If one were to list all the ways a child might come to learn that the world was neither fair nor kind, Lucien Gaunt would have ticked off most of them by age eleven. And in a crumbling grey orphanage nestled somewhere between urban decay and bureaucratic neglect, he had stopped expecting kindness a long time ago.
St. Ethelreda's Home for the Abandoned and Misplaced was a name far too grand for the building it belonged to. The bricks, faded to a tired brown, were cracked and uneven, as if time itself had scowled at the place and decided to pass by in haste. It always smelled of cabbage and disinfectant, and the sour tang of both clung to every surface like mildew. The children called it "St. Dreadful's"—a name far more fitting.
Lucien had arrived when he was five. No note, no full name, no relatives. Just the first name, Lucien. No heirlooms, no clues, nothing that might tie him to a past or a family. He had learned the shape of power early on: cruel, petty, and disguised as adult authority.
The week before everything changed had begun like any other—overcast skies, tasteless porridge, and dull-eyed children shuffling through a routine stitched together by drudgery. But the world around Lucien had started to act stranger than usual.
It began on Monday when Henry McCullough, one of the older boys, tried to shove Lucien's head into a toilet and instead found himself hurled back three feet into a stall door. Lucien hadn't even raised a hand. The lights had flickered. The air had gone cold. And Henry had screamed that Lucien's eyes had flared with a vivid, unnatural green—brighter and more piercing than their usual shadowy hue.
Lucien had blinked once. "Well, Henry," he'd said dryly, brushing dust off his jumper, "I suppose gravity's not on your side today."
By Tuesday, rumors swirled that Lucien was cursed—or worse. The other children whispered in corners and glanced at him like he was carrying a contagious disease. Lucien, for his part, sat under the crooked staircase as he always did, reading anything he could salvage from the overstuffed bin behind the library across the street. He read like a starving man who had realized the library tossed out bread.
Wednesday brought Miss Carrow's new boyfriend, a leering, sour-smelling man named Darryl who thought orphans were meant to earn their keep through silence and obedience. He called Lucien "freak" before lunch and tried to slap him after dinner. His hand never connected. It stopped mid-air, shaking, before twisting backward at the wrist. Lucien stared, breathless, as Darryl screamed and ran out.
"Next time, try leading with your other hand," Lucien muttered, mostly to himself. "Might have better luck."
Miss Carrow told everyone he had slipped on spilled soup. No one believed her. Lucien wondered if she believed it herself or if she was just trying to avoid paperwork.
Thursday, Lucien found a dead bird outside his window. Its eyes were open and unblinking, and its tiny beak pointed directly at him. When he picked it up, its body was warm.
"Right," he said aloud to no one, inspecting the bird like a detective at a crime scene. "Dead-but-not. Lovely."
By Friday, even the brave kids avoided him. His bunk had been stripped bare by the others in an effort to "cleanse the evil." Lucien spent the night in the laundry room with a stolen blanket and a book on basic physics. The laws of thermodynamics made more sense than people did.
He didn't cry. Not anymore. He'd learned that no one came when you cried, and when they did, it only got worse. Emotions were for people who could afford to show them.
Saturday afternoon, he sat alone in the garden—if the patch of weedy soil behind the laundry room could be called that. Lucien liked it there. Plants didn't whisper behind your back. They grew toward light and shriveled without it. They were honest. Predictable. No screaming. No sudden reversals of gravity.
A voice had come then—deep, slithering, and soft. It said: "Heir..."
Lucien had turned, but no one was there. He stared at the air for a long moment.
"Fantastic," he muttered. "Now I'm hallucinating. All I need is a tinfoil hat and I'll be the full package."
And now it was Sunday.
The day had dawned as grey as all the others. Rain threatened, then delivered. Children moved in clumps through hallways, whispering and giggling like birds around a wounded animal. Lucien sat in the main corridor on the sagging bench beneath the water-stained portrait of Queen Victoria. His book was open on his knees—one of those old science volumes that smelled of glue and despair.
Miss Carrow glared at him as she passed. He didn't look up.
"Always brooding," she muttered. "No wonder you've got no friends."
Lucien almost smiled. If being alone meant being untouched by whatever rot seeped from adults like her, he'd take solitude every time.
In a week, he'd gone from invisible to infamous. Every child's glance now carried fear. Every adult's gaze came loaded with suspicion. The only ones not staring were the ghosts of the place—memories too stale to breathe.
He was on the cusp of something—his eleventh birthday had just passed, unnoticed by most but not by fate.
He'd been reading about resonance frequencies when he heard the creak of the front door.
Lucien looked up.
There stood a tall man in a deep purple cloak, with half-moon spectacles and eyes that shimmered with the weight of too many secrets.
"Ah," said the stranger. "Lucien Gaunt, I presume?"
Miss Carrow's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Lucien closed his book with deliberate calm.
"That depends," he said, his voice steady. "Are you here to adopt me or to exorcise me?"
Albus Dumbledore smiled. And in that moment, the air in the orphanage shifted. As though the world had exhaled.
Lucien didn't know it yet, but the cage had begun to rust.
The door was almost open.