The Devil Wears White

There was an old man in Jouno’s room. At least, he guessed the man was old, for his voice was hoarse from age.

Had that shrewd old hag finally decided to put him to work? A pang of dread knotted in his stomach. Could this disgusting sack of bones want to do that with him?

There always was a plethora of elderly clients who came at the house. Plenty of wrinkly fools who came looking for the pleasures of debauchery and the warmth of Ladies— Boys too, depending on their preferences— to cure their loneliness and to satisfy their lust. But Jouno wasn’t interested in becoming someone’s plaything.

Vaguely, he wondered if the old man would be turned off by his appearance—an eleven-year-old with splatters of blood marring his unwashed hair and dirty face. It felt still warm on his skin.

The mattress made a shrill protest that made his ears twitch, breaking the silence with the shrieking intensity of nails against a board. The disgusting old fart must’ve been sitting on Jouno’s “bed”.

Wordlessly, step by step, he came closes, the floorboards squeaking softly beneath his feet.

Jouno's hand clenched around the knife in his pocket. He could injure this man or anyone inside the house, really —but that would be a grave mistake. If Jouno were to nick even a hair of a client’s head, the old hag would make sure to throw him out in pieces for the strays to devour.

A warm hand landed on his shoulder, feeling scorching and diseased.

Would he be unceremoniously thrown onto the bed, clothes ripped from him before he had time to protest? Or would this creep want to take his time, making it agonizingly long and humiliating? The thought made Jouno’s skin crawl.

“Hello, my dear boy. My name is Albus Dumbledore.” The old man’s words were spoken with the strangest of accents. Clearly, he was not Japanese. “I am here to invite you to Hogwards, School of Magic and Wizardry.” He spoke softly—gently even— as if whispering a great secret to a child. Jouno could not help but wonder which nursing home the old coot had run off from.

Jouno raised an unconvinced brow, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

Surely the old woman wouldn’t be that desperate. Would she really bend that low for a few coins? Had this loon even the means of paying? The old woman despised Jouno with every shriveled fibre of her body, but even she wouldn’t let a client use her merchandise for free. She was too much of a money pincher for that.

“Now, now, dear boy. I understand that it may sound impossible,” Dumbledore continued, his bony hand still resting on Jouno’s shoulder. “However, I assure you that I speak no fables… Have you not read your letter?”

Letter? This old man had to be shitting him.

Had all the bullshit of last week been the fault of this nutcase? Had Jouno been forced to endure such torture for this Alzheimer’s patient? Anger boiled in his blood, a hot tide that rose to the surface, nearly melting his flesh and bones in the eruption.  

For the past agonising week, he had been throughly harassed by packs of birds. The blasted, over-glorified chickens pummelling him relentlessly with what Jouno could only assume were envelopes.

And then then were the letters. An insult to his face. They were a constant nagging, a continued reminder of his sight—or lack thereof—burning like acid on his skin… It was as if someone was determined to spite him.

“I can’t say I was able to read them.” His throat tightened with every word, yet he forced a smile. The letters weren’t simply written in a foreign language, or Jouno would have easily deciphered it. Even the different alphabet, would not have been too much of an issue. He would have easily been able to recognise the letters by touch. However, to add salt to the already aching wound, the letters were all written in loopy cursive with ink that smudged under his fingers.

 The only letter he had attempted to read was now shredded into smithereens.

“I see.” Of course he saw, unlike Jouno. “That explains your lack of reply, my dear boy. We were inconsiderate, I must apologies. Truly, how we forgot that you may not be able to read English is beyond me. Alas, it seems you are in need of some enlightenment.” The old man paused, waiting for something invisible. “You are a wizard, Jouno.”

Jouno arched an unconvinced brow, his smile twisting with disdain. Had this old fool sent an army of birds after him for some ridiculous fantasy? It wasn’t the nursing home this old man had escaped from—Jouno decided—, but the Looney ward.

“Tell me, boy… has nothing unusual ever occurred? Perhaps… something strange… something inexplicable… when you were particularly mad?” He whispered too close to Jouno’s sensitive ear, his hot breath making Jouno’s skin crawl like am ant’s colony.

Jouno shuddered.

Disgusting.

 He brushed the old man’s hand off his shoulder, pushing him away with thinly veiled revulsion.

Laughter bubbled up, escaping before he could suppress it, filling the room with giggles. Of course, he could pinpoint ‘strange’ events in his life. He was an Ability User, after all. If he wanted, he could easily escape this old fart in a second, invade his shriveled lungs, and steal his breath. If he wanted to be sneaky about it, he could even venture in his veins and stop his heart from beating, camouflaging the man’s death as a most unfortunate accident. Who would question an excited old sack dying of a stroke?

“Can I assume that you can remember such events, my boy?”

Sweetest smile graced Jouno’s lips. “It would be impossible not to.” He had never hated a man as much in his life.

Dumbledore—the old coot—nodded with a satisfied hum, but something dark lurked beneath his calm façade, and Jouno caught it for what it had been, a crack in a mask.

“Right, a wizard...” Jouno scoffed, his tone like a crow's croon. “Next, you’ll tell me those birds were there to welcome me to the circus, not pester me to death. You do know there are at least a thousand ways to explain these ‘strange events’ scientifically, right? Tell the truth.” His last words echoed like a forsaken command, rumbling against broken walls and cracked windows.

Ironically, Jouno was not lying. Abilities, though hard to define, had a scientific explanation, at least here in Yokohama.

Dumbledore froze for only a moment, but Jouno could hear the slight tremor of cold horror fill the old man, it fuelled Jouno’s soul with the purest of delights and just a tingle of curiosity.

“Ah, my boy, it seems you refuse to believe me. Perhaps… a little demonstration is in order…” Dumbledore sighed, but he didn’t seem truly surprised. He must get those reactions often. At least Jouno hoped so. What had humanity come to if people believed old strangers spinning tales of magic at their door?

Jouno wondered what face the old man was making. Perhaps his brows were pinched and his mouth was pressed in a thin line, showing how dissatisfied he was with the boy who refused to listen to his fables.

But then, with a flick of his wrist and a snap of his fingers, burning hot flames roared to life in the far corner by Jouno’s mattress. The acrid smell of ash and burning wood quickly filled the air, in turn…filling the boy with dread. Jouno froze. Had the man set his little shack ablaze to prove a point? No… He thought, realizing the flames were consuming something smaller.

His gut twisted in a knot, cold dread pooling in his stomach like potent poison that knawed and burned at the soft flesh of his insides as realisation hit with a crash.

There was no other furniture in the corner but his wardrobe.

His wardrobe.

That nutty old fool! The mad bastard, how dare he?

Jouno rushed to the rapidly burning wardrobe, stumbling through the room he thought he knew like the back of his hand. Each step felt too slow, too small, and the flames didn’t wait to devour his belongings.

Fire—he had always hated fire. After learning the hard way that it was one of his greatest weaknesses, he avoided it like one avoided the sick in the slums. But now, with dread pooling in his stomach, he approached the inferno with as much caution as a child in a candy store, leaping toward the flames with reckless abandon.

Through a sea of blurred colors and senseless shapes, the light blinded him worse than ever before. He hated light. It burned at his retinas, causing piercing pain that felt like something was spearing through his skull. It took everything in him to resist shielding his closed eyelids. Instead, he dove, forearm-deep into the flames, grasping for anything he could save. The heat licked at his face with the viciousness of a rabid stray.

His hands ached under the scorching heat that gripped his body. It took no time for the air to fill with the dreadful smell of cooking flesh. The scent reminded him of the little stand further down the street, the woman who sold whatever animal she managed to catch.

He felt his skin sizzle, bubbling in the heat. The pain grew, transforming into infernal agony, but Jouno refused to pull back. If only he could grab anything… Anything!

His rags, the few scraps he’d managed to scavenge, his precious books stolen from stores on the outskirts of the slums. He remembered the day he was caught stealing a copy of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’—he nearly failed to walk away from the bloody beating. He’d kept the book, stained with his blood, now nothing but ashes.

His treasures were burning.

His prizes, old knick knacks like knifes or jewellery, won from fools who picked at him during his ventures outside. He had clawed and bitten his way to them.

His victories were burning.

His money. Yens he had earned. Paid to him by thugs who sent him to lure and distract. Some he had taken from the pockets of idiots who thought themselves smarter than the streets. His survival was burning.

Jouno could do nothing but grasp at the melted knick-knacks and ashes of fabric, burnt papers that had lost all their value crumbled to nothing under his touch.

The flames disappeared just as swiftly as they had appeared, extinguished by the old man’s snap of fingers. Dumbledore hovered over Jouno’s shoulder like a curious bird.

“You will find…” the old man drawled. “That at Hogwarts, help will always be given to those who ask for it.” Jouno’s hands shook with rage, how he wished to wrap them around the old loon’s throat and squeeze.

“However…” Dumbledore continued. “Thievery and violence will not be tolerated, Jouno. At Hogwarts you will be taught not only how to use magic, but how to control it. Do you understand me, my boy?” Dumbledore’s voice gritted at Jouno’s nerves, shaving away every remaining shrivel of patience that may have had survived the afternoon.

Jouno kneeled by the remains of his wardrobe, clutching onto the ashes of what had been his. His fists curled around his burnt belongings with the cracking of his bones. Even the pain had gone numb.  

He said nothing, though perhaps, he had too many things to shout. The devil doesn’t sneer, when he wants to charm a king.

Jouno’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth may soon crack under the pressure. He felt as if Dumbledore’s presence bore down on him like the judgment of a thousand unseen eyes. He refused to crack.

“Long ago, I had met a boy much the same…young Jouno…Some legacies are written the darkest of inks… and some mistakes…can never be fixed…It bodes not well to dwell on the past, though perhaps tonight, I might indulge in some reminiscing.” The old man paused, perhaps his gaze lingered on something in the direction of Great Britain, oceans away.

”Alas, I believe I have finished my business here, expect a teacher to pick you up by the end of the week. Goodbye my boy.”

The man vanished in the swish of long fabric. No trace of his presence was left to fill the silence of the room, leaving Jouno to gaze through muddled vision at the black blurr in front of him. The silence was too quite.

Jouno frowned, forced to admit that Dumbledre may have not been a complete nutter then. An ability User generally had only one power, but the old man had used two. So, wizards were real…and one had come to Jouno’s home and practically spit into his face.

 In the noiseless room, anger began to bubble under Jouno’s burned skin. It rose and rose, overflowing like a flood on the streets, and soon it stormed. Jouno screamed. His lungs ached from the loud piercing shriek that echoed like the shattering of glass. The air smelled of smoke and brunt plastic, choking him with intensity rivalling his mother‘s the night she had tried to strangle him with her bare hands.

The seething, hell-blazing furry that followed held the might of a nuclear reaction. His ability flared hotter than the heart of an active volcano, his body disappearing in the thick of smoke and oxygen that filled the cramped little room, one with the air. Anger rolled like crashing waves and stroke like lightning, breaking furniture and slashing at walls. Windows shattared completely, sending shards of glass raining. His mattress was left a heap of cotton, gutted like a pig.

 Jouno appeared again, whole and heaving alone on the rotting floorboards which had only barely survived the assault.

“Dumbldore. “ Jouno spoke the offending name like a curse between heavy breaths and mania, it sounded like the cackles of a madman. “I‘ll mount your head on a pike for all your little wizard friends to see.

I‘ll burn your precious school to the ground.”

The Devil wears white.