The fragile illusion of a normal tragedy shattered the moment Mrs. Gable's eyes met Kaelen's. For a heartbeat, she saw what the bullies saw: a void, an abyss given the shape of a boy, crowned with a serene, terrifying smile. She saw an ancient coldness that had no place in a child. Her breath caught in her throat, a gasp of pure, instinctual fear.
Then, in an instant, it was gone.
The smile vanished, melting away as if it had never been. The black fire in Kaelen's eyes was extinguished, replaced by a wide, shimmering panic. His face, which had been a mask of cold control, crumpled into the perfect picture of a horrified, grief-stricken ten-year-old. His Metamorphmagus ability, responding to his conscious will for the first time as a tool of deception, subtly shifted his features. His skin grew paler, his eyes larger, the grey irises swimming with unshed tears. He was no longer a monster; he was a victim.
Simultaneously, the magical pressure he had exerted on the three bullies evaporated. They were dropped back into the cold reality of the stairwell, the echoes of their personal hells still screaming in their minds.
"Mrs. Gable!" Kaelen cried out, his voice cracking with manufactured despair. He pointed a trembling finger at the boys. "They… they pushed her! They wanted her bracelet and they pushed her!"
He stumbled towards the matron, collapsing against her legs and burying his face in the starched fabric of her skirt, his small body wracked with shuddering sobs. The performance was flawless. He had seen the other children cry a thousand times; he knew the sounds, the posture, the rhythm of it. Now, he simply copied it, an actor playing the role of a lifetime.
The chaos that followed was a blur of adult panic. The police were called, followed by paramedics who pronounced Elara dead at the scene. The orphanage was swarmed with officials, their serious faces and quiet murmuring filling the grey halls.
Kaelen was taken to Mrs. Gable's office, a place of stern lectures and punishments, and given a cup of sweet, milky tea that he didn't touch. He sat on a stiff chair, his legs too short to reach the floor, and waited. He kept his head down, his shoulders hunched, projecting an aura of trauma. Inside, his mind was a glacier of calm, replaying the events, analyzing his actions, and solidifying his story. They pushed her. They went mad. It was simple. It was believable. The truth was his secret, a newfound source of power he clutched tighter than his locket.
A kind-faced woman with a gentle voice—a social worker—knelt before him. "Kaelen, I'm so sorry for what happened to your friend. Can you tell me what you saw?"
He looked up, letting his carefully crafted tears finally spill over. He recounted the story in broken sentences, punctuated by sniffles and pauses. He spoke of the bracelet, Mark's taunts, and the struggle. "They… they just wanted what was hers," he whispered, the words tasting like righteous venom in his mouth. "She pulled away, and Mark… he shoved her. Hard. She went over the edge."
"And what happened after she fell, Kaelen?" the woman asked softly. "Why were the other boys screaming?"
Kaelen looked down at his hands, feigning confusion and fear. "I don't know," he lied, his voice barely audible. "They just… started screaming. Like they'd seen a ghost. They looked crazy."
His testimony was unshakable. He was the perfect witness: the grieving best friend, too traumatized to have the presence of mind to invent a complex lie.
The bullies' interviews were a different story entirely. They were incoherent, babbling about impossible things. Mark couldn't speak of the fall without screaming about being buried alive. Peter was in a state of constant agitation, scratching at phantom spiders on his skin. Liam was withdrawn and catatonic, staring blankly at the wall. A team of child psychologists concluded that the trio were suffering from a shared, acute psychotic break, likely triggered by the immense guilt of causing Elara's death. They were deemed unreliable, their minds fractured beyond comprehension.
Within a week, they were quietly removed from St. Jude's and transferred to a long-term psychiatric care facility. Kaelen watched the van pull away from the library window, his expression impassive. The problem had been removed. The threat was neutralized. He had protected Elara's memory, the only way he could now. He felt no triumph, no satisfaction, only the cold, grim certainty that he had done what was necessary. This was the result of strength. This was control.
Elara was buried in a small, municipal cemetery, her grave marked by a simple, state-issued stone. Kaelen was the only one from the orphanage who attended the sparse funeral. He stood by the freshly dug earth long after the vicar had left, the damp chill of the London air seeping into his thin coat.
He did not cry. He had used up his fake tears for the officials. He looked at the name etched on the stone and felt the finality of it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the twine bracelet. It had been taken as evidence but returned to him, as he was her only "family." He knelt, placing the bracelet on the mound of dirt.
"You were kind," he whispered to the silent grave. "You saw magic in the cracks in the pavement. But there is no magic in the world, Elara. There is only power, and those who are willing to use it. They took you because you were good and I was not strong enough. I will not make that mistake again."
In the year that followed, Kaelen changed. On the surface, he was a model orphan. Quiet, respectful, and academically brilliant, he devoured every book in the orphanage's small library, his hunger for knowledge insatiable. But beneath the placid exterior, a quiet terror grew around him. The other children avoided him. They spoke of him in hushed whispers. They knew the story of Mark, Peter, and Liam, and they knew that Kaelen was the only common denominator. They felt the coldness that radiated from him, the unnerving stillness in his gaze. He never threatened them, never bullied them. He didn't have to. His reputation was a wall that kept the world at bay, leaving him in the solitude he craved.
His real work began at night. In the quiet of the dormitory, after the other children were asleep, he would practice. He started with his Metamorphmagus ability, forcing his hair to shift from black to brown to blond, holding the color for longer and longer periods. He learned to change the shape of his nose, the curve of his jaw, the color of his eyes. It took immense concentration, leaving him mentally exhausted, but he persevered. It was a tool. A mask.
He also explored the other power, the cold, internal force he had used on the bullies. He tried to summon it, to feel that glacial rage again, but found he couldn't call it up at will. It seemed tied to his emotions, to a protective instinct that now had no one to protect. Frustrated, he turned his focus inward. If he could not project the power, he would master the mind that controlled it. He began practicing a form of mental discipline, walling off his emotions, organizing his thoughts into cold, logical compartments. He would not be a slave to rage or grief. He would be the master of his own mind.
On the morning of his eleventh birthday, an owl arrived at St. Jude's. It was a moment of such profound strangeness that it brought the entire breakfast hall to a standstill. The bird dropped a thick, yellowish envelope onto Kaelen's plate and then took flight, disappearing out the window it had entered.
Kaelen picked up the letter. His heart, a muscle he had been training into submission, gave an unfamiliar thump. The envelope was addressed in elegant emerald-green ink:
Mr. K.
The Smallest Bedroom, St. Jude's OrphanageLondon
He turned it over. The wax seal was not a crown or a government stamp, but a coat of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter 'H'. He felt no shock, no disbelief. It was simply an answer. An explanation. A key to a door he always knew was there. This was the path to real power.
He was breaking the seal when Mrs. Gable snatched the letter from his hand. "What is the meaning of this? Absolute nonsense."
"It's addressed to me," Kaelen said, his voice level, but his eyes were hard.
Before a standoff could ensue, the front bell of the orphanage rang. A few moments later, the breakfast hall doors opened again. Standing there was a tall, severe-looking woman in emerald-green robes. Her black hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and she wore square spectacles that framed a pair of piercing, intelligent eyes. Her expression was one of stern authority that brooked no argument.
"I am here to see a Mr. Kaelen," she announced, her voice crisp and clear. Her eyes scanned the room and landed on him, holding the remnants of his letter in her hand. For a brief second, Professor Minerva McGonagall saw exactly what the orphanage matron expected: a thin, quiet, unassuming boy.
But then she looked into his eyes.
She felt a sudden, inexplicable chill, a feeling like stepping into a shadow on a bright day. She saw an intelligence that was far too old for his face, and a profound, unnerving stillness. It was as if she were not looking at a child, but at something ancient and cold that was looking back, assessing her, measuring her. The feeling passed in an instant, and she dismissed it as a trick of the light, the result of a long morning.
"I believe you have something that belongs to me," Kaelen said, holding his hand out not to Mrs. Gable, but to the stern woman in the doorway, his gaze unwavering.
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