There’s a trick to pretending.

  Most people think it’s about lying.

  It isn’t.

  It’s about telling them the truth they want to believe—and keeping the rest in shadow.

  That was the lesson I spent four years perfecting.

  After the wand incident, the Ministry pced me under the watch of a foster wizarding family in the countryside. Not full-bloods—too risky. Not Muggles—too blind. They settled on a couple with no children of their own. Squibs, ironically. Polite, dull, and manageable. They were given a stipend to house and observe me. I was given a list of restrictions longer than my arm.

  No spellwork.

  No unsupervised use of magical objects.

  No access to unsanctioned magical texts.

  I followed every rule.

  Publicly.

  Privately, I built my empire.

  My foster father, Harold Greaves, had once worked for the Department of Magical Transportation. He’d been demoted years ago after a Floo powder contamination scandal. Now, he cleaned offices part-time at the Ministry. He left behind old security tokens. Access badges. Keys.

  My foster mother, Bethany, had once been a clerk in the Magical Records Office. She kept diaries of names, lineages, vault inheritances. She thought of them as stories.

  I read them every night.

  When they slept, I practiced silent casting—not with my wand, which I kept hidden in the lining of a false drawer, but with intent. Magic, like muscle, must be trained before it can be directed. I used emotion as a conductor—fear, anger, obsession.

  But only in pieces.

  The real power y in control. Never letting it spill unless I chose to.

  I built a network in silence.

  I befriended a Squib librarian in the nearby vilge—a man named Lionel Quade, who collected banned magical tomes like a drunk hoards bottles. I brought him coffee. He let me read. One day, I asked him what he knew about soul fragmentation.

  He ughed nervously.

  I didn’t.

  The next week, he brought out a locked box and said, “You didn’t get this from me.”

  It was a journal. Leather-bound. No title. Stained.

  It had belonged to a man who’d dissected his own brother’s magical aura in a controlled ritual.

  I read it in one night.

  I understood two-thirds of it.

  The rest I would learn.

  I pyed the role well.

  Smiling. Quiet. Curious. Precocious, but polite.

  The Ministry sent officials to check in on me once every six months. I offered tea. I showed them my drawings of magical creatures. I recited textbook definitions of spell theory.

  They called me “remarkably stable for a Muggle-born with an early outburst.”

  They never noticed the way I watched them.

  Which of them scratched their wrist when nervous.

  Which of them refused to touch the doorknob without a sanitizing charm.

  Which of them cast their Patronus every morning just to be sure it was still there.

  They were all weak.

  I kept records of their weaknesses.

  My favorite visitor came two months before my eleventh birthday.

  Minerva McGonagall.

  Not from the Ministry.

  From Hogwarts.

  Despite Vector’s reports, despite the official ban on Hogwarts direct supervision—McGonagall insisted on seeing me herself.

  She wore pin tartan robes and carried herself like a verdict in human form. When she stepped through the Greaves’ front door, the wards they’d woven into the house shuddered. Not because she broke them.

  Because she reminded them what strength looked like.

  “Cain,” she said, her voice precise.

  I smiled. “Professor McGonagall. It’s an honor.”

  She blinked at that. Just once. Small reaction. Controlled.

  “May I sit?”

  “Please,” I said, gesturing toward the armchair across from me. I’d made sure it was the one with the slightly lower seat height—subtle power differential.

  She accepted.

  The conversation was a test.

  She asked about my magical control.

  I said I meditated. Focused. Waited for Hogwarts before attempting anything beyond instinct.

  She asked about my studies.

  I showed her my essays. Carefully forged in my own handwriting, copied and rewritten from dozens of sources I was not supposed to possess.

  She asked about my outburst at the orphanage.

  I looked down. “I was frightened. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

  “Do you feel guilty?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Every time I think about it.”

  She watched me for twelve seconds.

  Then said, “That will serve you well. Guilt is part of growing.”

  No, Professor.

  Guilt is for people with limits.

  She asked for a demonstration.

  Not of power. Of restraint.

  She handed me a simple object: a glowing stone. Responsive to magical proximity. It pulsed softly in her palm.

  She set it on the table between us.

  I reached forward.

  Felt it react.

  Its glow sharpened. Reacted to my intent, not just presence. McGonagall’s eyes narrowed.

  I let go.

  The light faded.

  She exhaled slowly. “You’re in control.”

  I smiled.

  “I have to be.”

  She stood. “You’ll be Sorted on the train. You’ll receive your list soon.”

  A pause.

  Then she looked me in the eye.

  “Don’t pretend at Hogwarts.”

  I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean—whatever mask the Ministry taught you to wear… you’ll find it has cracks in that castle.”

  A second of silence passed between us.

  Then I nodded. Small. Careful. “Understood.”

  After she left, I went into the room beneath the floorboards. Not a basement—a crypt of my own design. Quietly carved. Warded against detection. Lined with books, scraps, diagrams, notes, artifacts I shouldn’t have.

  In the center: my wand.

  The one Ollivander wasn’t supposed to give me. The one I had touched only twice in four years.

  I lifted it now.

  It felt heavier.

  Like it had grown with me.

  I lit a single candle.

  And began to practice.

  Not for power.

  Not for rebellion.

  But for the moment the world stopped looking at me like a child.

  And started realizing it had made a terrible mistake.