American Wizard

PART ONE

Chapter One- A little background.

I see so far because I stand on the shoulders of giants.

-- Gulliver.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dumas. Wiley Dumas. I am a wizard in training. Unlike some of the wizards you've no doubt read about, I do not, in fact, attend Hogwarts School. Some of you may want to just stop reading my account due to the fact I am not at your dream academy. Hold your horses, I'll make it interesting. This account is how I, Wiley Dumas, made a critical transition that both changed and later saved my life.

I suppose it is only fair to tell you a little bit of background about myself. I was born in Washington, D.C. to a witch and a wizard. I am therefore a pure blooded wizard, although my great-grandfather on my father's side was a railway worker in Kansas.

I'm sure the more observant of you want to ask why my parents were living in a muggle town like the capital of the non-magic United States of America. The answer is simple; my father is a high up member of the MSA (Magical States of America) government. He is a permanent cabinet member and currently heads the international relations branch. Also my parents loved city life

Being born in D.C. I was delivered in a muggle (non-magic people) hospital. Unfortunately the doctor really wasn't prepared for the arrival of a wizard-child. When I first took my... erm... first breath of air all the sound in the room just stopped. Dad said that I had sucked in all the sound in the room into my little lungs. From then on I was a magic machine.

Over my first ten years I inadvertently caused a heaping load of trouble for my parents. I loved both my parents, but every once in a while when we were walking down Morgan Gerard I might throw a temper tantrum and turn all my mother's groceries into chocolate. She would at first be pleased that I showed such an aptitude towards magic and call me her little Gordito and then get angry for changing tonight's dinner into dessert.

Quick side note: Gordito means "little fat boy" in Spanish. I was quite overweight for a while. I mean it was hard enough being black sometimes because some muggles and wizards are jerks, but being overweight made me quite bitter. But I digress...

Whenever I felt any particular strong emotion something would happen. If I felt ashamed of myself I might turn red, when a black kid turns blood red, that's not "normal". When I was happy bubbles might happen to fill the room and not pop until my good mood subsided. Once, when I received my first broomstick all or my birthday cake candles shot twenty feet high, scorching the roof of our magically expanded Morgan Gerard apartment.

My father decided to put my name up for the most prestigious American boarding school, The Annapolis Magic School. Annapolis, unlike other American wizarding schools in Salem, New Haven and Havana (Cuba is a state of the MSA, if not a state of the USA) had a reputation for being rather blue blooded. Only the exceptionally gifted or the exceptionally well connected were accepted. I'll kill your excitement I got in, most likely because my father's the head of international relations for our government. I probably could have gotten in if I were a squib.

Anyways, I was pretty big on the scene in the magical community. Despite my rather impressive bulk, I was an excellent Quodpot player. Flying had come second nature to me and nothing thrilled me more than sensing when the quod was going to blow and then passing it off onto a member on the opposing team. I was without a doubt the strongest player on my local team and we made junior regional three times.

It wasn't until we won our third regional competition did my father give me the good news about my acceptance. I had wanted to go to Annapolis for the longest time; it's where my father had gone, and his father, and his father.

So on August seventh my father and I drove to Annapolis from Washington in our muggle car. I was so excited about getting to school and finally learning how to use my powers that the thirty-minute drive seemed to take forever. On the way there my dad laughed and joked about his days at Annapolis, playing tricks on the Midshipmen and scaring tourists.

For those of you ignorant of this, Annapolis is one of the more haunted cities in the world, let alone America. There is no real reason for this fact; I suppose no one wanted to really leave the town. It had been founded early in American history and is one of the oldest towns in the country. For those of you hip to magical history (yes all three of you) a strong magical presence exists which is why wizards had set the town up. Muggles have a nasty habit of crowding us wizards it is as if the can sense us sometimes. Annapolis had been originally an all wizard town, as was Portland, New Haven, Mobile and Salem.

The Annapolis Magic School is about three hundred years old, although the original building that it was first founded in was converted into a pile of ashes after one of the school's founders, Adrian Carroll, was defeated in a duel with one of the founders of the Salem Institute. Legend has it that as Carroll's body burned, so did the school and that when he fell to the ground, so did the school. Scary huh? The actual scary thing is that the duel was over an argument over whether or not golf was a sport. Apparently it is not.

Travis Carroll, Adrian's son, rebuilt the school and it now exists in what is called a patchwork plane. Dad says that a patchwork plane means that there are many buildings that make up the school, but are magically connected so that when you exit onto what would be the street, you end up in another building of the school, giving the illusion of the school being one big mansion-like area. Apparently it is really confusing at first, but I'd learn your way around.

The entrance to the school is in downtown Annapolis, disguised as a corporate industry called Locke's. It was here I began.