lookalike || R. LUPIN

CHAPTER ONE

★★★

"But when you look in his eyes, do you think of mine?"

★★★

Charlie Atkinson was having a crisis.

To be fair, the boy had a new crisis every other weekday, and although his friends would brush him off, he was actually having an honest to God crisis this time. Honestly, he was!

It didn't look right. He couldn't pinpoint what it was, but something was wrong.

The fog on the mirror sloped downwards towards the linoleum counter top, dully reflecting white towel that he ran across it to clear a space to see. The smeared mirror stared back at him, Charlie's green eyes questioning everything he saw. 

Something was wrong.

Imaging someone walked into your room and moved everything an inch to the left without telling you. You would walk in thinking everything was okay, until you saw what happened, but you didn't know what it was. You'd pace around the room, searching for the cause of your off putting feeling, and return fruitless in your efforts. 

You knew something was wrong, but at the same time, everything looked exactly the same.

That's how Charlie felt. Kinda.

He braced his arms on the edge of the sink, staring thoughtfully into the smeared clean portion of the mirror, feeling the water bead off of his wet hair  and drip onto his cheeks.

Everything was the same! He was going to drive himself mad, but he swore that something was wrong, the only issue was, he didn't know what. 

Five year old Charles burst into the kitchen with a toothy grin on his face and a baseball in his hand. A kind faced lady adorned with an apron and a baby bump smiled lovingly at her sons as the youngest one proudly announced that he 'did it, Ma! I beat him!'

'Aw, c'mon, you so cheated!'

'Nuh-uh!'

'Yes-huh!'

'Nu—'

'Boys, what on earth happened?' Marie Atkinson asked, smiling knowingly at her sons. Mud was splattered all over their clothes and smeared on their faces as she ushered them towards the kitchen chairs.

"I finally hit more balls than Jakey!'

'I told you, stop calling me that, and I was distracted!'

'Pshh, not e—hmph!'

Marie roughly scrubbed Charlie's muddy face with a washcloth and dipped it back in a bucket of water, moving on to Jake's face.

"Well, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the big leagues won't know what hit 'em when you two come their way," she smiled, eyes full of adoration while looking at her son's lit up faces.

The brothers had a makeshift mini baseball field in their backyard, and had taken it upon themselves to play every day, rain or shine. A little mud never hurt anybody (except their pregnant mom, who had to clean it up weekly).

'Charlie, are you bleeding?'

A thin stream of blood dropped out of his small mouth as Marie gasped.

'Open your mouth, honey' she gazed into the little boy's mouth as he said 'aaahhh'  in a high pitched voice, like he was at the dentist, staring up at the ceiling. 

'What is it? Did he break his jaw? Neat!" Jake questioned, eyes hopeful.

"No, that would absolutely not be neat, Jake. And, it looks like you lost your first tooth, Charles!' she cheered, watching her youngest son's face light up.

"Yes! Wait, does that mean...'

'Tooth Fairy money!' Jake yelled, grinning. He danced around the kitchen as their dog Max jumped at his feet. 'Let's split it fifty-fifty, since I'm the one that pushed you over and made you lose it!'

'You pushed him over?' Marie interrogated, furrowing her eyebrows her oldest son. The boy stopped in his tracks, innocently widening his eyes as he stammered,

'Uh... no..?

Charles let out a small giggle, covering his mouth with his small, muddy fist as the ends of his dark hair turned pink in amusement.

His dark hair turned pink in...wait..

'What on earth?'

'Woah, that's so cool!'

Charles Atkinson was a Metamorphagus.

Being born to two muggle parents in Alabama, you could reasonably say Charlie was surprised when he realized he could change his hair color when he thought hard enough.

And his eye color.

And nose shape.

Ears.

Everything, eventually, with practice.

Many afternoons were spend with his older brother sitting on Charlie's bunk bed, with him scrunching his nose up and furrowing his eyebrows as the six year old concentrated fully on changing his purple hair. 

Eventually he learned to control it. Jake still thought it was totally awesome to have a little brother with 'superpowers'(it made for some totally awesome superhero games around the yard with their dog as their sidekick.)

Anyways, back to his mega-crisis.

Visiting his grandparents during the summer was always a good time, but a small comment about 'Look how much you've changed!' really set off this whole issue.

Had he changed? Was it a normal aging kind of change, or a Metamorphagus change? 

There was no way for him to tell if he looked like he was meant to. Hell, as a kid, he could've thought a stranger's nose looked cool, and unknowingly changed his own into it. 

The same thing goes for just about everything he could change. Was he really himself, or just the sum of many strangers parts?

Who was he, really? 

He felt entirely too disingenuous with himself. He felt like a liar, like he wasn't himself, but some image he had unknowingly painted instead.

So yeah, Charles Atkinson was having a crisis. 

An identity crisis.

Great. 

-------------------

A Metamorphagus with an identity crisis!

(and I know the whole 'metamorphagus' thing is overwritten, but maybe this will be better than some cliched ones! hopefully lol) 

Also, I wrote about seven chapters of this at 3:00 in the morning, so if they suck, cut me some slack. 

Thanks for reading, and more coming soon!

-a.d.