Four years.
That's how long I've been trapped in this small, underfed body.
Four years since Lily Potter spat me into the world, took one horrified look, and cast me aside like refuse.
To the matron and the other children, I am just Cassius, a name i chose for myself as quickly as i could speak, when they all still simply called me boy, until i protested and demanded via tempertantrum to be called cassius — the quiet boy with dark hair and too-old eyes.
No one here knows the truth: that the nights I spend scribbling on scraps of stolen paper, the letters I beg to be sent under false names, are the very engines of a double life.
Since the age of one — when my tiny hands could first clutch a pen without dropping it — I began rewriting history.
Not the wizarding world.
Not yet.
I started with The Muggle world.
I had lived until 2025 once before.
I knew the long arcs of discovery: the drugs that saved millions, the surgical techniques that became standard practice, the theories that revolutionized physics and computing.
Why wait decades for knowledge that already lived inside my head, sure there was a risk to accelerating the world technology but really, once i reached hogwarts, my influence should reach deep enough in both realms that none could stand against me?
And so I began to write.
Papers, essays, diagrams drawn with clumsy hands but ideas sharp enough to slice through doubt.
Under the pseudonym "Nyx," I sent them out into the world.
First to obscure medical journals, then to respected institutions.
By the time I was two, my name — or rather, Nyx's name — had begun to spread.
Sure there was some hiccups where some of my 'discoveries' were stolen by others, but a quick report to others journals that had also received the same work quickly cracked down on the theft, leaving me free to plagarise from the future.
By three, Nyx was considered a once-in-a-century genius, though one that none had ever seen, cited to be a recluse, a genius who prefered the comfort of knowledge and but not people.
And by four, I — the unwanted bastard of Lily Potter and Severus Snape — had won a grand total of six Nobel Prizes, each announcement celebrated by men and women who would never dream their savior was a child still too small to tie his own shoelaces.
In those same number of years the muggle world was trying almost desperately so to keep up with the advancements being issued left and right from the illusive Nyx.
The irony kept me warm at night.
The orphanage itself has not changed.
The wallpaper still peels in yellowed strips.
The windows still leak in winter.
The food is watery porridge in the morning, stale bread at night.
Children still fight over scraps and toys long since broken.
The funding coming from the city council was just barely enough to keep the place running but was by no means exorbitant allowing the children raised here to do so in a lush environment.
But some things are different, thanks to me.
The old matron — Mrs. Whitby — retired last year.
She was one of the few who cared, truly cared for us who tried to shield us from the worst cruelties of this place, opting to ration her own portion to provide even just one bite more for the children, staying up to all hours of the night attempting to repair broken toys, even forgoing any sense of self care making me worry for her health in her old age.
She retired comfortably, thanks to a trust fund that was 'left' to her, on the conditions that it could only be accessed for her retirement, a clear sign that someone out there did not wish to see her suffer anymore, though even retired she still stops by every now and then as a visitor bringing in cookies or sweets like a doting grandmother to us all.
She never knew it came from me, though I saw the relief in her eyes the day she left, she was of course worried for us but the fact that the great burden was removed from her shoulder even if forcefully.
Others followed.
The kind ones, the ones who read stories at night or bandaged scraped knees, also found themselves becoming inheritors to various trusts, ones that did not have as strict of conditions, but that allowed them to expand their lives beyond the walls of the orphange itself.
Their debts erased, their children suddenly able to afford university, their burdens eased by invisible hands.
My hands.
But the orphanage itself?
I did nothing.
Why should I?
These children are not my responsibility.
They did nothing to earn my intervention, no more than I did to deserve being cast aside by the woman who bore me.
Why should I lift them out of squalor?
The world is not fair.
To pretend otherwise is weakness.
So I let the building rot, the meals sour, the corridors echo with neglect.
My kindness is not charity.
It is precise, surgical, for those who deserve it.
Meanwhile, Nyx lives.
Nyx owns a company now — on paper, at least.
A corporation with shell directors, phantom shareholders, and board members who exist only in forged passports and birth certificates.
Entire lives spun out of nothing but ink, seals, and signatures.
The postman delivers their mail.
Banks recognize their accounts.
Governments issue them licenses.
To the outside world, Nyx is not a child in a damp bed — he is a recluse genius, the architect of ideas decades ahead of their time.
It is laughable how easy it is to trick the Muggle world.
Though even if they knew the truth few would chose to stop what i was doing, and instead just try to get in my way to get their own share of the pie of profits i was accumulating.
One carefully worded letter here, one registered envelope there, and the world bends.
World Wide i found myself on the verge of becoming one of the richest men in the entire world.
Having made massive share purchases in Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Pixar, etc.
With the funds from my Scientific achievements giving me the capital to invest in these budding companies, before then having enough stake to begin submitting my own ideas of progress.
Microsoft quickly jumping over their initial Windows releases, and instead going straight to a GUI based OS.
While partnering up with Apple who would be the creator of the hardware.
Image it, Windows OS running on Apple hardware! Truly a revolutionary product.
While media was given an injection of funds and ideas to bring about the animated revolution as American animation could come to life, and unlike in my time they would not be abandoned right after their initial successes, more movies and tv shows would be developed following in the wake of Titan AE, Treasure planet, Lion King, Toy story...
The muggle world would know the future thanks to me, and from the accumulated wealth my shell corporation could begin to operate like a real business, still merely a front my for overall activities however, but with myself and the shadow board in total control the company and its direct would adhere to my whims.
Thanks to our presence in nearly every industry due to Nyx's submitted advancements we quickly became a household name like Samsung, with our fingers in everything, and while this advacement was great the more than ample funds could also achieve my ultimate aim.
Using these excesses of funds to fund a new political party within the British Isles.
One that was different from the other political parties in that you could almost call us fascists, not militaristic or anything but way more heavy handed on our projected policies but also actually making a real difference in the peoples lives, and having endorsement from such a large corporation could show the newborn party had significant backing.
And so it was in the summer of my third year of living that the British peoples who elected a Conservative Prime Minister did so as history would dictate, however present in parliament was a handful of seats belonging to the New Dawn Alliance.
If the election itself could have been held off for another year or two, the Alliances total number of seat could have been far grander potentially even knocking the Liberals out as the official opposition.