(Arcane Tinker) Chapter 6: Paranormal Classification

Chapter 6: Paranormal Classification

5 June 1991, Willowbrook Village

Dean would have shaken her hand if he wasn’t too occupied freaking out when he read the cover of the book that she had picked up from the ground, ‘Neville Longbottom and the Dragon of Destiny’. What the actual fuck?

Dean couldn’t help but wonder why there was a book about Neville Longbottom. A children’s book, from the look of it. He wanted to freak out, at least as much as he should have, but restrained himself. He didn’t know enough to make any judgments.

Calmly, he spoke up in a neutral tone, “What is that?”

Jack, his guide, followed his gaze and grinned, “Oh, it’s just some book. I didn’t know Lisa still read those. I think they’re supposed to be for very young children.”

“Hey, it’s a very nice story. And Neville Longbottom will be going to Hogwarts in my year, I just want to be prepared.”

The girl was obviously embarrassed; her entire face was turning pink. This, however, seemed to egg Jack even more, “What do you think is going to happen at Hogwarts? Are you seriously expecting Neville Longbottom to go out with the girl who answers the most trivia questions about his books?”

Before she could retort, Dean interrupted them, “Who’s Neville Longbottom?”

Both of their eyes widened, and Jack spoke up first, “Sorry, I forgot how new you were. Neville Longbottom is a celebrity of some sort. Ten years ago, there was a civil war. I won’t bore you with the details; you’ll probably learn everything in your History of Magic classes. I think a summary of recent history and the workings of the government should be in your first semester of that class. Too bad it takes a pretty big nosedive after third year with that useless ghost teaching it.”

Lisa, though, rolled her eyes and interrupted him, “He doesn’t need a history lesson. Look, there was a war, the bad guys were called Death Eaters and had this leader, Voldemort. He was strong, like crazy strong, and terrifying. He killed everyone in his way but one day, he attacked the Longbottom family – they’re a pretty old one in Britain – who fought against him. He killed Frank and Alice Longbottom, but when he tried to kill Neville, who was a baby at the time, the spell bounced back and killed him. He saved the entire country. They call him the boy who lived. It’s a silly nickname, but it stuck. It was very well known that whoever fought Voldemort ended up dead, most of the time in seconds. Neville Longbottom was the only one to have survived him.”

The first thing he had noticed was that people called Voldemort by his name. They didn’t flinch and call him ‘he who must not be named’ or something, which was a bit unusual but in a good way. Dean remembered how annoying it was to read the way people tried to avoid saying his name out of fear.

The second thing was that Neville Longbottom was somehow the boy who lived. The main question was what happened to Harry Potter. The book series was literally named after him. He already knew that he wasn’t exactly in the same world as the stories. After all, it was written for children, so things might be different, but for the hero of the story to be someone else, he couldn't help but wonder what else could be different.

He focused on something else, “How did he do that?”

“No one knows. A few people said that he activated his magic somehow as a one-year-old, but no one confirmed it. His grandmother hasn’t really said anything either. That’s the thing. No one heard anything from the Longbottom family ever since that night. But by law, Longbottom will have to attend Hogwarts, which is why everyone is so excited,” Jack summarised.

“What about this Voldemort? What magic did he have?” Dean asked.

“That’s the worst thing. No one knows. He could speak to snakes, but that can’t have been it. Wand magic is known to be weaker than individual magic. Not to mention, a lot harder. But that man was able to keep up with any and every single fighter and kill them in seconds. It’s what made him so terrifying.”

Dean nodded, deciding to process the information even further. He couldn’t really rely on the words of a teenager and a young girl. He would need to research this further at Hogwarts.

His musings were interrupted by Lisa asking him, “So, what’s your magic then?”

“I don’t know yet.”

She flinched slightly and gave him a pitying look, “Try not to say that to anyone around here. If you don’t have any magic you can use right now, then you’re defenceless. The other people here aren’t always the nicest of the bunch. They’ll take advantage of your weakness and steal your stuff. You need to be especially careful after you go to Diagon Alley. They’ll steal everything they can without being punished.”

Dean gave her an incredulous look, “And the matrons don’t do anything about that?”

Lisa rolled her eyes, “No offence, but you’ve only met one of them, and even then, she was being especially nice. As long as we don’t make too much noise, blow things up, and make trouble, they don’t care what we do. It’s less work that way. They mostly say that it’s a good way to learn how the world works, and that we don’t need to be coddled. A bunch of nonsense, but it probably makes them sleep easier at night.”

Jack interrupted with a smile on his face, “Don’t worry though, wands, robes, cauldrons, and schoolbooks are off-limits. You’re probably going to get some of the used stuff that the matrons keep locked up in their cupboard.”

Was he trying to comfort him or something? If so, it wasn’t working. As if it wasn’t enough that he had to deal with the fact that he couldn’t even rely on the Harry Potter books, he also had to deal with kids with magic with a gang mentality.

He would deal with this later. He had all the time in the world to freak out, “Why would she keep the books locked up?”

“There used to be a small library with the extra books from old graduates. But someone used to steal and sell them to second-hand stores in the alley. They practically removed a quarter of the books before the matrons were able to hide the books. Now they give everyone the books specifically, and we have to return them at the end of the year. We could sometimes borrow one at a time if we have homework, but you need to show the matrons the assignment first.”

Holy shit, was this some kind of prison or something? There was a gang of stronger kids that wanted to steal his stuff, the matrons logging and controlling books like contraband. And that was just what he figured out in a single conversation. Dean couldn’t help but wonder if that was why the matron changed so much the moment they entered the building.

Sure, taking care of magical children, especially with half of them traumatised from the magical activation and who could probably use their magic at will, was not an easy task, but this was beyond going overboard. The matrons sounded more like disciplinarians than caregivers.

All in all, Dean wouldn’t judge before looking for himself, but things didn’t sound good. To be fair to them, having someone stealing the books in the probably meagre library was bound to trigger a severe response.

Yet, this was supposed to be an orphanage, not some military camp.

Still, there was something bugging him, though. He turned towards Lisa and asked, “And the Neville Longbottom book?”

“We have our allowance, and we can go to Diagon Alley if we ask. We’re allowed to buy anything we want, as long as it’s not too dangerous. There’s a contraband list in their office if you want to check. Mostly, just avoid dangerous stuff and anything that could make a disturbance, like Dung bombs and prank items. One last thing, did the matron tell you about the magic rule?”

Dean gave her a questioning look, “No magic allowed outside the property lines, right?”

“That’s the gist of it. Believe me, if you do something bad enough to need a warning letter or worse, obliviators involved. Getting a letter in your fine is an easy way to end up as a hit-wizard in a containment facility or maybe even worse.”

“Containment facility? As in a prison?”

Jack decided to interrupt him, “I don’t think it’s a good topic of conversation for your first day. Besides, you’ll have to do something really bad to end up there. Don’t worry, you’ll have all the time in the world to learn this in Hogwarts, so why don’t you relax a bit?”

Lisa looked like she wanted to say something before deflating, “Fine. Let’s talk about something else. Did anyone tell you about magical classifications?”

Dean shook his head, and she brightened, “Ah, well, wand magic is divided into a lot of different fields, but our individual magic tends to be a lot wilder and harder to replicate, so the ICW created an entire system to categorise them. There are a lot of categories, like a lot, but most people’s magic is a combination of a select few. For example, my magic, which I call mage hand, is labelled as psionic. It means that it’s either connected to telepathy or telekinesis. Jack, here, is an elemental, which, as it says, has to do with control over elements, in his case, Wind Blasts.”

He gave the girl a questioning look, “Seriously? What are the others?”

Jack was the one to answer this time, “There are a lot of others, Clairvoyants, which include seers and the like. There’s Changers, which involves any sort of magical transformation, and there’s also Enchanters, which involves giving magical properties to things. Those who specialise in enchanting objects tend to have some pretty nice careers. There’s also Warders, who can manipulate certain areas, give them properties and so on. They tend to be very wanted to put protection on properties. Finally, the most mysterious kind, Arcanists. Their magic can’t be put into any other categories. They tend to be pretty dangerous and unpredictable. Most people think that Lord Voldemort was one, too. Anyway, these aren’t some strict categories, just a common way to talk about your magic.”

Dean was very thoughtful at that. Psionics, Elementals, Changers, Clairvoyants, Enchanters, Warders, and Arcanist. It was an efficient way to separate the population, even if it there could be mistakes.

He also couldn’t help but think about the implications of dividing the population like this. Would certain classes get together out of a sense of belonging, or would they separate the magical population, creating invisible walls and barriers between classes, which would inevitably have caused even more tensions. It was probably the latter. It might be his pessimism talking, but he couldn’t help but make comparisons to the Hogwarts houses. At least, in the books that is. Friendships between students in different houses were very rare, especially for the younger students.

How was the ministry handling such an obvious separation of the population and the inevitable tensions between classes?

All these questions made him give Jack a questioning look, “What if someone has two categories, like someone that can turn into fire and control it while doing so. What would their classification be?”

Jack rolled his eyes, “It’s not exactly a science. It’s perfectly possible to have more than one class. And classes aren’t absolute. For example, there was this guy a few decades back who could make himself strong and fast at will. They classified him as an Enchanter. There’s also the guy who could figure out the weak points in any magic. He was classified as a Clairvoyant, and the guy who could tame Hippogryphs, he was classified as both a Psionic and Clairvoyant, since there were some telepathic components to it, but also some sort of implicit understanding of the creatures.”

Dean stayed, processing this, “So, what should I do, since I don’t know what my magic is?”

The older boy looked thoughtful for a bit before answering, “People tend to be terrified of Clairvoyants, and with good reason. It’s a reason why there’s an entire department of them in the DMLE. We all know stories about some Clairvoyant who destroyed lives secretly, with the plan unfolding only years after. It’s also pretty easy to fake, since there aren’t any outward manifestations of the magic, and people don’t like the possibility of their secrets being used against them. It would make them wary.”

“You’re making it sound like I’ll be attacked soon.”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “You’re a fresh muggleborn. They’re not stupid enough to go after one, you know, with the whole unstable trauma thing, and you don’t really have anything worth the risk. Now, after Diagon Alley, though. That’s another story. You'd better be ready to defend yourself. Try to find some dirt on them, pretend like you used your magic to find it out. When you inevitably find out what your magic is, you still won’t be easy prey.”

Dean was about to say something, but Jack interrupted him, “Look, it’s dinnertime and I don’t want to miss it. Why don’t we just go there, and I’ll point out who to look out for and any dirt I have on them.”

The muggleborn gave him a grateful smile, “Alright, thank you, Jack. Let’s go.”

AN: I’m not exactly sure about this one. I wanted the orphanage to be somewhat rugged, with the matrons only intervening when things go out of control, but leaving the kids be, and traumatised kids with magic are bound to lash out and form groups. I also took some inspiration from Worm about the magical classification. I hope it’s extensive enough to have a lot of potential expressions of magic. If not, then I welcome any extra classification you might have. I’m not sure I pulled it off, but please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.