Orphan

Instead of the usual music or calm talking he could sometimes hear through his mother's stomach, there was shouting and screaming, and he felt his surroundings shake. Then there was a flash of light and all he heard was a deafening silence, his mother's heartbeat no longer audible.

Gaude felt the rage he had slowly started to forget return with a vengeance. If he had been a cultivator, he would've coughed up a bucket of blood and prepared another, just in case. Instead, his heart started beating like a war drum, his vision redder than usual and his tiny fists clenching.

'Who the fuck wants to die so bad? That was my mother, you shit-faced bastard! Just you wait until I get out of here! I'll rip off your junk and make you swallow it whole!'

A thought made his mind chill down in an instant: if his mother was dead, he'd be next unless he gained access to air and fast. He submerged himself in his mindscape, desperately scrambling through his memories, looking for the one that could be of any use to him. Naturally, he was doing the searching in the cluster that had to do with the Wizarding world.

Finally, he found a single, simple spell. Well, actually, he found two, but Sectumsempra was one that would make a bigger mess of his mother than he was willing and would likely drain more magic than he had to give, not to mention the possibility of failure during the first attempt.

He visualized a cut being formed, large enough for him to fit through, sharpened his intent to create mentioned cut, and pointed his finger in front of him, shouted in his mind with all his willpower: „Diffindo!". No result. 'I should've practiced this one. Then again, if I did that, I would've harmed my mother. I suppose all I can do now is get in the practice I was lacking.'

"Diffindo!"

"Diffindo!"

"Diffindo!"

The small reserves of magic in his body dwindled with each attempt to cast the spell.

"Diffindo!"

"Diffindo!"

"Diffindo!"

He felt his head getting muddled. It seemed that what he feared was starting already. Oxygen deficiency.

"Diffindo!"

He was running low on magic, at most he had one or two more attempts left in him. Disregarding his drowsiness, he put all of his will and intent into the attempt.

"Diffindo!"

He felt himself moving, being squeezed through an opening. He felt like the hole he opened was tearing bigger as he passed through it.

He left feet first. he thought that was probably the first emergency C-section in the world performed inside-out. That's right, parasitic host-killing chest-bursting lifeforms don't count.

He was born again, and He'd do his worst to beat this world's population into shape. But first he needed to cleanse his airways from excess mucus and fluids.

He used telekinesis to compress his chest once, the cartilageous ribs soft enough to compress with relatively small amount of force, then carefully went through his major airways, bringing out a clump of mucus that left through his mouth. He drew my first breath of cold air.

It felt as if he was inhaling the vapors of liquefied air. 'Can't scream yet, the perpetrator might still be close.' He saw a multitude of colorful flashes again.

Either it was a battle, or the massacre continued. Judging by the accompanying screams, the latter was more likely.

His mother's cooling hand was still holding onto a knife. It seemed like she had tried to protect herself with it. He used my telekinesis to take it out of her hand, dipped it in her blood and returned it near her hand. He had to drag it across the floor the entire time.

There were two reasons for that: first, he had nearly squeezed himself dry of magic while making his exit and second, his telekinesis wasn't strong enough yet to lift the knife.

This was in preparation for the moment that somebody finally came to clean up the mess, and without a doubt, they would. It might just be a while before it happened. The wizarding kind would believe she helped him into the world herself, even though Avada Kedavra kills almost instantly.

He finally took one last look at his mother. Somehow, her arms and legs looked frail and bony and her face was gaunt, as if she had been sucked dry of all the nutrients in her body. He got a bad feeling about that. He may have overdone it with repurposing all the nutrients in her bloodstream to accelerate his own growth.

An hour later, everything became dark and silent. He had snuggled up to his mother's body to stay as warm as possible – they left the door open and cold air was pouring in. He didn't have enough energy to try and close it. Wasn't able to find the damn door either.

As Gaude was unaware of the physiology of infants, and especially newborns, he didn't know that they had a special kind of adipose tissue, known a brown fat in common terms, that was extremely rich in mitochondria and was able to put out a whole lot of heat to keep the infant's body warm. Sure, it would work only as long as there was fat left to burn, but it would've been at least enough for the night, no matter how hard he had driven his body to grow.

A long time later, when some light started creeping in through the window, he woke up to popping sounds followed by hesitant footsteps. He inhaled deeply and let out a Manly Roar. Well, he tried, but what came out was a pathetic and squeaky shrill baby cry instead.

He heard somebody stomping their feet nearby, then creaky steps on the wooden floor. A woman shouted: „We got a live one!" She crouched down near me and said in a calming voice: „Don't worry little one, we'll get you out of here safe and sound."

By the time she finished, more footsteps were closing in. He thought that it might be a good idea to show that he was magical, to hopefully be included in the magic community. He figured that those that show up after a massacre and walk around carefully can't be the bad guys. He pointed his hand up and shot off a tiny sparkler. Couldn't show monstrous aptitude for magic as a newborn, after all. Besides, he was running on fumes as it was.

„Oh my," an excited female voice sounded, "he's magical!"

A manly voice grumbled: „Come on, Bones! This house isn't registered as a magical residence, and you know the policy. Muggleborn go to muggle orphanages." The newborn was way too tired to listen to the rest of that crap. Probably going to be an argument between them anyway, and he'd still end up in the muggle orphanage, because that's how the wizarding world worked. Might as well make his peace with it.

###

Irma Smith had just become old enough to help out in the orphanage, sixteen. The pay wasn't much, mostly just monthly allowance, but she saw all of the children there as her little brothers and sisters. After all, she had been raised by the orphanage herself. She thought that working in the orphanage would be a good way to give back to Adelaide, the old woman that she could confidently call her mother.

She had recently been roused from her sleep by a crying baby. It was Thomas. He'd been delivered to them just a few months earlier. The police had found the little guy's mother overdosed on heroine. Thomas wasn't usually fussy, so she went to check up on him.

"Hey! What's bothering you?" She said in a soothing voice, wearing a sunny smile.

Thomas seemed to be pacified by just the sound of her voice.

"Did little Thomas have a nightmare?", she asked worriedly, checking the baby's diaper just in case.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

"Who could it be this early in the morning?", she wondered, the only thing she was feeling curiosity. She wasn't afraid it was a criminal poised for an attack or a local prankster. These things simply didn't happen in Newham Way. Sure, there were a few unsavory characters that passed through every now and then, but they didn't choose the middle of the night to do that.

She walked to the door, Thomas still on her arm to put him back to sleep.

She looked through the peephole only to see the house at the other side of the street. She opened the door to a crack and looked to the side. There was a small basket with what looked like an infant wrapped in a blue blanket in it. It couldn't have been older than two months.

She gasped, then rushed to return Thomas to his crib. She gently took the infant from the basket and placed it on the changing table.

While she was working on the baby with lightning-fast movements, she grumbled in a low voice: "That's just no way to hand over an infant, what if I wasn't here? Adelaide has lost half her hearing in the recent years, you know! She might've not even heard the doorbell ring over her own snoring!"

When she was unwrapping the blanket around the baby, a letter fell out.

'Dear Miss Smith.

This child is Ronald Cortshutt. He is a child orphaned due to his single mother's untimely demise. Take good care of this child for he seems to have special talents.

Yours sincerely, Amelia Susan Bones, head of DMLE.'

For a moment, Irma wondered how the writer of the letter knew that it was her that would pick the baby up. She was a Muggle, born and raised. No knowledge about magic whatsoever. Otherwise, she might've known that spells existed to fill in the blank in a letter or any other document really with the name of the first person that touched it.

Irma finished unwrapping the blanket around the baby and revealed a soundly sleeping infant boy in his birthday suit. Irma found it strange that a very obviously at least two months old infant would be delivered completely naked.

She remained blissfully unaware of the fact that this infant had actually made his way into the world only the previous night. His size and development were the fruit of arduously pushing his body to develop faster and faster, using half his magic for the process.

"Let's get you some diapers and a place to sleep!", she spoke softly, the two matters that had roused her curiosity mere moments earlier already dismissed as unimportant. There was a warm bed waiting for her, and she'd enjoy it as long as she could. Only the outcry of another one of the cute little babies would be able to lure her away from it temporarily, now that it was still dark outside.

The infant was soon in diapers and under the blanket of her own bed since there weren't any cribs free.

She then went to a door on the left and knocked carefully, then a little louder.

"Come in!", spoke the voice of an older woman.

Irma entered and saw a woman past her prime, a few gray strands in her hair and crow's feet in the corner of her eyes.

"What is it, Irma?"

"Good morning, Adelaide. We had a new arrival just half an hour ago. He's around two months old by the looks of it, lost his mother, the poor little thing. We don't seem to have any free cribs for him."

"Good morning. There should be a few spares in the attic."

"Right, of course. I'd forgotten. I'm sorry for disturbing you.", Irma said apologetically and walked out.

"At least you haven't forgotten your manners.", the older woman grumbled after Irma had already rushed off. Regardless of what other people said, Adelaide was a light sleeper, especially towards the morning, all the ruckus had roused her from her sleep long ago.

She had been waiting for it to die down to get some more shuteye. Now it turned out that she'd be making a round in the city, getting what was necessary for the new child and hopefully find a few new generous sponsors for the orphanage, as a big one had bailed out on them due to 'financial difficulties'. Now it was them that were going to face financial difficulties if this wasn't remedied as fast as possible.

Certainly, asking for donations for the orphanage was somewhat akin to begging, but doing God's work, she couldn't be picky about it. She had left her pride behind a long time ago and was just happy when the children were clothed and fed and the rooms were warm.

###

Gaude woke to a baby's scream nearby. He looked around, as much as his weak-ass body allowed him.

He felt a faint displeasure at seeing cribs all around, but he couldn't remember why. He couldn't remember much, just that he had to do certain things for some reason, if he did, it would be good.

As Gaude had been born, a change had occurred, the link between his mind and brain solidifying, causing his higher mental functions to take a serious hit. By instinct, he screamed out loud, and was rewarded with warm baby formula. By instinct he screamed when he felt discomfort and it disappeared.

By instinct, he cast Lumos on a hand hidden underneath his body and felt his magic reserves deplete. By instinct, he still forced his cells to divide faster, leading him to scream for a meal often enough to drive any good mother desperate. By instinct, he cast telekinesis, trying to influence the world around him.

He wasn't even consciously aware of what he was doing. He wasn't consciously aware of anything, at that point. Otherwise, he would've known that his proto-core that had been barely enough to form a sphere the size of a grain of sand if it were to be condensed to the limit when he had drawn his first breath, had grown enough to almost form a pea-sized ball.

###

Meanwhile, Irma was getting very worried. It wasn't that she had to work every hour like clockwork to feed little Ronald. Well, Ronald wasn't as little anymore, and that's what really worried her and Adelaide. Ronald had grown like bamboo, now big enough to be considered a healthy fifteen months old. Yet, only four months had passed.

The doctors had said that it was certainly a curious case, but there was nothing to worry about, the child was developing perfectly normally. As if! Irma had never seen anybody grow so fast!

Then the reporters came, wanting a look at the local wonder child. She was still okay with that. But then, some very official-looking people with suits and briefcases had showed up, and a man in an army uniform with medals of all sorts clinging on his chest. That had scared Irma very much.

They had offered money, a lot of it, just to adopt one little baby. Neither Irma nor Adelaide were going to let themselves be fooled by the offer. They knew that such an unusual child would quickly find his way into a lab somewhere nobody not knowing about it would see him again.

It had taken the combined might of Adelaide's connections and ability to smooth-talk just about anyone to at least have a favorable impression towards her to make that military type and his lackeys stop pestering the orphanage. At least that's what they thought. The truth was, the visiting doctor had started taking a lot more blood and skin samples from the child than was necessary.

It was around that time that an occasional light of awareness flashed in the infant's eyes. As it did, a few mysterious things started happening. Most of them were related to the visiting doctor.

More often than not, the needles he tried to use for taking blood samples from Gaude ended up disappearing before he had the chance to take them out, bending or breaking as he was attaching them. He had quickly learned to bring backups and it seemed to work, for a while. It seemed that not all needles were created equal, as after the first few failed him, the rest worked just fine.

However, a few weeks after he had started bringing a pack of needles with him for each visit, a whole three needles had ended up halfway in his forearm, causing him a nasty and painful surprise when he had placed his forearm on the table and pushed them the rest of the way, striking bone and bending the needles inside his flesh.

Grumbling something about 'things not being right' with the place, the doctor was never seen again near the orphanage. He even had to go to physical therapy, as one of the needles was broken inside his arm and managed to sever a nerve in the process.

As for other strange occurrences, the children in the orphanage were doing the usual things children their age did, which was playing and running around. That was all normal. They were also drawing pictures, but that was perfectly normal for children of their age. Except, every time they picked up crayons or colored pencils, they were all drawing the exact same picture. At first, it was only two of them drawing the same picture, but as time passed, it became three and then four.

There was also a pair of a boy and girl that danced a perfect waltz without any music being present. As all that happened while no people old enough to find these events peculiar were around, it was never discovered. Nobody noticed that a certain infant's – locally known as Ronald's – eyes glimmered while such strange events occurred.

Ronald, or Gaude as he had liked to refer to himself, didn't know it yet, but he had a very powerful talent, strengthened by his years of exacting revenge and suffering in the process. His mind was extremely suitable for mind magic.

Sure, he also had a monstrous talent for using magic without a focus in general, such as was the case when he obtained just a sliver of magic for the very first time, even before he had arrived in the Wizarding world, but that had been proven to be just the beginning.

On the rare moments of clarity that his developing brain had managed to provide him without shutting him out for self-preservation, he had discovered that not only could he lift the quilt that was normally covering him, he even managed to lift himself off the mattress for a few moments.

Although, perhaps the reason that his telekinesis had grown so was due to the fact that he had practiced it without any awareness, by simply being in tune with the world around him without any thoughts of his own in the matter that could've interfered with the process.

The only reason why he had been able to even practice magic in an unaware state was due to the fact that he had done so in the womb, before his mind was fully linked to his brain, creating and constantly reinforcing the patterns in the brain while not being slowed down by its less developed state. That was the reason that his body had been able to perform the actions from 'muscle memory'.

###

As Gaude was watching his favorite couple of six-year-olds going at it with a fast-paced tango under his instructions, he realized something – he hadn't been doing anything productive with his life for a long time now. How long the time was, he couldn't rightfully tell, it was all hazy in his mind. He could barely remember a few faces and being poked with needles, a lot. Truthfully, it seemed to be the only memory he had of his infancy.

As he thought that, he became distracted and the strands of magic connecting his mind to the children's snapped. After only a few more steps, the previously harmoniously dancing couple stumbled on each other's feet and fell over, ending up in a tangled mess of eight limbs, one on top of the other. Naturally, with them being children, the only thing that happened was them being very much startled by the sudden occurrence.

So far, the children had just felt as if they were playing a strange game that they knew the next move for, yet suddenly, their coordination and concentration seemed to lapse and an accident had happened. More so from being startled than any actual discomfort or pain, the girl started crying while the boy tried to keep quiet, as 'men don't cry' and that's exactly what he considered himself. He would argue with anyone that called him a boy, child, runt etc.

As Gaude was annoyed by the noise, he had re-established the connection, forcing the children to calm down and then releasing them from his grasp one after the other. He found the silence a lot more pleasant.

After a lot of experimentation, Gaude had reached a conclusion that he could control around six to seven children that were no older than five, after that, the numbers plummeted quickly. The oldest person he could fully get under his control was a fourteen-year old boy that wasn't all that bright.

As Gaude compiled his progress somewhat apathetically, he felt something irritating on his scalp. He swiped his hand over his head and sure enough, there was another handful of loose hair in his grasp. It seemed that there were side effects to what he had been doing. Gaude didn't know if it was the result of accelerating his growth to such a degree that he now looked like a three-year old or due to his over-indulgence in mind magic. As a disturbing thought struck him, however, Gaude quickly tried moving his legs. He soon discovered that they were still in perfect working order, no paralysis in sight.

He was sure in one thing – he had to take a break from both just in case and let his body recover for a while. As he did that, there was still the option of doing body weight exercises to prepare himself for an active life.

The exercise was actually just him trying to move his arms, legs and head without infusing them with magic. All of them felt like they were full of lead.

That was when he remembered something of utmost importance, that he needed sorely yet had none of – money.