Geneticus

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE TRUTH ABOUT Mulder

It was safe to say that after the Sorting Hat's last statement, the room was more than just a little quiet. Mulder ignored the strange looks that the people around the circle were giving him and trading between themselves, but focused himself on the hat. Maybe there's a glitch in it, he thought, pulling it off his head. He turned the hat over in his hands, looking for any sign that there could be a possible defect. Not finding any, he gingerly placed the hat back on his head, and felt the tell tale grip.

"Nice try, Mr. Mulder," the hat blurted out for all to hear. "Doubting me however, isn't going to change who you are."

The room exploded into a buzz. Shocked voices, most likely just as unprepared to hear this statement as he was, rose from the circle of chairs and clouded around his head. Mulder ripped the hat off his head again and tossed it down onto the floor as if there was a bomb in it. "What the hell is going on?" he muttered under his breath. He certainly hadn't expected to hear that from the hat. Hopeless Muggle who misses is partner and son desperately, maybe, but not "untrained wizard."

His eyes slid sideways. For some reason, there was anger on Sirius's face, a contrast to the puzzled look Remus was sporting and the white-faced blankness of Addie. Mulder shook his head and opened his mouth, attempting to say something, but the words just wouldn't come.

At that moment Dumbledore stepped over, placing a hand on Mulder's shoulder. "Fox, please come with me. Maybe I can help clear some of this up." Mulder stood up quickly, ignoring the looks from the rest of the people in the circle, and led him through a small stone door, set almost invisibly into the wall.

The room they ended up in was a small chamber, with a desk and couple of chairs as the only inhabitants. There was a lone torch on the wall that had a light blue flame waving from the top of it-magical, no doubt, Mulder thought. Dumbledore closed the door behind them with a soft click. The two were silent, with Mulder pacing and Dumbledore looking with concern at the younger man. "I'm sorry you had to find this out in such an...abrupt manner."

"That's an understatement," Mulder muttered, not quite realizing what Dumbledore had said. When he did, however, the pacing came to a stop. "Wait a minute..." He turned to face Dumbledore, knowing full well the look on his face was not one of distinct pleasure. "What do you know?"

Dumbledore sighed, and sat down on one of the old wooden chairs. 'He looks tired,' Mulder thought. "Sit down, Fox. This may take a while." Even though he wanted to pace, to work off some of the emotions running through him, he sat. His fingers kept tapping nervously against his knee though.

"Do you remember," Dumbledore continued, "when you first came to Hogwarts, the book I had shown you that inscribes the name of each witch or wizard at the moment they are born?" Mulder nodded. "William's name is not the first name from his family to be written down. His father's name is in there also...as is his grandmother's."

"Who, Maggie?" Somewhere deep down Mulder knew that wasn't the right response, even though it had just slipped out. Dumbledore's pointed look over the tops of his glasses clearly told him it was the wrong answer. "You're not saying...look, my mother was as Muggle as you can get!"

Dumbledore let out a laugh, some of the spark coming back to him. "Not when I knew her, Fox," he replied.

Feeling quite entitled to borrow one of Scully's moves, Mulder's eyebrow began to arch up his forehead. "Look, even if my mother was a witch, and I'm not saying she was, I would have seen something, having lived with her for a good while."

"Are you sure? Even if she worked very hard at keeping that side of her hidden? I remember her, she was a very intelligent one, if she chose to conceal that part of herself, she could have."

Mulder shook his head briefly. He thought, for at least once in his life, he was entitled not to believe. "So you knew her when she was supposedly a witch."

"There is no supposedly, Fox. She was a witch, as you are a wizard. I remember her from her school years; she was one of my best students, very intelligent. A Ravenclaw, actually," Dumbledore said.

"My mother went to Hogwarts also? That's awfully convenient," Mulder said, leaning back in the chair. "Because Hogwarts is pretty damn far from North Carolina, which is where she told just about everyone who knew her she grew up. Does the Hogwarts Express run across oceans too?"

"Your disbelief is quite understandable, but please know that I'm only telling the story as I know it," he said, his eyes twinkling in a way Mulder was beginning to understand was common for him. And for some reason, it calmed him down. Just a little bit, mind you, but enough to allow Dumbledore to get through his story.

"From what you said, I imagine that your mother didn't tell you that she was British either. But no matter... A long while ago, maybe ten years before you were born, a girl by the name of Paulina Kuipers -- if I do recall correctly, Kuipers was still listed as your mother's maiden name?" Mulder nodded. "Yes, well. Paulina Kuipers went to Hogwarts, and then after her N.E.W.T.s, an exam needed to get full certification from Hogwarts, she left for the United States to attend an institution of higher wizarding learning. This institution is in North Carolina, actually.

"While she was down there, she met your father, William Mulder. Alas, your father was not as open-minded as you are, and so your mother made the choice to leave the wizarding world so she could be with him. She told him that she was a Muggle from North Carolina, the same story, in essence, that she passed along to you. When she left the wizarding world, she also changed her name from Paulina to Teena. A little less distinctive, I believe was the idea behind that."

Mulder rolled his eyes. "Yes, less distinctive. It's always good to give yourself a nice normal name when you're trying to hide. Best to keep at it with your children, I suppose, as well. Fox certainly qualifies as a 'nice, normal name.'" He exhaled a not quite laugh, but nevertheless a very sarcastic sound. "Why didn't you tell me this when I first arrived?"

"When you first arrived at Hogwarts, your main focus and purpose was on your son, as it should be. If I had mentioned anything else to you at the time it would have distracted you from finding out if our world is the right place for your son. I had not intended you learning about this part of yourself and your heritage until you decided if William was to join the wizarding world. By having your son as a wizard, it would, I believe, have made it easier for you to accept your own abilities," Dumbledore said calmly. He sighed and stood up.

"Unfortunately, there is not much more I can tell you beyond that. If your mother were still alive I would send you to her for information, but that is not possible." Dumbledore paused for a moment, and Mulder broke in with one last question.

"Is there anyone else in that book that I should know about?"

Dumbledore smiled. "You, your mother, and your son are the only members of your immediate family listed in the book. William's mother is a Muggle as well. I am all out of surprises for you today, I assure you. Is there anything I can help you with?" Mulder shook his head slowly. "I will go back out into the main chamber first, and give you a few minutes to yourself to think. When you are ready, please, rejoin us."

As soon as the door opened, Mulder could hear the group begin to ask questions all at once, so loudly and quickly that he was unable to pick out the individual speakers or queries. Dumbledore walked out and raised his voice to quiet the din. "It is safe to say that Fox has just had a bit of a shock. Please, let us give him a few moments to himself, and when he comes out, we shall move on with the intended purpose of this meeting." He closed the door behind him, cutting Mulder off from what people called out next.

With a heavy sigh Mulder raked his hands through his hair. It just didn't make sense. Him, a wizard? His mother, a witch? That was even more implausible. She might have been good at keeping secrets, but something this big, a whole different culture, and for so long? He had a large amount of trouble buying it. And as far back as he could remember, Teena Mulder had never done anything even remotely magical.

And now he was a wizard also? What was this, some sort of wacky initiation rite? Did they do this to all hapless Muggles who tumbled into their world? He couldn't even recall himself doing anything that could be considered magic.

Oh, come on, a little voice sneered in the back of his head. Absolutely nothing? You that sure about that?

All right, he conceded. There were a few things he could remember happening to him that were slightly -- okay, more than slightly -- out of the ordinary. The least of which being dead and buried for three months and managing to come back from it. And then there was the time when he'd gotten attacked by the creature that only existed in salt water down in Florida and just barely managed from getting swept out with the tide (literally), and also the giant fungi with hallucinogenic properties that almost ate him and Scully. Luckily they made it out of that with only acid burns and not much more.

There were also the countless times he had been shot or fired at by run of the mill criminals and the not so average ones. Was it luck or something more that he survived each one, and missed so many? What about the Bermuda Triangle incident, or Mulder in Oz as the Lone Gunmen had taken to calling it? That ship didn't seem to exist in this plane of existence (or time of existence quite possibly), no matter how much Scully said the water and the knock on the head had addled him. And he still wasn't sure how he managed to get out of that boxcar full of the stacked up semi-alien bodies after the Men in Black had tossed a grenade into it...

Okay, so maybe there was something not quite...average about him.

Abnormal, yes, but that didn't automatically make him a wizard. There could have been perfectly rational, scientific, non-magical explanations for why he'd survived and done the things he did. Scully had found most of them too.

Oh, God, Scully. What would she think about this? It was hard enough to get her to accept the first letter Dumbledore had sent about William, and he knew from later letters that the idea of strapping a letter onto an owl's leg for delivery was still foreign. What would she think if in his next letter he said, "Guess what, Scully, I'm a wizard!" She'd probably toss him back in the loony bin herself. And two trips there was enough for anyone in one lifetime.

He closed his eyes and shook his head again, as if shaking it firmly would cause everything to go away. Maybe, when he opened his eyes up again, he'd be back in bed with Scully at the apartment, with William sleeping peacefully in the cradle next to them. Slowly, he raised his lids...nope, no luck. Still in the same stonewalled room complete with desk and blue flame torch.

Hmm...maybe he could test out his so-called "wizarding abilities." He remembered Sirius turning his bed into all manner of objects earlier that day (had it really been the same day? It felt like ages ago), and wondered if he could possibly do the same thing. If the chair across from him suddenly turned into, say, a broomstick at his command, then it would be different. Mulder leaned forward, braced his forearms on his knees, and stared hard at the plain wooden chair. After a few tense moments of staring, he hissed under his breath, "Broomstick!" and concentrated as hard as he possibly could on the image of the chair transforming into a broomstick.

Needless to say, the chair remained quite happily a chair.

Okay, not one of your better ideas, he admitted to himself. He sighed and looked towards the door. There wasn't much noise coming from the other room, just a low hum, like the background hiss of a TV, or the soft murmur of voices. He'd have to go back out there eventually, not just stay in this room and think. Dumbledore was right, it's really just not about me right now, he thought. Mulder pushed himself to his feet and slowly, very slowly, walked over towards the door. His hand hovered over the knob for a brief moment before he grasped it and pushed the door open.

The murmurs silenced as soon as he stepped out, and his eyes scanned over the faces. Snape now looked positively disdainful, as if Mulder wasn't fit to join the ranks of wizards. Arthur Weasley looked intrigued, while Dash just seemed to have an unholy grin on his face. He apparently was taking this little revelation better than Mulder was, and with more humor. His gaze then traveled to his three traveling companions. Their heads had been bent together in conversation, but as soon as he had stepped out from the little room they had separated and all turned towards him.

Sirius's face still held a combination of surprise and anger. Anger that Mulder hadn't told them about this? How could he have though when he didn't know himself? Twelve years of being wrongfully jailed, however, led to some major trust issues Mulder guessed. He was going to have some explaining to do when the meeting was over. Remus also still looked slightly bemused. At least someone wasn't mad at him. Addie was just sitting there calmly with an almost expectant look on her face. Looks like I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do, he thought with a mild sigh.

Slowly, he walked back to his seat between Addie and Arthur and settled in. Sirius leaned across the other two, his mouth open with what Mulder knew was going to be a question for him. He stopped, however, at Dumbledore's hand on his shoulder, placed there for a brief moment as the old wizard stepped back into the center of the circle.

"I do believe we can move on with the meeting now," he said in an almost amused tone of voice.

"Hey Albus, one minor, little thing?" Mundungus Fletcher piped up from across the circle.

"Yes?"

Fletcher kicked a leg towards the empty center of the circle. "How about conjuring up a bloody table in here, hmm?"

END CHAPTER THIRTEEN