Chapter 0: The Intentionally Short Backstory

In October of 2016, a boy died in his bed at the hospice. The boy had developed cancer when he was eleven years old, then spent five years getting treatment before succumbing to the sickness when he was only sixteen.

The boy had always been shy, and after he got cancer kids didn’t want to be around him. This had led to the boy leading a lonely, uneventful life. One of his only hobbies was reading, because it let him imagine the adventures that he would never be able to have. One of his favorite series was Harry Potter; his parents had read it to him when the very first book came out, and after that, he was hooked. He read every book eagerly as they came out, and after the series had concluded he started reading fanfiction. Even on the day that he died, he had “The Philosopher's Stone” by his bedside.

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At the time of his death, the boy had never done much of anything. His parents hadn’t been neglectful, but they had to spend a lot of time working to pay his medical bills, so he never saw them much. He had never experienced any conflict (outside of cancer, of course), nor had he seen or done anything of note. All in all, his soul was as pure and blank as any baby. This means that it should have been no surprise when instead of passing on to the afterlife, as most souls do, James’ soul instead went the way of the stillborn soul, he was pulled into another world and placed in a small lump that will, in roughly nine months, be a baby.