Wow, I never thought this story would be as accepted as it is, thank you very much for reading, and for reviewing, please keep doing so and maybe I'll be motivated enough this story would evolve into something with an actual plot and more chapters. I hope you enjoy it and don't hesitate to send any suggestions, commentaries, or point out any mistake, I'm not a native English speaker and I would really much appreciate your help to improve my writing.
Also my "Sheldonian language" is not very good, and there will be moments when he will be OOC but please understand, I don't really like to write with the dictionary under my nose, it makes the fantasy loose its touch and I would really love to be able to keep Sheldon being himself but he's difficult to translate (=P), that wont keep me for trying to improve that as well. Behold, I present you with the second chapter of this wicked story.
2. - Apprentice.
Penny shouted when the green flames enveloped her body, she was not afraid of being burnt, she had heard about the Flu network, but had never traveled by it, and the sensation made her feel suddenly lighter, as if she were free falling, but the hand holding her wrist never let go.
When they arrived they were at a place that looked very much like a government office, but the obvious magic in the air told her it wasn't any normal place, there were some people writing over huge books, people waiting in line to enter different offices and paper planes flying over their heads. She had never been to a place like this, where everybody was a witch or a wizard already, and was too amazed to make any question.
Without hesitation Sheldon started pulling her towards an office, he might have know where to go because he never stopped to ask, once they reached the place he was looking for he let go of her hand.
"Sheldon, what are we doing here? What is this place?"
"Seeing that you are not an authorized witch and have no license to appear, we require a permission to travel. With no means to offend you in any way Penny but I'm going to refer to you as a muggle, and maybe my current fiancé for the time being, as it's the only way they are going to grant us the right to travel, and we need to speak to some people to allow you to get your rightful place as a witch, and since you are currently in age to do this without your parents help I think it's for the best."
"Wait, wait, wait! You are going to lie? You don't lie! You are Sheldon Cooper, Mr.'I-can't-tell-lies'!" Sheldon just looked at her with condescension again.
"Penny, I'm a wizard, and one of the most brilliant minds in either world, I once told you that I'm not good at keeping secrets or telling lies, but I managed to hide this from you and the others. And you still think I can't tell lies or keep secrets? "
Penny gaped, she had no answer for that, it was true that Sheldon had managed to keep this from her and their friends, and maybe from the whole place he worked at, but she was used to Sheldon being… well, Sheldon, the sudden revelation that he was able to do the only things he would never do under his façade made her feel as if he was a stranger, and also made her think of all the things 'this' Sheldon had hidden from them.
"Now, come on, we need to work in this quickly" he said knocking at the door once, he had to stop himself from making his signature knocking, Penny saw how he had to use his left hand to stop the right one, some things were difficult to avoid, she thought, this routine was the prove.
"Come in" said a female voice from inside the office. Sheldon opened the door, Penny entered just behind him. The office was a little room, furnished only with a bookshelf, a pair of chairs and a desk.
"Oh, hello Dr. Cooper. It's been a while since I last saw you, what can I do for you?" said the little witch behind the desk, standing up and showing them to the chairs. The witch was a chubby woman, dressed in a muggle green suit, but wearing a black tunic over her jacket, she was wearing glasses, and her red hair made her look a bit exotic.
"Hello Ally," said Sheldon taking a sit in front of the desk and waiting for Penny to sit down next to him "you know the only possible thing for me to be here is to ask for a permit to travel outside the country."
"Is it the usual? You've never brought anyone before." The woman looked at Penny with a kind smile, and then flicked her wand in the air and a tray appeared floating in the air next to them. "Can I offer you something to drink?"
"No thanks, this is Penny, my… fiancé" said Sheldon struggling a bit before saying the last word. " We want to start the paperwork as soon as possible, and since she's a muggle I require the special permit to take her with me."
"Congratulations Dr. Cooper, give me just a minute, it's a piece of cake, not many couples come here as a first stop when it comes to this, they always run around the offices before noticing they need a travel permit to complete the register of their partners at the Ministry in London" said Ally standing up and looking inside some drawers for the paper they need to fill. "Good thing you're a genius, this would save you a lot of time."
Penny watched as the lady started filling the blacks on the paper, she just asked Penny her name before handing Sheldon a copy and waving him good bye. Once outside the office Penny lowered her voice and asked.
"Why do we need to go to London?"
"Generally speaking if we really were to get married then we should get some more papers, wizards have always kept the community as a secret, it's part of the law, so when someone wants to marry a muggle the government makes an investigation to see if the person is capable of keeping the secret, they also search their family line to see if there's any connection with the original pure blood families, it can happen, they also ask the person to visit London's Ministry of Magic so they can make a file of the person and to explain and make the sign a paper with their rights and responsibilities, once married and in case their offspring inherit the magic. If your parents had accepted to let you go to Hogwarts then they would have need to do almost the same, its just for control purposes, and it also benefit them if they are involved in a magical accident, if many people is involved, with that file they don't get their memories erased."
"Cool" said Penny remembering some of the problems she caused when she wasn't able to control her magic as a little girl. She knew the accidental magic in her first years was tracked and dealt with, but while she grew up and more accidents happen, she found herself involved in more and more trouble, it had been in the first place why she had ended up moving to California. She shuddered at the memory of what had almost (almost!) happened with Kurt.
"But since we are not going to get married, and we were not going to get this permit otherwise, we don't need to fill any other paper and can leave right away." Penny wasn't expecting Sheldon to put his arm around her waist… or to see the world turn to a blur in front of her, the squeezing sensation that enveloped worst than the journey in the Flu network or to land feeling sick in a street were it was already dark. "Sorry, I forgot the first time appearing with someone was not really pleasant, I should have asked for a portkey."
Penny stumbled towards the wall of the nearest house and took in the view in front of her, forgetting that very moment of the feeling of dizziness. Right at the end of the street she could see the most iconic building of the city: Elizabeth's tower (The Big Ben), the visible face of the clock illuminated and the starry sky reminded her of a Disney movie.
"Come on Penny, I ordered a pizza a while ago and I don't want to give more than three turns before heading back, it would ruin my sleeping schedule."
Sheldon had waited for her to take in the view of the city, giving her time to compose herself before signaling the red phone box in the next corner and walking towards it. The blonde was feeling overwhelmed, she had dreamed how the magic world would be, but what she had already seen was far over any fantasy she ever imagined.
Entering the Ministry of Magic was her least favorite, and she would have felt bored of walking through different offices if she hadn't know that Sheldon was used to make all this kind of "legal moves". They talked to many people there, Sheldon explaining why he had brought Penny; many of them asked her some questions before let them go to the next office.
Finally tired of answering questions and being dragged along through what felt like a thousand offices, she was sitting at the big fountain in the middle of the hall when Sheldon approached her followed by another wizard.
"This is Penny" said Sheldon introducing her to the man. "This is Alphonse, he's the one in charge of helping muggle families, and of course of managing people who like you have been neglected by their family and never made it to a magic school."
"Hello Penny, can I call you for your first name?" said the man, extending his hand to greet her; Penny nodded while shaking his hand. "I know it's been a long day, and for what Dr. Cooper said you have already completed all the necessary register. Right now all I need to see is if you can perform a little spell and then I will explain how things are going to work."
Penny smiled; she was going to make some magic at last. Alphonse led them to an empty room with its walls full of portraits; next to the door was a table with at least five wands.
"Take a wand" he instructed "it's just to perform a basic spell so it's not going to reject you or anything like that." he then handed her a piece of paper and made a heavy box appear in the middle of the room with a thud. "You are going to perform the spell to make things float, its pretty easy and it wont cause you harm in case you fail to pronounce the words, it also requires certain force to be used and that's what I'm going to use to determine if you can start your self training with mail classes or if you will need a tutor to guide you."
"So, I'm going to be allowed to study magic? That's great!"
"Yes, it often depends on the wizard, some can manage to do magic and start training themselves, we test them here and give the necessary level, also there's people who can't make magic because their years of not using it made them loose "the spark" as we use to call it, there are also other people that can do magic but can't control it, to that people we set a person to help."
"Great. Sheldon, can you tell me how to pronounce this, I really don't want to mess this up, no matter if my chances are minimum."
"A wise choice!" Said Sheldon walking towards her and telling her how to pronounce and make the spell. " I'll make a little demonstration, is it ok Alphonse?"
"Go ahead" said the wizard smiling.
Sheldon took his wand and made a swift movement with it, pronouncing the spell loud and clear. "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The box instantly raised three feet from the floor; he then made it go down smoothly. Smiling he turned to Penny. – It's been a while since I made this spell saying the words out loud; it's quite satisfying to do it again.
Penny smiled, a bit nervous this time, she turned to the box, flicked the wand in the air and pronounced the spell… Something happened that very moment, a few 'ah' and 'wow' were emitted both by the men behind her and the people in the portraits. She saw the box floating in front of her, smiling and feeling proud because of that.
"Sheldon I did it! Look, the box is floating!" She said turning her head around, only Sheldon was not looking at her from the ground.
"Calm down Penny!" Sheldon warned looking at her terrified expression, and stopping her right in the moment she was about to squeal and throw the wand to the air. "Lower the wand slowly, until the box is on the floor again." Said Sheldon apparently amused by what just happened, when Penny made the spell work everything in the floor of the room floated, including Alphonse and him that were suspended in the air next to the table and the remaining wands, trying to keep a standing position without loosing balance.
Penny took a deep breath and with a trembling hand lowered the box to the floor.
"Wow Penny, that was… good, really good. This means your magic performance it's still strong enough, no wonder why Hogwarts asked for you, people at the US tend to go to the schools in the continent. But you are going to need a tutor to help you, the magic training allows the wizard to control his own power and to work for him, I suppose you are always dealing with the mess in your house, having your powers like this makes it difficult not to show in that way."
"I never noti…"
"She's a very messy person," Sheldon stopped her mid sentence "she would have never know part of her mess was because of her powers, I tried to help her with that once, now I see it would have prove worthless with the time."
Penny frowned and walked towards the table to put the wand again with the others.
"And who would be my tutor?" She said trying to change the subject from her messy apartment.
"I'll check the list of voluntaries, you won't need to pay it; I'll send you an owl next week maybe."
"Hey, hold on!" said Sheldon. "I can do it, I can tutor Penny through her magic training, the last thing I need is another witch or wizard messing things around, and if it's a wizard then she'll loose no time to have intercourse with him. No, I will do it, there's no need for anybody else to disturb my peaceful life."
Penny slammed her hand against her forehead, leave it to Sheldon to say something like that even in front of a stranger in a foreign country. Alphonse had turned red, but just nodded and moved towards the table.
"That's acceptable, Dr. Cooper, I'll make the necessary paper work and you'll be able to leave right after, give me five minutes. It's not really often that we need to arrange an apprentice contract, it's more of the days when there were no magic schools, but it's still viable and the Ministry updated the law after Hogwart's Battle a few years ago. It helped to regain control over the muggle born kids when the lists got lost."