*NEW STORY* One Spell Wizard: Chapter 1: Boredom

AN: Some pretty big news to announce. I already said this on the discord server, but I know a lot of you aren't on there. Starting next month, I will be a full-time author.

It's a pretty terrifying decision to quit my job, but writing my novel daily to meet my publisher's deadline + writing fanfic + working fulltime was going to kill me. I could feel myself burning out quickly, so I had to change something. I'll make a detailed post next month when the change officially happens.

AN 2: This story is heavily inspired by an anime I love, but it is NOT a crossover. This is just a pilot, with another chapter to be released in a day or two. I'll decide if the story should continue after that.

Summary: Harry trained diligently every day for three years, wanting to do his best to better the Wizarding World. The training was a success, but why did it have to turn out like this? Why was everyone so damned weak??

Themes: OP Harry, Slow burn harem

Harry was bored.

No, wait, that was understating it. That would make sense when sitting in class, listening to Professor Binns talk about some goblin rebellion for the umpteenth time. This was far beyond that.

Harry was really bored.

He was sitting in his office, staring at the ceiling, wondering when his first client would arrive. Sometimes he wondered if it would have made sense to follow Ron and join the Auror force.

Harry could have done it. After all, he had only been a month away from finishing his probation before he would have officially become an Auror, but during that time, he found out something about himself that would have made it impossible.

He despised listening to authority figures.

Harry understated it again. He would rather kiss Malfoy than listen to someone order him around again.

He had enough of people directing his life since the day he was born. With the prophecy no longer hanging above his head like a guillotine, he didn’t see the need to continue acting like a puppet for others.

... Harry knew he was being dramatic. He quit because of sheer boredom and the terrible realization that after the probation was completed, an even greater boredom awaited.

Ron was all for it, still talking about how they would continue taking down the ‘dark tossers.’ That was his exact phrasing, but Harry had no idea where his mate got that idea from. If Ron had been paying attention to what the probation period was all about, he would have realized that paperwork and dealing with petty thieves was ninety-nine percent of the job.

Harry didn’t sign up for that. He didn’t get rid of Voldemort so he could sit behind a desk all day, doing nothing but paperwork.

He chuckled at that thought, finding it ironic since that was precisely what he was doing right now. That is, sitting behind a desk. At the very least, there was no paperwork to be done.

After dropping out, Harry hadn’t been sure what to do with himself. He had spent the next week trying to convince his friends that quitting hadn’t been a mistake, but when that hadn’t worked, he sort of just… ran away.

It wasn’t anything dramatic, like cutting people out of his life. Harry could never do that since he loved his friends and might go insane without contact with them, but he did find something to occupy himself.

The whole point of joining the Aurors was to make the wizarding world better by taking out its darker elements. Though he had to admit that there was another reason he mostly kept to himself. To learn how to actually use his magic.

Harry still wanted to do both those things but didn’t want to deal with the seemingly pedantic daily life of being an Auror.

So Harry started to train himself.

The training that Harry did wasn’t particularly hard, but it was tedious. Initially, he often thought of taking a break, just for one day, and doing something else instead of casting Expelliarmus at a target for hours upon hours each day.

But he didn’t. To force himself to continue, all Harry had to do was think about what he did in his fight with Voldemort.

If it hadn’t been for dumb luck with a combination of being born with more magical power than sense, Harry didn’t doubt that he would be six feet under after the confrontation with Lord Snakeface. He didn’t even know what he had been thinking.

Harry wanted to return in time and punch himself in the face for using Expelliarmus against Voldemort in the climax. He liked the spell, but not to the point of wanting to simply disarm the greatest Dark Lord the British Isles had ever seen.

He chalked it up to having some sort of mental break during the fight. There could be no other reason to do something so stupid.

However, in case that same stupidity came over him again, Expelliarmus was what he used at the start of his training.

It still wouldn’t work against anyone at Voldemort's level, but Harry didn’t expect one at that level to pop up again in his lifetime. However, when talking about a dark wizard or witch at the level of Bellatrix?

It would be more than enough.

That training lasted for three years.

One year of casting Expelliarmus hundreds of times each day. One year of learning new offensive spells for the rare times Expelliarmus wouldn’t be enough. And the last year, the year that Harry hated the most. When he trained his body.

A whole year of getting himself into the best shape of his life.

After all that hard work, Harry was sure that if he had to fight Voldemort again, they would be much more evenly matched. He still didn’t think he would win in a fair fight, but at least he wouldn’t die as quickly.

So here Harry was, three years after he had dropped out of the Auror program. He had opened up his own office, where he would be available for hire. He even thought of a brilliant catchphrase.

Potter Solutions: Magical Solutions for Your Magical Complications!

Hermione thought it was ridiculous, but what did she know? Harry hadn’t forgotten the ridiculous names she had devised for her ideas. Anyone who believed SPEW was an excellent name lost their right to speak.

... Then again, perhaps Hermione might have been right. Harry opened his office a week ago, and not one potential customer had visited.

He thought his fame might have brought some gawkers at the least, but even that hadn’t happened. Maybe word had gotten around about how Harry had lucked into getting rid of Voldemort, and people might have been trying to spare his feelings, not wanting him to find out that he wasn’t all that special.

Harry groaned and put his head down on the desk. It was starting to feel like he was one of those rich trust fund purebloods that did nothing all day and lived off their inheritance. Technically, that was precisely what he was.

Ron wouldn’t have been able to randomly quit and do something else since he was broke. He didn’t have a vault with endless galleons filling it like Harry did.

“Maybe I should have stuck through it with Ron,” Harry muttered into the wood, “At least I would have someone to talk to.”

“Is this a bad time, Potter?”

Harry sat straight in his chair so quickly that he could hear his bones snap from the movement. He wanted to cry in pain at his suddenly aching back, but that might chase away his first potential client.

“Welcome to Potter Solutions!” Harry exclaimed brightly, “Where we have magical solutions for your magical complications! How may I help you on this fine day?”

Harry was pulled out of his manufactured happiness when the potential new client started to giggle after his greeting. He blinked when he saw a vaguely familiar face, and an exceptionally beautiful one at that. His ex-girlfriend, Ginny, was a stunner, but this woman could easily match up to her.

“Sorry, do I know you?” Harry asked after a second, still feeling that strange familiarity. Maybe she was a relative of someone he went to Hogwarts with?

Of course, the woman was far too occupied with her giggling to answer. After a few seconds, she got herself under control and asked, still smiling widely, “Did you come up with that yourself?”

Harry’s smile stiffened as he thought of Hermione’s unimpressed look when hearing his slogan. This witch laughing was even worse than that. Surely it wasn’t that bad. Ron had certainly been all up for it.

“So,” Harry cleared his throat, ignoring her question, “How can I help you?”

“You always were standoffish, Potter,” The woman chuckled and took a seat at the desk, “I was hesitant about coming to you for this, but I want to ensure the safety of my team.”

With how she seemed to be familiar with him, Harry was glad that she missed his confusion about who she was. He still had no idea, but perhaps it would be possible to find out without admitting he was utterly lost.

“I’m glad you came to me!” Harry said brilliantly, “So what is your team dealing with?”

“I didn’t want to use the goblins because of their ridiculous fees, so I put together a team of cursebreakers after I received information on the tomb of Pharaoh Huni.”

With the way she paused with gleaming eyes after saying the pharaoh’s name, Harry assumed that this was something that he should know. Unfortunately, he knew little of history if one was speaking about matters outside goblin rebellions.

“I apologize,” She said, deflated at his cluelessness, “I sometimes forget that not everyone shares my obsession with Ancient Egypt.”

“Er, it’s fine,” Harry chuckled awkwardly, “History was not an interesting subject in Hogwarts. The professor was less than enthusiastic.”

He fidgeted when she stared at him piercingly, her blue eyes widening slightly before narrowing at him.

“You don’t remember who I am, do you?”

Harry didn’t, but neither did he want to admit it.

He wanted to say something about how it was impossible to have met her since it would be impossible to forget such a face. But since when could he ever say something so smooth to a girl? He’d probably stutter out of embarrassment from saying such a line and ruin the delivery.

That, and it would likely result in the same outcome as telling her that he had no clue who she was.

The outcome of Harry losing the possible client.

Unfortunately, his silence was also a type of answer.

“Unbelievable,” She muttered, “I was in the same year as you, Potter.”

“… Really sorry about that,” Harry offered, unsure why she hadn’t already told him a name. It wasn’t like giving out some clues would be helpful.

“Daphne!” She threw up her hands, “Daphne Greengrass!”

Harry frowned, a blurry image appearing in his mind. A forgettable girl in Slytherin wearing frumpy clothes. He thought Hermione had mentioned her before, about how Daphne was smart as a whip in runes. Speaking of his friend, he was sure she would scold him for thinking of a girl in such an unflattering manner.

But that was honestly what Harry remembered of Daphne in Hogwarts.

Other than that, he didn’t think they directly interacted in any way. Rather bold of her to think he would remember her.

“Oh, right! Daphne!” Harry laughed as if they were old friends, “Again, I’m sorry about that. I’m pretty forgetful these days.”

Daphne looked suspicious about that claim but moved on since she wasn’t here to reminisce in the first place. “Back to the tomb. My team was able to safely break most of the protections of the pyramid, but they think the inner chamber is protected by a powerful guardian. It should likely be dead after being buried for four thousand years, but I wanted to get my team some backup just in case.”

Harry nodded where appropriate as Daphne spoke, but he already knew he had made a mistake. He wanted to take down dark elements of society, like dark witches and wizards, or maybe dark creatures. Tomb raiding hadn’t been part of the equation.

Perhaps he should have mentioned that in some sort of flyer… or had a flyer in the first place. Harry suddenly realized that he had bungled up the opening of his office.

The name ‘Potter Solutions’ hadn’t been put on the building yet, with it still having the old lettering for ‘Amanuensis Quills.’ He had bought the empty storefront but hadn’t got around to changing the name, mainly because he didn't think it was that important. As for advertisements, there had been none of that either since Harry assumed his name was enough.

Daphne likely had found out about it because Hermione and Ron mentioned it to their old schoolmates.

It was no wonder Harry hadn’t got any business.

“So what do you say, Potter?” Daphne’s voice broke Harry out of his thoughts, “Are you willing to do it?”

Harry blinked, wondering what she had been saying while he had zoned out, but it didn’t matter in the end. He would do this as Daphne’s reward for being the first person to walk into his office beside his friends.

“Sure,” Harry shrugged, “When do you want this to happen?”

“Ideally? Right now, but it’s a headache to get the portkey,” Daphne said with a slight scowl, “It’ll be a week at the earliest.”

Well, that wouldn't do. Harry would rather get this over and return to launch his business correctly.

“Where is this place? Near any famous landmarks I would know?”

“Of course not!” Daphne sounded offended, “It looks ages to find the lost pyramid because it was in the middle of nowhere.”

“Hmm,” Harry knew it might be rude, but in the interest of saving time, it could be forgiven, “Can you give me a memory of the location? I might be able to get us there much faster.”

Daphne hesitated after her eyes followed to where Harry was pointing, staring at a Pensieve in the corner of the room. Just when he thought that she would decline, Daphne walked to the Pensieve and used her wand to pull a silvery strand from her head before dropping it into the basin.

Harry nodded in thanks as he moved next to her, knowing that asking for a memory was highly frowned upon due to its personal nature. He quickly used the Pensieve to get the exact details of the memory before removing himself, not wanting to invade Daphne’s privacy more than he had to.

“Thank you for that,” Harry said as he held out a hand, “Are you ready?”

“Thank you, Potter," Daphne said with relief, "I look forward to working with you.”

Harry realized that Daphne had interpreted their handshake as a sealing of their agreement. However, that realization came a little too late. It was impossible to stop a side-along apparition safely when the process was already started.

*CRACK*