Chapter 7 : Letters and Preparations
Summon Manor — July 24, 1991
The owl hit the kitchen window at seven in the morning, and Cork screamed.
Not a scream of terror — Cork's emotional register didn't include terror, only varying intensities of joy — but a shriek so high-pitched that Twig launched from Matt's hair like a bark-coloured missile and Whisper's tail went rigid as a poker.
"LETTER!" Cork shrieked, yanking the window open with both hands. "LETTER FOR YOUNG MASTER! FROM HOGWARTS! FROM THE SCHOOL! THE LETTER IS HERE!"
The tawny owl landed on the kitchen table, ruffled its feathers with pointed dignity, and extended one leg. A thick envelope hung from it, sealed with purple wax bearing the Hogwarts crest — a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a serpent surrounding a capital H.
Matt set down his toast.
Five years. Five years of preparation, training, studying, bonding, planning — and this piece of parchment was the starting gun. He'd known it was coming. He'd been counting the days with the same clinical precision he'd once used to track vaccination schedules. But something about holding the envelope — heavy, real, smelling faintly of old parchment and something electric that might have been magic — made his throat tighten.
He broke the seal.
Dear Mr. Summon, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
"Young Master," Pip whispered from the doorway. The old elf's hands were clasped at his chest, eyes shining. "Mistress Cordelia always said the Summons would return to Hogwarts. Always."
That name still carried weight. His grandmother — the woman in the portrait who'd smiled at a confused six-year-old on his first day in a stolen life. Matt folded the letter carefully and tucked it into his pocket.
"Pip. I need you to check on Harry."
The joy on Pip's face shifted to attentive focus. "The Potter boy, Young Master?"
"His letters would have started arriving this week. The Dursleys will try to block them." Matt drummed his fingers on the table. "Don't intervene. Just observe and report. I need to know what's happening."
"At once." Pip vanished with a crack.
Cork had climbed onto the table and was reading the acceptance letter upside down, tears streaming freely. Tilly appeared from the pantry, took one look at the scene, and began compiling a shopping list without being asked.
"Robes, cauldron, books, telescope," Tilly recited, quill scratching parchment. "Tilly will arrange a Diagon Alley trip for tomorrow. Young Master will also need a wand."
A wand. Matt flexed his fingers. Five years of wandless magic — minor tricks taught by the house-elves, levitating feathers, warming cups of tea. A wand would change everything.
Whisper jumped onto the table and pressed her flank against his arm. Through their bond — strong and steady at Rank B after two years of daily companionship — Matt caught a ripple of her assessment. The Kneazle's amber gaze was fixed on the acceptance letter with an expression that, in a human face, would have been calculation.
"We're going," Matt told her. "All of us."
Whisper's purr vibrated against his ribs.
---
Pip returned three hours later, visibly agitated.
"Many letters, Young Master." The elf wrung his hands. "Dozens of letters. They is coming through the fireplace, through the windows, under the door. The Muggle man is nailing the letterbox shut. He has boarded the chimney. The thin woman is weeping. The large boy is throwing things."
"And Harry?"
"Confused, Young Master. The Harry Potter boy does not understand what the letters are. The Muggles will not let him read one." Pip paused. "They is planning to leave the house. Pip heard the large man talking about 'getting away from it all.'"
Matt's jaw tightened. He knew this part of the story. Vernon Dursley would drag the family to a remote shack on a rock in the sea, and at midnight on Harry's birthday, Hagrid would smash through the door and change Harry's life forever.
It would work out. It always did, in the books. But knowing that didn't erase the image of a ten-year-old boy surrounded by adults who despised him, watching letters burn and not understanding why.
Hagrid will handle it. Trust the story.
He hated trusting the story. Trust was for people who couldn't act.
"Keep monitoring," Matt said. "If anything goes wrong — genuinely wrong, not just Dursley theatrics — come to me immediately."
Pip nodded and vanished.
Matt pulled the shopping list toward him and added a line at the bottom: Extra set of robes, books, and basic supplies — Harry's size.
Just in case.
---
Diagon Alley — July 25, 1991
Ollivanders hadn't changed since Matt's last visit to the Alley — still narrow, still dusty, still humming with a static charge that made Twig flatten himself against Matt's collarbone and refuse to emerge. The wand boxes stacked floor to ceiling trembled faintly, as though the contents were breathing.
Mr. Ollivander materialised from the shadows between shelves, pale eyes catching light that shouldn't have existed in a shop this dim.
"Ah," the wandmaker said. "Summon."
Not Mr. Summon. Not young man. Just the name, spoken with the weight of someone who remembered every wand he'd ever sold and the families they'd served.
"My grandmother's wand was yew and phoenix feather," Matt said. "Thirteen inches."
"Indeed it was. Excellent for creature magic. Flexible. Fiercely loyal." Ollivander's pale eyes narrowed. "But you are not your grandmother, are you?"
The next twenty minutes involved six wands, a broken lamp, a shower of green sparks that startled Whisper into hissing from her carrier, and one memorable attempt that produced a smell like burning hair and singed Matt's eyebrows.
"Tricky," Ollivander murmured, shelving a rejected wand. "Tricky, tricky. Your magic has an unusual... texture."
He disappeared into the back of the shop. Matt wiped soot from his face. His eyebrows throbbed.
Ollivander returned carrying a long, slim box. The wood was pale — almost white — and when he opened the lid, the wand inside seemed to drink the dim light.
"Ash," Ollivander said. "Twelve inches. Thunderbird tail feather core."
Matt reached for it.
The warmth hit before his fingers fully closed. Not surface warmth — deep, structural, radiating from the core of the wand up through his bones and into the space behind his sternum where the system lived. His hand stopped shaking. The air around his fingers shimmered gold, then silver, then settled into a glow the colour of sunrise.
In his pocket, Twig stirred. Tiny bark-fingers gripped Matt's shirt. Through the bond, Matt caught a pulse of recognition — Twig feeling the wand's magic resonate with their shared connection. Whisper's purr deepened in her carrier. Even Pip, standing by the door, pressed one hand to his chest.
"Curious," Ollivander breathed. "Thunderbirds are American creatures. I acquired that feather thirty years ago from a colleague in Arizona, and it has refused every witch and wizard since. Until you."
He leaned forward, those unsettling eyes fixed on Matt's face. "Ash is the wood of protection and transition. The Thunderbird represents storms, change, the space between what was and what will be." A pause. "This wand has been waiting, Mr. Summon. The question is — waiting for what?"
Matt met the wandmaker's gaze. "I suppose we'll find out."
He paid — seven Galleons — and stepped into the sunlit chaos of Diagon Alley with a wand in his pocket that hummed against his thigh like a second heartbeat.
The rest of the shopping was mechanical. Robes from Madam Malkin's, two sets — his and one Harry's size, purchased with a mumbled excuse about a friend. Books from Flourish and Blotts. Potions ingredients from the Apothecary. A brass telescope, a set of scales, and a self-stirring cauldron Pip insisted was unnecessary but Matt wanted anyway because it was magic and he would never stop finding that extraordinary.
Cork, who had been brought along to carry packages, wept openly in the sweet shop and had to be Disillusioned before Muggles noticed.
By late afternoon, Matt stood in the Manor entrance hall, surrounded by bags and boxes and one sobbing house-elf, and took stock.
He had a wand. He had supplies. He had two bonded creatures, a system, and five years of preparation.
He had everything except confirmation that Harry was safe.
Pip appeared. "The Muggles have taken the boy to a shack on the sea. The Hogwarts gamekeeper is already en route."
Matt exhaled. Hagrid. Right on schedule.
"Good. That's good." He pulled the wand from his pocket, turned it in the candlelight. Ash wood, pale and warm, thrumming with potential. "When Harry gets to Diagon Alley, I'll be there."
He tucked the wand away and went to feed Twig.
Want more? The story continues on Patreon!
If you can't wait for the weekly release, you can grab +10, +15, or +20 chapters ahead of time on my Patreon page. Your support helps me keep this System running!
Read ahead here: [ patreon.com/system_enjoyer ]