This is a work of fiction, a fan fiction. I own none of it. All claim belongs to J. K. Rowling
As I'm standing there sunned, staring down at my hand as it would be a part of me, in utter disbelief. We both just sod there stunned by my little unintentional party trick, just then my dear friend Georgy start so shriek
"Miss Amy, Miss Amy, Willy's hand turned weird... Willy's hand turned weird!" as if he saw the Devil, not an off-color hand.
His whining broke me out of my stupor and with a situation assessment so fast any spec force would be proud I realized it is in my best interest that the adults did not gain knowledge of my sudden pigmentation rearrangement, lest trey send me into some lab where the eggheads figure out how do I tick., so seeing that the grown-ups attention didn't quiet reached me, I bolted for the toilet or loo as the rest of my newly gained home country like to say. Luck was on my side, the door is near and mercifully open, no child shaped roadblock on the direct route, so I ran, out the entrance into then down the corridor right to the restroom. I quickly broke into one of the empty booths, hastily closing and locking the door. Grabbing my funny looking appendage, still trying to figure out what just happened, one my hand just turned blue, usually that does not tend to happen, two, and somehow I had to make it un-blue or me most likely toast. Three, I have to do it within now and before the...
"William dear, are you in there?" comes the concern filled voice of Miss Amy.
Crap, times up. I try to concentrate on the memory of my hand turn, hoping it would be enough to turn it back, while the otherwise caring mother figure metaphorically looms over me from behind the door as the herald of my untimely visit to the operating table.
"William dear, could you open this door, is there something wrong, did you hurt yourself?" I tense up all my muscles in the effort to recreate that feeling of warmth flowing into my hand, but it doesn't work, it's still blue and that door won't hold long against the concern filled yet still polite knocking on the door.
"Nothing is wrong Miss Amy, I just had to use the loo" I spoke through my clenched teeth as nothing else comes to my mind to save the situation, it sounded real believable, not. It made it even worse.
"William Taylor, open this door in an instant!" came the much more concern fear colored voice, it's over, I have to open it, or she will open it with her key kept for emergencies just as this. Yet it was too soon to give up, I just have to try harder, harder... Harder, and at this moment the alien feeling, before sluggish warmth shoot out into my hand. Opening my squeezed shut eyes I looked down, victory, my arm was back into is good old pastry white, English sun-kissed hue. Problem one solved, now I just have to figure out an alibi for my unusual action, and bingo, I already have it. I tore some toilet papers, crumpled the tossed into the bowl the fussed it down. A few moments for calming down and for believability's sake, then I opened the door donning a flustered yet innocent, and a bit scared face and tone.
"I'm sorry, Miss Amy, I just really needed to poo." Still on edge, I waited of the rating of my performance and bingo, years of practice did not find me wanting.
My caretaker knelt and taken hold of my hands to inspect them, finding no would or otherwise unusual difference, those coffee brown eyes lost its anxious edge.
„It's alright William, there is nothing to be scared about, but next time please do what I ask right away, alright?"
I nodded trice meekly to further sell to her my not entirely fake mix of confusion and concern. Then I was herded by her to the sink for a hand wash, the back into our communal playroom. The rest of the caretakers were too occupied to really care, after all nothing bad happened and trey worked with children every day. This fact is compounded by my near perfect imitation of a very young child with the focus being near, as it happens I did a too good job, or bad from a certain point of view, and most of my nannies came down with the mild to medium case of uncanny valley, no pitchforks or torches yet, but I sometimes catch the slightly worried looks directed at me from the corner of my eyes. This is probably the reason I wasn't so hot of a commodity at the adopting market. Most of my year-mates got a home within a few years, even glue George, but somehow trey glanced at me and said, nah, and despite being a quasi-adult in the mind it still hurt in a deeper level only a child would feel, not being wanted. On those days I was clingier to Amy, but she didn't mind, I suspect she knew why.
After the imminent danger passed I had to seriously ponder what just happened to me, my hand turned blue, and I have a glowing warm distinctly alien feeling in my chest area, and the most likely theories include that I was an alien, was experimented on by aliens, I was experimented on by the government, have superpowers, become a mutant and my personal favorite, during my soul transit I was touched by the deep ones or some other unspeakable cosmic horror. With some prodding vocally being in the 80s London with no Internet and with creative questions directed to the older kids in the house, pro-tip don't ask adults if they know anyone called Mr. Wayne or professor Xavier, I discovered that Batman and Superman are I comic books, we even have some older worn down issues in the library, nor did anybody fought in WW2 with the alias of Captain America.
My quite frankly childish hopes of becoming a rich superhero dashed and no other leads to solving this mystery I did the only thing I could, I moved on, and by moving on I mean I tried to recreate my little party trick during the night or in the loo, at first it was like moving your ears, some people can do it, in theory everybody can do it still for me the practice barely amounted to anything, at first only maybe slight discoloration some bumpiness and barely noticeable texture change. Yet it kept me going like a small fire I fed it and with time I got better. The easiest was the color then came the texture, first only on my hand, then the whole arm, after that the body. I realized in the middle of it that it went deeper than my skin, I could affect my muscles my fat, my organs or even my bones.
I was cautious despite wanting to go all out, changing my critical parts and screwing up something big time terrified me, thus kept me in check. One time I discovered something, I made myself taller and broader and to my surprise when I sat down the little child sized chair groaned under the frame of my body, which I knew it was impossible. One thing to be an alien changeling baby, the other to break one of the fundamental laws of the universe. There is no possible way that I became heavier, that mass has to come somewhere, the energy has to come somewhere, and it cannot be created from nothing. Now, the Cthulhu theory doesn't sound that insane, does it. Disturbed by this I still went forward, practiced, practiced, practiced picked up learning to play on the old guitar we had, tutored by an older redhead boy named Tod for exchange of some of my sweets rations, relearned Latin from my base knowledge of only two semesters back in the other side. Socialized with the older kids to the delight of Miss Amy my new kind of surrogate mother, Read the classics of Anglo-American literature in trey original language. Oh, and discovered that I was a superhero after all.
You see in hindsight it was obvious. One day one of the cleaning ladies, really mean old crone with a stare that promise bodily harm washed up our entire quarter while I was out to brush my teeth, being morning I left my shoes by my bed now inaccessible in pain of serious ass whopping till the copious amount of water on the ground dries up. Being in the latter half of November, I had to endure hours in my cold, wet socks. It was agonizing, so subconsciously I channeled my inner warmth into my poor little pink toes relay wanting to warm up and not to stand in wet socks, and within a minute my feet started to let off steam as the liquids evaporated. First I didn't know what happened, but then it hit me, I channeled my warmth in my socks too, I could affect the outside world with it. I could change not just me, but the world too, I have the POWER!
Turns out I did not have it, not really, at first not at all. I tried and tried but nothing, unlike my changeling power it wasn't intuitive, and it was situational. Rarely working, never to command, in vastly different ways in mostly random times, I say mostly because I discovered that the overwhelming majority of activity was at events with heightened or disturbed emotional state or in the perceived presence of danger. In laymen terms, if I was angry, sad, happy or frightened. The conclusion was that the deciding factors were psychological, the reactions were, instinctual and linked to the flight or fight reactions. So with why it happened, when it happened solved, the question that remained was why it happened so specifically fitted to the situation and that was a bit trickier. So came my fifth birthday and the time of experimenting in the only way I knew how, putting myself into mortal or more precisely perceived mortal danger. You see the brain is a machine within a good measure for danger, but it can be tricked because it measures danger subconsciously, this is why you can train yourself to run into burning houses, jump out of an airplane or walk down a minefield while under fire. So I did just that, numbed down my pain sensors, strengthened my bones, joints and organs and jumped out of the window wanting to be saved, thickened my skin making air bubbles between layers for insulation then put them into fire wanting to be untouched.
It worked, most of the time, the came phase two, doing the same but wanting something unrelated, jumping out of the window but wanting the bush to catch on fire, braving the flames but wanting to break a twig. This part was more difficult working less of the time, but worked nonetheless, three months four broken bones and a dozen sprained ankles, knees, shoulders, finger plus innumerable little burns bruises and cuts later I cracked it like one of my tooth. Science bitch. With the keys in my hand, and more suspicious glances on me as the official weird kid, the only thing left was separating the act from the catalyst, slowly lowering the fear and memorizing the feeling of the warmth flow and the will behind the act. The time spring of 83 came around I succeeded, without doing any dangerous stunt I could break twigs, light fires, froze over puddles, cushion my falls, and lift pebbles. The Force was with me.
So was with the rest of the orphanage, cause one day new hope arrived into our life in the form of a 35 mm film tape, and kids abandoned, wishing for a better life in the bleak reality within these walls loved it. Overnight every kid wanted to be a hero, to do cool things, fly with spaceships save the hot princess and wield laser swords. I honestly can tell that I had a small hand on firing up the younglings, but I loved the hype, reminded me of my old life, plus it served one more purpose. This is how it happened that while trey practiced with sticks and hand gestures I did it IRL, it was a godsend cause after my earlier stunts the surrounding surveillance grown much until this point, now I could hide in the masses of aspiring space wizards. We even got the Empire Strikes Back for Christmas after a poor little orphan letter campaign to Lucas films, with the ideal originating from my humble mass media raised self.
It even got into national news. We got the film, trey got great press for relatively cheap. Win, win. Trey eve sent the final movie, for twenty years at least, in the spring of 85 as a broader wandering cinema program for children without homes, what a champ.