So Do I

I've been to London before, though never like this. Never by myself, never without a clear purpose. 

The times I came with Mum or Papa were quick affairs: a doctor's appointment on the Strand, a rare trip to a larger market, once even to see the King's procession. I remember the flutter of flags, the press of strangers, Papa's hand firm around mine so I wouldn't be swept away.

But this morning, with a battered satchel under my arm and Grandad's cap tugged low over my brow, I set out for something altogether different. I wasn't running an errand or chasing a ration coupon. I was chasing ghosts, or truths, depending on how you wanted to look at it.

The train rattled through our little borough, carrying me deeper into the veins of the city. Even in late September, the air held a biting chill that slipped beneath collars and cuffs. 

King's Cross is another location that played a significant role in the Harry Potter series. It took the students to Hogwarts every September, but King's Cross wasn't on my list today, it's already too late to catch some students travelling. 

I'll likely return next September if I don't make any progress. 

The platform was choked with movement: men in khaki and navy, women in sensible wool coats, children gripping gas masks by the straps like odd little handbags. Propaganda posters peeled from the walls, urging loyalty and silence.

"Dig for Victory!"

"Keep Mum — She's Not So Dumb!"

"Loose Lips Sink Ships."

I read them all without really taking them in. 

I was hoping someone would slip me some information.

I thought Wool's would be easiest to find. It was meant to be real, bricks and mortar, chipped paint, perhaps a peeling placard out front. A place that wore its sorrow plain, soot embedded in every groove of its stone.

So I walked. Entire blocks south of the river first, then back north, scanning for small gates, old iron fences, faded signs. I stopped two women bundling a red-cheeked toddler into a pram. My voice sounded strangely careful as I asked:

"Sorry, ma'ams. Would you happen to know a Wool's Orphanage?"

They traded a look. One bit her lip, then shook her head.

"Don't think so, love. Closest I know is St. Agatha's, off Stamford. But that's not Wool's, is it?"

"No, ma'am. Thank you."

Later, I tried a milkman wrestling empty glass bottles into his rattling cart. 

His breath fogged in the cool air.

"Plenty of orphan homes in this city, son," he said, scratching at his neck. "But Wool's? Can't say I've delivered there."

By then, the sun had already started slipping behind the rooftops, turning the soot-streaked windows to bruised orange. The war's demands were everywhere. Half-collapsed buildings still gaped from the Blitz, windows boarded with mismatched timber. Children played hopscotch on cracked paving stones next to signs listing names of the newly dead.

It was near the embankment, my feet blistered and thin soles biting cold, that I spotted an old man perched on a crate selling papers. His collar was turned up against the wind so far that it nearly swallowed his jaw. 

When I asked about the orphanage, he squinted, then scratched at the sparse white bristles on his chin.

"Wool's Orphanage, you say? Hm. Reckon that's two, maybe three streets east o' here. Used to cart kitchen scraps there, back before my lorry got requisitioned. Miserable old building, but clean."

It was real, but that didn't mean it was the one from the Harry Potter series.

But by then, it was too late. Dusk folded over the streets like a damp cloth, and London wasn't safe for young boys and girls alone at night.

All the while, I kept an eye out for the other target on my list: the Leaky Cauldron. In the series, Muggles simply failed to notice it at all. In the films, it seemed perpetually draped in shadow, crouched between busier shops.

So I loitered along stretches of streets, letting the crowds swirl around me. I watched people's eyes, searching for what they avoided, any subtle shift that betrayed something they couldn't quite see. Was there a narrow building no one glanced at? A doorway that made their steps quicken?

Nothing. Not even a flicker. 

It felt increasingly like chasing smoke. Reaching for something that retreated the moment I came close.

Still, wandering without a tether was its own curious freedom. I passed a knot of boys rolling iron hoops down the street with sticks, laughter sharp and echoing off the brick. Two soldiers stood outside a pub, sharing a cigarette, their shoulders relaxed as though France were a bad dream. Laundry flapped high above on lines strung between buildings like pale flags of surrender. Once, the smell of fresh bread from a side alley nearly doubled me over.

A boy about my age huddled on a stoop, knees drawn to his chest, eyes fixed on the tips of his scuffed boots. A woman in a neat grey coat stood in front of a shattered shop window, pressing her gloved hand to the glass like she might coax it back together. I walked past them all, my breath clouding the air, my footsteps sounding too loud.

I felt oddly small amid it all, a single scrap of boy drifting through a city with its own griefs and hushed conspiracies.

It was near dusk when I made a mistake. I turned off a main road too early, hoping to cut back toward the station, and found myself on a narrow lane choked in shadow. Windows were shuttered. A dog barked somewhere behind a fence.

Then a hand clamped over my shoulder, and another slammed across my mouth. I let out a muffled yelp, but it barely made it past his dirty palm. The man's breath stank of piss as he hissed near my ear.

"Quiet now, pretty thing. Just a stroll, yeah? I've got a buyer who'll like a clever boy like you."

My heart jackhammered. I tried to twist free, stamp on his foot. His grip only tightened, fingers digging bruises into my arm.

"Oh, that tickles. Come on then, none of that."

He hauled me backwards into the mouth of an alley. My cap fell off. I clawed at his hand, tried to bite, tried to elbow his gut. 

He only laughed, low and breathy.

"Feisty, eh? You'll fetch extra for that."

I sucked in air through my nose and tried to scream again. It came out as a pathetic, muffled cry. 

His hand clamped harder.

"Save it, lad. No one's comin'. London's got no time for strays like you."

Then he shifted his grip to try to lift me off the ground. I flailed, kicking, trying to slam my heel into his groin, but caught only the side of his thigh. 

He grunted, barely staggered, and hoisted me up another inch.

"Nearly there. Few more steps."

My lungs roared with panic. Then, with every scrap of will, I reached for the mana burning in my chest. It surged. Exploded out of me in a sharp, invisible shove.

The man's eyes went wide. He stumbled back like he'd been punched by an unseen fist. His feet tangled, and he crashed to the cobblestones, head smacking the bricks with a sickening crack. Blood started to trickle beneath his hair.

I stood there, panting, stunned. Watching the dark red pool. Something in me teetered between terror and cold satisfaction.

Then my face crumpled, not with grief, but with an ugly, tight anger. I stomped forward and kicked him square between the legs. He let out a strangled grunt. I swung my fists and smashed them into his cheeks. His head snapped side to side.

My eyes darted to his waist. A small knife glinted there. I snatched it up with shaking fingers, then dug in his pockets, pulled out a few shillings. They felt dirty in my hand, tainted by what they might've paid for.

I stepped back, chest heaving, ears filled with the rush of blood. My necklace rattled, the rings thumping together like tiny hammers.

Without another word, I turned and ran, retrieving my cap and hiding the knife in my satchel.

By the time I reached our street, it was properly dark. I barred the door, lit the little lamp, then stood there a long moment listening to the hush of the empty house. My hand drifted to the rings at my chest.

I sat by the cold stove and opened my battered notebook. In neat lines, I wrote:

London has teeth. So do I.

Later, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling while the house settled around me in small creaks and sighs. The stolen knife rested beneath my pillow, its weight a thin comfort against my temple where my hand curled protectively.

The scene kept replaying in my mind, the man's greasy grin, the way his breath rasped in my ear, how his fingers bit into my arms and muffled my screams. Each time it looped, it set something hot and seething loose inside me.

Not fear.

Anger.

Anger at how small I felt in that moment, how close I'd come to being dragged off like a stray pup by a fox. Fury at how easy it could've been to vanish from the world, just another missing face no one bothered to look for.

For a second, I thought I heard Mum's voice. "Don't be cruel, Richie." But it faded before it could root. 

Mercy didn't live here anymore.

And beneath that anger was a rough, surprising seam of satisfaction. Because I stopped it. I stopped him. My magic, that uncertain, raw thing, had answered me when I truly needed it. I shoved him off with nothing but will, watched him crack his head on the stones. And when he lay there bleeding, I kicked him, hit him, took what he had. He could be dead now for all I cared.

The thought didn't chill me the way it might have once. If anything, it felt inevitable. A harsh rule of the world finally laid bare.

I shifted, the knife's hilt pressing into my palm. I promised myself I'd keep it close. That next time, if there was a next time, I wouldn't wait so long to act. I wouldn't be caught fumbling or hoping for mercy.

"More prepared," I whispered into the dark, tasting the vow on my tongue. My fingers tightened, knuckles whitening.

London heard me, I was sure of it, all its dark alleys and watching windows. I wouldn't come to it as prey again.

Above me, the ceiling was just a plain stretch of cracked plaster, but in my mind it was London, wide and shadowed, full of hidden places and sharper teeth than mine.

Tomorrow, I'd set out again. And the day after that. Because I was learning. Because every narrow escape hardened something inside me that no trafficker or thief or even petty fear could reach.

Because I was alone now and somehow that meant, for once, everything that happened next was truly mine to claim.

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Hey readers. I have ideas of what I want things to be for his second task. Obvious, given the title, but I'm including this here in case any of you have ideas that you think would be well-suited. Again, just comment here.