Chapter Two: The Wordsworth Girls

Wordy, still carrying Claire, nodded thanks to the girl who held the door open for him. "Shel, we're home," he called. He'd had time earlier to call her and let her know Claire was safe, but it had taken another two hours for both father and daughter to be cleared by the Healers and to deal with the call's aftermath.

Shelley Wordsworth practically flew into the front hallway, drawing a cry of, "Mommy!" from Claire.

Claire slipped out of Wordy's grip and surged into her very willing mother's arms; Shelley hugged her daughter fiercely, tears in her eyes as the two clung to each other. "I'm here, baby; I'm here." After a few seconds, Shelley looked up at her husband and moved over to him, enfolding him into a three-way hug that Wordy's guest looked away from, old grief flashing across her face. "Thank you, Kevin," Shelley whispered, "Thank you for bringing her home."

Wordy hugged his wife and daughter a bit harder, then, reluctantly, released them and stepped back. "Hey, Shel? Remember when we were talking about if the girls had…" his eyes darted sideways to their guest, "…certain talents?"

Shelley nodded, looking confused.

Wordy's smile was weak, but there. "Surprise," he teased, "It's a witch."

Claire's expression was a mix of confused and indignant. "I'm not a witch!" she protested.

A soft laugh came from the Wordsworth's young guest. "It's not a bad thing, Claire," Alanna informed the younger girl. "Your Dad is just saying you have magic."

Claire cocked her head, studying Alanna. "You're like Amanda, aren't you?"

"Yes," Alanna replied simply. Looking up at the two adults, she added, "Might as well tell all of them now; they're going to find out once Claire turns eleven anyway."

At Claire and her husband's pleading looks, Shelley sighed and inclined her head. "They're still up; I couldn't send them to bed with Claire missing."

With that, Shelley let her daughter down and led the group into the family living room; where, a year earlier, Alanna had shown off her Animagus form to the two adults. Lilly and Ally leapt off the couch at the sight of their sister and swarmed both her and their father. Alanna, spotting something none of them had, managed to use her magic to pull all three girls away from their father right before he could accidently hit them as another post-Cruciatus attack struck, sending him to the floor in a series of muscle spasms that left him panting for breath.

"Kevin!" Shelley cried in alarm as Alanna got between her daughters and their father, kneeling beside her husband with a solemn look.

"I'm okay," Kevin panted before Alanna could say anything; he was already crawling to his feet again. "Thanks, kiddo."

In the better light and without Claire in the way, Shelley could see that her husband wasn't wearing his usual SRU uniform, but rather an all-black set of clothing that looked like a mix of his uniform and something almost medieval. Of course, the medieval look was nixed by her husband's sidearm holster strapped to his right leg, the equipment hanging from his belt, and the patches she could see on the outfit's shoulders. With a quiet groan, Kevin shed the vambraces, gloves, and jacket, revealing a black tunic and a gray undershirt. Shelley took the jacket, marveling at the feel and look of the leather, though it wasn't like any leather she'd ever seen before. But her attention shifted back to her exhausted husband and she gave him a Look, demanding, "What happened to you?"

Kevin cringed and Alanna stepped into the breach with a grim, "He found the girls, but he got jumped by Auror Anderson," Shelley gasped, "Anderson hit him with an Unforgivable – thank Aslan it wasn't the Killing Curse – but it's going to be about a day before the aftereffects fade." Alanna drew in a breath, then added, all in a rush, "Anderson's on his way to McKean Magical Prison for kidnapping, use of an Unforgivable, and attempted murder."

"What's an Unforgivable?" Claire asked, drawing attention back to herself. "Amanda said that, but I don't know what that means."

Alanna sighed, crouching down to Claire's level and looking between her and the other two girls. "I'm doing this wrong, aren't I?" she started. "Okay, first things first: magic is real and you're a witch – that's a girl magical," she added with a wink. "As far as we – me, your parents, my brother, and Team One – are concerned, you're a tech-born witch, but most of the magical world will call you a Muggleborn witch. It's the same thing, Claire, we just think tech-born is more accurate and less insulting," Alanna winked again, drawing a giggle from Claire. "And yes, I am like Amanda; I'm what's called a pureblood, which means my family's had magic for a really, really long time."

Claire considered this, then questioned, "Then why do you live with Uncle Greg? He's not magic, is he?"

With a laugh, Alanna sat next to the girls, eyes sparkling. "No, he's not," she agreed. "His grandmother on his dad's side was a Calvin before she married and her branch of the family moved here when my family had a child who couldn't use magic back in the 1800s." She cocked her head, then looked up, silently asking for permission. Wordy grimaced, but gave her a single nod.

Alanna's eyes warmed as she turned back to the girls. "In the 1990s, my grandparents died, so my Dad started looking for someone to take me and my brother in if anything happened to him and Mom. He hired our magical bankers – they're goblins – to trace our family's genealogy and find any distant family members that our family had lost track of. They found Uncle Greg, so, when my parents died, we were sent here."

Lilly put her own question forward, "Is Claire the only one with magic?" She was already pouting, clearly expecting the answer to be 'yes'.

Alanna regarded her, then a hint of mischief entered her eyes and she leaned forward. "Maybe. Have you ever made anything happen? Anything you couldn't explain?"

Wordy and Shelley traded surprised looks at the tactic. If Lilly and Ally didn't have magic… Wordy found himself hoping they did, if only so he and Shelley didn't have to deal with the inevitable tantrums. To their further surprise, Lilly considered the question for several moments, mulling it over. Then she shrugged, but didn't look up. Ally looked between her sisters and Alanna, sniffling.

But Alanna was grinning, with a distinct edge of 'I-know-something-you-don't' in her posture. Wordy cleared his throat and gave her an expectant look. The grin faded a little at his raised eyebrow. With a mock huff, she finally replied, "Claire and Lilly are both tech-borns and I'm pretty sure Ally is too, but not one-hundred percent…not yet anyway."

Shelley gasped softly; Wordy just sighed, resigned to the inevitable. Three witches in the family, all growing up…with magic added to the drama, hormones, and everything else that came with the ladies in his life. He wondered how long it would be before they found cosmetic charms and whatever else magical women used for their looks. Shelley's lips twitched at the look on his face, amused by his father's dread of his little girls growing up. Then she asked her own question. "How? I mean, neither Kevin nor I have magic, Alanna…so how do the girls have it?"

To her surprise, Alanna giggled…at her husband. "You never told her?"

Kevin actually blushed a little at the tease. "Kinda slipped my mind actually," he admitted. Then he turned towards Shelley. "Shel, think about it: Alanna just told the girls that Sarge's grandmother was descended from a branch of her family that didn't have magic…or at least, not enough to use. That's one family, with who knows how many people on the tech side of things that might be descended from them."

From the floor, Alanna added, "Think of magic as a recessive gene, Aunt Shelley: it might go dormant for generations, but it's still there. And the more generations there are between the last magical parents and the first tech-born, the more people there are who have that recessive gene. It could be Uncle Wordy who has the gene; it could be you who has the gene; it could even be both of you…we just don't know."

Curious, Shelley inquired, "Is there any way to find out?"

"Sure," Alanna replied, tilting her head to the side. "The goblins could do an inheritance test on Claire. That would tell you her genealogy all the way back as far as the goblins' magic can go. Ten generations, at least, I think. It would cost money though; goblins don't do anything for free."

"Then who paid for the armor?" Kevin challenged, looking alarmed underneath his exhaustion.

A smirk was his reply. "I said the goblins don't do anything for free, Uncle Wordy. The armor's Narnian made, remember? Silnok just delivered it; that might have cost money, but we didn't have to pay. Not for the armor anyway."

Quite deliberately, Kevin flipped his phone to the girl, pressing her, "Then who paid for the phones, 'Lanna? I know it wasn't our unit."

For the first time, Alanna looked unsure of herself. The girls were wide-eyed, taking in the fact that their parents had known about magic for awhile. Finally, Alanna sighed, fingering the phone. "You're half-right, Uncle Wordy. Uncle Greg did ask the goblins to make the phones for the whole team and the team's Auror liaison. But he didn't pay for it…not directly."

"You and Lance did," Kevin concluded, his voice a whisper.

A shrug, but Alanna was getting her cockiness back again. "You have any idea what happens if all of this," Alanna waved at him, his armor, and the phone in her hand, "works? Every day, the magical world gets closer and closer to the day when we can't hide anymore. Cameras, satellites, computers, and everything else? Yeah, a wizard could fool them, but only if we know about them…and we're talking about a society that still uses quill and parchment – and thinks airplanes are made of wood and fabric. And that's assuming they know about airplanes in the first place. Tech-borns spend seven years at school, living mostly on the magic side of life, so even though they know about technology, they don't really know what it can do."

"You're talking about Britain, not here," Kevin pointed out, "Here you guys go to school, yeah, but then you're home."

An acknowledging nod. "Yeah, we do. And you're right, it's easier for kids here to keep up with technology because we don't go to a boarding school nine months out of the year. But honestly? If it weren't for you guys pushing us to use technology, pushing us to understand how to live on both sides, we wouldn't. Even now, we wouldn't. Most parents don't do that; my tech-born classmates are just as clueless as the purebloods about almost any technological advance that happened after they started school. So, without you, all of you, we'd probably be just like Amanda, giving ourselves away without even trying and clueless about how to operate in the tech world."

Shelley contained herself with an effort. "So, you're saying that, by helping Team One work in the magical world, your family is…positioning itself for the day when magicals can't hide anymore?" Considering how the kids seemed to love Team One, that seemed rather callous to her.

"That's how Lance justified it to our accountant," Alanna confirmed. "The phones were actually probably the cheapest part; goblins have had those runes worked out for years even if it took a bit of fiddling for the smartphones to work. The computers for the Command Truck, Babycakes, even the upgrades they're planning to use for the computers all four trucks use for their engines…all of that has to be developed, improved. Babycakes is actually a prototype right now and Uncle Spike has to keep a log of how she works and what doesn't work."

Kevin whistled, impressed. Claire, Lilly, and Ally were lost, too young to really understand what Alanna was telling their parents, but they were impressed…and they wanted, someday, to help. Shelley, watching all of them, considered that sort of future: her husband and her girls, working to make magic and technology work side by side, instead of against each other. It was a future to look forward to…a future worth fighting for.