It was a fine spring morning, unusually fine for a place like Darbingtonshire, England. Normally, the estate was covered by a cloud of grey, contrasting wonderfully with the grey or brown buildings with rust-red paint flaking off to reveal ugly patches of browns and reds not dissimilar to a healing wound. But today, the sun was shining, most of the ice on the ground had melted, and the only people outdoors were the many, many kids who had a bag of cheap crisps and a bottle of cola shoved into their hands, and were then ordered to spend the day outside in the fresh air, away from their parents, who would rather watch unbearably dull soaps or sports matches than look after their spawn.

Inside, away from all of that, there was a young boy in a dark room with heavy purple curtains drawn over the one barely-opened window in the room, sitting atop a small stool and tapping away with vigor at a small laptop sitting atop a cheap plastic table, whose pale white light illuminated the dark room and made the pale skin of the boy in front of it appear white, not like snow or ivory, but like the blank coded white of a half-written webpage's unaltered background. The laptop in front of him was an outdated and outmoded joke from the late 1990's that was considered old even when his parents bought it. It was the kind of disgracefully slow and ultimately insufficient machine that computer connoisseurs would unaffectionately refer to as a 'Potato'.

The boy, on the other hand, was a young and slightly-chubby boy with brownish-blonde hair with muddy brown eyes and a dyed purple streak on the front-right side of his hair, a streak he'd made using his sister's many dyes and other haircare and makeup products when she was out. The boy was named Charles Alric, a young and friendless boy who found relief from his loneliness in books and online, and found validation in winning online arguments.

He continued tapping the small keys, and then moved his blue mouse to click the 'Send' button. He was one an internet forum, one of many. This forum was a place where fans of a popular fantasy board game known as Dungeons and Dragons could meet, talk, play, and discuss the brilliant game. Today, however, this forum was a battleground, a place where the young Charles was brutally thrashing his opponent.

The target of his wrath? Someone who actually believed that the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons was superior to Edition number three point five.

"DnD 4e has a simplified moral compass. You're either a boring boy-scout paladin Lawful Good hero like Superman, a Neutral loser like the Neutral President, or a Chaotic Evil idiot like The Joker from the most recent Batman movie." Charles typed.

"So?" His new mortal foe responded. "It simplifies things. Good guys fight the bad guys, and the dirty neutral peasants cheer."

Charles took a moment to grit his teeth and feel the rage seething within him before he responded. "You're either a puppy-kicking monster, an uncorruptible champion of goodness, or a nobody?" He typed angrily. "Are you saying the world works like that? Are you saying you think like that? What about Chaotic Good heroes, like Robin Hood or Sonic the Hedgehog? What about Lawful Evil villains, like Darth Vader or Dr. Eggman? What about wildcards, like Captain Jack Sparrow?!"

"Who cares?" His opponent responded. "3.5e was broken, wizards were overpowered, and melee fighters sucked. The only power boosts they could get were from lame anime sourcebooks, like the Tome of Weaboo Fightan Majick."

"You shut your mouth, anime is awesome, and it's something an idiot like you could never truly appreciate with your bad taste." Charles typed. "And-"

"CHARLIEEE!" Charlie's mother shouted from downstairs. "LETTER FOR YOU!"

Charles took a moment to breathe in, and put on a pleasant smile. "In a minute, Mommy!" He called down in a light voice that sounded very different from the angry voice he had imagined himself using when writing. "Could you please let me finish the page I'm on? I promise I won't be long!"

"OH, ALRIGHT." His mother sighed with amused weariness.

Charles's attention turned back to the laptop, and rage overtook his normally-kinda-cute face once again as he resumed typing. "-And I'm sorry if you can't use this brilliant game to live out your ridiculous and sad Conan The Barbarian-ripoff fantasies without the fantasy's magic getting in the way of the 'Barbarian, greatest and strongest action hero' experience, but this was made to be a multiplayer game of magic and adventure, not one man's Xiphiphiliac loincloth swordfest."

And with that, he turned off his laptop's Web Browser, and left his room. Outside, the walls of the hall were a dull beige and the floor was a dirty green furry carpet that'd been trodden down upon until its once-fuzzy texture became cold and hard. He made it to the end of the hallway before boredly trodding down the stairs, the handrail long-since broken off and removed. At the end of the flight of stairs, the door to the outside world, in all of its dull and boring 'glory' lay in wait for him, a letterbox propped open by a large white letter. "Thanks, Mom!" He called out as he took the letter, noting that it was adressed directly to him, and not the three aliases he had been using whenever he wanted to order something online, or whenever someone online asked for his name. Strange. Nobody knew his real name, except for his parents, and maybe his school teachers. This letter was probably from somewhere official. ...Probably.

"Hey, watcha got there?" Asked his father, who had snuck up on him when he was busy thinking. Again. He looked every bit a handsome rogue straight out of an awesome American show, complete with brown five o'clock shadow, pointy chin and messy hair, effortlessly towering over his son's short and chubby body. His mother always said he was a useless drunk in the most affectionate of tones, but she was probably just jealous of his natural awesomeness. Besides, his father was nice to him, and since nobody else ever was, that made him a good person AND an awesome one.

He snatched the letter out of his son's hands, and strolled off as he read it. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and..."

He trailed off ominously.

Everything paused for the briefest of moments.

He then suddenly tore open the envelope and looked at the letter inside, green eyes scanning and skimming it. The normal calm demeanour and aura of effortless cool around him was gone. "Finally." He whispered.

"What's going on, Dad?" Charles asked.

His father turned around with the biggest grin anyone had ever seen on his face. "Son..." He whispered, like the tiniest drip of excitement seeping through the cracks of a dam holding back enough energy to create a new sun. "You're a Wizard."

"I'm a Wizard?" Charles asked.

"You're a Wizard." His father said proudly.

"I'm a Wizard." Charles said, remembering his favourite character to use in DnD when he played the game alone in a dark corner of his bedroom, an insanely overpowered half-human half-Silver Dragon Wizard/Warlock/Eldritch Theurge named Charazardon Greatslayer, who had slain thousands of bandits, saved a hundred kingdoms, and thoroughly abused the Wish spell like it was an unwanted child who was also half-pinata, and gave out several thousand gold coins every time he struck it along with more power, more rare magical items, another equally-powerful enemy to fight and become even stronger for defeating, and another realm or plane to adventure and conquer. If he was a Wizard, he was on his way to reaching that level of incredible power. Today was awesome!

"Now, Son, I know this might be a lot to take in," He began. "Your mother is just an ordinary human, but I'm a Wizard. I can do magic, and when I was a boy, I went to a place called Hogwarts. They taught me magic, and-"

"This explains so much!" Charles gasped in glee.

"...Wait, what?" His father asked in surprise, face frozen with the same grin but slightly different eyes.

"This explains everything! Why I never fit in here, why I always liked you more than Mom, why you're always drinking bottles of beer at night but you never seem to get drunk or go to the fridge to get more beer, and why you're so awesome, and why I'm so awesome! I'm a Wizard!" Charles said, overjoyed, as if the secret to everything had just been revealed to him. "And since I'm a Wizard now, can I have my letter back?".

"Sure." His father said, handing him the letter.

"Awesome!" Charles said happily, rushing back up the stairs, running back into his room, and closing the door. The door didn't have a lock, so he moved his big plastic mostly-empty cupboard to block the door, just in case, and then he went to his laptop and turned on his web browser. He then sat down, and began to type.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

He was greeted by a page filled with articles on Witches, Wizards, and most annoyingly of all, those ridiculous faux-spiritual hippy-dippy lame sites that claimed "You too, can be a majickal person! Just buy these magical totems, believe in this belief system that forbids doubt, encourages community, and tells you stupid things like to ignore the bad things and hope they go away, or to cut out of your life any people with a 'Negative aura' or 'Anyone who drags you down', meaning to get rid of anyone with problems or anyone trying to cure them of insanity and bring them back to the real world, meditate upon and dream about nonexistent spirit animals to reeeally drill them into your head, and most importantly, buy this book for £99.99 to become closer than ever to the new and better you!".

He hit the back button of his web browser, and deleted what was written. He then began typing.

Hogwarts.

/No results found for 'Hogwarts'. Did you mean, 'Hog warts'?/

This was....

Wait.

Wait.

No.

Charles stepped away from the computer.

This was wrong.

The internet had everything.

Everything.

Even things it shouldn't have.

Words... Words were common. As were words made of other words. 'Hog+Warts'? The etymology of that wasn't exactly hard to figure out. But... Pigs, with names. Familiars from dnd games held on online forums. Stupidly-named hunting dogs. Names. Names of places. Names of fictional places. Times when someone forgot the space between the words hog and warts, while talking about the subject.

Words were common. Surely, someone, somewhere, in all of the world's incredible size and population density, had used that word online at least once. And surely, this search engine could find that word if it had been used, right?

Unless.

Unless...

If something was turning up a complete blank when searched for...

There was a block on it.

He pressed the back button.

If even the internet couldn't give him the answers-

Wait.

Wait.

There was one thing.

One thing he hated using.

One thing that would always remain an option of last resort.

Something he'd only recently heard of, something he was sure must have been made up until he found it for himself and went on an ultimately disappointing adventure through it.

Something surrounded by a shroud of secrecy and mystery, two things he strongly disliked.

The Dark Net.

He performed the secret trick that only the true geniuses and their friends know, and got into the secret hidden extra layer of the internet that most search engines were too afraid to map out or allow access to.

He ignored all of the blatantly illegal things that were openly being sold, knowing that most of them were scams made by the police to catch criminals who believed they were save here, and that things like freedom and privacy and rights actually existed in this day and age. Instead, he went straight for the greatest forum on earth, where any question could be asked and it would be answered.

I or someone I know may or may not have received a letter inviting me to somewhere called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Is it a scam?/, Charles asked, typing it in and hitting send.

He waited ten seconds, and then leaned forwards and pressed the F5 key, refreshing the page. He stared at his own question, waiting another ten seconds,

Someone answered.

No.

/It's not a scam? Then why is it asking me to send my son there?/ Charles asked.

/Your son is good enough. They have invited him. Let him go./

Do you own this school?

No.

Why are you talking like that? Are you trying to add more dramatic impact to your words? No offense, but I'd like to know everything I need to know about this place before I let my kid go there./

/This is not about you. This is about the boy. He is special. Let him go. And tell him something that he needs to remember: Remember who you truly are. Tell him that, and let him go./

Are you going to start singing? Because I saw your last musical, and it was awesome.

He pressed F5 again, and found that his topic was deleted, and forever lost. To ensure maximum privacy and the right to be forgotten, and to keep data costs down, the site auto-deleted anything that got too old, as well as any locked thread.

Charles turned off his laptop, and stepped away from it.

He sighed.

So, that was that. The cool people in the awesome secret part of the internet knew. But they were being weirdly silent about this.

And that scared him.

It scared him, that there was a big decision coming, and he knew nothing about it.

Normally, he found out everything he could about everything long before he'd ever have to make any decisions.

But now... Now, he had to make a decision, and he knew nothing about what Hogwarts was or what would happen if he went there, beyond what that letter told him.

But that letter couldn't be trusted, Hogwarts sent it. It could be an advertisement, propaganda, lies, a trap. It couldn't be trusted.

What could be trusted?

His own father? He was awesome, but... No. He could be messing with him. Or maybe his mother was right about him after all. Not that she was usually right avoyt anything, especially when she sat back in her stuoud chair and went on and on about kw much she didn't like him and what a dissappointment he was and blah blah blah.

No, he couldn't trust either of his own parents.

What could he trust?

Himself, and his own judgement.

But how was he to make a good decision, when he didn't have all of the facts?

Weigh the pros and cons.

He began to pace. He could go to Hogwarts, become a magical mega-Wizard, and rule the universe. Or go to Hogwarts and become an ordinary school student, if this really was a school.

He turned, and began pacing the other way. Or, he could stay here, play it safe, and continue his Master Plan: mess around on the internet, make friends, become infamous, and eventually become eighteen and win a fortune by gambling online and winning. Move out of this awful town, go somewhere nice, find an awesome and hot chick who could either rival him like an awesome eternal rival who did what all rivals do in lemons when the lights go out, (Whatever that was. Those lemons were boring and weird and lame and about feelings and stuff, it was a miracle if he could make it to the end without giving and searching for a way cooler fanfic, and half the time, even he couldn't tell what was going on.), or someone who couldn't rival him and would swoon at the sight of his awesomeness, either would be great, date until they both loved each other, marry her, have kids, buy an awesome house and live there, and never feel alone and unloved and unwanted again.

He could keep being ordinary, or he could go to Hogwarts and go on an adventure. He could actually be somebody! All he had to do was agree to go to Hogwarts, and-

Wow, that was close. He almost let his feelings get away from him. All that "You can be special! Just do what we say!" stuff was a lot stronger than he gave it credit for.

Now, he had to carefully think about this. Carefully, and in great detail.

But he didn't have the information he needed to do that...

Meh, you only live once.

He picked up the letter, and read through it one final time, hoping for any glaring errors to pop out at him. He didn't see anything too obvious, though the 'Take an owl, cat or toad with you' line was weird enough to make him suspect that it was intended to distract people from the real secret, causing him to have to read through it again in search of that secret. Upon finding no secret, he had to read through it again in search of that elusive well-hidden secret. He found nothing, so he gave up. After one more read, slower this time around. It was the last time he'd read through it, so he had to make it count.

Finally, he'd read through it enough times to satisfy the voice in his heart that usually warned him whenever something was off. He went and got a pen from his cupboard, and got ready to write down that yes, he would be attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His eyes quickly checked over the letter one final time as he brought his pen down to the paper.

He crossed out the words 'Will not'. The sentence at the bottom of the letter now read, 'My child will be attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'.

Finally, it was done.

He moved his cupboard back to its original place, and went down to tell his father the good news.

Charles Alrick was going to Hogwarts.