(Arcane Tinker) Chapter 4: Grief and Madness

AN: Here's the second batch of chapters (it's just two of them) of this story, to give you a taste of where things are going. Don't worry, tomorrow's chapter with be an Enchanting Melodies one, as usual.

Chapter 4: Grief and Madness

5 June 1991, London, England

He remembered one of Nathan’s favourite book series when he was younger, one that his mother liked to read to him, and that he picked up after she died, out of nostalgia more than anything. He gave the nurse and incredulous look, “This is a fucking joke, right?”

Dean’s freakout was somewhat embarrassing. To be perfectly fair, the idea that he lived in a children’s story would have gotten anyone to freak out. Harry Potter was, by far, one of the most popular children’s series in Nathan’s world. It was something that every child and most adults knew about.

Now that he thought about it, maybe his vision was just a fancy hallucination, and that Nathan’s world didn’t actually exist. Even if he had learned things that he didn’t know prior to the accident. Now that he thought about it, the way he experienced Nathan’s life was very similar to that memory thing that was in Dumbledore’s office. What was it called again? Ah, right, a Pensieve.

It was unlikely that they were lying about magic. The woman had waved her stick, not a stick, a wand, and levitated his bed. So, that meant that those attackers were wizards and witches, and the burst of light was spells. Hmm, that made a disturbing amount of sense, as much as he hated to agree.

He also happened to be a wizard too. Apparently, he had exhibited some pretty powerful accidental magic during the attack which was how the authorities were alerted.

Then it struck him. Dean Thomas. It was one of the few named characters in the series, a Gryffindor in Harry Potter’s year, he was friend with that Irish kid that liked exploding stuff, Seamus.

Was he real? Was he some kind of character in a book? He started hyperventilating for a few minutes before calming down slightly. There was no reason to freak out; coincidence or not, Dean was his own person, and he didn’t remember anything of note about his counterpart in the books anyway. He liked them well enough, but not enough to remember the details after over a decade without reading the books.

Anyway, Dean had asked the nurse, no, the mediwitch, to cast even more magic, until the woman just got tired of him and just pushed a potion down his throat. It tasted horribly, like what he imagined mud would taste like, but he fell asleep just seconds afterwards, so it was probably a sleeping potion of some kind. He didn’t blame her; he was acting like a bit of a brat, even if she could have been nicer about it.

Still, when he woke up the day after, he freaked out quite a bit, until he tried to distract himself that he was also a wizard, and thus, could do magic too.

So, how the hell was he supposed to get started?

He looked at the tray next to his bed and tried to imagine it floating. That was how it worked, right? It was all about intent, wanting things to happen. Or did he have to be in a state of inner peace to achieve any of this?

He was staring so hard at the tray that he missed the strange woman who was staring at him with a weirded out expression on her face, “What in Merlin’s name are you doing, kid?”

Dean practically jumped in fear, “Who the hell are you?”

Now that he had some time to look at the woman, he noticed that she was wearing a business suit – something that he didn’t expect to see someone from the magical world wearing. She had brown hair, curled into a bun, and dark brown eyes. If he had to put it into words, he would say that she was unremarkable. He wouldn’t really have remembered her if he had seen her on the street.

“You need to watch your language, young man. As for me, I’m Marietta Smith, I work for the Association for the Protection of Magical Youth or APMY for short. I’m here to introduce you to the magical world and get you settled in. I know that your first impression of our world wasn’t a nice one, but I’m hoping to rectify this. Now, why don’t you tell me what you were trying to do?”

Dean’s expression morphed into a sheepish one. “I was trying to levitate the tray?”

“How interesting, have you levitated stuff before. Natural telekinetics are pretty rare.”

“Natural telekinetics?” he asked, “No, I just saw the Medi-Witch do it with her wand.”

The woman’s curious look immediately turned into exasperation, and he heard her muttering beneath her breath, “Fucking smartass muggleborns.”

“What?” he asked, thinking that he might have misheard.

“Nothing. No, it’s just that a lot of kids who try to wield magic think that everyone before them is a moron and that magic works on the power of belief or something. No, magic is a very precise art that requires a lot of study. That is outside of your natural magic, of course.”

“Natural magic?”

The woman rolled his eyes for a second before continuing, “It’s your very own magic, something that’s unique to you. It’s often expressed as a form of accidental magic when it’s activated for the first time. Every single person has one of their own that doesn’t even need a wand to cast. It can vary a lot. Someone could fly unassisted, someone else could control fire or conjure ice. The possibilities are endless, but it is agreed that no two personal magics are the same, even if similar themes tend to stick in families.”

“And what’s mine? I don’t remember much from what happened apart from everything exploding.”

“You don’t know?” she asked, looking a bit condescending before putting back the fake smile on her face when he shook his head. “Well, I strongly suggest that you try to figure it out. The sooner the better. You could technically rely on standard casting, but you’ll never truly achieve your potential without it. Anyway, you’ll probably learn all about this at Hogwarts, it’s where young wizards and witches go to learn about magic and hone their abilities.”

“What if I don’t want to come with you and learn any magic?” Dean asked.

It was a perfectly sane thing to do. Not using magic and going to Eton like he promised his mother, being a doctor, or a lawyer, without the war coming on the horizon, especially since he was a Muggleborn. If staying in the non-magical world didn’t have a lot of consequences, it would probably be the safest option. He could probably learn to use his own magic by himself, without subjecting himself to a possible genocide and constant discrimination.

The woman’s expression tensed, “I’m afraid that’s not really an option. The Ministry of Magic has an agreement with the Muggle government that it holds custody over all magical children in Britain who do not have a direct magical guardian. And ever since the Youth Protection Act was put in place in 1805, magical children need to at least receive a certain number of international certifications that prove that they have good control over their magic. Also, magic likes to be used. If someone tries to stifle it or avoid it, the results won’t be pretty.”

That struck Dean dumb. They had custody over all Muggleborns, orphans or not. What the hell? Why would anyone allow this? They could easily just take Muggleborns from their parents’ homes, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Did they even do that?

Dean was about to ask, but the woman seemed to immediately see where the conversation was going and decided the change the subject, “Now, let’s not talk about such grim things. Magic is a wonderful thing, you’ll see. There are a lot of kids at the orphanage who will tell you all about it. Not that you’ll be there for long; you’ll be going to Hogwarts in a few months. One of the caretakers will take you to Diagon Alley in a few weeks for your school shopping. We’ve already gone to your home and put everything you and your mother owned into a storage unit. Don’t worry, you won’t have to worry about the rent until you graduate, it’s a little perk from the ministry.”

Dean was struck speechless and suppressed the urge to yell out in anger and sadness. Who the fuck would let someone like this even interact with children. Did she have no sense of propriety? She barely mentioned his mother, other than in passing and how to deal with her stuff, the only things he had left of her, like it was some kind of burden. She didn’t even give her condolences or anything. It was like she didn’t care at all and tried to make it seem that she was doing him a favour by just giving him a place to put his mother’s stuff, instead of telling him anything about who was responsible for his mother’s death.

She was treating his life, his mother’s life, as some kind of paperwork. What the fuck was wrong with this woman?

Probably not noticing his incredulous anger, the witch nodded to herself, seemingly satisfied with what she had said, and continued, “Now, normally, I wouldn’t have come to see you. It’s something that your caretakers would have gone directly. However, with the Aurors seeking to speak with you regarding the incident, that means that you need someone with the Association for the Protection of Magical Youth to make sure that they don’t infringe on your rights.”

Right as she finished her sentence, two men wearing a strict black uniform entered and spoke up, “If you don’t mind, we have a lot to do. We need to take the kid’s statement.”

The woman nodded, “Alright, you can do so now.”

They both waved their wands two chairs appeared from thin air, getting them to sit down comfortably. They took out a small, weird black circle and spoke up, “Statement by witness Dean Alvin Thomas, age 11, on June 5th, 1991, in Saint Mungo’s hospital, regarding the breach of the Statute of Secrecy labelled alpha seven nine seven, on June 4th, 1991. Conducted by Senior Auror Nott, badge number three five nine, and Junior Auror Travers, badge number four three one. Now, Mr. Thomas, why don’t you tell us what happened?”

And so, Dean spoke up, telling the tale about what happened. He talked about walking home with his mother, the battles and explosions, his mother dying. He talked about the blasts of magic, and the man in the red hood ordering to kill all witnesses, then the giant explosion.

The Aurors were strangely neutral about the event. They didn’t seem surprised or aghast about what happened. By the end of it, they wrapped up by saying that the witness statement was concluded before standing up to leave.

He couldn’t help but ask them, “Do you already know anything about the man in the red hood?”

The Senior Auror snorted, “We can’t discuss too much detail over the investigation, but from the looks of it, this was a classic brawl that spilt over to the Muggle world. We get one every month or so. We’ll investigate it, but we’ll need more than the statement of a recently awakened mage, a child at that. Just let us do our job, and we’ll figure out what happened.”  

“So, you’re not even looking for him? The man who is responsible for killing my mum?”

“Look, kid, you’re already lucky you’re getting a pass on pretty much killing everyone around you when you activated your magic. And I’m not going to search half the country to look for some muggle’s murderer, especially when you already did worse than he ever did.”

Marietta Smith, the bureaucrat, spoke up in anger, “Are you out of your mind? You can’t just speak of a grieving child like this. I’ll be bringing this to your superiors.”

“Saying what exactly? That the kid whose kill count is in the second digits had his feelings hurt,” the Auror replied before taking a deep breath, “Look, we’re under a lot of pressure from the ministry to solve this thing quickly and quietly. A lot of mages died in the incident, and people really don’t like that it’s being blamed as a magical awakening. This is a mess, and we don’t even know how many people died. So, can you lay off? You have no idea how many people wanted to make the kid’s life hell.”

The woman promptly shut up, and the man sighed deeply once more, “Thank you.” he then turned towards Dean, “A piece of advice. Keep your head down, kid, and don’t make too much fuss. The magical world isn’t as kind or as forgiving as the Muggle one. Just forget about your mother, forget about everything before this. It’ll make things a lot easier for you.”

The man then turned and left with his colleague following behind him and Dean processed what the Auror had just said. No, he refused to forget his mother. She was his world and that will not change. If he couldn’t save her, then he might as well try to avenge her.

And if the authorities wouldn’t do it, then he would go after the man in the red hood himself. He would not rest until the man paid for what he had done, for what he took from Dean.

The useless witch cleared her throat and spoke up, “With that unpleasantness out of the way, I believe it’s time to go to the orphanage.”

AN: As you probably noticed, I decided to make a few changes in how magic works for this story. I have a lot of ideas to use. If you have any questions about how it works, feel free to ask. I’m not sure about how I portrayed the woman and the Aurors. They’re not exactly very important characters, but I wanted to portray them as people who don’t actually care about Dean, just doing their job. I don’t know if it came out like I wanted it to, but I don’t mind rewriting it depending on your feedback. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.