Chapter 2: A New Beginning

Evan's earliest memory was a ceiling of cracked plaster with flecks curling above a crib with chipped bars. A woman's voice cut through as she grumbled, rough and weary: "Another stray for St. Agnes'. No name, no papers, just a noisy little burden." He tried to twist or demand where he was, but his throat loosed only a feeble cry as tiny arms thrashed against a scratchy blanket. Confusion gripped him since he was a baby, helpless and dumped in a place that reeked of damp stone, boiled cabbage, and faintly sour milk. Yet his mind wasn't blank. He knew things like words, numbers, and flashes of a life with snow, coffee, and late-night books, though he couldn't place why.

Time slid by as days folded into weeks, weeks stacked into months, and months stretched into years. He was Evan Grayson now, an orphan at St. Agnes', a squat building in southern England where life trudged in a gray haze. The staff were stern women in faded aprons with hands rough from scrubbing and voices barking, "Line up for supper!" or "Beds now!" while they herded kids through a dull routine. The walls sagged with peeling paint, windows rattled in the wind to leak cold drafts, and a tinny radio crackled in the common room to spit news and old tunes. Evan grew quiet and watchful with dark hair a mess and hazel eyes sharp as he kept to corners with a book or stared out at the rain-slicked yard. He didn't fit, not quite, since his head brimmed with knowledge he shouldn't have, including college-level math, chemistry equations, and every page of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban etched in his skull. He didn't question it because it was just there, a toolbox he carried without knowing its source.

By three, he puzzled out words in a pile of worn fairy tales like Cinderella or Jack and the Beanstalk as letters snapped into place like he'd always known them. He didn't learn them, rather he remembered. By five, he scratched calculus in the dust with a stick and smirked while it flowed with derivatives, integrals, and stuff the matrons couldn't dream of. They pushed lessons with reading and basic sums, yet Evan waved them off since he was already miles ahead. "He's odd," they muttered, and he didn't argue. He read their donated books in a day, solved their puzzles in minutes, and kept quiet to let them think what they liked. Days blurred as cold porridge filled breakfast, fights over a frayed ball erupted in the yard, and nights passed under thin blankets while he listened to the wind howl, yet he stayed apart, a boy with a mind too old for his body.

At seven, it shattered. In the yard, Tommy, a hulking kid with a sneer, snatched Evan's bread and shoved him into the muck. Anger flared, hot and sudden, so the bread blinked out of Tommy's hand to land atop a shed with a thud. Tommy froze with his jaw slack while matrons barked about tricks. Evan's pulse raced, then weeks later, a locked cellar door creaked wide under his glare as hinges groaned. It was accidental and wild, so he froze. Magic. His brain clicked with Harry Potter. The Leaky Cauldron, Hogwarts, wands all matched. He wasn't just a weird kid; he was in that world, reborn into the story he'd loved.

At ten, he acted. The Leaky Cauldron gnawed at him as proof he was right. He hoarded pennies from chores like sweeping floors or hauling coal buckets, then one summer day, he slipped out with his heart thumping. The train to London rattled with seats sticky with gum, and the city sprawled in a chaos of noise as horns blared, pigeons flapped, and vendors shouted. He roamed Charing Cross Road with boots scuffing pavement until he spotted it: a grimy pub ignored by passersby. Inside, witches sipped murky drinks, and a barman waved a wand, so Evan's breath caught. It was real. He was in Harry Potter's world, and everything he'd known clicked into place.

Back at St. Agnes', he threw himself into wandless magic. In the attic, he focused on Lumos and willed light into his palm as sweat beaded and his head throbbed, yet nothing glowed. He tried Accio, so a spoon twitched across a table, then stilled while a book wobbled, then flopped. With Wingardium Leviosa, a rag lifted an inch before crashing. Hours bled into weeks, then years as secret sessions slipped between chores while he dodged Tommy's taunts. He gritted his teeth and pushed harder, but it wouldn't bend. No wand meant no dice, so he needed Hogwarts. At eleven, July 1984, it came when a woman in emerald robes, stern but warm, arrived with a wax-sealed letter: Evan Grayson, Third Cot, St. Agnes' Orphanage. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Professor Sprout explained that he was a wizard bound for school, and Evan packed in a rush with his suitcase snapping shut.

The Hogwarts Express waited at King's Cross with scarlet steam curling. Evan boarded and hauled a battered trunk before he squeezed into a compartment. Two kids sat opposite as Lila Patel, dark-eyed and chatty, juggled chocolate frog cards while Theo Finch, lanky and quiet, kept his nose in a spellbook. They hit it off over a shared frog since Lila snagged the card, Theo grumbled, and Evan laughed, so they swapped names to ease their nerves. Diagon Alley had been a blur days before with shops bursting with cauldrons, owls, and robes while his wand, eleven inches of ash with unicorn hair, sparked silver at Ollivanders. A Hogwarts fund covered books like A History of Magic, stiff robes, and a scratched trunk. As the train rolled with London shrinking, Evan grinned. This was his shot.