Evasive action
J would have liked to think that he would never have to have anything to do with the stick-wielders, or Wizards and Witches as they apparently called themselves. But while he knew that one day he would be powerful, he wasn’t yet. He was young, and as he was constantly reminded, vulnerable. There were many, many of the stick-wielders. And he was important to them. Not as a person, or a child. No, they had elevated him to the point that he was barely even human to them anymore. As far as they were concerned, he could be a doll made of glass and gold. After all, an idol need not be flesh to be worshiped. And these people thought they knew him, thought that they understood the child that they worshiped. All the fanciful tales they invented with him as the protagonist, were not so much tales for children as brands of ownership, marking him as their own. With every word written with the presumption of knowledge they might as well have branded a collective mark of ownership on his back. He could almost feel the heat of the metaphorical iron, singeing the sparse hairs on his neck. It was a terrifying thought. He knew enough of fame to know that no matter the culture the public was always fickle, needy and cruel. They could vilify and persecute in an instant the individual that they had been previously worshiping as the incarnation of heavenly perfection. If he tried to run, they would eventually search for him. He might be able to avoid this ‘Dumbledore’ character, for a while, but as soon as he turned eleven he would have the collective might of the stick-wielder’s world searching for him. He doesn’t know if he would be powerful enough to prevent them from finding him, by then.
The snakes had told him of this school, that Dumbledore was the Headmaster of. It was apparently the only one of its kind in the United Kingdom, and attendance was mandatory for all children who had the energy called ‘magic’. Seven years of compulsory education at a boarding school run by the man that he sees as his enemy. It will be dangerous, being vulnerable so deep inside that man’s home territory. And he can’t refuse. He knows that he isn’t a wizard. But they don’t. He has powers very similar to theirs, and he could most likely pass himself off as one of them, based on what the snakes have told him. But it would still be dangerous, either way. They would most likely classify him as some sort of magical creature, if they ever discovered that he was not a wizard, and that is not something that he is exactly keen on happening. Their governing body didn’t exactly hold creatures in very high esteem, and being considered one would most likely restrict his movements. Or end up with him being experimented upon in a lab of some sort. The snake did say that it had never encountered something like him before, meaning he was either very rare, or an entirely new type of being. And J had very, very little faith in the morals of wizards. Or any humans, for that matter. They were dangerous creatures.
But if he managed to escape the Dursleys, and his watchers,within the next few years he would most probably be able to avoid Dumbledore until he was eleven, giving him a good six or seven years of relatively free living until he would have to enter the stick-wielder’s school. And as long as he managed to procure a guardian within that timeframe, he would have a significant enough paper trail to prevent Dumbledore from placing him back with the Dursleys. Bureaucracy was a pain, but it was useful in leaving evidence, and people noticed things like little boys inexplicably being placed with someone who wasn’t his legal guardian when there was enough paperwork saying it should be otherwise. Wizards did not seem to be the type of people to think about getting rid of physical evidence when they could simply muck about with people’s minds. At least, that’s what he was counting on.
He was also counting on Dumbledore being the type of man who would not tell the rest of the stick-wielders in the event that he ‘lost’ the Boy-who-lived. He had never actually met the man, and he really had very little experience with people in general, being locked in a small part of a single house for most of his remembered life, but he could judge the man from his actions as reported to him by the snakes. And as far as he could tell, Albus Dumbledore was a powerful man. He had been a powerful man for a long time. Powerful men like him did not like admitting to their mistakes, especially if they are convinced that they can rectify it before anyone else notices said mistake. Dumbledore would most likely keep J’s future disappearance to himself, and spend the years searching for J himself. As long as J found a decent bolt hole early on, he should be fine.
As far as he could tell, J did not exist in the non-wizarding world. Legally, that is. He was born in the stick-wielder’s world to parents married in the stick-wielder’s world. His father was apparently something called a pureblood (which sounded rather pretentious to him, but he supposed it couldn’t be helped) and more likely than not also did not exist outside of his own world. His mother, on the other hand, had been born to humans outside of the stick-wielder’s culture. (he was still uncomfortable calling them wizards) Which meant she had a birth certificate and a paper trail up until she was eleven, when she began attending the boarding school run by Dumbledore (which was evidently called Hogwarts. J did not really know how to react to that. Neither did the snakes.) Her legal existence meant that finding a guardian in the non-wizarding world was a much easier. He did not particularly trust any stick-wielders to become his guardian without having any ulterior motives. At least normal humans wouldn’t know who he was, and would be less likely to see him as the means to a particular end. That is, as long as he managed to avoid the more unsavory sort. He shuddered a bit, at the dark places that thought took him.
He can almost hear the whispers echoing his disgust. Sometimes he almost forgets that they are there.
It’s been a few months since the first report given to him by the snakes. He thinks they might be friends now, and he really isn’t sure what to think of that, so he doesn’t.
He plays with his powers, when the snakes aren’t there and he knows no one is looking. He has gotten better; more advanced, he supposes. He can control small mammals now, like mice and voles and other common little creatures. His armies, though, still consist of insects whose corpses he adds to the bases of his petunias after every battle. He can’t find it within himself to harm the little mammals, so he brings them close and lets them run across his hands and clothes, petting their soft pelts and admiring their tiny little feet. There is something infinitely fascinating to him about the delicate bone structure of their tiny paws. He refuses to admit that he has a weakness for small furry creatures, so sometimes when the snakes visit he calls some of of the little creatures close enough for the snakes to eat. He knows it’s natural, and really it’s the only way he knows how to repay the snakes, but he can’t help but wince, just a little, each time. To make it up to the mice he directs them to the Dursleys pantry. He knows that he’ll get punished for it, but he really does feel bad about feeding their siblings to the snakes, even if he isn’t quite sure why.
Walrus does punish him, but it is no more painful than the other punishments that he has received for whatever Walrus has decided he is to blame for on any certain day. Sometimes, he doesn’t really think it matters whether or not he does anything to the Dursleys, because either way they will find something to blame on him. But he doesn’t do anything to them, not yet, because he still does not know how much his watcher can see.
He seeks to rectify that hole in his intelligence, tonight. Just like after every other punishment inflicted upon him by the creature called Walrus, J is locked in his cupboard. He take stock of his injuries. The bones in his wrist are sore, most likely bruised, possibly broken. At his current rate of healing, it should be mostly healed by the morning. His ribs are also sore, but not broken. His back hurts as well, and from the wetness he can feel, it’s bleeding. The blood drips onto the wooden floor, and he smirks to himself. Just another stain for Horse to obsess over. He knows how it bothers her, and his powers have progressed to the point that the pain no longer bothers him. Just a few months ago, it was if he was becoming numb to the pain, where it was merely a dull sort of pressure weighing on his senses like wet cotton. But now, he can feel the sting, the bite of his wounds and he revels in it because he knows that he has mastery over it. Where it was used against him, it is now his weapon. He drinks it in, and with it feeds the part of his power that roils like the black heart of a storm. The whispers nearly sing with delight.
There is little for him to do, as he waits in his cupboard for his wounds to heal. He barely sleeps, so on any other night he would have let himself out of the locked cupboard with his power and explored the dark, quiet house. Sometimes he even takes some food from the fridge; it’s not like they’d ever notice, what with the Swine and the Walrus eating as much as they do. (he’s still amazed at how incredibly porcine Swine managed to become at such a young age. If he didn’t know better he would suspect crossbreeding.) But their food never really sates his hunger, no matter how much of it he eats, and his body maintains its sickly, malnourished appearance. He still eats it though, because he knows that while not optimal it sustains his body.
Venturing outside his cupboard while his wounds are still dripping blood would leave inconvenient stains marking his passage. Highly bothersome, really, considering Horse’s likely reaction to it. So he lays in his cupboard listening to the scurrying spiders as they spin silk cloth under his direction. It’s an almost soothing sound, and he finds his mind calming as he allows himself just to close his eyes and listen.
He evens his breathing, concentrating on the scurrying of spiders and the gentle whooshing of the air as it exits his lungs. He likes this centered feeling, this calmness. He allows himself to relax even more, his limbs completely limp, and his face completely peaceful. He allows his mind to fall into his power, abandoning the imperfect conduit of his body in order to completely immerse himself in the shifting mass of energy.