Jonathan was almost a year old now, and with each passing week, the fuzziness of his baby brain gave way to clearer perception. Sounds had edges. Colors had contrast. Faces finally stopped looking like smudged potatoes. His coordination was still hilariously bad, but at least he could sit up without toppling like a domino.
And today?
Today, he was going outside.
Bundled into a soft, cozy baby carrier strapped to his mother's chest, Jonathan blinked at the light filtering through the trees. It was autumn. Crisp air, crunchy leaves, and the faint smell of chimney smoke in the distance.
Annabeth Grace strolled down the sidewalk, humming softly as her boots crunched the gravel. "Isn't it a lovely day, Jonathan? We'll stop by the corner shop, maybe peek at the bakery—unless your father's eaten all the scones again."
Jonathan gurgled, half listening, half absorbing everything.
Then he heard something strange.
Two people in long brown coats and weird scarves were chatting in hushed but excited tones outside a flower shop. One of them—a woman with frizzy red hair—whispered just loudly enough:
"I still can't believe he's gone! You-Know-Who, vanquished by a baby! Little Harry Potter... what a miracle."
"Did you hear? The Ministry's in chaos. Muggles saw the fireworks, but no one's blaming it on magic. Typical."
Jonathan's eyes went wide.
'Wait—what? Harry Potter? You-Know-Who?!'
His baby heart raced.
'No way. No flipping way.'
He turned his tiny head toward the strange pair, trying not to look too obvious, which, for a one-year-old, wasn't hard.
Annabeth passed close by, smiling politely. "Lovely weather, isn't it?"
The man chuckled. "It's more than that, madam! It's a day to remember! The Dark Lord's fallen, and the Boy-Who-Lived is safe!"
His mother blinked. "Well. That's… certainly something. I'm Annabeth Grace, and this little wriggler is Jonathan. My husband's Michael—he'd be here, but he's off trying to make our toaster print coupons."
Jonathan groaned internally.
'Why are my parents so aggressively normal?'
---
Later that evening, back in his room, Jonathan lay in his crib in silent shock.
'So it's real. This is the Harry Potter world. The You-Know-Who one. The Dumbledore's-grand-master-plan one. The everything-I-binged-on-YouTube one.'
He stared at the ceiling, eyes blazing with the thrill of realization.
'Okay. Alright. Game on.'
With fresh motivation, he focused on the internal energy—the IE—that had served him so far. If this was truly magic, then it had to be compatible with what he'd trained.
He whispered a word in his mind. 'Lumos'.
Nothing.
He whispered another. Wingardium Leviosa.
The toy car on the shelf twitched.
Then wobbled.
Then lifted—barely—half a centimeter off the wood before it plopped back down.
Jonathan's mouth dropped open.
'Yes. YES! It's real. It's primitive, it's weak, but it's real!'
He lay back, panting from effort, but smiling.
Then a colder thought slithered into his mind.
'Wait… Snape. Dumbledore. Legilimency.'
Mind reading.
Magical. Terrifying. Often instant.
He needed protection.
He couldn't build a true mind palace before—but now? With memories forming and a proper goal?
He closed his eyes and began.
---
Constructing the Firewall
He imagined a black digital space—a server room glowing with blue lines and flickering icons. Walls of code ran like waterfalls across panels. His memories appeared as files, carefully encrypted, each tagged and sorted into folders.
His old life: `C:/Archive/Grace-USA/`
His IE theories: `D:/ManaSim/Internal/`
His favorite anime plot twists: `Z:/Critical_References/FMA/`
To anyone trying to intrude, the outside of the mind-palace would appear like a firewall: layers of decoy code, memory traps, and fake "baby thoughts" looping endlessly.
He imagined a blinking warning above the gate:
"Unauthorized Access Detected. Initiating Anti-Intrusion Protocol."
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even strong, not yet.
But it was something.
His first defense against the coming world.
--
Later, as the sun dipped low, his dad stepped into the room holding a bowl of mashed carrots and a spoon shaped like an aeroplane.
"There's my little lad," Michael said with a warm smile. "Time for supper, eh? Let's get this down you before you start fussin' like a kettle on the boil."
Jonathan snorted.
'Much better. Less Silicon Valley, more BBC Dad Hour.'
Annabeth peeked in from the hallway. "He did something odd earlier, Michael. I swear he moved the spoon without touching it."
Michael raised an eyebrow. "What, like—floated it? What've you been watchin', love, Tomorrow's World?"
"I'm serious! Just a little flick of his hand, and it wobbled off the table."
He stared at Jonathan, half-playful, half-intrigued. "You tryin' to tell us somethin', eh? Gonna grow up to be the next Paul Daniels?"
Jonathan gave him an innocent baby grin.
'I'm going to break your entire understanding of reality by age seven, old man.'
Michael chuckled and dipped the spoon into the mash. "Right then. Open the hangar, here comes the aeroplane—brum brum!"
Jonathan opened his mouth. He figured if he ate quietly, they'd never know he was also preparing to take on the magical equivalent of Cold War espionage from the safety of a crib.