"Hey Grandad!", Riley Freeman yelled out. He glared up at the man standing in the doorway. "There's a man in a dress here to talk to you."

Riley looked him up and down. Cautiously he asked. "You ain't gay, is you?"

Riley was immediately slapped across the back of the head by his older brother Huey. "I'm sorry, sir. He has particular...idiocies that we're trying to train out of him."

"I didn't say it was a bad thing!"

"Shut up, Riley!

"Now, what business do you have with the people in this house? Also, what branch of law enforcement are you with?"

The man looked down at the two with an eye that rotated in its socket, as if it was strapped to the man's face. "Er, Her Majesty's Aurors is who I'm with. And I'm seeking out the Freemans."

"I can't let you in without a warrant.", was Huey's immediate reply. "And I've never heard of these Aurors. Do you have a badge number and an actual name?"

"Nigga, fuck that.", Riley declared. "No snitchin', fuck the police. Feds, sheriffs, whateva's - including aurors."

"Boy, shut yo mouth before it writes a check your ass can't cash.", Grandad commanded as he descended the stairs.

Then the old man saw who was at the door. "Oh, no no no no no. No! No. Absolutely not."

"Robert...", the man began.

"No.", Grandad repeated. "I left a child in England. I'm not leaving my grand kids there."

The two adults glared at each other.

"This is about our parents?", Riley asked.

Huey's permanent scowl deepened. "I think you better disarm, then come in and explain."

The elder brother held out his hand. The man's not-eye rotated between the three and then rolled upwards in an expression of exasperation with its by birth companion. The man placed a short wooden rod in the child's hand and entered. "This will take some time. You might want to put a kettle on."

Grandad stormed to the dining room table muttering. He was soon joined by the man on one side and the two children on the other.

"Children, I am Alastor Moody. As I've already told you, I'm an auror from the United Kingdom. Do you know what that means?"

Riley spit out, "Yeah: you's a cop."

"Do you know what that truly means?", Moody asked again.

Huey considered how the question was phrased. "Why don't you explain it to us?"

Moody turned to Robert. "You haven't even told them that they aren't muggles?"

"I've been trying to keep them away from all that foolishness. After what happened to their mother/"

The auror nodded in agreement. "There's lots of people not speaking about the dark times. I understand."

"Well, I don't.", Riley stated in a tone that was too proud at its own ignorance.

"Boys.", Moody started. "Has anything ever happened...have you done anything that you couldn't really explain."

Huey looked to his relatives. "Well...I'm not a prophet. But sometimes, I have prophetic dreams."

"Yo, fuck that nigga.", Riley cursed. "Mu-hu-fuggin' Stinkmeaner came back from hell and possessed Mr. DuBois."

"Well then. That's because you're wizards.", the auror explained.

Huey and Riley gave him a blank look. Huey raised the short rod the man had handed him and now recognized as a magic wand. "uh huh." He rolled the wand over to the man. "Can you prove it without harming anyone?"

Robert pulled his belt from his pants in one fluid motion.

"That's harmin' somebody!", Riley declared, instantly afraid of another ass whupping from his Grandad.

The old man scoffed. He threw his belt to the other end of the dining room table. And then, on its own accord, the belt slithered back to his hand. With a quick whipping, the belt gently fell around a candle in the table's centerpiece and lifted it to Robert's other hand without so much as disturbing the flame on the end. "How do you think you children survived me tannin' y'all hides like you deserved?"

Moody was aghast. "You used that on children?"

"Oh, save me that British bullshit, Moody."

"Excuse me, sir.", Huey interrupted. "But you said that we were wizards."

"Yes.", Moody declared.

Robert blew out a sigh as if twenty years of lies had caught up with him. "Boys. We come from a pure blood wizarding family. All the way back to Thelma and Tobias 'Catcher' Freeman. What even your research on the com-pu-ter couldn't find is that they used magic to escape their plantation. Our family faded into the wizarding world to escape the persecution that this country has put on black folks since its beginning.

"My damn fool ass didn't believe that the muggles...that's, uh, non-magical folk could even treat people like that. And with that arrogance, I joined their anti-Nazi efforts with the Tuskeegee Airmen. You see, muggles had learned to build machines that could fly higher than broomsticks by then and immediately set them to war. But I did see what American muggles did to black folks. So when I met Dorothy and had your mother in England, I came back here to become the civil rights legend that I am today."

"Funny.", Riley commented. "All I hear from civil rights legends is that you was a punk bitch.

"Ah!", he yelled as the now revealed to be magical belt snapped before his nose.

"So why weren't we raised in the U.K?", Huey asked.

Grandad hung his head. "It was dark times in the wizarding world, Huey. Your parents sent you to live with me in Chicago. And it's probably a good thing too. It was less than a year before they died."

"Uh huh.", Huey assessed. "And why is a British law enforcement agent from 'the wizarding world' here?"

"Well, that's because of you two.", Moody explained. "The wizarding school for England, Hogwarts, has you two on its list of students in the upcoming school year. You can see how that puzzled the headmaster as you're both for all intents and purposes American now. But Professor Dumbledore is a personal friend of mine and asked me to look into it.

"Now it turns out that the Magical Congress of the United States of America is aware of what the rest of the government knows about you two. Riley Freeman is considered a public menace. And Huey Freeman, by several federal agencies, is still considered a domestic terrorist."

"Which agencies?", Huey demanded. "I'm retired."

Moody listed. "The FBI, NSA, CIA - the guys with guns."

Huey gasped. "Magic. Of course. You're the White Shadow."

Moody shrugged. "So maybe we've had reason to watch you bit more closely than others."

Robert raised his voice in anger again. "See, this is why I wanted to keep them away from the magical com-mun-i-ty."

The auror turned to the elderly revealed to be wizard. "They're going to need an education in either way."

"A muggle education. Huey's a fine student - always readin' and talkin' about politics and what not."

"And Riley?", Moody asked.

Grandad looked at the boy. "Well, what's MACUSA gonna do about it?"

"They're refusing to let them into _any_ education in the States.", Moody warned. "And if you let their magic go untrained..."

Grandad grit his teeth. "Yeah. Yeah."

"Dumbledore has agreed to send them acceptance letters to Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And the only thing the Ministry of Magic insists on is them being escorted by an auror while on British soil when they aren't on school grounds. They are British by birth after all."

"Nuh-uh.", Riley declared. "No po-poes."

Huey sighed. "That's what's upset you?

"Look, Riley. I've seen the White Shadow disappear before my eyes. He can obviously change shape if he is the man in front of us. I think I agree, if we have power anywhere close to this then we need to learn about it."

"That's your solution to everything - learning stuff.", Riley spat. "You just want another excuse to push a nigga's nose in a book.

"Well, I know how to shut that down. How much is all this school in England gonna cost? Huh, Grandad?"

Robert sat back in his chair. "I know money's been tight around here boys. But that's been because the Freeman fortune has been in a magical British bank that I haven't transferred out of since I came back to the States."

"What?", the boys exclaimed. "We've been eatin'/" "and then Ed Wuncler Jr. had us/" "this some ole bull/"

"I didn't want you boys messed up in the wizarding world.", Robert tried to explain. "The dark times...well, they was really dark and let's leave it at that, okay. And with Huey here, I knew if I tried using our galleons, this boy would find out everything about everything like he usually does.

"Fine. You'll be taking your black asses to Hogwarts."

"Now?", Huey questioned.

Moody shook his head. "No, not now. But when the school year starts up in the fall."

"Good. Because we're going to need time to learn about what a 'wizarding world' even is.", the boy commented. "And people will probably expect some sort of good-bye."

"You can't tell any of these people about any of this. The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy forbids having another Salem on our hands by telling the muggles about us living among them.", Moody warned.

"Well, we can't just disappear and then, what? Mind wipe everyone?", Huey imagined.

Moody glared at him. "You won't be gone forever. You'll be back on hols."

"What is a 'hol'?" Riley asked.

"Holidays, Christmas and summer and the like.", Moody elaborated. "Look. Have Robert here get you a book or two...Robert, you at least have the house on the floo network."

The old man nodded. "But I ain't flush in powder for the fireplace in my bedroom.", he warned.

Moody nodded. "I'll get you some powder, and then you can floo to England and get yourself a copy of Hogwarts: a History. And maybe you two can see some of Daigon Alley before you're there for your school supplies this year."

"This year? The two of them?", Robert asked. "But Riley's a year and a half younger than Huey."

Moody sighed. "The Americans are making us take them both. Package deal."