"Brian, can you come set the table please?" My father called from inside the house. I was out playing in the garden with the local stray dog.
"Can't you just the table using magic?" I asked. My parents both had magical abilities.
"I'm not the one setting the table, and until you are able to do magic outside of Hogwarts in seven years, you do the same as every other muggle around here."
I sighed, "Yes, dad." I took to slowly setting the table, staring out the windows into the back garden whenever I could, feeling the light breeze whisk through the house. Tomorrow was my birthday. I was to turn eleven years old and according to my parents, the same day I'll receive my letter of acceptance from Hogwarts.
"When's mum going to be back?" I asked while eating dinner. The sun had set by now.
"She'll be here for your birthday, don't worry." My dad answered and ruffled my hair. He missed her just as much as I did.
After dinner I sat on the back patio in my favorite reclining chair. The sky was cloudless, showing off every star that could be seen by the naked eye. The air was just as nice, cool, with a sharp bite to my exposed skin, but clean and refreshing. I wanted to sit out here all night until mum came home and gave me a big hug then ordered me to bed, but I would have to go get a sweater eventually and I knew, I knew, the second I go to snatch a sweater from my closet that I'll become tired and go to bed early.
The second I told my legs to push the chair down a flame roared up in the fire pit next to my chair. My dad bought the fire pit for nights exactly like these, beautiful clear nights with a brisk icy breeze. There were only two reclining chairs that sat on the back patio because one of my parents were usually out on a job for a few days or weeks at a time, and whenever they were both home together we went out for dinner and sat around the living room talking. They both worked for the Ministry of Magic as aurors, but never at the same time.
I reached out for my dad's wand sitting on the side table. I was always fascinated by this thin strip of wood that held endless magical power, and to rub my fingers along the runes etched into it. Tonight, though, I was slapped instead of allowed to pick up it, which shocked me.
"Sorry, buddy, not tonight. Your abilities are more unstable now than before, and I don't need you to be admiring my wand and accidentally blasting fire all over the house."
"But I'm not eleven for another…" I turned around in my chair to look at the clock in the kitchen; 11:45, "Fifteen minutes! Can't I look at your wand one last time?"
"You'll have your own wand soon enough, Brian."
A few minutes later there was a loud crack in front of us and my mum appeared out of thin air. She was soaked from head to toe and shivering violently. She ran over and gave my dad and me a quick hug before muttering "Need shower", and was off up the stairs.
"Why was mum soaked like that? Where has she been this time?" I asked.
"I'll know at the same time as you, once she decides to tell us. I suppose she was in Scotland; there's been terrible rain there the past few days."
"Well happy birthday, Brian!" My mum exclaimed ruffling my hair after her shower. She leaned against my dad's chair sipping some tea; dad was fast asleep. "So, how does it feel to be eleven years old?"
I shrugged, "It feels just like yesterday, except you're here tonight."
"Speaking of birthdays, I almost forgot about your present! I'll be right back." She said and ran back into the house. My dad woke with a start, "What time is it? Did I fall asleep?"
"You did. Mum just went in to get my present."
"She did? Oh, happy birthday, buddy! Sorry, what time is it?"
I turned around to look at the clock, "Half past midnight".
"Blimey, I've got work in the morning! Even I forgot I have a muggle job sometimes." He jumped out of his chair just as mum came bounding outside.
"Well, well sleepy head, good morning. Going to bed now repairman Joe?" she kissed him as he wedged by into the house. She sat in the empty chair now with a box sitting on her lap covered by a blanket. "Here you go." She handed me the box, which wasn't a box at all, it was a cage.
"Wow!" Inside the cage was a small bat hanging upside down. The bat started crawling around once I opened the door to his prison and it crawled straight up my arm onto my shoulder. "Is it a he or she?"
"It's a he, do you like him?"
"I love him! I'm going to name him Salazar." As if on cue, Salazar crawled on top of my head and nestled among my curly hair. "I think he likes me already."
"You two are adorable!"
"Oh Shush."
"We decided we would get you two animals for different purposes." My dad said coming outside carrying a dog size cage. He lifted the blanket off the cage and there sat a yawning white ball of fur. "She's a mix breed with some magic of its own. We thought you could use the bat in place of an owl, and they're both small enough to carry around with you while you're at Hogwarts."
Salazar glided over to the cage to get a better look at the white dog. The dog tried to paw playfully at Salazar but kept falling backwards. Dad opened the cage door and she ran towards the middle of the yard and I ran after to play with her and Salazar, but as I got down on all fours to play, she began to grow. I pushed myself back to watch her grow until she reached full size. When she stopped growing she was the size of a mature polar bear.
"That's her most well-known ability." My dad said, "And she's not vicious in any way." And as if to prove to me that he was right, her massive tongue cleaned my face in lick. She then got down and snuggled up to me, and before my eyes began to shrink down her small fur ball size.
"I love both of them! Thank you so much, I couldn't ask for better birthday presents." I said hugging both my parents with Luna (I just now decided to name her Luna) in one arm and Salazar sitting on my shoulder playing with my earlobe.
There was a loud crack behind us in the yard. We all jumped, Luna whined and Salazar hid in my shirt. A small fire had erected where I had been lying minutes ago, but did not spread. My dad doused the fire with water and shone light on whatever had drove itself into the ground. I reached for it but my mum pushed my hand aside and began muttering with her wand waving at the thing in the dirt.
"It looks like a wand." I said. It had to be. What else could produce a loud crack and start a small fire in our yard, surely not a branch off our tree?
"It's not cursed and doesn't have any hexes attached to it. From what I can tell it's clean." Mum said and glanced at my dad. She put her hand on my shoulder, "Go on then, pull it out."
I reached down to pull what I thought was a wand out of the ground. It was very long, just short of the length of my arm. There were circular globes that had a honeycomb texture to them about three inches apart along the wand. After a few seconds it gave off a warm golden glow.
"Let me see that." My dad said pulling it from my grasp. He looked at it for a few seconds and his eyes lit up, his expression showed horror. "This can't be…"
"What is, John?"
"Look." Dad said, handing her the wand.
My mum's expression showed the same horrified look. "This is impossible, this wand shouldn't exist in one piece." She said and bolted for the house.
I ran after her. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Brian, do you remember the stories about Harry Potter and the second wizarding war?"
"Yeah, Harry defeated Voldemort and saved the wizard world."
"Well, this wand was his prize for defeating the dark lord. The thing is though; he snapped it in two and threw it over the bridge at Hogwarts."
"That's why it physically cannot exist in our house right now" my dad said joining the conversation, "because it was destroyed by Potter himself."
I was so confused. If what my parents were saying was true, then this wand belonged to Hogwarts' last headmaster. It was used by the dark lord, Voldemort, and then destroyed by Harry Potter. So why in the hell was it in my mum's hand, in our kitchen, on my birthday? This can't just be a coincidence.
"This can't be a coincidence, John. We have physical evidence it exists, it's sitting in my hand right now. And you saw it, the glow; the wand chose Brian out there when he picked it up. We have to find out what this could mean."
"Go to the ministry tomorrow and seek an audience with anyone who will listen, preferably Minister Granger if you can manage to see her first. I'll contact Olivander and see if he has any idea what this could mean." My dad said waving his arms around.
My mum gave me back the wand and held my wrist, "Don't be waving that thing around, you got it? We don't need a bloody firestorm happening in the house. Now go to bed, put the wand on your desk and leave it. Put Luna's cage on the floor and Salazar's on a shelf if you can, and keep their doors open." She then shooed me away out of the kitchen.
Upstairs in my room I placed the wand on my desk and left it there. I couldn't stop thinking about it, but I vowed not to touch it until I got the okay. I placed Luna's cage under my table and set Salazar's cage on the top shelf in my closet and left the door open so he could come and go as he pleased. When I got in bed though, neither wished to sleep in their cages, instead they crawled into bed with me and fell right to sleep; Luna between my legs and Salazar hanging just behind my head from the headboard.
Sleep overtook me soon after I got settled into bed.
A boy of maybe fifteen lay on a metal table in what seemed to be a laboratory of some sorts. He had tubes and IV's running all over his body, and doctors working to stitch up some deep wounds that littered the boy's upper body. The boy opened his eyes and all the tubes and IV's ripped and flung from his body. He sat up and looked at the horrified doctors who were now trying to push him back down onto the table. The one doctor that held a syringe came toward the boy but collapsed to the floor instead, his neck broken. The other doctors backed away from the boy in terror. The boy stood up, completely nude, and recovered the lab cloak from the fallen doctor. The cloak turned pitch black the second it covered him. He then turned back to the remaining doctors and waved his hands. The doctors didn't even have a chance to successfully call for help.