearing a black suit jacket and SpongeBob SquarePants shorts. When he heard the host announce the number on TV, he leaped out of bed in excitement.

"I won? I won!" William rubbed his eyes and checked the scratch-off ticket in his hand again and again.

The numbers were an exact match!

"Haha, I'm rich!"

He recalled yesterday, marveled at today, and dreamed of the future!

William had been an orphan since childhood, and his family was poor.

But he had never given up on his dream. He had kept buying lottery tickets every day, believing that he would win.

Now he had succeeded. His season of harvest had finally arrived!

With all that money, William could do a lot of things.

He could buy a luxury ocean-view villa in the Taklamakan Desert, invest in a Chinese-American coproduction starring his favorite actor, and pay for treatment for his favorite streamer's ten years of depression...

Two days later, William walked into the welfare lottery center fully disguised, wearing a disposable mask and a pair of five-yuan children's sunglasses perched on his nose.

His hair was greasy, and his eyes darted around. Everyone he looked at seemed to be Qie Gewala.

He looked around... (background music: "Good Days" skips)

There were no densely packed crowds gathered to watch;

No charitable organizations waiting for him to donate, pens in hand;

And no Hong Kong reporters swarming in to interview him.

There was no grand spectacle of any kind. Even the money... was gone!!

William Stark shot upright, waking from his muddled sleep.

Where am I?

Who am I?

Where's my husband... Pah, where's my money?

William looked around and realized it had been a dream. He sighed and lay back down on the bed.

No wonder it had felt a little fake. Everything else had seemed real enough, but how could the Jade Emperor possibly be printed on Chinese banknotes?!

William patted his head, a look of utter disinterest on his face. He looked... just like Su Daqiang lying on the floor and demanding hand-ground coffee.

A month ago, William had still been living in China, waiting for the organization to send someone to discuss his becoming a successor to socialism, though he had already waited for more than twenty years.

Both of William's parents had died when he was a child, and he had only managed to finish university thanks to the support of kindhearted people.

The beginning of the dream had been true. He really had won the lottery, but while he was celebrating, eating hot pot and singing, a kidnapper had suddenly snatched him.

William still remembered what the man looked like: blood-red lips, a pointed nose, bared teeth, and chilling, sinister makeup... exactly like the Joker's look in Batman.

At first, William had thought the man was cosplaying and had been looking around with interest for Batman. Instead, the man had knocked him out with a brick.

Afterward, the kidnapper took the money and killed him. When William woke up again, he had transmigrated to the United Kingdom, returned to 1990, and become an eleven-year-old child.

After waking up, William found that he could communicate normally with others in English. He also had the memories of an eleven-year-old child in his head.

The original owner of this body was named William Stark. His family was well-off, his father was a dentist, his mother was a professor at the University of Cambridge, and he had a nine-year-old sister named Anne.

William had been an orphan in his previous life and was quite satisfied with his current identity. As for his past, he would forget it as though it had been a nightmare.

His only real regret was that scratch-off ticket.

Fortunately, William had written the winning number down in his diary. As long as this wasn't a parallel world, he would still be a multimillionaire sooner or later. He just needed to wait patiently... for thirty years!

This time, nothing would make him go out for hot pot.

William sighed and tossed and turned, but found he was wide awake, so he prepared to get up and go for a morning run.

But after he stood up, he heard a fluttering sound from the balcony.

"Bobocha, is that you?" he asked softly as he got dressed.

Bobocha was a pretty young orange cat. William had rescued Bobocha after the cat was injured and later taken Bobocha in as a pet.

Stray cats like this weren't as numerous as London's foxes, but they were still very common.

Because the cat was orange all over, William had named the cat Bobocha.

Bobocha was extremely gentle. Otherwise, William's parents would never have agreed to keep the cat.

After quickly getting dressed, William drew the curtains and opened the glass door. The sunlight outside was warm but not dazzling.

It looked like today was a rare day of fine weather!

William squinted outside and saw Bobocha crouched on the marble floor of the balcony, facing off against an owl.

The scene was indescribably bizarre.

Hearing footsteps, Bobocha twitched those orange ears, bared a row of sharp teeth, and let out a kittenish meow. At the same time, Bobocha lowered into a hunting stance.

The owl lowered its head and swayed it, its big eyes rolling around with what seemed to be a look of disdain.

How could Bobocha stand for that?

Furious, Bobocha prepared to attack.

William hurriedly stepped in front of the cat. "Bobocha, don't go eating strange things. You'll get sick!"

He added, "At least cook it first..."

"Hoo!!!"

The owl seemed to understand William. It tilted its head and glanced at the boy, looking offended.

Its brownish-yellow eyes rolled, and then it spread its wings and fluttered up from the balcony railing.

Only then did William notice a brown envelope made of thick parchment clutched in its talons.

A letter?

For me?

He found it a little strange. It was one thing for a nocturnal bird like an owl to confront his little orange cat early in the morning, but it was actually delivering a letter too?

What century is this?

William rested a hand on his chin and thought it over carefully, his thick, glossy dark brown hair drifting gently in the breeze.

"Come to think of it... in this body's memories, there really were some strange fluctuations."

William didn't know how to describe them. They were a little like superpowers, and a little like an awakening of magic.

He had even tried sounding out his parents about it, but found they were both ordinary people. To avoid being sliced up for study, he had kept the secret to himself.

"Looks like... I really am no ordinary person!"

And on top of that, his surname was Stark...

William's dark green eyes lit up, as if he had just spotted the crucial detail.

"Could it be... that my distant cousin Howard Stark noticed his son Tony was looking more and more like Potts, whom he met once, so he's planning to send me across the ocean to the United States to inherit everything he owns?!"

That wasn't right, though.

Something as famous as Stark Industries had never appeared on television as far as William had seen, so this probably wasn't the Marvel Universe.

Then...

"Could it be that my relative Bran Stark from Westeros is going to summon me there to inherit his Iron Throne?"

But shouldn't he have sent a raven?

While William was lost in thought, the owl circled a few times in the sky, then dropped the envelope onto his head.

William picked up the envelope and quickly turned it over. On the back was a wax seal bearing a shield-shaped crest, with a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a capital letter H.

His eyes widened. Gripping the envelope tightly, he quickly tore it open, pulled out the letter, and began to read:

Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: Albus Dumbledore (President of the International Confederation of Wizards, President of the Wizards' Association, Order of Merlin, First Class).

Dear Mr. Stark: We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to study at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your reply by owl no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely, Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress...

Before William had finished reading, his attention was interrupted again by a sound.

He looked up and saw that Bobocha had already pounced on the owl and brought it down.

The owl lay flat on its back on the balcony, with Bobocha sprawled on top of it.

Hmm, the position was a little suggestive.

That was William's first thought.

His second thought...

Wait, Bobocha! Let it deliver my reply first, then we can have an outdoor barbecue!