Growing Into the Cap

I turned six 2 months ago, but it feels like that number doesn't fit anymore, not when you're the one who keeps the house quiet from collapsing in on itself. Some days, I think I'm older than Mum. Older than the clock that ticks too loud when no one's talking.

School started the same for everyone: new shoes, stiff uniforms, chalkboards, and clumsy handwriting. But it didn't stay the same for me, not after the first week, not after they noticed.

I don't have friends. Not really. Not the kind who save a seat, pass notes or share biscuits at break. The other kids don't know what to make of me. I speak too carefully and think too long before I answer. I don't laugh in the right places. I wear Grandad's cap every day, and that alone is enough to make me a curiosity.

They whisper more because of what the teachers say when they think I'm not listening. They use words like "gifted," "precocious," and "far beyond his years." Once, I heard one say, "Genius."

At first, I liked it. The way Miss Doyle's eyes lit up when I read something at twice my level. The way Mr. Griffin ruffled my hair like I'd done something no one else could. Mum smiled bigger when she read my reports. Nonna bragged to neighbours like I'd invented the typewriter. That mattered to me. It still does.

But the better I did, the more it built a wall. Praise lifts you, but sometimes it lifts you so high that no one else can reach.

Still, I do the work. All of it. Carefully and thoroughly. It's something solid. Something I can control.

Life without Grandad found a rhythm, but it's a rhythm with too much space. The house never found its volume again. It's like someone turned the laughter down and forgot where the knob is.

I talk more now, not because I want to, but because I have to. Because silence grows like ivy if you don't cut it back. I tell jokes at supper. I ask Nan how her knees are, even though I already know. I pretend I don't know what's on the news just to hear Mum explain it.

I do it because I see what happens when I don't. Mum's eyes start to drift. Nan goes too long without saying a word. Nonna folds laundry in the same corner of the room like she's trying to disappear into it.

So I speak. I smile. I hold the pieces together as best I can.

But it's getting harder.

These days, my smile feels more borrowed, like a coat I put on because it's cold, not because it fits. It's familiar and necessary, but not always mine.

Instead of words, I show my care with actions. That's something Grandad believed in.

I carry Nan's washing up the stairs without her asking. I peel potatoes. I scrub the pan Mum always leaves to soak. I brush the lint off her coat before she heads out. I warm Nonna's slippers by the fire, even when she insists she's not cold.

I do all of it without waiting for thanks. Kindness doesn't need a spotlight. It just needs somewhere to land.

But sometimes, even that's not enough. Sometimes, the weight tips.

It happened two weeks ago.

After school, grey skies, coat buttoned, bag heavy with books.

Lenny Harker, one of the older boys, grabbed my cap off my head as I passed through the gate.

"Give it back," I said.

He tossed it between his hands like a toy, grinning.

"Little Richie wants his granddad's hat. Bit grim, innit?"

"Give it back," I said again.

He leaned closer. "Smells like a grave," he whispered. "Bet it came straight off the corpse."

Then he spat near my foot, but close enough that it might as well have been on me.

Something inside me snapped.

I don't remember the motion. Just the impact. The hard thud of my fist in his gut. His wheeze. My elbow. His shove. My knee hitting the ground. We were both swinging wild, ugly punches.

I came home with blood on my knuckles and dirt on my trousers.

Mum didn't scold me.

She just knelt in front of me, her hands on either side of my face, and looked me in the eyes.

"Are you hurt?"

I said no.

I was.

But I got the cap back.

Papa's not home anymore.

He was conscripted in August. The letter came with thick paper, stamped edges, and too many words that didn't mean what they said. Mum didn't cry in front of me. She did it in the pantry when she thought I was upstairs. But I heard her quiet sobs like someone slowly letting the air out of their lungs.

She never cried at the table.

Not once.

Nonno left not long after.

He said it was getting harder to find work. Volunteering would at least give him a roof and a ration card, so he hugged me at the train station.

"You're the man of the house now, eh?" he said with a crooked smile.

I nodded. But the truth is, I already felt like I had been for some time.

Then December came. Cold and bitter and cruel.

Now it's just Mum, Nan, Nonna, and me.

The house is never still anymore. There's always something being cooked, washed, mended, or worried about. There's always a list, a time, a task.

We're tired. All of us.

But we keep going because that's what people do when they can't afford not to.

And I've got more freedom now. More space to fill. After school, once the chores are done, I train.

I run laps around the terrace, even when it's raining. I lift the heaviest books I can find and squat until my legs ache. I climb trees near the churchyard. Using my magic to hover pebbles between my fingers, I've now managed to hover them over my palm for a maximum of ten minutes.

I race Luca down the cobbled street until our lungs burn. He always cheats. Always cuts corners. Always laughs too loudly.

"Why do you act like a grown-up already?" he says sometimes, hands on his hips.

"Because someone has to."

He never has an answer for that.

I'm getting taller, four feet one inch, and my sleeves barely reach my wrists. My shoes pinch. My face is different in the mirror, less round, more shadow around the eyes. Mum says I'm starting to look like Papa.

She says it like it's a good thing. I think she needs it to be.

The food is worse. Ration books get thinner by the week. Bread is smaller. Potatoes are mushy. Every now and then, there's powdered egg. Once, there was horse meat. Mum didn't tell me until afterwards.

But we eat because we have to.

Because we're still here.

Some nights, when the world goes quiet, not the sad kind, but the soft kind, I sit in Grandad's chair. The cap pulled low. The fire crackled low. Everyone else is asleep or pretending to be.

I let the weight of the day settle into my bones. Let the silence wrap around me like a coat that's grown heavier with every month. I trace the frayed edge of the chair's arm, where Grandad used to tap his fingers when thinking. Sometimes, I tap too. Just to remember how it felt to sit beside him.

And I whisper things into the quiet.

Little things. Fears I haven't said aloud. Hopes I'm not sure I believe in.

"Grandad… I don't know if I'm doing it right."

The chair doesn't answer. But the warmth of the fire flickers like it's listening.

We still write to Papa.

Mum reads his letters aloud at the table, her voice steadier than her hands.

He says he misses us, but he's fine, and the food is worse than what we have.

I send him drawings, maps of imaginary places and diagrams of machines I'd build if I had the right tools. Once, I made a blueprint for a radio that could send hugs.

Mum cried when she saw it.

"Don't be silly," she said, wiping her eyes. "It's lovely."

One night, I heard Mum crying again. This time, she didn't hide it.

She's in the kitchen, hands in her lap, a tea towel pressed to her mouth. The kettle's whistling, but no one's moved.

I go to her and sit at her feet.

"Is it the letter?"

She nods. Hands me a piece of paper that smells faintly of ink and worry.

Papa's been moved closer to the front.

I read the words slowly. Then, I folded them again carefully and placed them back in the envelope.

"We'll write back," I say. "Something funny."

Mum smiles through the salt on her cheeks.

"You're a good boy," she whispers.

I rest my head against her knee.

I'm trying.

And I am.

Every day, I try.

I want to keep the house upright, make space for hope between the cracks, and grow into the cap I wear.

It still hangs low over my ears, but my shoulders sit straighter beneath it.

I don't cry much now. But I still talk to Grandad in the quiet. Still whisper things no one else would understand.

"You said to carry it gently," I say.

"I'm trying."

And maybe that's what growing is.

Not just doing more.

But trying again and again, even when it's heavy. Even when you're tired.

And doing it all with your heart still open.

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I want to get to the "real" parts of the story and I know other people do too, so I've had some chapters saved up and I was going to space them out more, but I know people have wanted more, so starting from tomorrow, I'll be uploading three a day, 12:30 a.m., 6:00 a.m., and 4:40 p.m. GMT. It will only be for 3 days, totalling 9 chapters for the 3 days, then it will return to 2 days per day for this Arc.

I'm doing this because that's when more Harry Potter-themed things start to happen in this Arc, even if it's only a little for now. I hope you enjoy it, and please hang tight and trust the process. :)

Just FYI, I will be taking a week break, like I did for Arc 1, just to save some chapters for the Bonus Structure, which will be implemented in the next Arc. :)