By the time I turned six, my life had become a relentless training montage.
Gone were the days when I could just giggle at a floating apple or spin a spoon with a flick of my mind. Now, every sunrise brought a new drill. Grandfather Alistair would march into my room, cane in hand, his voice sharp as flint.
"Up, Eliot! Posture, shoulders back. The Clarke name isn't carried by slouching."
He'd lead me through morning exercises—running laps around the garden, climbing trees, even balancing on slippery stones in the creek behind our house. By breakfast, my legs ached, but there was no rest. Etiquette lessons followed, where I learned to bow, to speak with dignity, to pour tea without spilling a drop.
And every evening, as the sun dipped behind the hills, we practiced wandless magic. Grandfather would light a row of candles with a snap of his fingers, then snuff them out with a wave.
"Again," he'd say, watching me sweat and strain, trying to coax a single flame to dance.
Apparently, magical blood came with responsibilities.
"You carry the Clarke name," Grandpa would remind me, tapping my back with his cane until I stood tall. "It's not enough to have magic—you must wield it with dignity."
The world outside was still trembling from the shadow of a dark tyrant—Lord Voldemort, I'd overheard in hushed conversations. Grandpa didn't speak of it much, but the fear lingered in the corners of the house, like smoke after a fire. He said our family had chosen isolation over bloodshed, kept their heads down.
But now, with my "awakening," that had changed. He said it was time for me to reclaim the Clarke legacy.
It was too much.
I was six. Even with all the memories of Nikhil, the jaded Hyderabad programmer, some days I just wanted to be a kid. To breathe. To do something fun. Something that felt like me.
That's when I remembered my old obsession: Iron Man.
Tony Stark had always been my hero—a symbol of genius, grit, and second chances. He didn't need magic. He built his own destiny, piece by piece, with nothing but his mind, his pain, and a stubborn refusal to give up. He was flawed, arrogant, brilliant—and real in a way most magical heroes weren't.
So, I did what I always did when the world felt too heavy: I wrote.
Each night, after lessons, I'd sneak into the attic with a stub of candle and a stack of parchment. I wrote the story exactly as I remembered it: modern-day, Afghanistan, the Jericho missile, shrapnel in the chest, the cave, the arc reactor, the first suit hammered together from scraps.
The only change? I named the protagonist Charles Clarke—after my father.
One afternoon, I found Papa in the sitting room, sipping tea and reading the Daily Prophet. I shuffled up, clutching my manuscript.
"Papa," I asked, "do you want to be a superhero? Someone who saves people?"
He looked at me over his glasses, brow furrowed. "What sort of question is that, Eliot?"
I grinned. "I'm writing a story. I want to use your name for the main character. Is that okay?"
He stared at me, silent and searching. Then, to my surprise, his eyes filled with tears. He set his cup down and pulled me into a hug—strong, warm, real.
"Eliot… No one's ever seen me like that. Not even myself. Thank you, son."
A week later, the manuscript was finished.
It was Iron Man 1, beat for beat. No magic, no wands, no runes. Just one man—Charles Clarke—a weapons engineer caught in a war zone, building the first Iron Man suit in a cave to survive, then deciding to change the world.
It was unapologetically tech, unapologetically modern, unapologetically human.
I gave it to Papa and told him to publish it under a pen name: DSK—a nod to my old nickname from my corporate days: Dumb Software Kaidi.
A little poetic irony.
The book exploded.
Muggles devoured it. They called it gritty, brilliant, a breath of fresh air among all the fantasy. Papa was stunned. Letters poured in from publishers. Reviewers called DSK a visionary. Some compared "Charles Clarke" to a modern Sherlock Holmes in armor.
Then Grandpa found it.
I braced for a scolding.
Instead, he smirked, holding the manuscript between two fingers.
"So, this is what you've been up to," he said, eyebrow raised.
He didn't even blink at the high-tech setting. Instead, he nodded, respecting the execution, the structure, the spirit of rebellion. He made a few calls. Got it printed—unchanged—in the magical world. Still under DSK.
To my shock, wizards loved it too.
They were fascinated—not just by the character, but by the idea. A man with no wand, no spellbook, no magical lineage. Just logic, tools, and the will to survive.
"Is this possible in the Muggle world?" they asked.
"Can one really power a flying suit with pure electricity?"
"Why doesn't the Ministry have armor like this?"
Some thought it was a true story. Others called it an allegory. A few conspiracy nuts started drawing wild connections between Charles Clarke and old wandless dueling legends.
It didn't matter.
A storm had begun.
Fan mail poured in from both worlds.
Will there be a sequel?
Is the suit enchanted in secret?
Is Charles Clarke a Muggle-born war hero in hiding?
I wasn't even allowed to go to the bakery alone anymore.
But now, people believed in tech heroes. Even in a world ruled by magic.
Grandpa doubled my training.
"Now the world expects great things from you," he said, eyes twinkling. "You've set the bar high."
But I didn't mind.
Because deep down, I knew what I'd done.
I'd rewritten Iron Man. And I gave him my father's name.
I was Eliot Clarke. Born Nikhil.
And maybe—just maybe—I was starting to leave my own mark on this world.