The farce born of their own paranoia had run its course.
Once the boys had calmed down enough to breathe, Soren got ready for the real performance.
He still hadn’t put Sean down.
Keeping him dangling in midair served as a nice reminder of who held the power.
“Right.
Back to business.
Where was I?”
Soren paced unhurriedly before them, back and forth like a drill instructor working a line of recruits.
“Oh, yes.
I said I wanted to talk to you.
About something serious.”
His gaze swept across the group one by one, and every muscle in their bodies locked up again.
“Your future.”
The word hung in the air.
The tension drained from their faces, replaced by confused glances at each other.
Nobody had expected Soren to come kicking down their door for something this bizarre.
But after the magic he’d just demonstrated, nobody dared to speak first, either.
Soren hadn’t been waiting for a response.
He stopped pacing and looked up at his hanging decoration.
“Take Sean here.
If I remember right, you’re due for secondary school next year, aren’t you?”
Mouth still hanging open, Sean nodded blankly.
The near-death experience had not yet released its grip on his brain.
“Except your grades are rubbish and you’ve got no talents to speak of.
You’ll end up at the worst school that’ll take you, and university is a pipe dream.
Your life forks down two paths.”
“Path one: you drop out, pick up odd jobs, end up homeless, or join a gang and become the kind of thug even dogs cross the street to avoid.”
“Path two: you actually graduate.
If you can keep your nose clean, maybe you’ll land some back-breaking gig pumping gas, scanning groceries, or waiting tables.
Take your pick.”
“Neither option comes with much dignity, do you think?”
His words hit like salt in an open wound.
Sean’s face flushed redder than the oxygen deprivation had ever managed.
His mouth opened and closed, working toward a comeback that never arrived.
The sight of him looking like a boiled lobster drew muffled snorts from a few onlookers.
Before Sean could blow his top, Soren’s eyes were already moving, locking onto the loudest snickerer.
“Henry.
You find something funny?”
The named boy flinched, every limb suddenly uncertain of its own placement.
“I… You are reading on g.com, the official source.
I wasn’t, I just thought…”
“You don’t need to think.” Soren cut him off without a glance.
“Your grades are any better?
You’ve never passed a maths exam in your life, and the rest aren’t far behind.
Give it two years, how different will your future look from Sean’s?”
“And you, and you, and you,” his finger swept the room, “and you.”
He called out every single one who’d laughed.
Not only did he nail every name, he delivered a precise assessment of each boy’s academic standing.
None of them had known Soren paid this much attention to their lives.
The shock was absolute.
Having dismantled them one by one, Soren shook his head with the weary disappointment of a man who’d expected better.
“Look at the lot of you.
Day after day, nothing but games and nonsense.
Not a single thought about what comes next?
You’re not severely disabled.
The government and the orphanage aren’t going to carry you forever.”
Their breathing quickened.
The color drained from their faces.
Soren pressed the attack.
“Or maybe you simply don’t care what happens to you.
Maybe you’re perfectly content to sink deeper into the muck, to prove every last kid who calls us bastards absolutely right.”
That word landed like a blade between the ribs.
British school bullying had a notorious reputation worldwide, the statistics claiming one in five students was a victim.
And those were numbers from a decade or two later.
The nineties were worse.
Even at Hogwarts, even the famous Boy Who Lived couldn’t escape being targeted.
These orphans at Brent, who had nothing and no one, stood no chance.
Soren himself had nearly been a target when he first enrolled.
That was what had changed him, what had made him aggressive and unyielding, what had driven him to crush every poorly raised brat who crossed him and teach them the meaning of manners.
But his strength wasn’t theirs.
They’d never had parents.
No family love, no discipline.
Getting bullied at school on top of that, their poor grades couldn’t be laid entirely at their own feet.
The problem was, not every child had the maturity to see things clearly.
Soon enough the complaints started, a chorus of self-pity and defeatism spilling from young mouths.
Watching the righteous anger spread across their faces, Soren knew the timing was right.
One more splash of hot oil and the dish would be done.
He finally leveled his wand, lowering Sean back to solid ground.
Then he pointed the tip at his own face and switched to a voice thick with pride.
“I, on the other hand, am nothing like you.
Not only are my grades excellent, not only am I brilliant, I’m a wizard.
I’m about to attend a school of magic.”
I’ll brew potions that can do the impossible.
I’ll earn glory, build a reputation, amass wealth, and perhaps even cheat death itself.”
“My life and your lives could not be more different.
The gap between us is something you couldn’t fathom if you spent a thousand years trying.”
Silence.
The dead, absolute kind.
The boys stared at him, bewildered.
Why was he saying such cruel things?
Had he come all this way just to lecture them and then flaunt his own brilliance?
Well, if that was the goal, he’d nailed it.
After envy came something darker.
A twisted resentment began to take root.
Why should Soren succeed while orphans like them were doomed to mediocrity and insignificance?
Why should someone from the same nothing, the same nowhere, be the one to climb out while they rotted?
Why?
The bitterness was genuine.
A sudden urge rose in them to drag him down into the muck too, to make him suffer alongside them.
And right on cue, Soren’s tone pivoted one hundred and eighty degrees.
“I’m not telling you this to boast.
I’m telling you because I want you to understand something.”
He stopped walking.
His gaze swept slowly across the room, the sheer weight of his presence forcing every boy to hold his breath, afraid to show even a flicker of hostility.
Under the eyes of every soul present, Soren raised his wand.
The tip pointed straight up, like a sword drawn from its sheath, and his voice rang out with absolute conviction:
“I am different.”
“I am capable.”
“I will succeed.”
“I can be a worthy leader, and I am willing to share honor and success with my followers, my partners, my collaborators.
And right now, I am looking for people I can trust.”
The words echoed through the empty classroom, fading long after he’d finished speaking.
The boys looked at Soren, at the deadly seriousness in his eyes, and something clicked.
The resentment evaporated.
In its place rose a fire, fierce and bright.
Sean, who led these boys and had never been short on nerve, held out as long as he could before blurting the question: “You mean…
us?”
His voice wavered, stripped of all confidence.
Soren met him with a tone that carried no doubt at all, confirming the guess Sean hadn’t dared to believe:
“That’s right.
Why not?”