Time had this fucking habit of flying by like an episode of Dragon Ball Z, lots of screaming, dubious transformations, and in the end you wonder what really happened. Aiden was discovering that growing up in a body that wasn't technically his created sensations that were, to say the least... bewildering.
At ten years old, he had adopted black like a personal religion. Not out of rebellious spirit or because he had discovered gothism on the Internet no, it was more visceral than that. His orange eyes behind his glasses seemed to literally blaze when they contrasted with his dark clothes, and his mid-length black hair that just grazed the top of his ears completed this look of "kid from an anime that no one would have dared imagine."
I look like Sasuke Uchiha mini version, he often thought with a smile. I just need the big brother complex and ninja techniques now.
Miss Henderson, the main supervisor of the orphanage, higher ranked than Miss Pemberton, had stopped making comments about his "worrying clothing style" since she had realized that Aiden was the wisest and brightest kid in the entire establishment. Hard to criticize someone who never caused trouble and had perfect grades.
His good grades, he owed entirely to Marcus and his neurosurgeon memories. No need to cheat or steal knowledge, when you've already lived a first life as an educated adult, elementary math and fifth-grade history look like child's play. Literally.
What she also didn't know is that Aiden had transformed animal manipulation into a true mental martial art. His golden thread had become so refined that he no longer needed to sacrifice mice to lobotomy to establish a connection. Now, just the image of a memory – sometimes even just a fragment, depending on whether the targeted animal had a brain the size of a pea or an olive – was enough to create the link.
Animal brains are like default passwords, admin/admin, he philosophized while manipulating his tenth shrew of the week. No security, no originality, and yet it works every time.
His raven was living proof of that. Edgar, yes, he had called him Edgar, in homage to Poe, because he had a sense of irony and a weakness for literary references that no one his age could understand, had become his most faithful companion.
And not Edgar like the Brawler!! I'm more sophisticated than that...
After months of subtle mental suggestions and golden threads planted gently in his consciousness like a particularly twisted mental gardener, the bird had transformed into a perfectly obedient pet.
Aiden didn't want Edgar to be a robot that just executes his commands, he wanted him to keep his personality as a grumbling raven and a bit opportunistic about a little treat, for him to continue wanting to steal shiny things and despise other birds in front of his plumage.
My little winged James Bond, you won't give your cheese to that fox bastard... thought Aiden with amusement watching Edgar perched on the orphanage gutter, his black eyes sweeping the surroundings with intelligence that far exceeded that of a normal bird. I just need a cat with a laser gun now and I can open my own spy agency.
The year of his nine had marked a decisive turning point in his career as a budding mental manipulator. After months of experimentation that would have made Pavlov's tests look like a joke, he had finally cracked the code to totally control an animal without turning it into a supermarket vegetable.
No more need to crush their control tower with mental sledgehammer blows like a barbarian. He slid his golden thread into their mind like a hacker breaking into a system, took control gently, and the animal kept its consciousness somewhere deep down, a helpless but living witness to what was happening to its own body.
It's like driving a car with the owner tied up in the passenger seat, he often thought with that smile that came to him when he realized how much he was becoming the villain of his own story. He watches the landscape go by wondering why his hands are turning the wheel on their own.
But the real "game changer" had been when he started tinkering with animal memory tunnels like a geek discovering a program's source code. At first, it was just curiosity, what happens if I push my golden thread a little further into that part? And then he had realized he could literally enter their memories and manipulate them as if he were in Adobe Premiere neurological version.
His golden thread penetrated the memory and it was exactly like video editing, he could cut parts, modify elements, replace sequences with fakes so perfect that even the concerned animal couldn't tell the difference. Photoshop for rodent brains, he told himself with pride. The rat that was terrorized by cats now remembers he was a cat in a past life. Logical.
The problem was that these mental surgery sessions left him completely drained, like a smartphone after an intensive gaming session. Not physically exhausted like after jogging, no, it was different. As if something in him was running dry, a mysterious battery that emptied with each complex manipulation.
He had ended up baptizing this energy "Power," because even with the memories of a 32-year-old neurosurgeon and a gifted child's brain, he couldn't find a more creative name. Sometimes, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, he justified himself. Or I'm just bad with names, which is statistically more probable.
During his meditations on his floating brick platform, he observed this energy circulating in him like a golden fluid. It had no point of origin, no central reservoir, just this constant flow that serpentined through his entire being without him being able to understand how to control it or recharge it more quickly.
He still hadn't tested his deep abilities on humans. Not for lack of curiosity, damn, curiosity literally devoured him, but because the episode with Miss Pemberton had served as a traumatizing lesson and besides that he didn't want to hurt an innocent and have to kill 122 humans like his experiments with animals.
He hadn't found a single bastard who deserved it so far so he had restrained himself.
What really obsessed him now was this increasingly strong connection with natural elements. Aiden had developed this habit of going outside as soon as the weather became extreme, and now he understood why. He didn't just feel the weather – he felt the emotions carried by the elements.
When rain poured down, a deep melancholy floated in the air like an invisible perfume. It wasn't his sadness – no, it was the sadness carried by the water drops themselves, as if each cloud was a reservoir of primordial emotions. Aiden felt it brush against him, that gentle and universal melancholy, without letting himself be overwhelmed.
It's like listening to the universe's sad playlist, he often thought positioning himself under the downpour, but in observer mode. I feel the rain's sadness without becoming sad myself. Pretty practical.
On bright sunny days, it was the total opposite. A radiant joy, almost euphoric, radiated from each ray like a wave of cosmic optimism. Aiden felt this golden joy envelop him, tickle his senses, make him want to smile for no particular reason.
The sun is the golden retriever of weather, he told himself sprawling in the grass of the orphanage's small garden. Always happy, always ready to lick your face with its rays. Impossible to stay in a bad mood with that thing.
During storms, it was even more intense. A primordial anger, wild and electric, vibrated in each lightning bolt. Not destructive anger, no, rather joyful rage, like that of a warrior going to battle singing. Aiden felt this angry energy dance around him, excite him without making him aggressive.
And wind storms... damn, wind storms. When the air transformed into an invisible tornado, Aiden felt a wild freedom, a desire for movement that gave him ants in his legs. The wind carried an emotion of pure freedom, adventure and joyful chaos.
Wind is the rebel of the group, he thought feeling the gusts play with his hair. Always in a hurry, always moving, always ready to mess things up just for fun.
Aiden didn't really know why he felt all this and what use it would be to feel the sky's emotions but it was a little plus that amused him and made him feel really alive.
That day, a generous anonymous donor, probably a millionaire giving himself a clear conscience by spending the equivalent of his monthly gourmet restaurant bill, had offered the entire orphanage a trip to London Zoo. Aiden trailed behind the group like a miniature ghost, much more interested in the festival of human thoughts surrounding him than in the animals locked behind their bars.
Listening to people's superficial mental flows had become his personal Netflix. He zapped from one mind to another like changing channels, collecting the little miseries and secret obsessions of perfect strangers.
My wife is screwing the neighbor and she thinks I don't know, mentally grumbled a pot-bellied guy in front of the lion enclosure, his thoughts imbued with bitterness that reeked of depression.
Damn I need to piss but this zoo's toilets are so disgusting I'd rather hold it, lamented an eight-year-old girl near the monkey cage.
This kid is looking at me with his weird glasses, he creeps me out, worried a mother seeing Aiden's look.
The usual mental hubbub. Until a particularly venomous thought pierced the background noise like a car horn in a library:
I hate that fat pig Dudley.
What??? Dudley?? No... Don't tell me that...? Aiden thought to himself.
A cold rage, contained, tinted with resignation that violently contrasted with the apparent age of the one generating it. Aiden turned at lightning speed, his mental senses on maximum alert.
A boy his age stood in front of the snake enclosure, alone in the middle of a group of adults who ignored him superbly. Round glasses that miraculously held on his nose, black hair so messy you'd think he'd stuck his finger in an electrical socket, and that thing on his forehead that his bangs couldn't completely hide...
A scar... and lightning-shaped too.
The world seemed to pause around Aiden. His heart did a somersault in his chest, his hands began to tremble imperceptibly, and for the first time in years, his two brains merged in a single reaction of pure shock.
"Harry...? HARRY POTTER????"
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(PS: A friend suggested I create a P@treon account. If you'd like to see advanced chapters posted on Webnovel, that's where you can find them! I'll also mention all the supporters at the end of each chapter!)
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