[June 20, 1980]
St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London.
Accompanied by a loud, spirited cry, Mr. Richter, a man of modest wealth, finally welcomed his first child into the world on the day he passed the halfway mark of his 28th year.
Looking at the child he had placed all his hopes and affection upon, after long contemplation and careful consideration, Mr. Richter finally made his decision.
He chose the name "Dawn" — a word symbolizing the first light of morning and the promise of hope.
And so it began.
Swaddled in the warmth of love and luxury, Dawn spent the first two years of his life.
Life was peaceful. The family was happy.
Mr. Richter thought that perhaps their days would continue on like this forever. But it seemed that fate, or perhaps God Himself, had a particular fondness for weaving misfortune into the lives of the content.
It didn't last.
On October 13, 1982, a sudden car accident claimed the life of Dawn's mother.
Grief-stricken, Mr. Richter wept uncontrollably, clutching little Dawn in his arms throughout the funeral, drowning himself in alcohol for days on end.
But time, as it always does, gradually eased his pain.
Amid the bright lights and intoxicating pleasures of high society, and through several encounters during his lowest days, another woman quietly found her way into Mr. Richter's heart.
She was his therapist — young, beautiful, and graceful, with long, flaxen hair. She was more than ten years his junior.
And so, almost inevitably—
On June 17, 1983, Mr. Richter married again.
The wedding was grand, with white rose petals fluttering down from the sky.
Three-year-old Dawn, dressed in a white formal suit, was placed among the guests like a pretty little ornament, receiving greetings from strangers that meant little to him.
'Death is so pitiful,' he thought that year.
'No matter how important someone was in life, after they die, they are gradually replaced... and eventually become irrelevant.'
He watched as his father laughed joyfully, standing next to a stranger who had taken the place that once belonged to his mother. The thought took root in his young mind.
...
Time flowed onward.
The white roses from his memories fell to the ground, turning into snow, then sprouted again from the earth as green buds.
What happened next could have been ripped straight from the pages of the most cliché drama. The following June, his stepmother gave birth to healthy, adorable twins — a boy and a girl.
And slowly, subtly, Mr. Richter's affection for Dawn began to fade. From careful attention to his every need, to a growing indifference.
Then—
On June 20, 1985, Dawn left.
He was sent away from London, alone, to Kent, where he began a new life under the care of a butler.
The reasons were unclear.
Perhaps it was because Dawn, as he grew older, never displayed any of the affection a child might normally seek from a parent?
Or perhaps it was the subtle influence of his stepmother?
Either way… Dawn understood.
Over the past two years, Mr. Richter's fortune had multiplied significantly — in no small part thanks to his new wife.
It was only natural that she wouldn't want her husband's wealth divided too much with the son of another woman. Besides, Mr. Richter still sent ample funds each month for Dawn's living expenses.
Thus, Dawn felt no resentment.
There was no place in his heart for grief or jealousy. Instead, he watched everything unfold with the detached gaze of an outsider.
And it was precisely because he didn't care that when Dawn truly desired something, he could ignore morality and law entirely — pursuing his goals by any means necessary.
For example, when he was six years old, fed up with the old butler's constant restrictions and scoldings while trying to study magic—
After failing to negotiate, Dawn arranged for the butler to "accidentally" break his leg, forcing him into retirement.
When Mr. Richter tried to hire a replacement, Dawn even used a Confundus Charm to sabotage the effort.
Perhaps this ruthless pragmatism had something to do with the recurring dream he had been having all his life?
Yes—
Dawn harbored a secret from the moment he was born: Whenever he slept, he would dream — not random, scattered dreams, but a continuous, logical life story.
In those dreams, he lived in another country, leading an ordinary, peaceful life until he died young from an illness.
Even after waking, Dawn remembered the dreams vividly. And because time in the dream moved faster than in reality, it was as though he had lived an extra lifetime.
As a result, even as a young child, he understood things that most adults would.
Because of how real the dream felt, Dawn developed a sense of alienation from the real world. A detachment that, over time, turned into complete indifference toward everything.
Especially after he was six years old, when he read a novel called Harry Potter in his dreams.
Out of curiosity, he traveled to Surrey in the real world — and incredibly, found Privet Drive No. 4, home of the Dursley family, exactly as described.
The shock and absurdity of it all blurred the lines between dream and reality.
He even began to suspect that perhaps his dreams were the real world — and reality was the dream. But fortunately, that confusion didn't last long.
An uncontrollable surge of excitement shattered it completely!
Because Dawn realized— "Magic was real in this world."
The tremor that ran through him at that realization was indescribable.
Like Hannibal Lecter faced with a freshly plucked brain, like a lost ship spotting the beacon of a lighthouse—
Greedy. Desperate. Overwhelming.
Without a second thought, Dawn threw himself into the search for the Leaky Cauldron — the gateway to the wizarding world's Diagon Alley.
His urgency was so great that it left him no time to worry about dreams versus reality.
What did it matter?
In the face of magic, nothing else mattered at all!
Finally, after scouring almost all of London, Dawn found the small, shabby pub near Charing Cross Road, invisible to most people's eyes.
And at that moment, his pounding heart settled—
The fact that he could see the Leaky Cauldron meant he had the qualifications to become a wizard.
He wasn't just an ordinary Muggle.
After that, Dawn commissioned a tailor to make robes resembling those worn by wizards, allowing him to blend into the magical world without drawing attention.
Yes— Dawn had lied.
It wasn't by accident, as he would later tell Professor McGonagall. He had been actively seeking it all along.
From then on, Dawn often snuck into the Leaky Cauldron.
He would hide in corners, eavesdropping on conversations, and slip through whenever someone opened the gateway to Diagon Alley.
Even as a small child, no one questioned his presence. After all, anyone who could enter the Leaky Cauldron had to be a wizard, right?
Thanks to the generous allowance Mr. Richter sent him, Dawn was able to buy gold and exchange it at Gringotts for wizarding currency.
This allowed him to buy magical books to his heart's content.
The only regret was that before receiving his Hogwarts acceptance letter, Ollivanders refused to sell him a wand.
Even second-hand wand shops turned him away.
Perhaps the shady shops in Knockturn Alley would have sold him one, but Dawn wasn't reckless enough to venture there before he had the ability to defend himself.
Thus, even though his innate magic was quite active before he turned eleven, the lack of a wand meant his success rate for casting spells was low — though he never stopped trying.
He had also noticed that strong emotional fluctuations seemed to enhance the effect.
But fearing a magical outburst, Dawn carefully suppressed all emotions except for his insatiable curiosity.
Still— His years of self-study paid off.
In the two short days after acquiring his wand, Dawn had already mastered most of the spells listed in [Standard Book of Spells].
And not the watered-down Hogwarts version, but the original, unabridged edition — filled with a myriad of spells, including many minor dark spells, costing him a staggering thirteen Galleons.
It was six times more expensive than the school-recommended version—
But worth every Knut.
Thinking of this, Dawn couldn't help but recall another incident:
Driven by curiosity, he had once spent five Galleons on Gilderoy Lockhart's bestseller [Year with the Yeti].
While the book was a thrilling and well-written bestseller, whenever it reached crucial points of knowledge, the descriptions grew maddeningly vague and unclear!
...
Lost in these chaotic thoughts—
Dawn had already led Professor McGonagall up the stairs, arriving at the door of his second-floor bedroom.