The End of the Beginning of the Beginning
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It was October thirty first, nineteen-eighty-one, the night of Halloween. Tom's parents had been forced to work over the holiday, so he was wandering the streets of London looking for any signs of the Leaky Cauldron, and where that might potentially be. He absolutely needed confirmation that he had magic of his own, if only for the sheer fact that this world was dangerous. He couldn't afford to be caught unaware, and all his attempts to force out accidental magic from him in some way had utterly failed no matter what he had tried.
From using various tricks like meditation, to jump scaring himself with movies, and even challenging the various fears he had by rushing into the storage room in their home in search of spiders to scare himself with; he had found nothing that could bring out even an ounce of magic. Notone single thing.
So, he was desperate. He pleaded to any deities that may hear him that something would show him that he had something, even as he adjusted his little vampire outfit and walked past a shady-looking run-down pub of sorts that smelled awfully of piss.
As he rounded the next corner to get away from the smell, an older lady walked over to him from inside the pub, dressed as a stereotypical hag from modern day folklore and popular books. When she approached him, she giggled and tried to touch him on the nose. "Keke, aren't you a cute little vampire," she told him with a small, knowing smirk. "Tell me little one, where are your parents?"
As she asked him this, he could see that she was continually trying to touch and corner him, and he didn't like the odds of what would happen if she did. So, he panicked. Hard.
"You can't see me, you can't see me," he told her as he backed away with slow, deliberate steps, the strange older woman seeming to be lost and confused for a moment, her eyes glazing over and losing focus. Was this—?
"Where did that brat go? I almost had him!" she exclaimed with a low grumble, causing him to think as fast as he could, while he still had the effect going full blast. He could only hope it would work.
Focusing on the sensation he was feeling inside, he threw everything he could into it and let his fear fuel it fully. "I don't exist to you! I never did!" he exclaimed, causing her eyes to blank out once more, her body freezing for a moment before she scratched at her long, hopefully fake nose.
Once she had a moment to recover, and he was rather far away, hiding behind a car, she looked around and shrugged to herself, as if she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing. "Huh, weird. Could'a sworn I came out of the pub for something important. Never mind then," she said to herself, before walking straight back into the pub. One with a faded sign above it that had the words 'The Leaky Cauldron' written upon it as if in some form of mockery to all the effort he had put in.
Needless to say, he left in a hurry, not wanting to find out what would happen if he stuck around such a shady place filled with wizards on Halloween.
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"Dad, how can one prove that they're financially independent to the government?" Tom asked his adopted father, his lips curled into a pensive frown as he sipped a cup of tea. He was going over the stock exchanges his father had helped him with so far in the financial reports, but he felt he still was a rather large financial burden on his family and had sought to rectify this for a few years by that point.
"Well, you need to have a stable source of income, be considered provably and observably mature in a few ways, and be fifteen years of age; why do you ask?" Jerry asked him, his head tilting as if he was not entirely sure where he was going with such a question. Well, it was rather sudden to him, he was sure. It's not like Tom had been advertising it to his parents that had done their best to raise him for so long.
"It's not really important, dad. Just thoughts for long term options in case of the worst." And he did mean that. His mother, Ashley, had fallen rather sick recently with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or vCJD, from meat she had prepared and eaten at work for break, and the doctor told them that she wasn't likely to make it out alive. That it was always fatal.
Jerry sighed, nodding at his son as he pulled the boy into a hug. "Yeah, and with my diabetes acting up these days, I understand your worry," he told Tom with a sad smile, trying to hold strong for the both of them. "But don't worry, Doctor said I just have to watch what I eat, and I'll be fine. No insulin needed."
With the way things were going, Tom wasn't sure his father would make it to see him graduate. He would do his best to find him something to help, maybe some form of magical protein shake he could have if he was low on blood sugar at work. It just might save his life, probably.
But it was still best to prepare for the worst even so. Though he couldn't bring himself to say that to the man who had been taking care of him all these years. "If you say so, dad."
Well, at the very least, his past life experience as a bank manager had granted him knowledge that he used religiously to invest in various big tech firms so far, such as Microsoft, Sony and Apple. The value of those had nearly tripled by the time he had turned eleven in nineteen-eighty-six, despite him only buying them a few years prior. It would be an amazing resource to call on when he needed money to buy any magical reagents he might need for his rituals, to be honest.
He had also suggested options like McDonald's, but it would look incredibly suspicious if he mentioned Google by name, so he waited for that company to be nearing conception before he'd bring up the idea of something similar. It wasn't as if he could just claim to be from the future and expect that to go over well after all.
At the very least, his exercise routine had increased his stamina to the point where he was fully confident he could outrun many people that were a lot older than him as long as they didn't also train physically. He was good enough to get offered a spot on the track and swimming teams at school far ahead of his year after all.
Of course, he hadn't slacked on his studies either. In fact, the reason he had asked his father about emancipation was because he had graduated high school last semester after many long, grueling hours of hard work and sacrificed sleep just to make sure he got it right.
That he aced the test was all a result of his hard work and dedication. Let no one say that he didn't work for what he got, as he made sure to always improve, to do better in everything as much as he was capable, and to always test those limitations.
While they sat and ate their morning toast, a tawny owl knocked on the window with a letter. Something that was odd to his father, and that could have only one meaning for Tom.
Rushing over from where he sat at the living room table, he opened the window and let the bird inside. It was quick to drop the letter in his lap and look at him with an oddly expectant expression for a bird.
When he saw the seal of Hogwarts, and opened the letter with care, he smiled. "Dear Tom Dick Harry…"
And so began the prologue of what he would later look back on as one of the most terrifying legs of his journey. The humble beginnings of a gentlemanly mage.
A mage looking for their Home Sweet Home.
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AN:
Kitsu: I finished this one the night before posting it on my server, but I had to let my commissioner go over it before I did.
You can find my links in my carrd! https:// aiko akiyoshi . carrd . co / Thanks for reading and stay fluffy!