Chapter 2: The Boy Who Survived a Great Calamity

September 1, 1991, London, King's Cross Station, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

Today was the first day of school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the only magical school in Britain.

A deep crimson steam locomotive stood beside the platform crowded with travelers, its thick smoke swirling above the chattering crowd, while owls of various colors hooted shrilly in their cages and cats of all hues darted between people's feet.

Two coughs came from a compartment near the rear of the train; a somewhat pale small hand reached out to slide the window glass shut, seemingly to block out the smoke and noise from outside.

A young boy sat alone there, withdrawing his gaze from outside the train.

This little boy had short black hair and black eyes; a large black mask covered everything below his eyes tightly, with something stuffed underneath that made it bulge high, while in contrast his figure appeared frailer than those of his peers.

He wore a somewhat worn plain wizard's robe, and beside him lay an old-looking trunk; he shifted his gaze to the book spread open before him and muttered, "Having an overly keen sense of smell is such a nuisance!"

Yet he could not concentrate on reading the words on the page, and his thoughts began to drift away.

Allen Finis had been left at the doorstep of a Muggle orphanage in London when he was one year old, with only a note in his swaddling clothes stating his birth date and his name.

Unlike other Muggle-born young wizards, Allen had not learned of Hogwarts' existence just a month or two ago; he had known he was a wizard since the age of ten.

In his tenth year, bullied by older children at the orphanage, intense emotional fluctuations triggered a violent magical outburst, which later assessments by the Ministry of Magic deemed the most powerful recorded incident of its kind.

The violent magical outburst caused severe damage to the orphanage and directly alerted the Ministry of Magic; the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes was urgently dispatched, erasing the memories of over a hundred Muggle witnesses to suppress the incident, while Allen, having suffered serious injuries, was sent to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies for treatment.

After St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies spared no expense in his treatment, Allen's life was finally saved, though he remained in a coma for five months before waking; this incident also earned Allen a modest reputation within the Wizarding World.

Transfiguration Today magazine even conducted an exclusive interview with Allen, and several renowned wizards from the academic community came to visit him, such as the famous historian Bathilda Bagshot, the Transfiguration Master Emeric Switch, as well as Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall from Hogwarts; there was even a woman named Nymphadora Tonks who came to confirm whether he was her distant relative.

All of this was because Allen was a born Metamorphmagus, capable of changing his appearance at will, but due to this historically largest magical outburst combined with the subsequent magical treatment, Allen's talent had mutated, becoming uncontrollable.

Every day upon waking, Allen would discover that an organ in his head had randomly transformed into an animal organ; amazingly, unlike other Metamorphmagi whose changes were merely superficial, these animal organs possessed genuine animal capabilities, and Allen's brain could somehow normally process the information transmitted by these organs, yet these organs also placed a considerable burden on Allen's small body, so although his appetite was large, his build always remained frailer than that of his peers.

On the day Allen woke up, he had randomly received the eyes of some animal, and this animal happened to be colorblind, so he could see only black, white, and gray; then on the second day, he randomly received a pair of cat ears, which, while granting excellent hearing, also allowed him to... fold them down...

The most miserable instance was when he randomly received frog eyes—blind to stationary objects but extremely sensitive to moving ones—causing him to shut himself off completely for an entire day, to the point where even eating became a problem; in order to see the bowls and dishes on the dining table,

he ultimately had no choice but to shake the table with his leg while eating, just to discern the position of the food on his plate; although some food spilled in the end, at least he did not go hungry, and this even led him to reflect that Handmade Geng's earthquake dining device invented on Earth was not entirely useless, as it proved quite suitable for this very scenario.

It seemed something strange and bizarre had intruded; indeed, within Allen's heart resided a Jing Tian Da Mi Mi (a shocking great secret—here following the will of the input method).

He was a transmigrator; before his transmigration, he had been a programmer at a small factory, and coinciding with the opening of Universal Studios Beijing, he had gone to join the excitement, only to suffer heatstroke while queuing for the Harry Potter attraction; his body, worn down by the grueling 996 work schedule, turned out to be so fragile that he died before the ambulance could even arrive.

His soul thus transmigrated into the Harry Potter world, coinciding with the local Allen whose soul had been destroyed by the magical outburst; he thereby occupied Allen's body, merged with the fragments of Allen's soul, and began his journey in the magical world.

It was only upon meeting Dumbledore that Allen realized belatedly that he had transmigrated into the Harry Potter world.

This was because he had previously scrolled past a short video about Dumbledore and retained some impression of this wizard who bore a striking resemblance to Gandalf.

However, he had neither read the novels nor watched the movies; he knew only the general outline of the plot as a story of a great dark lord returning and then being defeated again, yet this did not hinder his longing for the wonders of this world.

But after the initial excitement of entering the magical world faded, the cruel reality forced Allen to begin worrying about his future in this world, for no one could explain the nature of this unreliable ability, and no one could cure him.

Every night before sleeping, Allen's heart carried a trace of fear, terrified that the organ he randomly received the next day might inflict permanent harm upon him; for instance, growing horns in the wrong direction that pierced straight through his skull, leaving no chance for rescue; or randomly receiving a fish's brain, whereby after seven seconds he would forget everything, making life worse than death.

Although this ability had not yet caused Allen any major harm, he dared not let his guard down, for having lived once before, he cherished this life dearly.

Such an ability also attracted the attention of everyone in the field of Transfiguration; people attempted to study this peculiar power to advance the development of Transfiguration, yet after various research efforts, gains remained scant.

Nevertheless, when Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall came to visit Allen, they also brought an invitation to Hogwarts, inviting him to study magic and seek a method to cure himself.

Allen accepted the invitation without much deliberation; subsequently, he received his Hogwarts acceptance letter, and thus embarked on the train bound for Hogwarts.

Just moments ago, Allen had spotted that black-haired boy pushing a snow-white owl on the platform, watching as he struggled to lift his trunk onto the train alone until two red-haired twins went forward to help.

"That is Harry Potter! According to the records in 'The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts,' he should be eleven years old this year; this is the starting point of the story!" he thought silently.

At that moment, the train began to move; Allen snapped back to reality and saw a red-haired little girl on the platform chasing after the train, until the train accelerated, leaving her behind, yet she continued waving at the train relentlessly.

Only when the train rounded a bend did the little girl disappear from view; as houses flashed past the window one by one, Allen's mood gradually became elated.

He rummaged a notebook and a quill from his bag, dipped the quill in ink, turned to a fresh page, and despite the large mask somewhat obstructing his vision, he still wrote down:

"Hello, world!"

After writing, he examined it carefully, and a bitter smile involuntarily crossed his mind: "Truly an occupational hazard that cannot be changed no matter where one goes!"

Then he wrote below:

"Hello, Harry Potter!"