Hollywood: Lights, Ink, Entertainment!

….

.

Next day.

It was late - 10:58 p.m.

Regal just came back from finishing his part-time job, and his small flat was still, bathed in the soft glow of the streetlamp outside.

However, currently he couldn't be bothered with any other things right.

As soon as everything was set up, he yanked out the chair at his desk and powered up the computer.

The hum of the device powered on as he cracked his knuckles.

His sharp blue eyes fixed on the blank document.

For a moment, just a moment, he paused.

Then he began typing.

The first words appeared on the screen:

＜Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone＞

tap-!tap-!

tap-!tap-!

tap-!tap-!

tap-!tap-!

Followed by, the document began increasing in size, chapter by chapter, all coming down with eerie clarity.

Hours slipped by unnoticed.

The night outside deepened, the city's sounds fading to nothingness except for his typing sounds.

….

Regal finally leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly as the faint gray of dawn filtered through the windows.

The screen before him displayed the finished manuscript - a full volume, meticulously typed out.

He blinked at the clock in the corner of the screen. 5:23 a.m.

A dry laugh escaped him as he rubbed at his bleary eyes, his lips quirking into a tired but triumphant smirk.

The hard part was done, but he wasn't finished.

With a stretch of his arms and a roll of his neck, Regal pulled the keyboard closer.

Now, it was time to polish.

This wasn't just about copying - it never was.

The foundation was solid, but it wasn't perfect, not yet.

He started with the glaring holes, the ones fans from his old world had ranted about endlessly.

A weak explanation here, a clunky piece of logic there.

With the [System] feeding him clarity and recall, Regal dissected each inconsistency with surgical precision.

Every line had to make sense, every thread tightly woven.

As the hours passed, he moved on to what really excited him - the additions.

Harry was no longer the wide-eyed, slightly clueless boy from the original.

He was still kind-hearted but carried more scars from his upbringing.

His intelligence showed through in quieter moments - piecing together clues, questioning authority, and even doubting his own place in the Wizarding World.

Regal wanted Harry to feel less like a vessel for the plot and more like a real person thrust into an extraordinary world.

To reinforce this, Regal gave Harry small but meaningful habits - a tendency to doodle on parchment when nervous, an uncanny knack for recognizing patterns, and a quiet reverence for the world of magic that had saved him from despair.

These details would not only make him relatable but also set the stage for more dynamic growth.

Regal also changed the Antagonists a little.

He wanted a more powerful man, not just strength-wise but also in principle and beliefs.

Voldemort wasn't just evil for the sake of being evil.

Regal dove into his backstory, adding subtle hints of a twisted idealism that made his descent into darkness all the more tragic.

Readers wouldn't root for him, but they might understand how he came to be - a boy abandoned by fate and consumed by his own brilliance.

Regal also introduced new antagonists - members of an ancient magical order who had splintered off from the Ministry of Magic centuries ago.

They were not aligned with Voldemort but had their own agenda, one that sometimes intersected with the protagonists' goals in uneasy ways.

The Wizarding World, as magical as it was, felt smaller than it should have been.

So, he stretched its horizons.

The world itself became a character under Regal's revisions.

He fleshed out magical politics, giving the Ministry of Magic internal factions vying for power.

Regal introduced underground magical societies, rogue potion-makers, black-market wand smiths, and even magical archaeologists uncovering long-forgotten secrets.

He expanded the reach of magic beyond Britain, planting seeds for future arcs where the trio might journey to other magical cultures.

The existence of magical beings like phoenixes, centaurs, and goblins was now tied to intricate legends, with hints that some of them knew secrets even wizards had forgotten.

Hidden citadels buried in the folds of time.

A deeper lore behind magical creatures, connecting them to legends that made their existence feel rooted in history.

Then came the foreshadowing - oh, how he loved foreshadowing.

Subtle hints, barely noticeable on a first read but clear as daylight in hindsight.

The tiniest mention of a cursed artifact here, a fleeting reference to a shadowed figure in ancient texts there.

Regal added every detail he could in the first volume.

A bedtime tale hinted at the Deathly Hallows, while Ollivander spoke of legendary wands with veiled significance.

Hagrid's recounting of Voldemort hinted at his obsession with immortality, and whispers of cursed objects foreshadowed darker magic to come.

Regal deepened character layers too.

Neville's quiet parallels to Harry hinted at his significance, while Draco briefly questioned his father's beliefs, showing early signs of inner conflict.

Hermione, in an unguarded moment, confided her struggles with belonging, and Snape's cryptic remark about loyalty foreshadowed his complex motivations.

The world itself felt richer.

Harry stumbled upon hints of other magical schools and ancient murals depicting forgotten battles, teasing a grander magical history.

Legends of the Founders were woven into subtle discoveries, like a cryptic riddle tied to Salazar Slytherin.

Regal smiled to himself, imagining readers catching these breadcrumbs in later books, their amazement as they realized it was all planned from the start.

….

By the time he leaned back again, the light outside was brighter, the morning well underway.

"This is going to blow them away." Regal murmured to himself, his voice hoarse from hours of silence.

He finally rose from his seat, his body stiff from sitting in the same place for a straight twenty-eight hours.

A few quick stretches loosened him up.

He made his way to the kitchen, grabbing a bite for breakfast, well, lunch at 03:29 a.m.

Afterward, he collapsed onto his bed, completely drained.

Sleep came quickly, and he needed it.

He had a job to report to at 9:30 a.m.

It had been a long, deliberate night, he had planned, from yesterday evening until now.

.…

.

Over the next four days, Regal shifted between verifying his work and handling his part-time job.

Every detail was checked, rechecked, and refined.

Finally, after a thorough review of everything, he felt confident enough to secure the copyright for his novel.

As soon as the paperwork was complete, Regal didn't hesitate.

The hunt began immediately.

He wasn't naive enough to think it would be easy.

He knew how tough it was to break into the publishing world - the big players wouldn't give an unknown writer a second glance, not with zero credentials.

Still, he dove in headfirst, sending query letters to every major publisher he could find, the manuscript polished and ready to go.

Each pitch was meticulously crafted.

Regal highlighted the uniqueness of his reimagining, the depth he had added, and the twists no one saw coming.

He made sure to emphasize the originality, the raw potential.

But as expected, the responses were mostly silence.

The few that came back were the same painfully polite rejections that felt like pre-written templates.

No surprises there. He knew it wouldn't be a quick win, but it still left a bitter taste each time.

What did surprise him, though, was how little attention even the smaller, independent publishers gave his work.

His manuscript was too bold, too different for them to consider a debut novel.

Still, he kept continuing.

…and for god's sake, why wouldn't he?

When he already saw it with his own eyes, the potential this book could reach.

So, he simply kept at it.

Days turned into weeks.

More and more unanswered emails piled up in his inbox, with a couple of rejection mails.

But then, one evening, an email arrived.

It was from a publishing house called - Everleaf Press.

And despite it not belonging in his initial sought-out list, he remembers the name.

He read some intriguing stories about.

A named publishing house with some decades of history.…

However, many reports claim that currently the house is on the verge of shutting down due to a string of unsuccessful ventures.

For some reason, Regal felt he might get his book done here.

Again, not like he had many choices to begin with, so without hesitation, he emailed them his manuscript.

And now seeing an editor reach out to him made his guess more solid.

They liked it and wanted to meet.

Regal didn't waste time.

His reply was instant, his words clear and professional.

Within minutes, the meeting was set for tomorrow.

.

….

[To be continued…]

★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★

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