Chapter One: Aftermath of Truth

Author note: This story is part of the Magical Flashpoint Side Story series. Chapter One follows "Magical Heritage" and the rest follows "Be Strong and Very Courageous" and comes before "Blessings". This story follows up on events in "Magical Heritage".

Yes, I left a few things dangling in "Magical Heritage". That story was about Claire's magical heritage and the immediate ramifications thereof, not about how events in Toronto would or would not affect events in England. This is my attempt to A) tie up some loose ends and B) finally get the humor my muse denied me in "Magical Heritage".

Although all original characters belong to me, I do not own Flashpoint, Harry Potter, Narnia, or Merlin.

Between being overwhelmed with information, the exhaustion and nasty headache that came after the ritual to change his family name, and needing to get the girls home before they got cranky – the last turned out to be a lost cause – Wordy wrapped up the meeting with his new account manager right after setting up the investments.

Later that night, it hit him all over again that his very existence was due to something he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, much less his own mother. Shelley had her hands full keeping her husband from falling apart over the following nights and days that it took for the gentle man to wrap his head around the facts.

Even worse was the fact that he couldn't tell his parents; they'd been, at best, Obliviated and wouldn't know what on Earth he was talking about. Thankfully, Alanna quietly pointed out to Shelley that grandparents were a bit of gray area where the Statute of Secrecy was concerned. As long as the grandparents kept the secret, the Ministry would look the other way. So Shelley made arrangements – behind her husband's back – to invite her in-laws for a family dinner.

Claire, Lilly, and Allie might have spilled the beans within five minutes if their mother hadn't sternly warned them against telling until after dinner. So, instead, they tumbled into their grandparents' arms as if nothing had changed, chattering away about their days and their toys and a dozen other inconsequential topics. Claire, in particular, was much exclaimed over; though her kidnapping had been solved within two days, it had frightened her grandparents just as much as her parents.

Dinner was just as pleasant as Shelley had hoped, with her husband managing to bury his issues and talk with his folks as if Claire's inheritance test had never happened and the girls excitedly demanding the lion's share of attention with yet more topics they hadn't already covered before dinner. Lilly even jumped up from the table to retrieve her latest piece of artwork – done that very day in her class – to show her admiring grandmother.

Wordy – after Shelley told him his parents were coming to dinner – had prepped for the dinner as if it was a tactical operation. He was determined not to betray any hint of what he'd discovered to his parents, but also determined to give them the best possible view of his daughters' new world. The girls hadn't had a lick of magical training yet, but he talked Sam and Spike into showing him a few tricks with their magical phones that he could use to show his folks that magic was real. If worst came to worst, he could deliberately break the phone and let them see it get put back together.

So, after dinner the family assembled in the living room, three excited and bouncing little girls in one area and the adults spread out on the chairs and couch. Wordy's mother, picking up on her granddaughters' higher than normal excitement, arched an eyebrow at her son. "The last time I saw the girls so excited, we had another little one on the way," she observed. "Are congratulations in order?"

Shelley smiled at her husband's embarrassment, but shook her head. "No, no more little ones…that we know of, anyway."

Wordy leaned forward, allowing a bit of a smile to show. "Actually, it has to do with where the girls will be going once they turn eleven. It's a bit of…a different kind of school." At his parents' expectant looks, he admitted, "They'll be going to the Toronto School of Magic…they're all magical."

Shelley lifted both hands before her in-laws could react incredulously. "It's true; magic exists and we've known about it for a couple of years. We found out Claire had magic when she was kidnapped and a…" she hesitated, not wanting to 'out' her adopted niece and nephew, "…a friend of the family confirmed Lilly and Allie have magic too."

Claire, though, had no such compunctions. Bouncing forward, she declared eagerly, "Alanna told us; she's like Amanda and she can turn into a bird! Her brother can turn into a cat-eagle! I want to learn how to do that!" Claire beamed as her father dropped his head into his hands in the background. There went the organized approach.

He cleared his throat as his parents opened their mouths to – gently – dispute their granddaughter's claim. "Alanna and her brother are my boss's niece and nephew…they moved here almost three years ago when their parents died. They're the ones who introduced my team to magic…we've been working in both worlds ever since." He placed his phone on the table as he spoke and triggered a program that had taken him most of the previous few days to set up with Spike and Sam's help. The phone glowed a moment, then a three dimensional map appeared above the device, rapidly growing upwards until Wordy's neighborhood appeared on the table in miniature. Each house, every lawn, even all the cars were represented in perfect detail, right down to a few bald patches on the neighbor's lawn down the street.

"My goodness," Wordy's mother breathed, her hands up to her mouth as she took in the sight. "And that…device…is magical?"

Wordy's grin lit the room. "Half and half, actually. It's a smartphone that's been modified to run on magic and it can work with, say, a magical map to give us more information. But otherwise, it works just like any other smartphone. I can even charge it like a regular smartphone."

His father rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Does it break like a regular smartphone?" he asked shrewdly.

In answer, Wordy picked up the phone, dissipating the magical map, and dropped it on the floor; the screen cracked, spiderwebbing as it hit. The constable scooped the phone back up and turned it so both his parents and his daughters could watch as the cracks knit themselves back together, glowing a little before fading entirely. Quietly, firmly, Wordy capped the explanation with, "Until now, we really didn't have any reason to tell you; magic's supposed to be kept secret. But, since the girls are magical, we can tell you 'cause you're family." Turning his attention to Claire, he remarked, "You can tell your grandparents all about your adventure now," and winked at her.

Andrea Wordsworth knew something was bothering her son; he'd hidden it well, but she knew him far too well for him to hide the shadows in his eyes for long. Not to mention, her son never retreated – fled – as he had tonight. So, with her husband sufficiently distracted talking to Shelley and their granddaughters, she sought her son out. She found him in the family garage, tinkering with a home improvement project of some sort.

"Kevin?"

His flinch was suppressed, but she saw it. And the ache in his eyes that he struggled to hide…it reminded her of the few times he'd been teased, quite badly, in school. "Hey, Mom," he greeted her, managing to sound almost normal.

But she wasn't fooled, not in the slightest, and studied her son for several moments. When he started shifting uncomfortably, she asked, "What's wrong, Kevin?"

He opened his mouth to lie, then closed it again with a rueful look at her. "Never could hide stuff from you."

"That's what mothers are for, son," Andrea replied with a smile. Moving closer, she laid a hand on her son's shoulder. "Kevin, you can tell me."

This time, she waited as he regarded her, his gaze turning inwards as he considered what to say. It took some minutes, but he finally told her about taking Claire to get an inheritance test at the magical bank, about Shelley's family and the fact that he, too, had magical relatives. At first, he didn't tell her who his magical relatives were, skipping over that part as he told her a bit about his boss's kids.

But mothers know, they always know, and she wouldn't let her son get away with holding something back, with bearing whatever burden he had alone. "Kevin? Tell me about our side of the family," she requested and watched his face crumple in dismay.

It took him far too long to reply and when he did, he sounded as if he was talking past his tears, past a lump in his throat. "Not…our family, Mom…not exactly." A deep breath. "You and Dad went to England before I was born?"

They had…Andrea's brows rose at her son's question. "Yes, of course…it was a gift to ourselves; one last hurrah before we settled down and had children." And then she figured it out…realized what he'd discovered and pulled her oldest son down into a hug. "Kevin, stop this," she chided. "I already knew."

Against her chest, he gasped, shocked. "You…know?"

It was Andrea's turn to look away, but her son deserved the truth. "At first, no, of course I didn't…neither did your father…but then, one year, you had that fall on the sports field…you remember that, I'm sure." He nodded; he'd straightened enough to look her in the eye again. "You didn't match either one of us for blood type. At first, your father was very hurt, but by then, I'd found your birth certificate and I brought it to him. We looked at your date of birth and counted back nine months; it made no sense to either of us."

Her son nodded again, the pain in his eyes even more pronounced.

"At last we tracked down the most likely day for anything to have happened. It was in London, near a place called Charing Cross Road. That road has quite a few bookshops and you know how I love my books," her son managed a tiny grin, "We'd visited several bookshops and I'd picked up a number of new books, but, around mid-afternoon, my memory and your father's memory just…went blank. Your father was still rather angry with me, but we both agreed on the approximate time when neither of us could remember the rest of the day."

"Did Dad…forgive you?" Kevin questioned, still looking as if he wanted to crawl in the nearest hole and hide.

Andrea considered her son, then answered, "It took time to get back to where we had been before your fall, but I think it was helped along by the fact that neither one of us could figure out what had happened or how. I was even more upset than your father; it was devastating to think that something I had done had shattered his trust in me. In time, we rebuilt our relationship and it was stronger for the trial we'd gone through. But, believe me, Kevin, we never blamed you for a thing and I don't regret you for an instant." She ran a finger down his nose, smiling at him as he automatically rubbed at his nose afterwards. "Now, my brave son, can you tell me what happened all those years ago?"

She held him as he explained, as he told her what had happened, about his blood father and his half-brothers in England. Andrea was indignant when Kevin admitted he could have been a wizard if not for one last parting 'gift' from his 'father'. But when she asked if the damage could be repaired, he blinked at her in surprise.

"Why would I want that?" He sounded genuinely puzzled.

Mistaking his meaning, Andrea gave her son a stern look. "If you're rejecting your heritage because…" she stopped as her son motioned for her to stop.

"Let's say, what if, hey, presto, my magical core gets fixed and I can do magic…what would I do with it? I don't have any training in that stuff, I don't know how magic works or how I'd use it for my job day-to-day. The girls are going to go to school for seven years and that's just what almost any witch or wizard learns…after that they have to train for their job, whatever that will be."

Now she understood. "You would have to relearn your trade," she concluded, getting a nod from him. "And you would have to learn how to live on the magical side of life." Another nod. Still, she studied him. "It's not like you to back down from a challenge, Kevin."

Kevin dropped his gaze and scrubbed at the floor with one toe of his boots. "Alanna said, and I have no reason to doubt her, that damage like that is one of the things magic can't fix. If it were possible, maybe I'd go for it, see what I can do, but it's not. On the other hand, 'Lanna also pointed out that the magical world can't hide like it has been much longer…another five, ten years and it's going to be impossible to hide from our technology. So, she and her brother have been plotting for the day when magic can't hide anymore; the phone I showed you? That's the sort of thing they've been cooking up with Sarge and their account manager."

The older woman wasn't as familiar with technology as her son, but she understood, quite well, what point her son was making. "You and your daughters…you're going to build our future, aren't you?"

He flushed, looking down and rubbing the back of his neck. "We're gonna try," he agreed.

He looked up as his mother rested her hand on his arm, smiling proudly at him. "You'll do it; I know you will."

"Thanks, Mom."

Andrea's smile grew at her son's words. Regardless of anything else, she didn't regret a thing…not where her children and grandchildren were concerned. Family is, after all, family.