Harry Potter: House Magus

[POV SWITCH: RICHARD ANDERSON RUSSO]

Morning broke slowly and mildly, creeping through the curtains in pale streaks that glowed against the bedroom wall. I rose well before the city began to stir in earnest, habit more than necessity. Even now, with no looming threat of rations or bombings, with warm sheets and safe walls, I woke before the sun.

I swung my feet to the floorboards, cool against my soles, and stood to stretch the sleep from my spine. Then to the basin: icy water cupped and dashed over my face until my skin burned and my eyes cleared entirely. I took a long look in the mirror. My reflection was sharper these days, not just older, but clearer somehow, like the glass had finally polished itself clean of old dust. The lines of my jaw had grown more firm, my shoulders no longer fragile.

Then it was to the floor.

I braced my palms against the rug and ran through a mix of my own workout routine and Moran's circuits: push-ups, planks until my shoulders trembled, sharp bursts of squats that left my thighs thrumming. I could still taste blood sometimes when I clenched my teeth, memory more than injury, but it only pushed me harder.

By the time I finished, sweat tickled down my ribs in thin, satisfying trails. I stood again, rolling my shoulders, flexing my hands into loose fists. Stronger. Always stronger. Not for show, not for vanity, but because I'd promised myself long ago that I'd never again be the boy who cowered under a stranger's grip in a filthy alley.

Once I had cleared the sweat off, I dressed quickly in a crisp shirt, a charcoal waistcoat, and trousers that were pressed neatly. No matter if I intended only to pace my own floors or sort ledgers at the office. Sloppiness was a luxury I refused.

Downstairs, the house had begun to stir.

The scent of Rupert's morning pipe curled faintly through the hall. I moved into the kitchen, set the kettle, and laid out rashers on the heavy black pan. Breakfast for two. A small ritual, but ours all the same.

Rupert shuffled in as I flipped the bacon, giving me a quiet grunt that counted for a greeting. His robe was belted crooked, hair silver and disordered. I nodded to him, and we ate together at the small table, him turning the newspaper in slow, deliberate creases, while I watched the steam rise from my tea. The pair of us was content to let the minutes pass without cluttering them up with needless talk.

By mid-morning, I was striding down the narrow street that led to Russo Holdings' modest offices. London was fully awake now: carts rattling, the murmur of market stalls, milk bottles clinking together in crates. Even after the couple of months of calm, there was still a sort of watchfulness in the city; people didn't loiter long, didn't dawdle by windows. Old habits die hardest in those who've learned the sky can fall without warning.

My office bore my name on a small brass plate by the door. Every time I pushed inside, there was a quiet satisfaction, not quite pride. Pride was dangerous. But it was a reminder that I had built this, from scraps of cloth and sharp words, from careful signatures and nights hunched over books.

Henry, my junior clerk, looked up from his desk the moment I entered.

His eyes darted to the piles of invoices. "Morning, sir."

I gave a slight nod. "Any new telegrams from Lyon?"

"Just the one, confirming shipment schedules. I set it on your blotter."

"Good."

There was still that faint flush to his ears whenever I spoke directly to him, that hunger for approval that men twice his age had begun to wear around me too. It was not something I wielded cruelly. But I knew its weight.

Inside my office, I sank into the leather chair and began combing through the day's correspondence.

Letters from textile merchants in Lancashire wanting to expand their license regions. A carefully worded note from a rival firm asking, in cloaked terms, if I might entertain a buyout. I set that one aside without bothering to draft a reply.

The ledgers came next. Numbers calm me, they're honest in a way people never are. I ran my fingertip down the neat columns, checking the latest month's margins. Healthy, better than projected. Enough that the second patent could move forward without hesitation, sufficient that the extra warehouse I'd begun negotiating might be more than just cautious ambition.

When I finished, I sat back, eyes on the ceiling, letting the hush of the room settle over me.

Later, I walked the floor of our primary warehouse.

Men and boys moved along the machines, checking spools, testing the tension of hooks, boxing finished reels of fastener tape in crisp brown paper. A few gave me hesitant smiles. One of the older weavers touched his cap.

It was not friendship. It was something closer to wary loyalty, edged by the knowledge that their wages, their warm suppers, came on the back of my signatures. I preferred it that way.

As I inspected a fresh run of the improved hook weave, I caught the scent of it, not the oil and fibres, but emotion. A bright tang, like apples just bitten into. Hope. Good. It meant the men believed there'd be more work tomorrow than today. That they trusted I'd keep the contracts coming.

The house was quiet when I returned that afternoon. Rupert was still out, visiting some old army acquaintance who'd survived the Somme with most of his humour intact. I shed my coat in the hall and moved through sunlit rooms that now felt more mine than his, though neither of us would ever have said so aloud.

I settled at my desk, not for ledgers or legal briefs, but for the second task I had been assigned by the System. A task first issued on the day my mother died, flickering up before my eyes while her body still lay cooling in the bed upstairs.

[System Task: Herald of the New House]

I'd ignored it then. Of course, I had. The world had narrowed to dust and silent screams, but twenty-one months had sharpened me, given me time to weigh and weigh again. And today, on the eve of my eleventh birthday, I decided to finally complete it just in time before the first task was due.

The House's name came first.

"Magus".

Not Russo. This needed to be a fresh start, and that name was still dear to me, tied to Nonna's kitchen, to Papa's broad laugh, but it was also bound to graves. I would honour them with my Muggle company and by stepping forward and looking towards the future. 

Magus was Latin, my Nonna's favourite tongue. A word that meant mage. It was a stake driven into the future, no longer just Richard Russo, but Richard Anderson Russo Magus.

A family name reborn, sharpened for the world I intended to carve a place in.

Then the Motto.

I'd considered dozens.

"We remember and rise again stronger"

"However dangerous however vile"

"Through the crucible of pain, we carry our strength gently"

Each is true in its way. 

Each is a reflection of what my family has represented and strived to uphold.

But in the end, I chose to make it a homage to Caesars and cunning senators. A line in Latin, clean and imperious:

"Non ducor, duco."

I am not led, I lead.

No pretence of gentle humility. This would be a House of leaders, of architects, not common rabble trailing behind another man's banner. The motto made that clear, not just to the world, but to every child of my line who might one day bear it.

Finally, the Crest.

It took me the longest to settle on that, though the image had lingered at the edge of my mind for weeks, black lines in dreams, flashes of talons and wings.

A double-headed eagle, wings spread in full, each beak sharp with vigilance, each eye watchful and rimmed in imperial violet. Its claws gleamed a dark gold, clutching nothing yet, ready to grasp whatever future I chose to set before it.

All of it was set upon a field of deep purple, a colour long claimed by emperors and high priests, by those who ruled not just by blade, but by mind and cunning. A black border edged in pale bone-white framed it all, carrying my chosen motto across the top in bold, solemn script:

Non ducor, duco.

It was stark, proud, unmistakable. A crest meant for standards carried high above the heads of crowds, or stamped in wax on letters that would travel to every corner of the world.

When I finally laid my pen aside, the System flared with quiet finality.

[System Notification]

[Congratulations, Host. You have established your House.]

[Name: Magus]

[Motto: Non ducor, duco.]

[Crest: Double-headed black eagle on a field of imperial purple, eyes violet, claws dark gold, framed by a black and pale ivory border inscribed with your chosen words.]

[Rewards Unlocked:]

[House Structure]

[House Wealth]

[Random Family Familiar]

[Stat Increase: Spirit +3]

It hit me instantly, a quiet ripple through my bones, as though iron filings had aligned inside my marrow. My thoughts grew clearer, cold edges made neat. Even my breath felt deeper somehow, drawn through lungs less troubled by old grief.

Conviction settled in me like fresh blood. I found my hand resting over my heart, half-expecting to feel something new physically pulse there.

Although my stats had increased by more than three before that was a gradual process, nothing this fast.

The increase of three stat points hit me hard; the stark contrast was exhilarating. A noticeable surge in confidence settled into me.

My eyes made their way towards the System Inventory.

A small egg had appeared inside.

I took it out. Smooth, ivory-pale, no larger than my palm.

'What is it?'

The System did not respond. So I guess I'll just have to wait for it to hatch.

'How do I hatch the egg?'

[The Host must keep the egg in a warm environment, supplying a drop of blood each day for one year.]

Well, that's something at least. I put the egg in the drawer beside my bed atop a blanket, before pricking my thumb with my knife and pressing it on the egg.

[1/365]

The System displayed right after I smeared my blood on the egg.

I shut the drawer with deliberate care, almost afraid even the weight of a breath might crack what I'd just begun. Then stood there a long while, thumb still wrapped in linen, feeling the echo of my heartbeat where that tiny cut had already sealed.

My own House. My own name.

It felt... startlingly different. Not just a flourish on a contract or a quiet rumour among London merchants. It was something more profound, as if my bones had finally settled into their rightful places. 

I was no longer Ethan Brown, pathetic loser, drowning in self-pity.

Richard Russo, a weak boy forced to watch all his family die around him.

Richard Anderson Russo, an uncertain orphan trying to make something of himself. 

I was Richard Anderson Russo Magus, Founder and Head of House Magus.

A new family line, wholly mine to shape. Mine to brand with triumphs or stain with failures. Mine to send echoing forward through children I hadn't yet dreamt of, down corridors of time I'd never walk myself. The thought filled my chest so full, it nearly hurt.

A quiet confidence burned through me. Not loud, not reckless, but bright and unyielding, settling into all the sharp new corners of my thoughts. It made old ghosts seem pale. 

Memories of my family seemed easier to bear. No longer was I haunted by their last moments. Now I saw their smiles filling my mind, whispers of encouragement, their hope for my future.

I poured myself a glass of water and set it down untouched. Walked from the window to the fireplace, back again. Tried to read, to draft a letter to a partner in Leeds, even to close my eyes and force sleep to come.

It was useless.

My mind spun restlessly through every corridor of itself. Over ledgers and the scent of hope on the warehouse floor. Over the fragile egg in its drawer, delicate yet somehow weightier than any ledger's sum.

But most of all, I kept circling back to what would come at midnight, the final tick of the first task that the System gave me on my first birthday. Ten years of ticking are finally coming to a close.

I lay on the bed at last, hands folded across my chest, eyes wide to the ceiling's quiet dark. Each tick of the clock was a tiny hammer stroke, driving home the enormity of what I'd built and what would soon live inside and through me.

By tomorrow, the streets of London would look unchanged. Boys would still shout headlines on corners, and milk carts would still rattle their way past the stoops. But I would be different.

And this time, I wouldn't just rise to meet the world.

I would bend it to my will.

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