If I had to describe life before Hogwarts in a single word, I'd call it layered. Not ordinary, not magical—just... layered. Like the fog that rolls over our little cottage on the hill just outside Ottery St. Catchpole. Soft. Silent. But heavy with something hidden beneath.
My name is Rowan Everglen, and I'm not exactly normal. I don't mean the usual "my-life-changed-when-I-got-a-letter" kind of not normal. I mean it in the deeply personal, oddly familiar way—like I've lived twice and both lives are tangled in my bones.
It's hard to explain. I don't remember everything from… before. Not all at once. Just flashes. Echoes. Sometimes, when I read a book or hear someone speak, I already know the end of the sentence. Sometimes I say something that makes my mother raise an eyebrow and mutter, "You speak like an old man, darling."
She's not wrong.
Mum, or as the Ministry knows her, Elowen Everglen, is a spell research assistant for the Department of Magical Innovations. Think of her as a magical theorist—the kind who reads twenty scrolls before breakfast and rewrites charms to make them more efficient "because they're wasting too much magical bandwidth," whatever that means. Her desk is covered in half-finished theories, teacups gone cold, and quills that never seem to run dry.
Dad—Thaddeus Everglen—is the opposite in the best way. He's an Enchanter, self-employed, specializing in imbuing everyday objects with small enchantments. Think broomstick stabilizers, charmed compasses, and his latest project: a self-heating kettle that whistles your name when it's ready. He runs a modest workshop behind our house, where wood shavings, silver runes, and soft jazz coexist in happy chaos.
He gave up the Everglen estate—yes, the old-money, pure-blood Everglens—to marry Mum, a Muggle-born, as the less polite would say. He never talks about the fallout, and I've never asked. I see it sometimes in his eyes when he watches me cast something perfectly or when he flips through our old photo albums in silence.
They're not perfect, but they're real. And I'm lucky.
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Most of my days began the same. Wake up. Eat toast. Try to stop the kettle from floating. Mum once said I had an "irritatingly high memory retention rate," which is wizard-speak for "this child remembers everything and it's kind of terrifying." She caught on early that I picked things up faster than most. By the time I was seven, I could replicate a basic Lumos after watching her do it just twice—without a wand.
That didn't go over well with the neighbors.
Especially when the lights in their attic flickered every time I sneezed.
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It was late July when everything shifted.
I remember the sun slanting through the kitchen window, turning Mum's parchment scraps golden. Dad was humming as he enchanted a biscuit tin to stop nosy squirrels (long story), and I was sitting on the floor, flipping through Numerical Foundations of Arithmancy Vol. I—you know, as one does at age ten.
The knock at the door wasn't loud. It was polite, deliberate. British.
Mum opened it, and I saw the owl first—majestic, amber-eyed, perched neatly on a wooden post behind a Ministry courier in uniform. The letter was sealed with the Hogwarts crest, the wax gleaming like it had just cooled.
My heart froze and sprinted at the same time.
I didn't breathe until Mum turned around, her eyes wide with quiet joy. "It's here," she whispered.
I took the letter in trembling hands, ran my fingers over the thick parchment, and broke the seal.
It read exactly like I remembered it should.
But this wasn't a book anymore.
This was my life.
---
That night, after they sent the Ministry owl off with our reply, I sat by the window. The moon was round and clear, the sky stitched with stars. Somewhere out there was a castle waiting for me. A life waiting for me. A second chance—or maybe a first.
I didn't know what kind of student I'd be, or if I'd be liked, or where I'd be sorted.
But I knew one thing:
I wasn't going to be just another student.
I was going to be Rowan Everglen—the boy who remembered, who learned fast, who saw things others didn't.
And I wasn't going to waste this life.
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