The way to the owlery was filled with its own little tribulations. After barely leaving the infirmary, Ms. Norris saw him and chased him for at least ten minutes. Atlas didn’t know if he should consider himself lucky or unlucky that Ms. Norris didn’t inform Mr. Filch and instead thought of him as food or a plaything. Luckily, he could use the letter to parachute the stairs down to get away from her. The light weight was one of the advantages of his bowtruckle form that he hadn’t noticed before, but maybe it would be more accurate to just call it a feature as it was quite difficult to keep hold of the letter after going outdoors.

His way back was far more relaxed, as he only had to dodge a few ghosts that wandered the corridors. To his surprise, the ghosts were also talking about how Dumbledore might be unable to keep his position for much longer.

The next day, his wounds were in far better shape, and Madam Pomfrey was happy that he could avoid any further wounds because of his transformation. Hermione came to visit like he expected, but to his surprise, Ethan, Leona, and Amy came too.

After the usual small talk, they informed him that they had kept up with their training, but Atlas noticed that Leona looked somewhat distressed.

“I can see that you want to tell me something. Let's just get over it, or are you trying to go easy on me because I got a little burned?”

Atlas could see that Hermione didn’t like what he said and mumbled about being just a little burned, but his focus quickly changed back to Leona, who slowly began to speak.

“Well, it’s Harry. We train with him, you know, and while it’s good to see that he is trying to improve, it’s obvious that he is just delving into practice because he blames himself for Neville’s death. He needs someone he can talk to, someone who was there too. We thought that Ron could maybe talk with him, but Harry just shouted at Ron when he mentioned it. We wanted to wait till your recovery before we asked you to talk to him, because we thought that he might listen to you,” said Leona, apologetic.

Atlas sighed a little. He didn’t particularly have time to take care of Harry's feelings. The moment he would leave the infirmary, he would prepare everything for his plans, but in the end, he needed Harry to come with them.

It frightened Atlas the next second as he realized that he didn’t care about Harry’s well-being and that he only cared because it could affect his plans. The thought filled him with guilt, as he knew he should care and that any decent human being would care, but at the same time he didn’t want to feel the pain. The pain he felt when he realized that Neville died, the pain he imagined he would feel when he might lose Hermione, the pain when he would lose his parents, the pain he would feel when this world would fall apart.

“You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to. We can only imagine how it must have been to be there, so take your time. We will take care of Harry. Besides, even if he doesn’t listen, there are worse ways to process it than training a lot. So just focus on your recovery.” said Leona because he apparently had spaced out too long.

“Thanks. I will talk with him in a few days.” lied Atlas, knowing it would be too late for that then. "Besides, I don’t really know if I can help him because I would do the same if I could. I mean, if they didn’t surprise us so badly, or if we trained a bit longer, maybe we would have been able to hold out longer. Maybe Neville could have survived.” Continued Atlas with genuine frustration in his voice.

“By the way, why were these guys able to ambush us. I mean, it wasn’t an accident that they were there. It was a planned attack. Do you guys think that Quirrell did tell them? Have you noticed him doing something strange lately?” continued Atlas, switching seamlessly from cheerless to curious.

“We haven’t noticed anything strange. He is just doing his classes like usual, but I have the feeling he is more cheery than usual. Do you really think it was his doing? I mean, until now we just speculated that he might be Voldemort’s agent, but do you really think being a little cheerful is enough proof for that?” said Amy, but Atlas was staring at Ethan, who looked embarrassed, guilty even. He looked like he wanted to say something but, in the end, remained silent while Amy talked.

“I am sure, unless, of course, you have another explanation why he knew why Voldemort would know that we were going to the forest.” Answered Atlas, a little annoyed at her naivety. “But then again, even if he weren't, it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on him. So if you notice something unusual, just tell us.”

“I was just asking. No need to be so grumpy.” said Amy indignant.

“No need to fight.” Intervened Ethan, “Atlas is just stressed, and I guess we should leave for now.

Amy mumbled that she didn’t do anything but followed Ethan's gesture and went to the door. Just when they were almost there, Ethan said that he still needed to ask Atlas something, but they should go ahead.

“Hey Hermione, do you think it’s possible that I can talk with Atlas alone for a moment?”

Hermione looked at him questioningly, but Atlas just nodded, quite surprised and curious about what Ethan wanted to say.

After Hermione left, Ethan wandered up and down next to his bed for about thirty seconds before he finally began to speak.

“You are like me, aren’t you?” said Ethan calmly with a serious expression.

Atlas' mind raced. Whatever he had expected Ethan to say to him, that wasn’t it. Atlas immediately tried to calm himself down before the panic could even wash over him by using his occlumency training.

He stared at Ethan and studied his face, his blue eyes, his blond hair, and his straight posture. Atlas' mind raced, but it was like he moved in slow motion. His blinking took seconds, and it was as if they remained in that position for hours when, in truth, it was barely a few seconds.

“What exactly do you mean?” asked Atlas while realizing that his wand was on his nightstand. He needed to know if Ethan really meant what he assumed he meant and if he was here to kill him. He calmed himself down by reminding himself that if Ethan really wanted to do something to him, he would have done it sooner or with much less evidence.

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“You are… not from here. You are from Earth too, right?” whispered Ethan from the bottom of the bed, but Atlas could hear every word as if Ethan had said it directly into his ears.

Now Atlas was sure. Ethan had finally realized that he too wasn’t originally from this world. This presented Atlas with two options; admitting it or denying it. The former would maybe earn his trust, but would have a greater chance to expose his mission, while the later could sew distrust but would keep him in the dark. At first that sounded like an easy decision for Atlas, but if Ethan worked with Voldemort than he would present himself on a silver platter.

After taking a deep breath and ignoring the fact that Ethan most likely meant a different Earth, Atlas answered, “Yes, I am from Earth. I guess I died in my sleep, and when I woke up again, I was in a hospital in the arms of my new parents. And you? How did IT happen to you?”

“Thanks god, I feared I would have made a fool of myself. I too died and woke up on the doorstep of my gran. A second childhood sucks doesn’t it?” said Ethan, and his stiff, straight posture suddenly relaxed.

"Haha, yes, especially needing diapers. That was an experience I could have lived without. And school too. I never felt so bored in my life.” said Atlas and wanted to keep the talk going. He wanted to get as much information about Ethan as possible, because anything might give him an edge. Maybe he could even find out his relationship to Voldemort or what Ethan's boon was.

The talk went back and forth, and they shared their different experiences on their second attempt at live. Ethan told him how they had financial difficulties, and how his grandma took care of him despite everything, and how much he learned to love her, while Atlas told him about how his family had raised him and how he was prohibited from learning any real magic until he started going to Hogwarts. He also told him about his strange relationship with Jason, his friend from school. It could have been a really enjoyable conversation if Atlas hadn’t been on edge the whole time to extract as much information as possible.

“At least you knew you were in the world of Harry Potter. I only learned about it when the letter arrived. That’s so unfair.” said Ethan, but it was obvious that he wasn’t really that upset about it.

“How is that possible? I mean, you should have used accidental magic all the time. With how good you are after one year, I wouldn’t have wondered if you could have controlled your magic willingly as a child. How did you become so good so fast?”

“Let’s just say I had the required skills to speedrun the library.” said Ethan, unwilling to really disclose that he had a system, as Atlas hadn’t mentioned anything similar.

Atlas grinded his teeth. He was sure there was a hint to his real boon in what he said, and he already knew that he had some kind of learning aura, but he wanted to know more.

“Don’t say you have it?! The legendary goldfinger, the boon of the main character, the cheat. What is it?” asked Atlas, trying to sound as euphoric as possible. He wasn’t even sure if those terms were usually used on Ethan’s Earth, but they were the terms that Adam has used to describe the heroes abilities, and they were also part of many books and movies in his old world.

“So you really don’t have it? That’s a bummer; I thought we could boost each other. Anyway…”

To his surprise, Ethan admitted to having a boon. He even went so far as to tell him that it was like a game system and that he needed to grind skills to get stronger. To Atlas' dismay, Ethan was unwilling to disclose more about his skills than his running and breathing skills.

“So with this system, how long do you think you would need to grind to defeat Voldemort?” asked Atlas, wanting to confirm that Ethan wasn’t on Voldemort’s side.

“I guess three, maybe for years. I’m not sure. Besides the fights against Harry and the single duel against Dumbledore, you can’t see much about his real powers in the movies, and I’m sure he wasn’t using everything he had in either of these fights. Damn, I wish I had read the books.”

“You haven’t read them?” asked Atlas in disbelief.

“No, if I had, then maybe the situation now would be quite different,” answered Ethan, grinding his teeth in anger.

“What do you mean?” asked Atlas eagerly.

“Last Holidays I…” began Ethan to explain, but was interrupted when Hermione came back into the infirmary.

“Hey, I just wanted to see if everything is fine; you have already been talking for an hour.” asked Hermione, and Atlas could see that she had brought him lunch.

“We were almost finished. We will talk about it again tomorrow.” said Ethan, who was about to go, but Atlas winked him back closer to himself.

“Three days. He will go past Fluffy in three days,” whispered Atlas before Hermione came close enough to hear it.

Ethan just nodded before leaving.

“What did you talk about?” asked Hermione while unpacking the food for him.

“He just wanted to talk about what happened to us. He thought I needed a friend to talk to. To my surprise, it did help, even though we talked more about our childhood than anything else. Did you know that he was quite poor before visiting Hogwarts? I always thought he was quite rich, especially after seeing his large, spatially expanded trunk.”

“I’m glad it helped you. I was a bit worried because you were keeping quiet about it, but I didn’t want to force you to talk about it either. I talked about it with Professor McGonagall too. While I can’t say it really changed something, I feel better now. said Hermione and took hold of his hand.

“Oh, and yes, Ethan became quite rich by selling potions. There were some articles about him at the beginning of the year. Apparently, he sold them in Hogwarts for quite some time, but for some reason, the school board decided to prohibit students from selling their potions within Hogwarts because the quality of these potions couldn’t be guaranteed. But I guess his potions are selling well in Hogsmeade and even in the Diagon Alley. I heard Snape was his guarantor. But now let’s eat before the food gets cold.”

Atlas was already sure that Ethan was a potion genius before, but after knowing about his system, he could already guess that he had taken a skill related to pioneering. Maybe another one related to herbology, animal handling, or marketing to get the necessary ingredients to grind his skills faster. With the breathing and running skills, he only had six more possible slots if Ethan had told him the truth that he only had ten skillslots. If he is confident enough to beat Voldemort in three of four years, then he surely also has a spellcasting skill, as well as the skill that is responsible for the learning aura. Maybe one more skill that helps him study because he said that he had the skills to speedrun the library. After lunch, he began to go through all the interactions he had with Ethan and tried to find more hints at the skills he might possibly have. One of the greatest contenders would be a skill that increases his reflexes, as he was able to block every spell thrown at him. Occlumency and Legilimancy were surely not on the list because Ethan had just learned them. It might be possible that Ethan had a flying skill because Amy thought he would make a world-class quidditch player. Another possibility would be that he had more physical skills, as breathing and running weren’t really skills related to magic, and if he really didn’t know that he was in the world of Harry Potter, then maybe he planned to get strong with physical strength skills.

The more Atlas thought about it, the more he realized that it was impossible to really know what type of skills Ethan had unless he told him about them. The only thing he should plan for was really fast speed, if he really had a running skill and the magical prowess he had already shown.

Besides thinking about Ethan's abilities, Atlas stalked him, and Quirrell on the map. He had risked exposing himself to Ethan, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility that it was a scheme by Voldemort and Ethan to find out if he had a boon too, because in retrospect, it was quite obvious that he wasn't a regular character too.

To his relief, they didn’t meet up, and even in the classes Quirrell and Ethan had, Ethan was always the first to leave the room. Sure, he might leave Quirrell a note behind, but why should they be so careful if they didn’t know that he could stalk them from the infirmary?

The next day, Madam Pomfrey said that he was almost completely healed and that he could start to slowly move again. After Madam Pomfrey’s examination, Hermione delivered another special edition newspaper with the title “Terrorists Attack the Ministry.”