Within the headmaster's office at Hogwarts, the ancient Book of Admittance was lying closed beside a feathered Quill of Acceptance. When Vale's magic erupted in a moment of pure emotional desperation, the quill stirred. It hesitated—a flickering, trembling pause unlike any ever recorded—before finally scratching his name into the page.
Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall took quiet note of the event.
"Minerva," Dumbledore said softly, eyes fixed on the softly glowing book, "it hesitated. The Quill hovered for almost a full minute before writing the name."
"That has never happened before," McGonagall whispered. "Do you think it's—"
"Something we have never seen," Dumbledore murmured, closing the book gently.
A sense of foreboding subsumed him just then. Though void of malice, it felt much too silent. Like the chirping of crickets.
Calm.
An eerie kind of calm.
* * *
"…"
Just a few steps out the door, the night's shroud of darkness became apparent. The sleepless hustle and bustle of New York City he once knew was no longer there, instead replaced by the quiet suburban English neighbourhood of the 1980s.
'Perhaps running away might be a bad idea,' Vale fell into thought.
Stepping out with a child's body was even more problematic. Vale wasn't sure how society functioned in this time and place. Would he be sent to the police at first glance? Or, would he find himself in a more insidious situation?
He wasn't sure.
Therefore, there were too many risks included in his spontaneous plan.
'Do I have no choice but to suffer from abuse?'
—Tsk.
Realising that there were still benefits with being under the same roof, Vale walked back into the house, musing as he heard the muffled groans of his foster parents.
'Pitiful… Perhaps this incident would be enough to deter them in the future, no?'
A smirk played on Vale's lips as he kicked the man's skull a few times. Although his toes creaked, threatening to break, he thought that it was worth it.
Slamming his heels onto the man's jaw with all his weight was the final piece — knocking the man back into deep unconsciousness.
'…Good,'
He then did the same to the woman and child who had simply stood by and watched it all happen. They were not worth his kindness… And he needed them to stay unconscious a little bit longer.
It was a cold rationale.
After all, he needed time to think.
Time he wouldn't have been given had they all woken up to a destroyed house.
'I'll call the police as well, chalk this up to some freak attack. I can also use this opportunity to… accuse them of whatever I want to.'
A flash of machiavellian insight criss-crossed in Vale's eyes.
Hurriedly, his footsteps moved through the house, depending on vague memories of a life that hadn't been his own.
Eventually, he found the items he needed.
'This should do…'
—Whip!
Vale checked the integrity of the rope in his hands, surveying the roughness of its fine make, as well as the durability of its fibres.
'I need an effective narrative…'
A sly smile began spreading across his face.
* * *
After finding enough rope to bind the family's hands and feet, Vale tied them all to a single chair.
'Wait, no… That's not right.'
Reframing his train of thought, Vale decided to unbind the man, dragging his weight across the room to the nearby stove.
Vale twisted the kitchen's ancient gas valve fully open, letting the sharp scent of danger bleed into the air. He shoved a towel under the doorframe to slow the leak's escape.
'My foster father should be far enough to survive, but burns will make the story believable…' he thought, adjusting the rope that bound the mother and daughter.
It was a scene meticulously built to portray domestic violence.
Vale looked at the time.
'It has been a few minutes, yet no one from the Ministry of Magic has come and investigated my magical surge. Even Dumbledore hasn't acted.'
Either they couldn't detect it… or they chose not to. Maybe they wanted to see what would happen.
A small sense of trouble was bubbling up within his heart. Everything was going according to his initial plans — Plan B, C, D, and E had no use despite being the true plans he wished to execute.
'If I can't get the attention of those wizards despite clearly being an Obscurial…'
Vale shook his head.
In a way, this worked.
—Hoooo,
After taking a deep breath, he then lit his match and threw it into the room behind him. As the match flew, his senses screamed danger.
Instinctively, a black mist flowed out of his body, shielding him from what was to come.
—BOOM!
* * *
'Looking at my own unconscious body is… jarring, to say the least.'
Drifting as a mass of nearly-invisible smoke, Vale realised that, as an Obscurus, he had left his host Obscurial and was now somewhat free to roam around.
'This isn't like the depiction in Fantastic Beasts.' He thought as his form shifted and churned.
'Is it because both I and the body I parasitise are essentially both states of myself?'
Judging from Vale's previous memories, he had already gone past the age of 10. The average lifespan of an Obscurial had been reached long ago. Perhaps the death of the original had been what allowed Vale to arrive today.
'Perhaps that is also why the Ministry of Magic hasn't arrived — or why Dumbledore isn't around.'
Vale pondered upon the situation as he heard sirens blaring in the distance.
'My current state is unique.'
It was something he had to study before even progressing on the path of orthodox magic.
'Otherwise, some people's… curiosity… may be detrimental to me.'
A shiver ran through his spine.
Becoming a guinea pig wasn't on his bucket list in both lifetimes. If, before, there were laws against human experimentation, then the world of dark wizards likely wouldn't be kind to him.
It was a fear-inducing thought, to say the least.
With his acceptance letter for Hogwarts coming in the summer, Vale had to prepare himself before the world would come crashing down upon him.
Being in the same year as Harry Potter would thus be a blessing — there would be someone more eye-catching that him. The title of the Saviour, and The Boy Who Lived would be much greater than his own.
…As long as no one discovered his unique state as a symbiotic Obscurial.