[Please read the Auxiliary chapter to understand the writing methodology]
September 1, 1991, London. Station 9¾.
It was a cold morning beneath an overcast sky. Only a few rays of sunlight managed to break through the clouds, offering a slight reprieve from the chill.
It was still quite early, and the train station was nearly deserted, with only a handful of people scattered about. Waiting beside the platform was a large black-and-red train with a rustic yet well-maintained design. From time to time, steam escaped from the locomotive and drifted into the frigid air, breaking the morning's stillness and bringing a little more life to the scene.
The train was not particularly long from the outside, yet, mysteriously, its interior seemed far more spacious than its appearance suggested. Each carriage was divided into several compartments that formed small private cabins, accommodating up to six passengers if necessary, though, as was customary, four could travel in complete comfort.
In one of those compartments sat a boy.
Seated by the window, the boy gazed absentmindedly at the overcast sky, lost in his thoughts. Even by the standards of this world, his appearance was extraordinary and eccentric.
He was eleven years old; however, at 1.47 meters tall, he stood considerably taller than most children his age.
He wore an elegant black suit. At first glance, it already conveyed a sense of quality, but a closer look revealed it to be an expensive garment, though one that was fairly common among those of his social class.
Even so, what drew the most attention were his features.
His platinum-white hair was streaked with subtle shades of purple that, in certain strands, formed fine violet lines, further accentuating his distinctive appearance.
His dark purple eyes concealed an unfathomable depth, lending him an air of mystery. Adding to that was a subtle predatory quality, born from his mostly vertical pupils, reminiscent of those of a feline or a reptile.
Yet even setting aside the unusual color of his hair and the peculiarity of his eyes, his face alone could be be considered handsome and charming—something all the more remarkable considering his young age.
His name was Extimum Izorim.
[Previously (Shadowless,Enoch) now Izorim, Apologies to longtime readers, but it has been reformulated]
Extimum found himself reflecting on his life—on everything it had been up to that point and what the future would most likely hold. For the first five years of his life, everything had passed with what seemed to be perfect normalcy.
However, on the morning of his fifth birthday, his mind was struck by a sudden shock, as though two orchestral cymbals had crashed together inside his head. In an instant, memories of a past life flooded his consciousness.
Those memories were vague and riddled with gaps, yet the fragments they contained, once fused with his mind, gave an entirely new meaning to everything he had experienced. It was almost as though he had awakened from a long dream.
His reality became both clearer and more confusing at the same time. Even so, there was one truth he had never once doubted: he had been reborn. And, thanks to the few memories he still retained, he also knew which world he had been reborn into. Even so, those memories had little influence over his personality or the way he thought.
After all, he belonged to this world. He had been born here, raised here, and his entire identity had been shaped in this place. Besides, the memories of his previous life were so fragmented that he could barely piece them together using the knowledge he had acquired throughout his current one.
But setting all of that aside, he had been reborn into the world of Harry Potter... though with a few differences.
Some of those differences were obvious enough, and his current circumstances alone were proof of that. Others, however, remained complete mysteries that he would only uncover with time. There was, however, one thing he knew for certain: his family, the Izorim Clan, had never existed in the original story.
The Izorim Family was widely renowned throughout the magical world and was counted among the Sacred Twenty-Eight. However, more than a mere family, they could truly be considered a clan, for the Izorims had branches in nearly every major country with a magical community. Although their historical origins lay in Great Britain, the branch that currently resided there was merely one among many.
Each of those branches remained geographically distant from the others, yet they were all closely connected, forming a self-governing and independent network among themselves. There was no supreme leader of the clan; matters of importance were decided through the collective consensus of each branch head.
As a result, the clan wielded tremendous military strength and considerable political influence, both locally and internationally. Even so, it was also one of the most discreet families and generally maintained a position of neutrality, allowing it to remain immensely powerful and influential while keeping a remarkably low profile.
Even so, despite the prestige enjoyed by the British branch of the Izorim Clan, Extimum could hardly be said to have grown up in a close-knit family.
Ever since he was born, he could almost count on one hand the number of times he had seen his father. Rarer still than seeing him was hearing the man speak a single word to him.
His mother, on the other hand, was only slightly more approachable. That "slightly," however, merely meant that once she had taught him enough basic knowledge and etiquette to ensure he would never disgrace the family, she became almost as distant as his father. At the very least, he saw her somewhat more often than his father during his early years... until, one day, she simply stopped coming altogether.
Because of this, Extimum was raised under the care of the family's house-elf, Bob, who attended to nearly all of his needs, though he too was a creature of very few words.
Thanks to Bob, Extimum was able to access the manor's library, where he devoted much of his time to learning more about this world.
Those were difficult years. Even so, the fragmented memories of his previous life still granted him a far broader perspective of reality than most.
So, he chose to focus on what he did have. He devoted himself entirely to reading and learning, choosing to ignore both his circumstances and his family's cold treatment. After all, regardless of how they treated him, they never failed to provide everything he truly needed: a comfortable place to live, food, and virtually anything that the family's wealth and the manor's resources could provide, within reason.
At the cost of his young heart and emotions, his personality gradually became colder and more indifferent, dulling even his own ability to understand those feelings. Meanwhile, he poured his entire being into the study of magic.
His rebirth, however, had not been so simple. Much like the fragmented memories he had inherited, it had also come with a gift.
He possessed the Celestial Fox Bloodline.
That single fact answered several of the questions that had lingered in his mind since childhood.
It explained why his appearance differed from the rest of his family, as well as several other peculiarities he had once dismissed: his unnaturally heightened senses, such as his eyesight and sense of smell and the fact that his physical strength far surpassed that of any ordinary child his age. As for what other advantages, abilities, or implications this bloodline might possess, he had yet to discover them.
The memories he had recovered contained only information from the Harry Potter films and a few details from the books. Using that knowledge as his foundation, Extimum had spent a great deal of time reflecting on his situation and the future that lay ahead.
It was not until he checked the date in a newspaper that he realized he was, in all likelihood, the same age as Harry Potter. That meant they would be attending Hogwarts in the same year, making it highly likely that he would, one way or another, be caught up in the troubles that inevitably seemed to follow the famous boy.
Even so, he had yet to decide whether he would try to get close to Harry. After all, he didn't know him personally, nor did he know whether he would even be worth befriending. Still, he wasn't opposed to the idea if Harry turned out to be someone he liked. He was even open to helping him if the opportunity ever arose.
After all, this was his life. He had no intention of recklessly trying to become a hero or saving everyone he came across. That said, he was admittedly a little interested in Hermione. Her personality could be rather irritating at first, but it wasn't as though he couldn't try to domiahem... help her improve it a little.
After giving his plans a great deal of thought, he ultimately decided not to overcomplicate things. At the time, he was only five years old, and there were still another six years before the story would truly begin.
That gave him more than enough time to discover the extent of his own abilities and to understand the true difficulty of magic. Besides, he had no idea why he had been reborn, and since he remembered almost nothing about who he had been in his previous life, there was little point in dwelling on it.
In truth, the knowledge and memories he had inherited had done nothing more than make him wiser and more mature than most children his age. At the end of the day, however, he was still just a child.
With unrestricted access to his family's resources and Bob's assistance, he began building a solid foundation in magical knowledge. Naturally, he organized his studies around the subjects he remembered would prove the most useful.
Among them were Legilimency, Occlumency, and any books that could help him better understand wizarding society.
That period of study lasted for a year and a half, during which he devoted himself to learning everything that might help him better understand the magical world and prepare for his first year at Hogwarts.
He also had little interest in getting too far ahead, only to spend his school years with nothing left to learn. Besides, even if he had wanted to, he doubted he could master everything on his own—especially the more advanced branches of magic, made all the worse by the countless books that overcomplicated concepts which were, in reality, fairly straightforward.
During that time, he also discovered that he possessed an eidetic memory. That did not mean he automatically understood everything he read, but it did allow him to remember it with perfect clarity. Throughout that same period, his mother also gave him the occasional lesson on etiquette and the history of the Izorim Clan.
He also accompanied his father to several political gatherings, primarily because he was the family's current heir.
It was during one of those gatherings that he learned he had a paternal uncle named Rhys. Unlike his parents, Rhys always treated him kindly and was willing to speak with him as though he were any other person, something Extimum found surprisingly refreshing. Even so, they rarely saw each other, and the two never became particularly close.
As time passed, he added physical training to his daily routine alongside his magical studies. Although he considered it relatively moderate, it was, in reality, quite demanding. His body was still young, but thanks to his bloodline, it possessed far greater potential than normal, requiring considerably more rigorous training to fully develop.
It was also during his studies that he discovered that, in this world, two things were required in order to use magic.
The first was bloodline; the second was the core.
The books had little to say regarding bloodlines. They merely stated that possessing magical blood was a prerequisite for using magic. As for the core, it was described as a kind of additional muscle possessed by every magical being, one that gradually developed through time and training.
The development of the core, however, varied from person to person. In some cases, it reached exceptional levels, while in others, it stagnated. Although the classification itself was largely theoretical, wizards generally divided magical core development into five broad stages, ranging from the awakening of one's magic to the current known limit of magical power.
(more information in Data).
After learning all of this, Extimum found himself wondering: were wizards truly human?
After all, if the ability to use magic required a specific bloodline, then perhaps wizards were an evolutionary branch descended from humans and, therefore, another type of magical creature.
Or perhaps the opposite was true. Maybe they were simply a different magical species that happened to resemble humans, yet was fundamentally distinct from Muggles.
In the end, he decided not to dwell on the question any further. Even if he discovered the answer, it would change absolutely nothing for the Extimum of that moment.
Over the following years, he continued devoting himself to the study of magic and physical training. At the same time, he began experimenting to see whether he could gain any degree of control over magic without the use of a wand.
He also asked Bob to find someone willing to teach him fencing or at the very least, swordsmanship. He knew that techniques differed depending on the type of sword, and he doubted it would be easy to find an instructor willing to travel all the way to the manor, especially when he himself was not permitted to leave its grounds except on the rare occasions when his mother took him with her.
The truth was, he had never wielded a sword before, yet he had always been strangely fascinated by them. Although it was unlikely he would acquire one anytime soon, he hoped that, sooner or later, he would have the opportunity to do so.
*Knock Knock*
At that moment, someone knocked on the compartment door, pulling Extimum out of his thoughts.
A moment later, the door slid open, and a boy poked his head inside. He had brown hair and was dressed in a rather ordinary gray suit. He gave the compartment a quick glance, as though searching for someone. Finding no one, he quietly closed the door again and walked away without saying a word.
Extimum paid it little mind and turned his gaze back to the view outside. The flow of people boarding the train had grown noticeably compared to a few minutes earlier, and more and more families were saying their farewells on the platform. Departure time was probably drawing near.
Having arrived early, he had taken the opportunity to rest in his compartment, alternating between gazing out the window and casually flipping through a book, until he had eventually become lost in his own thoughts.
As he watched the bustle outside, the compartment door slid open once more.
This time, a boy who was rather thin and somewhat short for his age stepped inside. He had black hair, green eyes, and wore clothes that were clearly far too large for him. A pair of round-framed glasses rested on his face, which also carried a faint hint of nervousness.
???: "Hello, is this place unoccupied?" Even though there was clearly no one else in the compartment other than Extimum, the boy still asked.
Extimum: "oh, hello, go ahead, it's free." Extimum was surprised to meet Harry Potter so soon, it's not like he hadn't thought about meeting him here, but he didn't think there would be such a coincidence.