Chapter 7: A Place of His Own
Summer 1992 swept in hot and restless after graduation. Evan Grayson, now eighteen, stepped off the Hogwarts Express for the last time and into a world buzzing with magic's messy sprawl. Muggle newspapers screamed headlines about lampposts levitating in Leeds, cows sparking fires in Devon, and a rash of magical animal attacks since every beast from sparrows to bulls gained power with the Towers' gift. A farmer in Kent swore his pigs flew, torching his barn, while a pack of shimmering wolves downed a hiker near Dover. Evan read it all in a Daily Prophet snatched from a London kiosk, his Galleon pulsing as Lumos and Protego sales ticked up, fear driving demand. He didn't linger at St. Agnes', the drab orphanage a husk he'd outgrown, and Apparated to Diagon Alley with a suitcase and a fortune to spend.
Money burned a hole in his vault at Gringotts, swelled by billions buying his Hogwarts spells, so Evan hunted a home. He found it in a wizarding hamlet near Ottery St Catchpole, a stone cottage tucked by a winding brook, its walls thick with ivy and windows glinting in the sun. Three bedrooms, a sprawling kitchen, and a barn out back caught his eye, perfect for a spell-creation lab. The realtor, a wiry witch with a twitching eye, rattled off perks: "Warded against pests, self-cleaning hearth, and the barn's got space for whatever you're brewing." Evan signed the deed with a Galleon-stuffed pouch, no haggling needed, and moved in by July, trunk unpacked and broom propped by the door.
The barn became his workshop. He hauled in a oak workbench, shelves for ingredients like dragon scales and phoenix feathers, and a chalkboard for Arithmancy scrawls, its surface soon dusted white. A cauldron simmered in the corner, bubbling with test brews, while a stack of parchment grew with sketches and notes. Lila popped by one muggy afternoon, Apparating with a crack and a grin, her cursebreaker training kit slung over her shoulder. "Fancy setup," she said, eyeing the barn's clutter. "What's the first spell?" Evan tapped a sketch, a shield idea forming, and replied, "Passive protection. World's a mess now, everyone's got magic, animals too. Need something that kicks in when trouble hits." She nodded and added, "Smart. Saw a fox spit sparks in Devon last week, nearly took my ear off." Theo's letter arrived days later, scribbled from Magical Enforcement training in Bristol: "Chasing wandless thugs already, wish me luck." Evan smirked and got to work.
The cottage settled into a rhythm. Mornings brought coffee by the brook, afternoons were for Quidditch loops over the fields, and nights glowed with candlelight in the barn. He wrote to Lila and Theo about Harry Potter rumors, a Prophet snippet claiming the kid stopped some dark plot at Hogwarts with a stone and a mirror, though details stayed fuzzy. "Sounds like him," Evan scribbled, "always in the thick of it." But his focus stayed on the shield, a spell to counter a world where pigs flew and wolves gleamed. The Towers loomed in his mind, their tier system a ladder he'd climb, and he pictured his creation hitting Tier 6 or higher, a bestseller for a chaotic age.