American Wizard

Chapter 4: Classmates and Reflections on a Turkey Gone Bad

"What are you going to do tough guy? Poke me with that pointy stick thingy?"

-- C. Dracula

Thirty minutes later, I was back in the common room, still looking at my wand and admiring it, from its polished handle to its unusually sharp tip. Twelve and a half inches long, phoenix feather, and mahogany... but the kicker was that the wand was over nine hundred years old. Ms. Selena had looked up the serial number on the wand's box and after cross referencing it with the extensive school wand catalogue, had told me its story.

The wand had been made in Ireland in the eleventh century by the great master Sigil McBane, but had never been sold. Some six hundred years later, when some of the first British wizard colonists had crossed the Atlantic, in order to escape muggle persecution, a stockpile of wands was also taken across the ocean, my wand included. Almost a hundred years later Travis Carol bought the stockpile and started the tradition of an Annapolis student receiving their wand from the school. My wand had been lost in the school's wand archives since then, and had not chosen anyone before that.

When Ms. Selena had asked me how I had found the wand, I couldn't tell her the truth. I'm not sure why I lied to her, but I did. Maybe it was because I wanted to keep it between the wand and myself. Instead, I told her that I had just seen the wand box sitting on the shelf and tried it on a whim. I said that I thought that I had been summoned to the wand. She seemed to accept that and told me that the wand was a perfect match for me.

After coming back from the wand archives I milled around the first year's common room, getting to know a lot of the first years. I had never been very good at putting a face to a name, but I tried especially hard to remember the names of the other kids put into my specialty. There were only five other kids out of our thirty person year that were in my specialty though. There was of course Ken and Lou, the first students I'd met at school. The three other people chosen for the dueling specialty were girls, Virginia Vechline, Cassandra Novleine and Maggie Erschley.

Virginia, who insisted on being called Virginia and not Ginny, was the daughter of Vincent Vechline, one of the richest wizards in America. The Vechlines were an old Southern family who had made all their money in the nineteenth century by holding a monopoly on the manufacturing of floo powder. Virginia was a relatively tall, brown eyed girl whose long brown hair cascaded down her back in very soft curls. She was incredibly pretty and had she not been in my specialty I never would have found the courage to speak with her. However, when I talked to her I quickly was dispelled of any notion of attraction.

She had been sitting in an armchair, not talking to anyone, but coolly looking over her schedule. I had to stand in front of her for about a minute before she even noticed me, "My name is Wiley. Wiley Dumas."

Right after I had introduced myself, she tossed her pretty hair and gave me a haughty look that seemed to ask "why should I even consider you alive?"

"Wiley is it?" She scowled as if she were trying to remember something remarkably unpleasant. "I don't think I have heard of your family."

I shrugged. "My dad is the head of international relatio--"

"I really don't care that much about our government's officials. Too often they've come over to my home for dinner. They bore me. So, tell me," she cooed in a voice that almost cooled my blood, "are you pure blooded? Or am I wasting my breath on yet another mudblood?"

In the MSA it is illegal to discriminate by blood, meaning that even if a person is muggle born or even half muggle that they are every bit of a citizen than anyone else. Unfortunately some people do not agree with that idea and think of anyone with too much muggle blood in them as scum. These are usually the same people who play cruel jokes on unsuspecting muggles.

One of the biggest pranks ever played on muggles by American magicfolk was when Harold Ogdenson caused the entire city of Roswell to see what they thought was a UFO crash landing. While this may seem funny, it not only cost both muggle and magical governments an incredible amount to cover it up, it also gave muggles a tangible lead to follow and possibly discover the magical world. While we don't mind letting muggles glimpse magic once and a while, if they ever confirmed that it existed, we'd be in big trouble.

Luckily the complete and utter stubbornness of the non-magic folk to believe in the supernatural had caused them to think it was outer space visitors. Funnily enough, most muggles actually believe it was a prank. Little do they know how right they are...

Anyways, muggle baiting has become an unofficial past time to these blood infatuated fiends, or as my dad likes to call them, bleachbloods. Before my birth, many bleachblood families rose in support of the Dark Lord, but never officially went to Europe to join his cause. Had He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named actually come to America he would have found quite a few minions ready for the picking. Or at least that is what my dad tells my mom after they think I'm asleep...

There aren't too many bleachbloods left in Wizarding America, but they do happen and usually in well established families like the Vechlines. Now, I myself am pure blooded, both of my parents are magicfolk going back a couple generations, but my mother and father brought me up to be tolerant of others. Unfortunately this has had the side effect of making me non-tolerant toward the intolerant. It's a vicious cycle, really.

The long and the short of it is that I opted not to answer Virginia's rather rude question. Instead I gave her a disgusted look and angrily stormed off.

Now if Virginia was the essence of stuck-up-blood-infatuated-meanness Cassandra was her spectral opposite. Cassie's strange bright green hair and yellow cat-like eyes at first put me off, but when I finally got around to talking with her I was pleasantly surprised to find that she had a personality that made me feel warm and welcome.

Within a couple minutes I had become friends with Cassie. She also had played quodpot, but was very eager to start on Quidditch, "Honestly, I've read about it and it's an incredible sport... It's just more complicated than quodpot... Yes, FOUR balls Ken... I'm not familiar with the rules but I know that their quod is called a quaffle and that it doesn't explode, they only have seven players on a team and there are three goals!"

After arguing with Cassie on this point for about a half hour I finally noticed the last member of our year's specialty. She had been hiding behind Cassie the whole time I had been talking about Quidditch. I guess she finally figured I wasn't dangerous or something because she poked her head from behind her friend. The girl had long, flaming red hair that framed her pale, freckled face, her alive blue eyes and a rather petrified expression.

Cassie noticed my gaze had traveled to the girl behind her and said, "Oh, that's Maggie. I've known her since we were both little. She doesn't talk unless she gets to know you, even then she doesn't say too much. I guess she's just really shy. Teachers never seem to notice her or want to ask her questions for some reason, so it works out."

I smiled at Maggie, waved and said, "Hello. I'm Wiley."

The result was that Maggie's face turned bright red and she jumped behind Cassie again. I tried not to be insulted, but with Ken and Lou laughing at me it was pretty hard not to be. I growled, puffed myself up to look more imposing and glared at them. They quickly shut up just in time for me to hear Virginia mumble, "Boys are just like animals. Yech."

* * *

Finally the last student had their wand and Ms. Selena informed us it was time for our first class. I looked down at my schedule. The first class the duelists would be attending would be elementals.

I gestured to Lou and Ken and said, "Come on, Ms. Selena is our elementals teacher. Let's just follow her to the classroom."

"I haven't got my books, Wiley," complained Lou as Ken grabbed his quills and books and was right behind me as we ran from the common room.

My first class! I thought, One step closer to becoming a wizard!

I fingered my wand again in my pocket, still not believing I had finally received one. I remembered playing with my mother's wand, while wishing I had my own. I used to pretend to be fighting You-Know-Who, his death eaters and other dark creatures by pointing at, say, an arm chair and saying what I thought sounded like a magic word. Usually nothing would happen, but every once and a while I would be surprised by an actual spell going off. One time I had caused the turkey my mom had been cooking to jump out of the oven, climb into the trash can, stuff its giblets back into its body and run out the front door. Rather frightening sight really.

Luckily a passing minivan had struck the animated turkey and caused bits and pieces of that night's dinner to go flying everywhere. Needless to say, I blamed the missing turkey on the cat, who, being part kneazle, thought it was an untrustworthy fowl and disposed of it by throwing it outside. Somehow my mother saw through that lie.

I soon found though, that I didn't have the time to admire my wand any more, because I had just realized how hard it is to follow someone through the Annapolis Magic School. Ken and I had to keep pace with the swift walking Ms. Selena otherwise we would not be able to see which door she went into next. Every time Ken and I entered a new room we would see the hem of Ms. Selena's dark emerald cloak whip into another doorway and we'd jog to catch up.

The walk to the elementals classroom was longer than I would have thought. Three lefts and seven rights later and we stood at the threshold of a chamber. It took me a couple seconds to take in the room, but when I finally did I realized that this was definitely not a classroom.

A four poster bed with green hangings dominated the room. Old tapestries hung on the walls and something that looked like a piano was in the far corner. I felt a horrible queasiness in my stomach as if I had just eaten fifteen rotten raw eggs. This was without a doubt Ms. Selena's bedroom. Ken, coming to the same conclusion, gasped loudly.

As Ms. Selena turned around to see what caused the noise, I did the only sensible thing I could think of. I grabbed Ken and hid behind a large tapestry of a haggard looking wizard getting out of one of the first ships to reach America. Peeking around the side of the wall hanging I saw that Ms. Selena had turned back around and was sitting in a large green chair, her back to the doorway. She was looking at a wall-mounted portrait of a strong young man with yellow hair and a crooked nose.

"We need to get out of here," whispered Ken, his eyes glowed blue while his face was dark with shadow. "We definitely should not be in a teacher's private quarters."

I nodded my silent agreement. We most definitely needed to get out of there. Quickly checking around the tapestry again to make sure Ms. Selena kept her eyes from the door, Ken and I, very carefully started to sneak towards the exit. Right when we were about to pass through the doorway Ms. Selena spoke.

"Is anyone there?"

Ken and I turned around slowly to look at her, ready to admit what had happened. She wasn't looking at us at all though; instead she was still staring at the portrait. Without any warning the picture began to shift. The portrait slowly morphed from the handsome, smiling blond man to that of a blue-clad and rather scrawny looking man with white hair.

"It's me Anne. I needed to talk to you," the man in the picture growled.

Ms. Selena choked a bit. This was fortunate because I had done the exact same thing. I had recognized the man, too. Fenton Creed, the President of the Magical States of America, was glaring at Ms. Selena through painted canvas. I'd seen his picture in the Washington Wizard almost every day since his election five years earlier. I'd heard his voice on the wireless often enough to recognize it immediately. This was my father's boss.

Perhaps it was for this reason that I stood stock still. Maybe my feet were glued in place because it was destiny to see this. Likeliest bet though, is that I was rampantly curious about why the President would want to speak with a school teacher.

Understandably enough when she finally answered, Ms. Selena's voice was quavering. "I'm sorry... I didn't know it was you! You know if I had, I'd have come sooner."

Creed sneered and growled sarcastically, "It doesn't matter. It's not like I have anything else to do. Although the Aussies are threatening to cut off our billywig supply if we do not discontinue our asylum and hand over Typhon McFletch."

Ms. Selena tried to force out a laugh but looked rather afraid as he continued, "Listen, Anne, I've received a word from one of our mutual friends that we need a way to break into Gringotts' London vaults. A high security vault too, that fool Dumbledore apparently stashed the stone a while ago and told no one where it was. Knowing those disgruntled British Goblins I think we're going to be dealing with high caliber hexes and even mutation curses. Those goblins over there are still not considered full citizens, you know. Makes them nasty. They take out their aggressions on thieves I imagine. At least when they are not revolting..."

"I can help you with some of that, sir. There are a couple protection spells of my own design I could scrounge up, but it matters who it is you're sending down there."

"Agent Cade."

"You're sending him?! I knew you were pulling out all the stops..." Ms. Selena stopped in mid-sentence because Creed was looking especially exasperated. After a couple seconds she began to talk again.

"Cade can handle the spells, but I don't know if I can help you with the dragons that supposedly live there," Ms. Selena answered, looking rather relieved to have finished talking.

Creed scoffed, "Cade can deal with dragons easily; I just don't want him coming back home with eight arms and eyes on his fingers. The protection spells should help, but we want to know if you have anything that will cause our mimic stone to pass the tests Dumbledore might put it through."

Ms. Selena considered for a couple seconds before saying, "The essence of the stone is incredibly difficult to imitate, it is the only known one in existence. I suppose I could..."

"You could what?"

"It would involve linking the mimic stone to the actual stone. It is a sort of temporary transfiguration of the essence in where the spell copies the essence of one object and grafts it onto the other."

Creed smiled. "That sounds perfect, Anne. Can Cade pull it off?"

Ms. Selena nodded before saying, "It is not a question of whether he can pull it off or not; the thing is that the mimic stone will be able to do everything the real stone can. Everything."

Creed's smile disappeared. "That is not what we want at all... Not at all."

Ms. Selena shrugged. "I can alter the charm so that the graft will only last a certain amount of time before wearing off. That's the best I can do."

Creed nodded and said from his portrait's confines, "That's better than nothing, I guess. Let's just hope Dumbledore doesn't figure out the switch was made before we finish the job."

"I will send the instructions as soon as I am able," Ms. Selena promised. "Right now, I have to get to some first year students; looks like a good batch this year."

"You say that every year an-- Anne, are those children behind you?"