DISCLAIMER: I do not own any characters created by J. K. Rowling, nor the Harry Potter universe. I am merely exercising my right to fair use as outlined in the Copyright Act of 1976, Section 107 with the primary purpose not to profit, but to serve as a critique to the political and philosophical systems of the world up to the late 20th century.

Update 1 (May 2019): fixed errors in punctuation and grammar.

1:53 PM. Just a typical cloudy day in London, you thought to yourself. You look at your watch, check the contents of your bag, and leapt off the bus. The news agency you work in has given you a rather different kind of task yesterday. Instead of another day at the office editing papers, you were told to find the residence of an old doctor named Irving Platt, who lives in the south side of London. You begin to wonder what he looks like as you begin walking to his house.

After a few minutes of walking, you arrive at a small white house which looks very old, but at the same time emanates a sense of comfort reminding you of your birthplace. It could be the stained-glass windows, it could be the flowers in the small garden, or it could be the grey cat cosily sleeping on the pavement, paying no attention to you whatsoever as you approach the front door. You were told that years ago, there was a clinic here, but it was closed down since the doctor retired. As you approach to ring the doorbell, an old man opens the door and stares at you as if he's been expecting you for a while.

"Hello kid, you're late," said the old man.

You look at your digital watch and say, "I'm only a few minutes late, sir."

"Yes, yes. Eight minutes late. More than enough time for someone to suffer from permanent brain damage due to deprivation of oxygen! If all doctors had that same attitude, imagine how many patients would have been lost!"

You were stunned by his response, and began to wonder why the agency sent you to deal with this old man. The agency could've sent someone more experienced instead of a new worker like you, an immigrant who has just settled for barely a year in London.

"My apologies, sir."

"No need for your apologies. I've never seen you before, so I can assume that it was a rookie mistake and I can tolerate that. However, if you ever need to cross the Thames next time, I suggest that you take the bus heading for Wimbledon instead of the one that goes through Vauxhall Cross. The road is longer, but it's faster to get to my house from there, considering the amount of traffic Vauxhall gets every day. I think it was Route 93. Now, have you been told the reason of your arrival here?"

"I was sent to retrieve something, and that's all."

"Well, Jameson never really does reveal too much to his employees. He thinks that an employee who knows too much will often get distracted from work."

"Who is Jameson, sir?"

The old man went inside for several minutes and came out with a photo and a pencil. He began making sketches on the face, and then he revealed the results.

"If Nathaniel Jameson has aged correctly, he would look something like this. Does it look familiar to you?"

"Yes. That's my boss."

The old man then erased the pencil markings: the beard, the hair, and the wrinkles, revealing a bald but much younger man. He then said, "And this is your boss after he was discharged from hospital in 1991. A tough boy he was, he survived lung cancer."

"Really?"

"Yes, but he probably didn't tell you about it. He was one of my toughest patients, mainly because he was 15 years old at the time and for some strange reason most conventional methods of curing cancer don't really work on him. We treated him for 8 months, using a new drug called Paraplatin which was more effective in halting the spread, but... wait. I'm getting carried away again. Let's just say I needed to have a debate with all the other doctors on whether or not to use that new drug on such a young boy.

"I see..."

"Now come inside, kid. All the pollution in the air is bad for your health."

As you come inside, you find yourself in what appears to be a waiting room for patients. The air was much cleaner inside thanks to the air purifier at the corner of the room. The air purifier, however, is the only modern item in the said room aside from your cellphone. Everything else inside looks as if they were made in the 1990s, with several items such as the desk lamp atop the end table looking much older than that. The light on the ceiling itself was a round-shaped white fluorescent lamp similar to the ones found in the older rooms of the office, and the paint was visibly peeling off the walls. The lamp still made a slight buzzing noise when turned on.

"I apologize for the less-than-lively state of my clinic, now an empty and quiet home, a shadow of what it once was. You know, back then I could expect 10-20 patients a day. But those days are long gone."

The doctor stares at a corner of the room, at a large framed picture of his family taken over 30 years ago. Inside the picture, you can see his wife and 2 young boys with toothless smiles. Below the picture is a framed GMC certificate and a bachelor's degree from the University of Nagoya in Japan, both of which look older than the family photograph.

"Long gone by dozens of years by now."

The old doctor went back inside his room, singing "When I'm 64" by The Beatles. You can hear his voice slowly fade away. Then, about 20 minutes later, he returned with a flash drive and a letter sealed with red wax.

"The letter is for your boss, the flash drive is for you. Go open it once you reach your office. However, regarding this letter, promise me that you see this letter opened by your chief with your own two eyes, and report back to me once he has done so. You can find my phone number in the flash drive. Don't use instant messaging or any form of social media. Just call me on the phone the old-fashioned way. And, last and most importantly, don't give this letter to any other intermediary person, not even the secretary if he has employed one. Now you best get going, before you get a salary cut due to your absence."

3:11 PM. You immediately took the lift to the upper floors and gave the letter to your boss, bypassing everyone you meet. He breaks the wax seal, opens it and began reading, his face looking increasingly troubled and concerned as his eyes pass each sentence, at one point rubbing his head in thought. Halfway through the letter, he orders you back to your workstation. You begin to wonder what is going on.

En route, you remembered to call the doctor. You return to your cubicle and attach the flash drive, and instead found a folder named "1987" and a notepad text document containing the doctor's phone number. You dialled the number and informed the doctor about the letter. To your surprise, the voice was completely unlike the doctor, but that of another man, with a lighter pitch and a French accent.

"Good, good. I understand now. I know what you're thinking, but don't worry. I know about Platt too. Now, I assume he has also given you several files, am I correct? You should go open them. Don't worry about that old man. He is far more capable than what meets the eye."

You are confused as to what you should do. You begin to think about calling the police, but you are uncertain whether or not to take that course of action so quickly.

"And don't even think about calling the police. If you do, you too will be in danger. We have many enemies there, but I am a friend. You will know who I am if you read the files the doctor gave you."

Faintly, you can hear another voice, seemingly Dutch or German. You try to ask for the identity of the caller again, but all you get is this reply:

"That is irrelevant as of now. I told you that the answers are within the files. They may seem fantastic and unbelievable, but they are true. Remember that as you read."

Before you can reply, the mysterious caller adds: "I now have other affairs to attend to. Affairs which you will not know now, but you will know after you read the files. Black Swan over and out!" before ending the call.

You begin to suspect the doctor's ties to organised crime, or some form of terrorist group. However, you decide to discard all your suspicions and opened the folder. Inside the folder were several PDF files containing what appears to be handwritten pages of the doctor's journal, scanned with a scanner. The writing was messy and rather incomprehensible, like what many would expect from a doctor. You open the uppermost file, titled "000: 4 March 1987".

And so you begin reading…

...

4 March 1987, 06:45

It's going to be a special day for me. I'm expecting my 3000th visit this morning. I've come a long way since my first patient, a little girl named Emily. At that time I was only 27 years old and single. Now, Jeff is about to celebrate his 9th birthday. He's been begging me to buy a Commodore 64 microcomputer after seeing an advertisement on TV, but frankly, do we really need something like that in our house? And, if we really do need one, I see no particular difference between a Commodore 64 and a 48K Spectrum. And as for the Nintendo Entertainment System which is his alternative choice, I'm inclined not to fulfil that. Considering how Atari went bankrupt in 1984, I don't see the need to purchase a "family computer" with the sole purpose for playing games but incapable of everything else. We have arcades for that.

It is interesting how Nintendo started out as a card company, to a toy company during my university years, to a "computer" company. However, I don't think they will last long in the electronic business. Atari's bankruptcy has shown that microcomputers made solely for gaming is nothing but a fad that will come to pass. But then again, time could prove me wrong.

I should get going now. Don't want to miss this milestone. I wonder what the patient will look like.

4 March 1987, 09:21

Well, one thing's for sure, this patient has caught me off guard. He's a 7 year old boy named Harry Potter, but he has been malnourished to the point where he keeps complaining of being dizzy all the time and his ribcage is somewhat visible, similar to starving Lebanese kids during the civil war. A check into his eye sockets also raises the possibility of anaemia, and a general eye check shows that he requires glasses. I've had a serious 30-minute-long conversation with his 'caretaker,' Mr. Vernon Dursley, threatening to drag him into court under the Children and Young Persons Act of 1933 regarding ill treatment of children.

It turns out that this boy is an orphan, but I feel that something's off about him. On his forehead is a scar shaped like a lightning emblem, similar to that of the Waffen-SS. Somehow, I don't think this is a regular birthmark. Were his parents members of an occult organization, and then something killed them and forced little Harry to be entrusted to the care of someone else? He did say that his uncle Vernon didn't like him, forcing him to sleep in a small room under the stairs. I truly wonder what's really going on with this family.

I just hope it has nothing to do with demons. I've had my fair share of fighting them and even now the scars have not healed. Accursed demon swords. It really stirs my stomach when I reminisce about it even though it dates back to the 16th century.

...

You immediately stop reading, shocked. 16th century?! If this text was real, the doctor will be at least 400-something years old by now. However, according to the information you were told, Doctor Irving Platt was born in 1949 and has lived in Merton for over 30 years at the very least. Questions begin filling your mind as you leave work that evening. Is the doctor making this up? Why did the doctor ask you to personally see your boss open the letter, and even going as far as sealing the letter with red wax? Then again, the usage of red wax alone is enough to raise suspicions, as it is a very obsolete method of letter security which no longer belongs in the 21st century. What kind of dealings does the doctor have with your boss Jameson? Who was that Frenchman calling himself Black Swan? Where is your place in all this? Your head begins to hurt from all the questions in your mind. You decide to just forget all about it as you enter the tube, thinking about dinner instead.

6:50 PM. After dinner, you tried to call the mysterious number again, but repeatedly the call would not connect. You return to your apartment and decided to read another one of those journals again. Maybe, they will contain all the answers, as what the mysterious Frenchman had said. Thus, you opened your laptop and opened the next file, titled "001: 26 June 1987".