𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘔𝘌𝘚𝘚𝘐𝘈𝘏 ━ 𝙃𝙥

CHAPTER TWO

━ AUTUMN SEEMED TO come early that year. It was only late August but already browning leaves were falling softly from the trees and people were bundling up in fine coats.

Kai did not have a fine coat to bundle up in.

Its not that he minded the cold, but as he eyed the happy families with their peacoats and fancy, heeled leather boots, he felt a jab of bitterness. Some people in this world were simply too rich for him to be happy for them.

Instead he was in Diagon Alley's second hand clothing shops, finding himself a school uniform instead of getting one tailor made for him at Madame Malkins. This, he didn't mind. People paid too much for clothes there anyway.

 He was tugging at a frayed thread sticking out of the seems of his black utility jacket, tucking his chin behind the button up collar that always hung out. Over the years he had slowly acquired everything he'd need for when he went to Hogwarts, knowing he could never afford it all in one shot and still have money for his uncle to get by on. His worn down trainers rocked carefully on the cobblestone streets. He was waiting for the queue outside of Ollivanders to die down. Normally he found crowded shops ideal, but alas, Ollivanders was the one store in Diagon Alley he could not steal from.

He stood there for almost two hours, feeling his cheeks get redder and redder with cold. Diagon Alley was a street hidden away in London crammed full of all manner of magical beings. Elves, goblins, hags, guarded vampires and probably a few werewolves hidden between them and yet strangers eyes still landed on Kai.

It was not because he was an eleven year old boy, standing alone with dark circles around his eyes. It was not because his hand was grasping a knife in his pocket, his other bracing against the wall for support. No, people stared because of the black, leather bound, eyepatch on his face. 

The stares had always worried him. Before, he thought it was because they could tell who he really was. He thought that the scar cream might have magically worn off. Or maybe he'd accidentally slipped and mentioned his last name. It was none of this. People stared because they wanted to, nothing he could do would stop that.

It wasn't like he could take the eyepatch off, he needed it. It protected his eye from harmful UV rays, thanks to his heterochromia, it had been something he needed to do since the  day he was born. Most people had baby blankets and shoes to recall their blissful toddler days. Kai had cotton eyepatches.

Finally the queue outside Ollivanders disapparated, parents and teens alike gushing about some blonde guys book signing around the corner. Kai took his shot in ducked inside, somehow avoiding the bell hanging on the door. Garrick had his back to him, busy putting away empty wand boxes. His partner, an elf by the name Tryst was cleaning the counter simply by tapping random spots. For a moment, neither of them noticed Kai, so he took the moment to himself and looked at the many pictures on the wall. Off this alone, he realised three things.

Number one, Garrick didn't care if magic was dark or not. Elves, notoriously, only placed pictures at their own eye level, never any higher. So that meant the articles by the Daily Prophet framed on the wall with sentences underlined in red were placed there by him. The articles were about powerful acts performed by some brilliant, and downright evil, wizards. Each and every one of their wands sold by Ollivander himself.

Number two, Ollivander knew Dumbledore. There were no pictures of them together, but Kai knew by the list on the door behind the counter that those gifts could only be for the man himself. This also meant Ollivander had had some part in the last war.

Number three, he had a daughter. Or, at least, someone he viewed as such.

"Rowena's left tit- how long have you been there?"