It's a Game Jonathan, Honest (Patreon)

An: Busy day... so have the chapter early and yes, that relates to why it's not DC or one of the other stories that need work...  

Jonathan Levinson screamed as he fell through the crackling portal only to land on something a lot softer than the ground. He blinked as he glanced around at the black stone room with a large floor to ceiling video screen. “Harry Potter, Ritual addition?” He frowned as he looked down at his body to check for injuries and realized that he was in his boxers. “Huh, okay, at least I’m not dead. I’m going to kick Andrew in the dick for pushing me through the portal.”

He sat up on the comfortable black leather couch and glanced around, slightly annoyed that he couldn’t see an exit. He glanced at the wireless controller on the floor then at the couch and grinned when he noticed the corner of an envelope sticking out from under the couch. ‘Looks like someone was in a bit too much of a hurry.’ He bounced to his feet and moved his side of the couch so he could grab the envelope and check to make sure there wasn’t an exit under the couch, not that he was really expecting one.

Jonathan opened the envelope and looked at the words written on the page in a moderately legible scrawl. “Secret skills: Gem Cutting, Rudimentary Magic, House Elf Magic, Mad Science, Legilimency, Flight, Teaching. How is teaching a secret skill?” He read through the brief note about how maxing out skills on side characters would give his floating points to buy skills on other characters and how endurance controlled hit points and stamina so he should level heavy armor and block before he leveled. “Great, it’s like Morrowind,” he said as he picked up the wireless controller and hit start.

“Welcome to the exciting world of Harry Potter, Ritual Magic addition. You have been selected by the Red Obelisk Bureau to playtest our latest game while we figure out how to return you to your world without destroying the space time continuum, don’t worry, it shouldn’t take more than a few centuries at worst, please enjoy the game while you wait.”

“Centuries?” Jonathan asked in disbelief. “Do you know how long humans live?” he demanded as he looked at his greyed out character options. “Why is Ron Weasley the only character I can pick?” He'd rather play Harry or Neville if he was stuck playing someone from one of his favorite fantasy series.

“Welcome to the tutorial mode. In order to get used to the game elements, we’ve provided a tutorial, save often,” an ethereal voice said cheerfully before everything faded to black.

Jonathan blinked as he found herself in a strange and very messy bedroom with a green exclamation point floating over the bed. He twitched slightly when he looked down and realised that his hand wasn’t his. “Neat!”

“Playing with inventory,” the voice said. “It helps if you touch your nose and say inventory a couple of times to get the hang of it but eventually you’ll be able to pull up your inventory any time you want with a simple application of will. Please clean up Ron’s room then head down for dinner, time will advance once you go to sleep.”

“How do I save?” Jonathan asked, thinking about the voice’s warning to save often.

“Touch your nose and say save game or just think about it really hard,” the voice replied cheerfully.

“What happened to Andrew?” Jonathan asked, hoping to actually get an answer.

“You need to complete the tutorial,” the voice said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Is there anything else you can tell me about the game?” Jonathan asked, hoping for another hint. He waited twenty seconds for a response. ‘Yeah, okay, I guess it doesn’t matter, I’ll find a way out eventually, and in the meantime I get to play with a really neat game.’ He focused on his inventory and smirked when a hovering video game like inventory and character doll appeared as a translucent window floating in front of him. “I could get used to this. Looks fairly typical for a game, slots for two rings, a necklace, shoes, a shirt, helmet, pants, armor and a cloak.”

Jonathan’s smile at managing to pull up his character sheet after two seconds of thinking about it vanished when he actually noticed his stats. “Huh, yeah, that explains why he was basically deadweight. Strength 6, Magic 10, Will Power 4… agility, speed and endurance 4, and Luck 1? I’m fairly sure the game designer hates Ron.”

He glanced down at Ron’s perks. “Ability to eat anything without getting full and double the bonus from food at the small cost of having to eat three times as much. That might be useful depending on food buffs. Weasley Curse, 75% less money from jobs and drops, damn that sucks. At least I gained the ability to scrounge material which might be useful.”

“Yeah, that’s shit,” Jonathan muttered as he looked at Ron’s Pureblood Idiot perk that gave him a boost to dealing with purebloods at the expense of a negative on muggleborn and muggle reaction tables. “That certainly explains some of his issues in the book…” he trailed off as he saw his five point enemy flaw. “Why the hell does Galnorg the Unclean want to kill him?” 

Jonathan sighed when he got no response. “Maybe that’s from a later book. No point in worrying about it now.” He closed the character sheet then worked on tossing all of the clothes and trash into his inventory, trying to uncover the floor. 

He grinned as he found a grain of unidentified glowing material. “Identify? Magic Detect?”

“Unable to identify unknown magical item,” the voice replied.

Jonathan focused and saved his game. “Identify?” He paused. “Magic Detect?”

“Unable to identify unknown magical item,” the voice replied.

“Yeah, that’s going to get annoying,” Jonathan muttered, making a mental note to see if he could swap the alerts to a noise or text. He saved his game then continued trying to figure out what the dust was. 

After a minute of saying ‘Magic Detect’ and saving and loading the game when his skill destroyed the grain of dust he tried shortening the command, “Detect!”

“Congratulations, the unknown substance is a grain of floo powder. Combine ten of these to get a pinch of floo powder. Magical detection skill increases by 1,” the voice said.

“One out of ten, I should probably explore the house to see if I can find any more.” Jonathan put the grain of floo powder in his inventory then cheerfully continued tossing things into his inventory until the floor was clear and he could see Ron’s school trunk and the elderly rat with a missing finger on Ron’s pillow. ‘I’ll deal with you later, backstabbing bastard,’ he thought, thinking about Andrew trying to leave him in jail.

He saved the game then opened the trunk. He grinned when he saw several glowing books. “Skill books?”

“By opening certain books, you’ll quickly increase skills in relevant subjects,” the voice explained.

Jonathan gleefully opened the Defense book.

“Basic shield spell learned. Basic stunner learned. Destruction skill increased by 1,” the voice said helpfully.

Jonathan blinked as he felt the ideas settle in his brain or Ron’s brain. ‘Andrew would love this, instant knowledge.’ He frowned slightly as he realized that he was still holding the book he'd opened. “Huh, I was half expecting the book to vanish, then again Elder Scrolls books stick around.”

He set the book off to the side and quickly went through the rest of the books, netting Ron a couple of points in General Magic, Herbology, Transfiguration and Magical Studies from the History book. He pointed at the rat. “Stupify.”

“I’m sorry, you’ll need a wand for that,” the voice said cheerfully.

“Makes sense,” Jonathan muttered as he collected Ron’s wand from the trunk and read the small popup next to it. ‘Unmatched wand, damage reduced by twenty percent and fine control by thirty percent.’ He shook his head. ‘Better than nothing I guess.’ He saved his game then pointed his wand at Wormtail. “Stupify.”

“I’m sorry, Ron wouldn’t stun his poor defenseless pet during the tutorial, but nice try,” the voice said almost smugly.

“Fine, how about something less destructive? He was perfectly willing to try to change the rat colors on the train,” Jonathan muttered as he set his wand down and grabbed the Transfiguration textbook and flipped through it until he found the spell to change a rat into a snuff box, which he hadn’t automatically gained by opening it. He made a mental note to thoroughly study the books later. 

He picked up his wand and practiced the wand movements then whispered the incantation without moving his wand. He swished his wand at the rat and said the incantation.

“Failure,” the voice said helpfully.

Jonathan continued trying to cast the spell until a blast of unshaped magic flew out of his wand and hit Scabbers causing him to wake up and dart out of the room. “Damn it!”

“Maybe you should start with something easier,” the ethereal voice suggested.

Jonathan focused and restored his previous save game, rather happy to find the rat back on Ron’s pillow. “I still can’t believe that idiot lets his plague ridden rat sleep on his pillow,’ he muttered under his breath as he worked on casting the spell, saving after every partial success or failure that didn’t cause the rat to wake up or run. He probably would have given it up as a waste of time if he couldn’t see Ron’s Transfiguration skill increasing by bits and pieces. 

Thankfully after twenty minutes of playing with the spell he managed to change one of the rat’s whiskers a metallic color, netting Ron another point in Transfiguration. ‘That’s a start.’

Jonathan saved the game and continued casting the spell on Scabbers. He was more than a little surprised when he actually managed to change his lower half into a bronze snuff box and the voice spoke up, “I’m afraid Petigrew is unkillable at this time.”

“I guess that would be too easy,” Jonathan muttered as he reached down, picked the box like rodent up and put it in his inventory. He frowned as a sleeping Scabbers reappeared on the pillow as if nothing had happened. He glanced in his inventory and smirked when he noticed he had half of a snuff box in his inventory where Scabbers used to be. 

‘Oh really?’ Jonathan gleefully as he saved his game and went to work grinding his Transfiguration spell, wanting to get the spell down perfectly. Thankfully it only took another ten minutes and fifteen half formed boxes before the voice informed his that he'd learned the spell and netted another point of Transfiguration. He saved the game then hit the rat again, changing him into a furry, grey, snuff box with whiskers.

Jonathan picked up the box and examined it for a couple of seconds then stuck it in his inventory, hoping that he could find somewhere to sell the boxes. He spent another thirty or forty minutes abusing the fact that his target reset to practice changing him into different styles of bronze box while he worked on grinding up his Transfiguration skill.

“Congratulations, you’re now an apprentice in Transfiguration,” the voice announced.

“Yeah? Where’s my reward?” He shook his head when no new skill or bonus was forthcoming. Jonathan saved the game then went back to farming bronze boxes, slightly annoyed that Ron’s wand made fine detail work on the boxes next to impossible. He frowned when he noticed that just casting the spell wasn’t giving him any more experience now that he'd hit 25 points of Transfiguration. ‘I’ll probably need to find a more impressive spell.’

He glanced at the stacks of bronze boxes in his inventory. ‘Four hundred and twenty three bronze boxes and a dozen half boxes, that’s a decent start.’ He saved the game then picked up the Transfiguration book and flipped through it looking for interesting spells. ‘Oh, beetles to buttons, that might increase my Transfiguration or at least give me something to work on.’

Jonathan grinned as he found a color changing spell. “That looks simple enough.” He pointed his wand at Scabbers. “Colovaria.” He frowned slightly as Scabbers changed to a sickly green color. “Not quite what I wanted but it’s a start.” He pictured the rat changing to purple as he flicked his wand at the rat. “Colovaria.” He frowned when Scabbers turned a reddish brown rather than the bright purple he wanted. He focused on the rat’s blood splattering everywhere and cast the spell again, changing the rat’s fur to a nice blood red.

“Congratulations you’ve learned the color changing spell.”

Jonathan saved the game then worked on casting the color changing spell on various parts of Scabbers, testing to see if he could eek out a bit more experience by trying something beyond just the basics. “Oh, a little bit of green, a little black there, and some yellow for the gold and we have a leprechaun.”

“That almost resembles a person, Artistic skill increased by 1,” the voice said cheerfully.

Jonathan saved his game and gleefully went to work playing with the color changing spell on the wall, trying to paint pictures and increase his Artistic skill. It didn’t take him all that long to realize that Ron’s wand sucked for detail work and that his experience toward Ron’s new artistic skill quickly dropped to almost nothing after he’d earned five points in it. “Yeah, I’ll have to figure out a better way to increase my artistic skill,” he muttered as he worked on transferring all of the contents of Ron’s trunk to his inventory so that he could read through it later. ‘Ink and quills, enough parchment to last through the first part of the year and a cauldron which should let me create potions.”

“Congratulations, potions are accessed via the crafting menu,” the voice said cheerfully.

Jonathan focused and opened the crafting menu. ‘Drawing and potions.’ He looked at the options for drawing then swapped over to the potions tab and looked things over. “It looks like I can either use recipes or toss random things into the mix and see if it explodes… yeah that can’t end well,” he muttered as he closed his crafting tab then headed into the hall to see what else he could find.

“Auto save, certain areas are dangerous,” the ethereal voice said cheerfully.

Jonathan walked down the hallway, testing doors. Sadly they were all locked which was more than a little boring. He headed down the stairs and into the cluttered living room. He grinned when he saw the Weasley family clock as well as several glowing books on shelves scattered around the room. ‘At least they have a couple of skill books.’ He walked over and pulled the first skill book off the shelf. “Homemaker’s Guide to Useful Charms.”

“Transfiguration increases by 1. Repair charm and Scouring charm unlocked,” the ethereal voice said cheerfully.

“Nice,” quickly flipped through the book, looking for anything he'd missed. ‘Stupid anecdotes about such and such using a scouring charm on a dress before a party and another about a girl washing out some idiot’s mouth three hundred years ago because he flirted with his sister rather than her. Yeah, I don’t care. Oh hey, a sewing charm, I’m going to have to practice that one.’ 

Jonathan put the open book in his inventory then turned his attention toward the family clock. “Detect.”

“I’m sorry, Ron already knows what the clock does, it keeps track of your family, try using Detect on something you don’t know the function of,” the voice suggested.

“Right,” Jonathan muttered as he walked over and picked up the next two skill books and opened them, netting three points of General Magic and one point of Transfiguration and a Transfiguration spell that changed a teacup into a turtle. ‘I’m not sure that’s even useful.’

He headed into the kitchen and stopped when he saw Mr and Mrs Weasley in the kitchen. Mrs Weasley was at the stove cooking, while Mr. Weasley was reading the paper. He glanced at the floating green exclamation points hovering over their heads. “I’m guessing quests.”

“Welcome to the wonderful world of quests and dialogue. Quests are a great way to get extra items, money, and reputation. Talk to Ron’s parents about de-gnoming the garden and recovering a plug from the toolshed,” the ethereal voice suggested.

Jonathan walked over to the woman at the stove, making a mental note that his wand was sitting on the counter. ‘That would be handy.’ He saved the game then reached out and grabbed the wand. 

“Ronald Bilbus Weasley, put that down!” Mrs Weasley shouted.

Jonathan twitched as he found herself putting the wand back and taking a step back without his control. ‘Yeah, that’s annoying.’

“Taking things without permission in front of people is stupid, you’ll have to be a little bit sneakier than that, try crouching down and staying out of sight,” the ethereal voice suggested.

Jonathan felt a little silly as he crouched down then stepped forward once Mrs Weasley went back to paying attention to the stove. He reached over and grabbed the wand.

“I told you not to touch my wand, you’ll be going to bed without supper tonight, go degnome the garden!” Mrs Weasley ordered. 

Jonathan glared at the quest that popped up to degnome the garden or else face his displeasure. Obviously he’d have to grind his stealth skill before he had any chance of stealing a wand. He loaded his save game and walked over to talk to Mrs Weasley. He blinked as a number of basic dialogue options appeared floating in front of Ron’s mother. “What’s for dinner?”

“Soup. I need the garden de-gnomed,” Mrs Weasley ‘noted’.

“Sure,” Jonathan replied then blinked as the quest popup appeared, informing him that he needed to toss ten gnomes over the hedge and that the mission could be retried if he failed. ‘At least it’s somewhat interactive. Let’s see, tossing the gnomes over the hedge shouldn’t be that hard.’

Jonathan walked over to Mr Weasley.

“Ron, I need to show Perkins a plug but I need to get ready for work, if you grab the plug from the workbench in the tent, I’m sure you’ll find something interesting to play with,” Mr Weasley suggested.

Jonathan accepted the quest to look through the junk piles in the tent for the plug and headed out the side door. 

“Auto save,” the ethereal voice said.

“Right, let me guess, the gnomes can kill me?”

“If you lose all of your hit points you go unconscious. You die when you reach your hit point total below zero,” the voice said cheerfully.

“Great, a house cat could probably kill me,” Jonathan muttered as he walked into the much patched tent that had seen better days. He glanced between the five glowing piles of junk on the table in the large room that was far too large to fit inside the tent. He walked over and poked at the nearest glowing pile. He blinked as he dug through the pile and pulled out a piece of wire, his body moving without his control. He was sure he'd get used to it eventually, but it felt weird to lose control like that. He looked at the popup for the lockpick. ‘Poor Man’s Lockpick.’ 

He stuck the wire in his inventory then poked the next four piles, slightly annoyed that he couldn’t find anything that resembled a plug. “Gas cap, windshield wiper, fountain pen and a lighter. Yeah, I’m so very impressed with this ability that eats 75% of my loot,” he muttered sarcastically as he grabbed the glowing mechanic’s magazine and flipped through it.

“Muggle studies increased by 1,” the voice said helpfully.

Jonathan rolled his eyes as he spotted a cut off electrical plug next to one of the table legs. “Fine, whatever,” he muttered as he stuck the plug in his inventory.

“Now you just need to return to the quest giver and get your reward,” the voice said happily.

Jonathan saved the game as he left the tent and headed for the garden. He scowled as a dozen six inch tall gnomes popped up out of their holes with butcher knives and charged him. “Shit!” he screamed as the devilishly fast creatures mobbed him and quickly stabbed him to death.

“Would you like to restore your saved game?” the ethereal voice asked.

“Yes. Damn effective little shits,” Jonathan snapped as he stalked out of the tent and headed for the converted stone outhouse that Mr Weasley had converted into a broom shed. He opened the door and picked up one of the brooms.

“Welcome to the wonderful world of temporary equipment,” the voice said with amusement. “As Ron’s parents would never let him sneak on the train with a broom, the broom will be returned when you leave the yard. Try not to fly high enough for the muggles to see you.”

Jonathan pulled up Ron’s skill sheet and looked at his broom skill. “Eight points should be enough to fly, probably.” He saved the game and mounted the broom. “Okay, what’s the worst that can happen?” he asked as he kicked off and flew up into the air, flying six feet above the ground in case he fell.

“Okay, that’s actually not that bad.” He snickered as he flew around the area, keeping somewhat low to the ground as he didn’t want anyone to see him.

He flew over the gnome’s section of the garden, making a mental map where all of the gnome holes were. ‘Twenty seven holes?! There’s a damned army under the garden!’ He flew around to the side of the garden and tried to pull out his wand.

“You’re not Harry Potter, put your wand away before you hurt someone,” the voice said with exasperation. “In other words, increase your flight skill before you worry about using a wand while flying.”

Jonathan flew down to the ground and dismounted, curious if Harry had a talent that boosted his skill or if the designer was just being sarcastic. He stepped forward after saving his game and shifting his grip on his broom so that he could use it as a club. He swung and hit the gnome which sent him back a few feet, but also caused six knife wielding gnomes to jump out of their holes and charge him. He quickly loaded his save game as he didn’t want to deal with the pain.

‘Let’s try that again.’ He pulled out his wand and crouched down, activating his stealth mode. ‘Okay, there is no way I’ll actually be able to sneak up on them, but I’ll probably get experience.’

Jonathan cast his shield spell causing a flickering blue shield to appear at the end of his wand. ‘Everyone has to start somewhere.’ He carefully stepped forward, unsurprised when the gnome jumped up and charged him. He moved the shield in the gnome’s path, using the end of the broom to keep the gnome from darting around his shield on the right as he backed out of the garden. He sighed in relief when he took a few steps out of the garden and the gnome turned and ran back to his hole in the ground after shaking his knife at his and taunting him.

Jonathan saved his game and opened his skill page. ‘Okay, I got a third of a point of stealth for that and some experience in General Magic.’ He put the broom in his inventory then snuck forward and back a couple of steps, tripping on a root that he was fairly sure shouldn’t have been there, falling on his back as the gnome rushed out of his hole.

He twisted to the side and recast his shield, barely managing to deflect the gnome’s charge as he tried to roll to his feet. After taking another tumble he tossed herself away from the part of the garden with the gnomes, relieved that the gnome decided not to follow him. He saved his game after checking to make sure he hadn’t lost any hitpoints from tumbling. “Yeah, that’s annoying as hell.” He checked his skills and snuck up toward the hole with his wand at the ready. “Stupify!”

He screamed as he gnome dodged his stunner then ran over and viciously stabbed his in the foot. He kicked the gnome, sending him flying over the hedge. “No experience?” He sighed as the voice didn’t answer his question. ‘Probably because they enjoy flying.’ He glanced at the health. “One out of four, yeah no.”

Jonathan loaded the game then worked on sneaking and stunning the gnomes as best he could while avoiding taking damage. He'd lost count of how many times he'd had to load his save game by the time he'd grabbed his last gnome, thankfully he'd gotten six points in Destruction which meant that his stunners were only failing a third of the time, which he was blaming on Ron’s badly matched wand. He stalked back into the kitchen and turned the quests in, receiving a smile but no further rewards.

“Dinner will be ready in a minute, please tell your sister that dinner is ready,” Mrs Weasley said as the food on the stove instantly went from cooking to nearly done.

“They really need to work on the quests,” Jonathan muttered as he headed up the stairs.

“Auto save!” the voice said cheerfully.

“Fun,” Jonathan muttered as he headed toward the slightly ajar door with Ginny’s name over it. He stopped as he heard the shower running in the bathroom. ‘Yeah, this can’t end well, but...’ He snuck over to the keyhole, hoping to catch Ginny taking a shower so he’d know where she was. He smiled slightly when he saw Ginny in the bath, sighing because it was so early in the series. He had a bit of a crush on the young woman she’d grown into and peeking on her at this age just wasn’t the same. 

“Player perk Pervert acquired! Stealth plus five in sexual situations! Spying on your younger sister, for shame! Stealth failed,” the ethereal voice said almost gleefully.

Jonathan twitched as he'd barely turned to look down the hallway and saw Percy’s fist heading for his face filling his entire field of view.

“Would you like to load your auto save?”

“Yes.” Jonathan blinked as he found himself back at the stairs. ‘Yeah, I might have deserved that.’ He snuck over to look into Ginny’s room, curious if he had any skill books or grains of floo powder. ‘At least one glowing book.’ He slipped into Ginny’s room and blinked when he saw floating green letters off to the side of his vision, “Time: 45”

“Welcome to timed missions, you have forty five seconds to get in and get out or otherwise hide before Ginny catches you snooping. Best of luck, don’t get caught,” the voice said cheerfully.

‘Yeah, otherwise she’ll kill me,’ Jonathan thought as he hurried over to the book he could see on the shelf and opened it.

“Destruction increased by 2, Expelliarmus learned,” the voice said.

Jonathan quickly put the book back, grabbed a grain of floo powder off the floor and glanced around the room again after checking to see if he could grab one of the other books, he wasn’t surprised that it refused to move. ‘Yeah, just the tutorial.’ He hustled over to Ginny’s bed and lifted up her pillow, revealing her diary. ‘Gotcha!’ He grinned as he picked up the diary and flipped through it, thinking about reading his sister’s diary.

“Player perk: ‘Is Nothing Sacred?’ acquired. Blackmail dialogue options now available! You should be ashamed of yourself for reading a young girl’s diary!”

‘That could come in handy,’ he thought as he put the diary back after realizing it was mostly about The Boy Who Lived. ‘I really should help her get over her obsession.’ He glanced at the clock then snuck back out of the room. He grinned when the floating clock vanished as he made it to the hallway. He frowned as he realized the shower was still running. ‘This is going to hurt, but that perk could be useful.’

He saved his game then snuck over to the keyhole and looked through it, getting a brief glance of Ginny washing up before hearing the ethereal voice say, “Stealth failed!” and everything going black.

“Load saved game?” the voice asked with amusement.

“Yes,” Jonathan muttered. “How come I didn’t get a perk?”

“You only need to unlock player perks once,” the voice explained.

“In other words I got Ron gibbed for nothing,” Jonathan muttered as he walked over and knocked on the door.

“Who is it and what do you need?” Ginny called out as she turned the shower off.

Jonathan looked at the floating dialogue options. “Mum said dinner will be ready shortly.”

“Thanks, I’ll be down in a minute,” Ginny replied.

“Congratulations, the tutorial is complete.”