"I'm a wizard and so are you."
Normally a sentence like that would have me looking for the nearest exit simply to get away from the crazy person. Perhaps it had been reading far too many Spider-Man comics growing up but I had always felt I had the same ability he had, which was his "spider-sense." Essentially it was a sixth-sense which had always protected me from threats. I had learned early on which people were "evil" in that they were capable of harming me for their own gain and when not to walk into a situation that could be dangerous. It had even saved me in a couple of fights where I had been able to dodge out of the way of punches or knives. Of course I had never told anyone about my "Justin-sense." If I had they would have called me crazy. And my "Justin-sense" told me he wasn't dangerous. He was crazy of course. However, since he didn't seem to be dangerous crazy, just harmless crazy, I decided to let him continue talking. But just in case for the first time in my memory, my Justin-sense was wrong, I made sure that I moved within reach of the lead pipe that was sticking out of the oil drum.
"I didn't think there were any such things as wizards." I said, humoring the old man. When I had seen him walk into the junkyard, I had assumed he was somebody's grandfather out on a stroll from a rest home. When he had come in closer, I had realized that he had walked into the junkyard with his purple track suit and his long white beard as if he owned the place. Which had showed me that he was very confident and actually capable of taking care of himself. Or possibly crazy. Either was trouble. Shaw, the owner of the junkyard would normally have thrown the old guy out and yelled at me for letting in someone who wasn't here to buy anything, but since Shaw wasn't here, I figured it didn't hurt to be polite.
"We hide ourselves from the world. You might have heard of the Salem witch hunts. People don't deal well with something they don't understand." He stated as if having a conversation about the history of mythical beings was something he did on a daily basis.
"I guess that makes sense." This was one of the most bizarre conversations I've ever had but my Justin-sense still wasn't going off. So I continued to accommodate the strange conversation.
"You call yourself Justin Smith don't you?" That immediately caused me to be a little more wary. How did he know my name? Was he the grandfather of one of the other students who went to the public school I went to? Additionally his question was slightly strange. He had asked if I called my self Justin Smith as opposed to asking me if my name was Justin Smith. As if he knew I didn't have a real last name. There was always a twinge of sadness whenever anybody used Smith. I could have been Smith or Johnson or Williams or Jones. I just didn't know it. All my paperwork said Smith but since I had been left at Child Services with only a first name it could have been absolutely anything.
"I'm Justin Smith." I answered cautiously. "And what might your name be, Mr. Wizard?"
"You can call me Professor Crumbs" He answered with a smile and a nod of his head. "I'm the headmaster of Wiz-Tech, which is a school for wizards."
Maybe this senile old guy had been a professor before he went off the deep end and thought he was a wizard. I might find out when I took him back to the nearest old folk's home. Before I could talk him into following me inside so I could start phoning the nearest homes, he smiled again and said "I guess I have to prove that I'm a wizard because obviously it's not something easily believable."
Evidently he was only one sandwich short of a picnic if he had the state of mind to realize that. I smiled in return and just said, "Obviously,"
"Well then let me prove it." He pulled out something that looked like one of those toy wands they sold during the whole Harry Potter craze, and pointed it at me. I expected the light on the end but what I didn't expect was for me to rise up in the air. I had predicted some card tricks or pulling a coin out of my ear. This was beyond anything I could have foreseen. I was floating and I could feel absolutely nothing beneath my feet. I could also not feel any tugging on my clothes which I would have felt if I was attached to a chain or wire or something of that nature. He waved the wand and I started moving to one side as easy as if I had been moving under my own power. I had seen stage magicians do this on tv but it had been with an assistant and she had been rigged with a wire. I knew I wasn't. And it was really, really difficult to come up with a logical explanation of my current condition. And my danger sense had still not gone off. I had learned to trust it far more than I could trust another human being.
"Will that be sufficient or do you need more of a demonstration?" He asked cheerfully. "I can do a lot more if you need."
"…I believe you." I said, after I had gotten the moisture back in my mouth. He waved his wand again and I gently floated back to the ground. "What… do you want with me?" I had just emphasized the last part when his earlier sentence hit me. "Wait! Did you say I'm a wizard."
"Yes, I did and I just proved that I'm a wizard. Is there something wrong with your memory?"
I stared at him helplessly for a second before I stated "No, what I meant was did you say that I…" and I pointed at myself to ensure he got the meaning, "Justin is a wizard?" I ended the sentence completely lost both grammatically as well as emotionally.
"Ah! Yes, I now I understand. Both of us are wizards!" He pointed one hand at me and the other at himself.
My first thought was that this explained my ability to sense danger. It was obviously a magical ability. My second thought was that I had slipped into a psychotic break and was imagining it all. And if that were true, I guess I would not know that I was a lunatic. The problem with the last though was I didn't know what to do if I was having a mental breakdown. If this Professor Crumbs wasn't real or worse yet he was real and I had imagined the whole wand and floating bit, I still didn't know how to act. It's hard to do anything when you're worried about what was real and what wasn't. I decided to act if everything was as real as it could get. If I was sitting in an asylum somewhere, strapped down in a straightjacket, mumbling to myself that I was a wizard and drooling, there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it, was there? I decided not to mention the whole mad as a hatter scenario and instead came up with an alternate obstacle. He interpreted the look on my face successfully and asked "What's the problem?"
"This is the beginning to the first Harry Potter book. Am I being pranked or something?"
He looked startled for a second and then replied with a gentle smile, "No, this is real."
"I don't have to fight Voldemort or something like him do I?" I asked confusedly.
"Nothing of the sort. Voldemort is fictional."
"Up until five minutes ago, I thought wizards were fictional."
He laughed at that. "You have a point. But we do exist and yes you are one."
"Then why me? I'm nobody." It was the truth. I was a nobody. Very few people noticed me and I tried to ensure that fact to the best of my ability.
"Either your father or your mother was a wizard. It's passed down from parent to child."
I felt a mix of emotions from that last sentence. If this was real then part of me was elated that I had at least one fact about a parent. It was more than I had ever learned in my seventeen years. Part of me was still afraid that I had gone over the edge and was making this up so I could pretend that I had relatives out there somewhere. Part of me felt empty as it always did when other people brought up family.
"You know my parents?" I kept the question as neutral as I could. It was a reflex on my part because I tried not to show enthusiasm about anything. People used things like that against you.
"No. With a little bit of research, we might be able to find something on your wizard parent or parents. And even if only one is a wizard, we also might be able to find out something about your non-wizard parent."
That was a slight encouragement. If I were crazy, I'm sure my mind would have filled in the details of a couple who had lost me by accident and had finally found me. The fact that my background was still vague indicated that it wasn't an easy fix so that increased the probability that this was real. My heart beat a little faster at that. Maybe I would get to find out why my parents didn't want me. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. I had other questions though, and in case this wasn't a fever dream, I still wanted the answers.
"How did you find me?" was the next question out of my mouth.
"Can we sit down? After several thousand years, my bones aren't what they used to be."
I literally stopped and looked at him as he continued on. When he realized I was standing there gaping at him, he said "I promise to tell you the important details as soon as I find a chair and some quiet. Nobody else is allowed to hear this conversation." I was in shock at his statement though. Immortality wasn't anymore strange than magic but it just felt like I was walking through some weird moebius-strip door where every time I opened a door of information, there was another door behind it, and behind that one was another door leading all the way to an infinity of surprises.
I realized I was leading a perfect stranger to somewhere he could be alone with me, but that demonstration had been very compelling. I couldn't believe it was some elaborate hoax because I was unimportant enough that nobody would waste time and money of this magnitude to convince me of anything.
I led him into the shack that Shaw and his wife kept as their office in the middle of the junkyard. Some of the other kids that the Shaws had "adopted" were half-heartedly sorting the junk that had been dropped off yesterday. I told them to take a break. Daniel who was next oldest in our "family" told me Shaw was going to be pissed when he came back in a couple of days if we didn't have everything organized. "I'll take the blame for it. You can tell Shaw it was my idea." Robbie looked pleased because he certainly didn't want to take a beating for angering Shaw. And I might have to if we didn't keep on schedule but this was a chance to find out something about who I really was. I would risk the punishment if I had to.
Crumbs was sitting in the Shaw's comfortable chair when I entered the office. I winced at that. There was going to be more trouble if somebody told Shaw about his chair being used. I grabbed one of the guest chairs instead of using Mrs. Shaws's chair. I figured I was in enough trouble already.
"I'm not going to explain everything today, Justin. That's far too much information. Just assume about fifty percent of all the information in Ms. Rowling's books are true. In fact what we did was give a mortal some information about us with the identities changed as a test case to see how mortals would react if wizards revealed themselves. Evidently mortals are still not ready." He looked ready to launch into a monologue of some sorts so I cut him off as gently as I could.
"I'm sorry but can I ask about me?"
"Ah yes. Well the first thing you have to know is that wizards can live for millennia. Our bureaucracy is even slower than mortal bureaucracy. You should have started your wizard training around the age of thirteen. But there was a mix-up and by accident you were never contacted."
That came as no surprise to me. I had been shuffled around in one system for years. It wasn't a stretch that I had been lost in another one.
"The other fact that you have to realize is that only one sibling in a family is allowed to be a wizard. This guarantees a containable amount of wizards which ensures that people don't learn about us. We need you to enroll in Wiz-Tech so as to give you a chance to compete with your siblings if you have any. Even if you don't, this will assure us that you know enough magic so you don't accidently reveal it to mortals."
"So I'm a wizard who has to go off to school to learn magic. " I asked carefully.
Upon his nod of assent, I muttered to myself "Sure feels like the first part of Harry Potter." At this point I really hoped I wasn't delusional. What little pride I had, demanded that if I had gone off the deep end, at least I had the imagination to come up with my own delusional scenario instead of immersing myself in somebody else's fiction. Which was a completely absurd thing to worry about but that was how my mind was spinning in circles currently.
"We should leave as soon as possible. Not only have you missed a few years, school has started for the summer already. But I can give you a day to inform your foster parents that you have been accepted at a special school but the acceptance letter got lost in the mail which is why they haven't heard about it until now. I can also fake any paperwork necessary through magic. "
I almost laughed at his statement, but since I didn't want him to get the impression I had been laughing at him, I refrained myself. For one thing the Shaw's wouldn't allow me to leave. Being the eldest meant I was the biggest and strongest. They definitely would not want to lose the one worker who could move the heavy pieces of scrap metal. For another, they had impressed on us what would happen to us if we told anybody about our situation. A body could be hidden quite easily in a junkyard with little chance of it ever being found. But neither could I just stay here for another year until I turned eighteen. When that happened the Shaw's would throw me out on the street with nothing to my name and my survival chances would be severely diminished. My worry for some of the other kids who were in this situation. I didn't like Daniel but even he deserved better than to be in this situation any longer than he had to. And there was still some hope for some of the younger boys. My only option was to trust Crumbs with the truth, hope he could do something with his magic and when the Shaw's were gone, hope these kids fared better under different foster families.
"None of these other kids are wizards are they?" I asked hoping to save one more.
"I can't sense any magic in the area other than yours." He replied getting a quizzical look in his eyes.
"Then I can leave now. In fact I want to leave as soon as possible." I looked him straight in the eye as I said it. I anticipated that he would ask me why and I was ready to tell him all the unsavory details.
He surprised me though. He stared at my face, read my expression and said in a soft tone that indicated he was speaking to himself rather than me, "So that's the way it is." He focused on me again and said "Don't worry, I can convince these people to give all these children back to Child Services. If that is what you want."
I was grateful to him that I didn't have to spell out the details. I simply replied, "Yes it is."
"Gather your things then and get ready to go. I'll come back here myself and ensure that the other children are taken care off."
It only took a minute to gather my stuff from the hiding spot I had left it in. I had one other set of clothes, one Spider-Man action figure and a handful of Spider-Man comics that I had traded some junk from the junkyard for. It wasn't much but it was all mine.