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London[1998]
–Damian Hawthorne–
"Fuck!" He swore so loudly that the kid in front of him flinched back, yanking his hand out of his grip, as if scalded. He immediately began rectifying the situation because this was Harry Potter in front of him.
"I'm so sorry. I just fell down and… I did not mean to make you fall. I hope you understand," he said, hoping to convey his apology, because if there was one thing he most definitely did not want to mess with, especially this early on in his stay here, it was the main characters and the halo they seemed to carry around themselves.
The same halo seemed to give them unprecedented amounts of luck and just the right amount of power, skill, and struggle to win but that same privilege did not extend to the people around them. He did not want to get sucked into the circle of tragedy that was Harry Potter.
But, apparently, someone did not want that for him. They wanted him to come into contact with Harry freaking Potter for some reason.
"It's alright," Harry said softly, before turning around and trudging towards the road, and he meant it. The boy was not walking, he was trudging, as if carrying an invisible weight on his back. He opened his mouth to say something but what could he say?
That Harry still had some years of suffering ahead of him, before he could enter a magical world and still be bothered by ridiculous things like racism and xenophobia?
That, humans, no matter what subspecies, no matter the phenomenal powers granted to them, would always, always resort to their basal urges of us vs them, and that he would have to fight battles no child should ever have to even know of, to even survive.
Shaking his head, he let the kid go, knowing that there wasn't much, if anything, he could do about Harry's situation. Dumbledore was a spectre looming over Harry and his continued stay with his relatives, and he did not feel confident enough to interfere in that.
It made him feel scummy, as if he was the one forcing Harry into substandard living conditions, but what could he do?
He sighed, as he sat down on one of the swings, staying in place, head bowed, as he tried to make sense of his current situation and decide what he wanted to do next.
"It's difficult, isn't it?" He exhaled in resignation before turning to the side, to see the Ancient One sitting in the swing right next to him, and despite the swing looking comically small in comparison to her size, she somehow made it look dignified.
"What now?" He was getting a little tired of her games now. Couldn't she just come forward and tell him what lesson she was trying to teach him? Instead of making him run around in circles, and exposing him to all these pesky feelings. Feelings he could not remember hurting this much in his previous life.
"That's entirely up to you." She had the gall to say as she stood up, a red sparkling portal blooming to life in front of him as she began walking towards it, stunning him, as she all but dismissed his question.
For some reason, that action, that action of ignoring him, of not answering his question, of putting him in a stressful situation needlessly, for making him see Harry bloody Potter, it just made him snap in anger as he stood up, magic being pumped into Shaped Durability & Forcefield as a familiar avatar manifested around him.
"Aaa!" He was not thinking, as he made to punch her in the back, an action he immediately regretted because the next moment, he found himself looking at the dark sky, the avatar flickering before it shattered as he felt an immense pain in his torso.
"That," He turned to the side as she came into his view, "is the pain of a magical backlash. Don't worry, your body is far more durable than normal wizards, so it is just temporary, but do remember that anger is not the solution to our problems, no matter how tempting or fair it seems at the time."
And there it was, yet another lecture full of vague statements, ultimately giving him no benefit.
"Why?!" he wheezed out, moving to sit upright, glaring at her, "Why bring me here? What do you mean by it is all up to me?"
She smiled at him, and somehow it was a pitiful smile, aimed at him, "You do not understand, you never do, but someday, in the future, you will and you will thank me for it. As for your second question. It is up to you. You chose your actions, your next decision regarding your life, and your choice as to whether Harry Potter is in consideration of that choice or not."
"What?!" He snapped at her, then immediately began coughing once more, "What bullshit is that? From my perspective, it looks as if my entire existence here has been carefully constructed, guided by you. What choice do I have here? YOU brought me here,"
She kneeled down next to him, looking him in the eye as she replied, even as he tried and failed to activate any of his enchantments, "You always have a choice. All I can do is nudge you towards something you were going to choose anyway. I cannot make you do anything, Damian. It has always been your choice. Even without me, you would have met Harry Potter anyway. I just made it happen far sooner."
"So," Then, she stood up, as a second portal opened up behind her, "Like I said before, it's up to you, Damian."
After that, he just collapsed on the ground. As the red glow from the surroundings disappeared a moment later, the sight of the dark sky was a welcome reprieve from the vastly intense ups and downs of this day.
For some reason, the unpleasantness that was child neglect and borderline abuse that Harry suffered before going to Hogwarts all came rushing back to him the moment he saw the boy, and the anger he felt at the moment far surpassed any emotion he might have felt when he first heard of that.
This child body was really messing with his emotions, making him emotionally compromised, leading to him making stupid decisions, like attacking the Ancient One of all people. He would have had better chances against Dumbledore in a one to one contest, instead of ambushing the Ancient One.
It also made some of his doubts bubble up to the surface.
Were his actions really his?
Was he just following some predetermined script, written not by some multiversal abstract entity like fate but by the Ancient One? A Human with far too much power, that is sadly, necessary for the continued survival of the planet.
Was it really just up to him?
He supposed that despite the anger at the thought of his actions being engineered by someone else, there was also the underlying relief, the dodging of responsibilities, that he told himself. That these were not his actions.
He was being guided, or puppetted by someone else, someone else who would assume the responsibility of his actions.
He couldn't have made it out of that forest earlier, and he couldn't have begun working on saving people, or whatever the hell it was he was supposed to do in this world.
But to hear her say it?
That it really was just him? It scared him, to be honest.
He would be the first person to tell anyone that he was not the most suited to hold responsibility, not even at the scale of a small team of a small corporate firm, let alone something like this?
Where even a small misstep might affect a boy who had been turned into a living legend, someone who wizards saw as the symbol of hope. Of somehow changing that and affecting the minds of hundreds, if not thousands of wand waving wizards? It felt too much to him.
Alas…
It is what it is. Time to face the music.
He sighed and stood up, blinking as he found his bag sitting right by the swing, as if waiting for him as he walked, picked it up, and turned invisible.
Time to get some shelter. He needed food-real food in his body before he could make some important decisions, and for that, he needed money.
It was a good thing that his current skill sets made it child's play to steal, which was good because he was a child right now. If only he could find some immoral business or person, for whom he would feel no guilt, as he would consider that a donation to feed a poor person, i.e., himself.
The Ancient One was not kidding. Just a couple of minutes ago, he felt pain as his enchantments failed to activate, which was pretty terrifying because he had felt the entire past year or so sheltered under the safety of those enchantments, but now? He could feel them come back to life with the same ease as before.
He really had to see what sort of body he was given by the ROB, because no normal wizard should have been able to heal this fast and cast magic this intensive, especially at his age.
Another question with no answers, not even a vague one from the Bald Sorceress.
One thing was for certain, though, it was his life, and he needed to make his own decisions, and he just had to accept the fact that these decisions could be just as ugly as they could be necessary.
Being an adult sucks. He could speak from experience.
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