Harry Potter: House Magus

Author's Note

Hello everyone!

I'm so excited to share this story with you. I've been working ahead and already have a couple of chapters stockpiled, so updates should be nice and steady for a while. This fanfic is something I've enjoyed writing so far, and I can't wait to see where it goes.

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any hopes, ideas, or things you'd love to see in the story!

I'm always open to reader input — sometimes, it sparks interesting directions. Also, if you've noticed any common pitfalls in Harry Potter fanfics that you think I should avoid, let me know! I want this to be the best it can be.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the journey!

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Three years is a strange age to be.

You're too young to matter, too old to be ignored.

I could walk now. Speak, though I chose not to often. The words came easily, but I learned early that people said more when you were quiet. They filled the silence for you. Said things they wouldn't have if you'd just asked.

Mum said I was an "observer." Nan called me "watchful." Nonna kissed my cheek and whispered, "Vecchio cuore."

I'd grown, too. Now three-foot-six—above average for my age. I could reach the garden gate latch or climb onto chairs without help. 

Mum and Babbo were also maturing—shoulders set lower, voices softened by tiredness. Babbo's jokes came slower now, his laughter briefer. Mum still smiled and laughed, but it clung tighter to the edges of her worry.

Nonna looked nearly unchanged—elegant and watchful—but even she wasn't untouched. A few new lines creased the corners of her eyes, and new streaks of silver threaded through her dark hair.

Nan's skin had thinned, her hands turning papery, and her laugh was lined with deeper wrinkles. 

Grandad's limp had gotten worse, favouring his left leg without comment. Nonno struggled to get up from his favourite chair in the sitting room. 

I'd stopped checking the System every day. There were only so many lists I could look at without going cross-eyed.

It still stirred at the edges of my mind like a ghost pressed into wallpaper. Always there, always listening, but quiet now—a passive weight instead of a voice.

There haven't been any new tasks since the first—Genesis of Legacy. I hadn't forgotten it. Ten years to become something worth inheriting, to build the foundation of a bloodline, to live, grow, and learn.

I didn't know what growth looked like for someone like me.

But I knew what it felt like.

It felt like learning to read shadows on my family's faces, like learning that silence had weight and that listening could be louder than speaking, like the way Grandad's hands shook when he sharpened his knife and how everyone pretended not to see, like realising early that some questions have no gentle answers. It felt like knowing too much, too early, and carrying it quietly.

It felt like maturing.

There was a crack in the corner of the ceiling above my bed. Hair-thin, barely visible unless the light hit just right. I watched it some nights, wondering if it would widen, split, or bring the plaster down in flakes. It never did.

Some things hold together longer than they should.

In the two years since the System first whispered, I had done what I could with a child's frame and a stubborn will.

I tried learning in every corner I could. I mimicked handwriting from old receipts. I learned to count coins by weight, not just number. I eavesdropped more than I spoke, memorised routes through town, observed body language, and watched how faces changed during hard conversations. I studied how Nonna muttered her prayers and how Nonno folded paper before cutting wood—clean, measured, and precise.

I ran laps in the garden, crawled under furniture, and climbed crates and fence posts. When the others saw me, they clapped or chuckled, mistaking it for play. I let them believe that. Children are expected to move, not to train.

Weightlifting was out of the question—too much strain on growing bones. But push-ups, balancing, careful sprints around the garden, even one-legged stands—these I could do. Every small effort ticked something forward, imperceptibly, inside the System.

The stats shifted with age, too, slowly, like the tide edging closer each day. My Constitution had climbed the most naturally by existing, breathing, and growing. But the System rewarded consistency, and I had that in spades.

And with those quiet gains came change. My memory sharpened like a knife honed on daily use—I could recall overheard conversations word-for-word, remember the position of each loose tile on our street, and even tell when someone moved my toys a little to the left, but my memory of my last life still had many gaps. Judgment, too, bloomed in small but startling ways; I began sensing when people lied when Mum's smiles were thinned by worry, when Babbo's laugh came half a second too late. 

I was learning faster—languages, patterns, people—and I could feel a new clarity behind my eyes, a buoyancy in my thoughts. I didn't just feel better. I felt capable. And beneath it all, something new had begun to stir: a budding ambition. Quiet now, but real. Not just to survive or grow... but to shape. To build. To leave something behind that meant more than my name.

Magic was another thing entirely. I could feel it—like a wire humming behind my ribs, always taut. I once sat in the pantry holding a match, willing it to light. It never did, but the warmth in my chest pulsed stronger. That meant something.

When no one watched, I'd retreat behind the shed and focus. No chants. No scrolls. Just breath, focus, and intention.

The first time, nothing happened, but that didn't stop me from trying. I kept going, and eventually, it happened. I moved a pebble. 

Two centimetres. Enough to make my heart hammer and my hands tremble.

I tried repeatedly—until nosebleeds reminded me I wasn't ready.

I wasn't powerful. Not yet. But I was consistent. And that, I had learned, was a kind of power all its own. The kind that didn't blaze—it smouldered. Quiet. Unyielding.

I spent most mornings in the kitchen, knees tucked under me in the big chair, half-listening to Nan and Mum as they went through their rituals. Nan sliced bread and buttered it thin. Mum scrubbed yesterday's plates and stared too long out the window. The air always smelled like tea and coal dust.

When I did speak, it was deliberate.

"Can I help?"

Nan raised an eyebrow. "Help? How, love?"

"Dry," I said, pointing to the tea towel.

Mum paused, halfway through rinsing. Her eyes softened. "Alright then. Come on, you clever boy."

It wasn't much—my arms barely reached the basin, and my technique left most dishes spotted or slightly wet. But it was an effort. It was a contribution.

It was a legacy in its smallest seed.

Nonno started teaching me to whittle.

He didn't call it teaching. Just handed me a bit of soft pine and a blunt-tipped knife one afternoon and nodded toward the back step.

"Hands tell you more than eyes," he said, settling beside me with a wheeze.

I sat on the brick stoop, legs swinging, tongue poked in concentration. I shaved uneven curls off the wood, piling them like feathers in my lap.

"Don't rush," he said. "You're not carving a statue. You're finding it."

We sat like that for an hour. No grand lesson. Just rhythm. The scrape of the blade on the bark. The creak of the wind in the narrow alley. His hand was on my shoulder once, firm and grounding.

Sometimes, Nonno spoke in slow Italian, especially when words in English didn't land quite right.

Babbo, too, though he mixed it with bits of Cockney when frustrated. Nonna preferred Italian at home and whispered Latin when she thought no one was listening—prayers folded into the hems of our days like charms.

Grandad had started showing me things in the shed out back—quiet things, sharp tools, and slower lessons.

He's a butcher. He said it taught him about respect, not just for the animal but for what came after. "You cut wrong; you waste what's been given," he told me once as he handed me a wooden mock blade. "Bones don't lie."

He showed me how to trace muscle groups in a side of pork—on paper for now—and which cuts fed the most. "Every part tells a story," he said. "You just have to listen to your hands."

I listened, absorbing all that he had taught me.

By October, the air turned colder. My feet hit the floorboards with a sharper sting each morning. Mum added another blanket to my cot. Nonna started knitting with urgency, muttering about the price of coal.

Enzo carried me on his shoulders one fog-heavy evening down to the bakery. He hummed the whole way, some off-key folk song about stars and shepherds. I pointed to the simplest bun when he let me choose a sweet. He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Later, as we shared it on the walk home, he murmured, "Not greedy. That's good."

I looked up at him, then down at the broken piece in my hand.

"Babbo?"

"Mm?"

"What makes someone a man?"

He stopped walking just for a second.

Then: "The way he holds what he loves."

I didn't speak the rest of the way. I just held the warmth of his answer between my ribs like kindling.

On the first snowfall, I showed Mum how to press her thumb into the window frost and draw a star.

She giggled, then pretended to eat it.

I laughed for real that day. Loud and full.

And later, when everyone was inside, and the fire crackled warmly against my feet, I opened the

System again for a moment.

'Status'

 [FAMILY SYSTEM] 

________________________________

Name: Richard Russo 

Age: 3

Race: Homo Magi

House: N/A

Position: Scion 

Allegiance: N/A

Alliance: N/A

Family Tree: -><-

Total Family Members: 7

________________________________

Wives: 0

Concubines: 0

Main line descendants: 0 

Branch line descendants: 0

________________________________

Bloodline: N/A

Traits: N/A

________________________________

Talents: -><-

Affinities: -><- 

________________________________

[House Structure: -><-]

[House Wealth: -><-]

________________________________

[Recognition: N/A]

[Reputation: N/A]

________________________________

Compatibility Index: -><- 

________________________________

Tasks: -><-

________________________________

Body: 10.66

Mind: 28.33

Soul: 18.33 

Mana: 2432

________________________________

Strength- 10

Dexterity- 11

Constitution- 11 

Intelligence- 28

Wisdom- 29

Spirit- 28

Charisma- 14

Charm- 13

________________________________

SI: -><- 

________________________________

I opened up my only task, looking at its timer slowly ticking by.

[Time Remaining: 7Y:10M:8D]

It ticked down like breath.

I closed it. Not in fear. Not in resignation.

But because some days... I didn't need a reminder of what I was becoming.

Some days, I just wanted to be a boy.

And on those days, I let myself.

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