A/N: This was written for an assignment on the Hogwarts Challenges and Assignments forum. I wrote it for Ancient Runes task two: write about someone who doesn't believe in magic (at first). Word count: 2,192
Not Mere Coincidences
Ted prepared himself to launch the toy car with all his might as he muttered, "Come on," over and over again under his breath. Though there were other boys on either side of them, he was hardly paying attention to them. His focus was on his car and the racetrack they had created in front of them.
At John's count of three, Ted launched the car as hard as he could, still chanting underneath his breath. Other boys joined him in his muttering while a few of the group took to shouting at the top of their lungs as if their cars would hear them and obey their instructions.
Ted's eyes remained firmly on his bright red car as it fell further and further behind the others. The tension in his body was becoming unbearable as he clenched his fists and bit at the inside of his cheeks.
Suddenly, his toy car sped up, becoming little more than a blur against the race track they'd spent the entire morning constructing. The shouting boys quieted as they watched Ted's car speed past the others.
By the time it reached the finish line, far ahead of Billy's car in second place, no one was making a sound. Even Ted could do nothing but stare at his car, which had come to an abrupt stop just past the finish line.
Once each of the cars had rolled themselves to a stop, Ted chanced a look at his friends to find their mouths hanging open just as his was.
"What just happened?" John asked, a frown creasing the skin between his eyebrows.
John was by far the smartest of their group, something which he took pride in, and Ted wasn't used to seeing him confused. It made him uneasy. They should have been asking John that question instead. He was the only one who understood why the sky was blue after all.
They may have only been five years old, but they'd learned enough about the world to know that toy cars did not suddenly start going that fast.
"Maybe we're on a hill and don't know it," Billy suggested.
John looked downright affronted as he turned to the ginger.
"Then it would've been all our cars, not just Ted's."
Billy shrugged in response, and all five sets of eyes turned to Ted, who could feel himself beginning to sweat from the pressure of needing a plausible excuse. Swallowing nervously, he stood and retrieved his car to inspect it for any answers it might have possessed.
"I don't have a clue," he responded as the other boys pressed in on him to get their own looks at the car.
He let them pull it from his grip. They spun its wheels and pushed it along the ground to see it go, testing if he'd tampered with it without them realizing. He hadn't, and they could tell.
"Guys, give it a rest," Ted said.
He wanted nothing more than to move on and keep playing. Preferably a game that didn't require their cars.
"It was just something weird. It's not important."
The other boys looked like they wanted to argue, but after looking around at each other, they shrugged and gave Ted his car back without further comment. It was easy enough to convince them to play a game of football after that.
None of them ever mentioned the red car again. Ted was careful to store it away at the very bottom of a trunk in his closet, so it would never cause any problems again.
Tears had streamed down Ted's face for the entirety of the ride to the hospital, but they'd begun to dry as he sat between his parents in the waiting room and the pain faded. His mother kept fussing over him, rearranging his hair and patting his back as if that would make the pain in his ribs go away. His father sat beside him stoically as if he hadn't yet processed that his son had fallen down an entire flight of stairs.
Ted felt like he'd come close to death, which he hadn't expected as a seven-year-old. His mother had screamed when she saw him fall, and there had been a split second during the fall that Ted thought the worst.
That initial shock had passed, and he'd found himself with bruised ribs but nothing else as far as his mother could tell. She'd rushed him to the hospital just to be sure of course.
The doctor was matter-of-fact when she arrived, asking questions as she scribbled on a clipboard.
Ted had grown bored while waiting for her to arrive and hardly remembered why they were there until the woman slipped on a pair of latex gloves and came closer to inspect him.
"You're sure he's in a lot of pain?" the doctor asked, analyzing Ted's face.
His eyes still stung from the earlier tears, but his cheeks weren't wet anymore.
"Yes," his mother said, sounding confused. "He was crying the whole way here, and his ribs… Once you see them…"
The doctor gave a short nod and gently lifted Ted's shirt. The skin around his ribs looked the same as always. There were no strange colours that Ted was used to seeing from the bruises he got while playing. He wondered if that was why the pain had gone away.
The sight made the doctor frown and lean closer. She pressed against his skin, and her frown deepened. She pressed again while watching his face.
"He seems to have been lucky," she said, pulling away and letting Ted's shirt fall to cover his stomach once more. "I don't see any bruising. He seems to be in perfect health."
"That's not possible." His mother's eyes were wide, and she stood as she spoke. "There was bruising. I saw it."
"Seeing your child fall down a staircase can be very upsetting, Mrs Tonks, and I'm sure the initial shock had him in tears no matter how much pain he felt. However, he's fine now. Are you in any pain, Ted?"
Ted wanted to say yes to let his mother know she hadn't imagined the initial aftermath, but it would have been a lie. He knew he wasn't supposed to tell those, so he shook his head, not looking at his mother as she stared at him.
"But how?"
"Bertha, it's fine."
His father stood and pressed a calming hand to his wife's back.
"The boy is fine. We should be grateful. There's no use worrying about what happened."
"I agree," the doctor said, offering them a small smile. "If he does feel any soreness, you're welcome to bring him back in, but I feel confident giving him a clean bill of health."
On the way home, his parents stopped to buy him ice cream, but Ted found it hard to enjoy when his mother kept looking at him as if she wasn't sure what she was looking at anymore.
Ted was ten when Billy asked him if he thought magic was real. His stomach twisted into knots as soon as he heard the question.
He'd listened to his mother ask his father the same thing more than once when they hadn't known he was listening. Her voice would always shake, and his father would snap that such an idea was ridiculous. Each time, Ted would flee as his mother pushed the idea and father's voice began to rise.
"Of course I don't."
Billy flinched, and Ted regretted his sharp answer.
"It's just that magic can't be real, can it?" Ted continued. "It's not possible. Only kids believe in magic."
And his mother. But he would never admit that to anyone at school.
"I guess," Billy said slowly, squirming uncomfortably.
"Why do you ask?" Ted asked, body stiff as he waited for the answer.
"It's just," Billy's eyes shifted back and forth, "I've seen you do things, Ted, and I don't know how else to explain them."
Bile rose in Ted's throat. He knew the things Billy was talking about, though he did his best to push them from his thoughts after they happened.
"Those were just coincidences," he said, doing his best to make his voice cold. "They weren't magic."
Billy shrugged and nodded, but Ted could tell that his friend didn't believe him. Making some excuse that he couldn't remember later, Ted went to find John, who never asked such terrifying questions.
His friendship with Billy was never the same after that.
The day after his eleventh birthday, Ted came home from school to find a severe-looking woman sitting in his family's living room. His parents were perched together on the sofa across from the woman, and his mother ushered him into the room with a wave of her hand, making him settle between them.
He stared at the strange woman as she sipped her tea and watched him over the rim of the cup. She was in a deep green dress of velvet of a length that just allowed Ted to see the soles of the black boots she wore. The outfit looked rather old-fashioned to Ted, and only made her presence in his home feel more out of place.
"This is Professor McGonagall," his mother said, patting his back. "She works at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
She glanced at the woman to check that she'd gotten the name right, and McGonagall gave a short nod.
Ted blinked a few times before turning to look at his father, the man who had yelled many a time when his mother had suggested the possibility of magic. The man's lips were tight, but he offered Ted a slight nod. Ted turned back to the woman, mouth open as he observed her.
"You're a witch?"
There was a slight upturn to her lips that Ted almost missed.
"I am."
Her voice was as stern as he'd been expecting.
She pulled out a wooden stick and gave it a wave. Ted jumped as the vase of flowers sitting on the coffee table between them morphed from white daisies to variously coloured tulips.
Ted stared at the flowers and the woman's wand for a moment before turning to his mother.
"Why is she here?"
His mother glanced nervously at McGonagall before she leaned in close and spoke to him in a low voice.
"Ted, you know all the things you've made happen over the years?"
They were coming back to him, but he had genuinely forgotten most of them. He'd either buried them in his thoughts or brushed them off at his father's urging. "Coincidences" his father has always called them, and Ted had believed that.
He didn't answer, but his mother pressed on anyway.
"You're a wizard," she said, voice shaking. "That's what Professor McGonagall says, and I always knew you had magic in you. She wants you to go to Hogwarts and learn how to control your magic."
He turned to McGonagall with narrowed eyes and tried to find a reason to doubt her. Perhaps his mother was so far gone that someone had caught wind of it and decided to play an elaborate trick. The flowers could have been an illusion. Ted wasn't sure how, but he could have figured it out if given time. That would have made more sense than magic.
Except he wondered if it really would have. With many of his strangest moments returning to him, Ted couldn't explain all of them away as mere coincidences. No illusion spontaneously turned your pet cat a bright violet that couldn't be washed away with shampoo.
Remembering his father's shouting, Ted gazed up at the man. His father sighed deeply, running a hand over his face.
"There's no other explanation," he admitted. "For years, I've done my best to act like it was our imagination, but you really have done things, Ted. Things that can't be explained except by this," he motioned frantically in the air, "magic. And the things this woman have done are even stranger."
Silently, the family turned to McGonagall. She gave a short nod and produced a ticket from a small bag Ted hadn't noticed was gripped in her hands.
"School starts on September first. This here is your ticket. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. It's hidden from Muggles, that is non-magical folk. You'll need to run at the barrier between Nine and Ten. All three of you can pass through.
"This," she produced an envelope, "is your letter, which includes a list of supplies. You can buy everything you need in Diagon Alley, the most popular wizarding shopping district in England. It's hidden inside London. We can sort out a date and time for me to accompany you there. Most find it overwhelming on their first visit, so I've found it's best to come along as a guide."
Ted stared at the letter McGonagall had handed him, taking in the strange feel of parchment underneath his fingers. It would take a while before he felt that he was actually a wizard. For now, the parchment and wax seal of the letter left him feeling more like he'd entered the past than his new future.