I promise plot will be coming soon, but for now, our boy needs to serve his detentions. Sorry for the wait, but things are gonna start ramping up soon.

Tim had almost forgotten about his own impending detentions when McGonagall approached him Monday morning at the Ravenclaw table.

"Oooh, someone's in trouble!" Purdie whispered, nudging Tim with his elbow playfully. Tim had, by this point, already told Purdie, Cordelia, and Aruna about his detention, since his morose demeanor Wednesday evening had not gone unnoticed by them. He hadn't gone into the specifics of the how or why, only that he had a week's worth of detentions that were soon to come. Purdie had almost looked proud of Tim for this achievement, while Cordelia seemed torn between reprimanding Tim and joining in on Purdie's celebration. Aruna, as always, said nothing.

McGonagall pulled Tim aside just as the morning post was arriving, which bothered Tim more than whatever punishment he was going to be receiving soon. He'd probably be spending his free period today reading through all his subscriptions.

"Mr. Drake-Wayne, your detentions have been scheduled," she told him, still looking at him with the same concerned expression she had had when she'd given him these detentions last week. "Professor Dumbledore has requested your assistance in the demanding task of cleaning his office."

"The headmaster?" Tim had thought the man would be far too busy to supervise something like a student's detentions. However, this presented a unique opportunity for Tim to get to know Dumbledore better, which was one of the main goals of his mission right now. Honestly, this was far better than Tim could have ever hoped in terms of the substance of his detentions.

"Yes. Six o'clock every evening through Friday. He will let you into his office himself. You will not be needing to take anything with you." It wouldn't be much of a detention if he could just scour the whole place with his wand, would it?

"Thank you, Professor."

"So?" Purdie said as Tim sat back down. "What's the verdict?"

"Cleaning Dumbledore's office," answered Tim, who was now sifting through his various papers to see what was the latest around the world. He couldn't help but smile when he saw his brother Duke featured on the front page of the Gotham Gazette, playing basketball with a small group of young amputees in his Signal uniform. Duke was still the only Bat to consistently make public appearances in the daytime as his vigilante alternate identity, and Tim was always a little jealous watching him interact with Gothamites during the day, especially younger children who idolized anyone wearing a mask.

"Well, that's not so bad," Purdie conceded. "Last detention I remember getting was taking inventory of Snape's personal potions ingredients by hand." He shook his head glumly. "Let me tell you, counting leeches is not an ideal way to spend a Saturday morning."

"Was that the one you got for messing with the Slytherin Quidditch gear and painting it all Ravenclaw colors?" Cordelia smirked.

Beside her, Aruna shook her head. "Prefect's bathroom," she corrected.

"Ah, right. Sneaking into the prefect's bathroom."

"He wouldn't have caught me if Gemma Farley hadn't ratted me out like that," Purdie grumbled. "That's what I get for wanting one bubble bath."

Tim, being Tim, arrived at the gargoyle five minutes to six that evening, showing up as instructed without anything else but himself. And two smoke pellets in his left pocket. And five Batarangs folded up in a back pocket. Just in case. But he didn't count those. That was just standard procedure.

Then, two minutes to six, the gargoyle stepped aside, and down the spiral staircase walked Dumbledore. "Do come in, Mr. Drake-Wayne."

"Yes, sir." Tim followed him back up. Oddly enough, this staircase worked like an escalator, easily the most modern piece of technology this school had to offer. When they reached the top, Tim was met with what might just be the single most enviable office upon which he had ever laid his young eyes. Small and circular, with walls made of bookshelves packed with tomes and grimoires, trinkets and baubles, contraptions and curios. It looked like a drawing straight out of a Serpents & Spells guidebook, the kind of place that Tim would dream about owning. And, if Tim wasn't mistaken, that bird perched near Dumbledore's desk was, in fact, a phoenix. An honest-to-god phoenix.

"You like it?" Dumbledore asked, immediately moving to sit at his large, velvet chair. Tim let out a short huff of laughter. Like you need to ask… Tim couldn't wait to get his hands on everything and see how they ticked.

"You can start off dusting the bookshelves." Dumbledore waved his wand, conjuring up a small stepstool and a feather duster, the latter of which hovered in front of Tim, bouncing around a bit, like it was eager to get to work.

"Yes, sir." Tim had grown up his whole life with various housekeepers who performed the household chores while his parents gallivanted around the globe, and Alfred kept Wayne Manor spotless, so Tim never really had the need to do chores when he was growing up. However, Tim had often helped out his housekeepers wherever he could when he was younger; not only did Tim feel morally obligated to help whenever possible, but he also sought out any social interaction he could back then. And when he was a teenager (did nineteen still count as being a teenager? Was he still a teenager?), he would often spend time at Wayne Manor under the guise of helping Alfred with the household chores, again, as a desperate effort to not be alone so much.

Case and point, Tim was no stranger to cleaning; in fact, his mind automatically associated it with something happy—namely, not being alone. So, he snatched the duster out of the air, its feathers twirling around as if caught in some sudden gust of wind, nudged the stool over to the shelves right beside the door, and got to work.

Tim eyed the top of the first shelf. Best to start there instead of letting the dust settle onto freshly-dusted objects below. He stepped up to the highest part of the stool, already quite aware that, even with its help, he would be several inches too short to reach the top. However, it seemed that the stool was fully prepared to counter this specific problem, because Tim's ankle knocked against another step that definitely wasn't there before. The stepstool had had three steps including the top, Tim had counted. And now it had four. Though he was now high enough the start cleaning, Tim, purely out of curiosity, lifted his foot up as if he needed to get higher. He watched in awe as another step grew out of the top. He took a step back down, and the newly-formed platform shrunk back into the stool. Tim could probably do this all day, watching this little ladder adjust to his every need, but that would be a waste of time. There was work to be done.

He slipped out the book farthest to the left, a thick leather-bound tome, and realized he had nowhere to put it. Just as this thought occurred to him, Tim heard a high-pitched squeaking from his side, and he turned to see that a small, brass plate was walking towards him on little clawed feet that one might see on the bottom of an old, porcelain bathtub. The little thing waddled up to the right of Tim and planted itself there, Tim waited patiently for it to make itself useful. Sure enough, several thin, shiny tendrils sprouted out of its feet and twisted themselves up like a beanstalk, forcing the plate up until it was level with Tim's chest.

A stool that only ever had as many steps as you needed, and a table that adjusted itself to your height. Dumbledore sure had some weird knick-knacks around here.

Tim started stacking the first row of books onto the side table. Once he had cleared the shelf, he stretched his arm out and dusted out the space until it was clean, at which point he went, book-by-book, and shelved them back, dusting each spine individually. It should have been dull work. It should have been tedious. Indeed, Tim had to have been exceedingly odd to find this work as absolutely delightful as he did. He got to handle books with titles wholly unfamiliar to him, some old and fragile, some with gilded covers, all with stories to tell, both figuratively and literally. It seemed that Tim really hadn't changed that much since he was a kid—he was still the bright-eyed boy who was seduced by the mere sight of a hardcover book.

Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration, On Gamp and the Elements, a first-edition, signed copy of The Plane of Vanishment…it was a veritable treasure trove, and he was only on the first shelf!

He started skimming through Six Laws on Non-Corporeal Conjuration, stopping at a hand-drawn diagram detailing wand placement and its effects on one's conjuration magnitude. All over the diagram were annotations, some written in gold ink, others in an emerald green, but all in the same neat cursive.

A short, soft cough stole Tim's attention away from the book, and he glanced over at Dumbledore's desk to see that the man was watching Tim intently, a twinkle in his eyes and a ghost of a smile on his face. Tim felt his face begin to flush, and he hurriedly shut the book and put it back onto the shelf.

"See something that interests you?" Dumbledore asked, sounding vaguely amused.

Tim let out a little chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck meekly. "I don't think I've seen anything in here that hasn't interested me, sir."

Dumbledore hummed in affirmation but didn't add anything more, so Tim returned to his work. This man had books on every magical discipline of which Tim was aware, and then some. He was particularly intrigued by the first book Tim he'd found that Dumbledore himself had written, Twelve Uses for Dragon's Blood. From what Tim had read in an old Daily Prophet article, Dumbledore was quite the adept alchemist, which explained why three whole shelves were full of alchemic papers and theories.

Tim and Dumbledore shared a comfortable silence for the next two hours, the headmaster going through what Tim assumed to be his normal routine, though he had no way to be certain of this. By this time, Tim was onto the second bookcase, three shelves from the bottom. Honestly, Tim could have been done dusting by now if he hadn't kept on pausing to flip through every book that tickled his fancy (so, all of them, really).

Tim was the one to break the silence. "You…read Muggle philosophers?" he mused, grabbing Kant's Critique of Pure Reason off the shelf.

"Indeed," Dumbledore confirmed, looking up from his work. "There is much we wizards can learn from Muggles." Tim was much inclined to agree, especially when those Muggles were the greatest philosophers in history. What really gave Tim a new level of respect for his headmaster, though, was the variety of philosophers he had chosen to read. Sure, there were the big ones—Aristotle, Aquinas, Socrates, Rousseau, Marx, Descartes, Nietzsche—but he had works by Confucius, De Beauvoir, Oluwole, Rand, Lao Tzu, Norinaga… Frankly, Tim was impressed. Tim had read his fair share of philosophers and had discussed even more with Jason and Bruce and Alfred, but he wouldn't consider himself an expert, not like them. However, Tim did notice that, when he was in the offices of so-called 'great thinkers' for WayneTech business nonsense, they would usually have a combination of the same ten old, European philosophers. Tim was certain Jason would be proud of the diversity of thought featured on these shelves.

"Do you have a favorite?" Tim asked, almost instinctively.

Dumbledore smiled as though Tim had just made his day. "I find myself continually drawn to Martin Luther King Jr. and his philosophy on love."

"Huh." Good choice. For an old British wizard to consciously seek out the work of a modern American Muggle, he would have had to really be interested in Muggle philosophy. "I enjoy economic theory, so I've always been a fan of Locke myself."

"Huh."

The rest of the evening passed in silence, and by the end, Tim was about a third of the way done with dusting the books. Dumbledore had dismissed him around eight-thirty, making Tim promise him that he wouldn't "go off wandering the halls and miss curfew." The feather duster bounced around in the air and waved goodbye to Tim, who, like the child that he was, waved back.

"Detention?" Hermione gasped, sounding distraught. "When did you get detention?"

Tim bit his lip. He'd been trying to keep the whole thing on the down-low so that he didn't have to explain why he beat up a bunch of children in an abandoned corridor. But he hadn't had any other excuse as to why he couldn't come watch Harry and Ron practice Quidditch together tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the day after that.

"Last week," Tim told them. "I, uh, kind of beat up Malfoy and his friends?"

Ron snorted his pumpkin juice out onto his plate. "WHAT?" he burbled, wiping his face with his sleeve and earning him a look of disgust from Hermione. "Why weren't we told about this sooner? I'd have had Fred and George throw you some kind of party!"

"Ron!" Hermione hissed, shaking her head. "Don't encourage him!"

Harry, however, seemed just as excited as Ron, and picked up where the other boy left off. "So, you just showed up one day and knocked them all senseless?"

Tim shrugged, not quite ready to recount the real reason he'd gone into such a rage.

"That's horrible!" Hermione said firmly. "Tim, you should have known better."

Tim grinned. "I regret nothing besides getting caught." Ron and Harry high-fived each other across the table.

Hermione merely rolled her eyes and sighed. "So, what are you doing for detention?"

"Cleaning Dumbledore's office."

Ron made a face at that. "Ugh, cleaning without magic's the worst."

"I kind of like it, actually. It's calming."

"I wouldn't mind detentions with Dumbledore if it would get him to stop pretending like I don't exist," Harry grumbled through a spoonful of oatmeal.

"Oh, honestly," Hermione chided, "you all are ridiculous."

During lunch, Tim finally returned to his research for Constantine, looking for articles mentioning a 'Department of Mysteries' in the library. This ended up leading Tim down a rabbit hole of learning about the history of the modern structure of the British Ministry of Magic. There was a plethora of books on the organization in the library, so he picked up the first book he found and started reading. The Ministry was an effective, if poorly organized, entity, and public opinion of the current administration was at an all-time high.

Unfortunately, the Department of Mysteries turned out to be the Area 51 of the British wizarding world. The only information people had on it was that there was little to no information regarding it. It was a physical place located in the headquarters of the Ministry with restricted access and a number of employees sworn to secrecy.

Another brilliant success to report back to Constantine.

That evening, Tim showed up at the stone gargoyle just as Dumbledore was approaching from the other end of the corridor.

"Fizzing Whizbee," the old man announced, as though it was some sort of password, and the stone creature slid out of his way for the two to go up the stairs together.

"So you won't have to wait for me next time," Dumbledore whispered to Tim with an odd twinkle in his eye, and Tim wondered if he had been let in on some kind of big secret.

Today, Tim got about the same amount of dusting done, pausing every couple of minutes to flip through an interesting book. Tim had just gotten into the section on modern wizarding laws, something with which he was surprisingly well-acquainted, having read up on it over the summer when he had the extra time. It took another full detention for Tim to finally finish dusting the bookshelves, at which point Dumbledore had him start polishing the silver around the room. It was yet again a task with which Tim was intimately familiar, given the immense amount of silver lying around Wayne Manor, but the manor didn't have complex instruments full of moving parts and puffing out smoke that seemed to disappear in seconds. Each time Tim started polishing a new object, he would ask Dumbledore what it was, and each time, the man would give him a confusing-sounding name, as though it would explain what it did.

"What's this?"

"Oh, that's my Capnomace."

"What's this?"

"That, my child, is a Pensieve."

"What's this?"

"Ah, yes! My Pultant."

From smoke-scrying to letting Dumbledore know when people were coming to his office, it seemed that he had a gadget for any and all occasions.

Tim was in the middle of polishing what appeared to be a magical abacus when Dumbledore suddenly asked him, "So, Timothy, how has your time here at Hogwarts been?"

Tim was taken aback for a moment, as Dumbledore had never gotten particularly personal with Tim up to this point. "Oh, uh, it's been good," which was possibly the least descriptive answer but the only one Tim could think of that didn't involve him explaining his weird sense of homesickness combined with a freedom from his job that he thoroughly enjoyed.

"Say," Tim asked on a whim, "I've been reading up on the castle's defenses and trying to find out a way to get certain radio signals into the castle. Do you think that's possible?"

Dumbledore looked at Tim with a small smirk that seemed to suggest that Tim 'could do anything if he just believed.' "Ah," the old man nodded sagely. "Yes, I remember Miss Hermione Granger embarking on a similar task her first year here. I do not believe she found much success with that embargo, but perhaps you may succeed where she has failed."

"Unlikely," the portrait of Heliotrope Wilkins, one of the former Headmistresses of Hogwarts, commented. "Students used to bring in radios back when they were becoming popular in the Muggle world, and none of them seemed to work properly, even the ones that ran on magic instead of Muggle power—"

"Electricity!" one of the other portraits cut in excitedly.

"Yes, yes, Mordicus, ekristity," she snapped, rolling her eyes. "Nevertheless, it's impossible. Sorry."

Impossible was most definitely a word in Tim's dictionary, but it was one he was loath to acknowledge. Here was arguably one of the world's smartest wizards telling him to let go of the idea, and there was still a part of Tim that thought 'well, maybe I just haven't tried hard enough.' It was the kind of can-do attitude that helped Tim solve cases even when everyone else had given up hope. It was also the kind of attitude that kept him up for nights on end attempting futile experiments that ended up going nowhere.

Tim fiddled with the abacus, weighing his options, eventually deciding that he'd given it the old college try and failed, and that wasn't anything to be ashamed of, at least, according to Bruce. After all, a Bat never gave up, but they knew when it was time to focus energy elsewhere. A 'tactical retreat,' as Jason would say.

"Say, Tim," Hermione asked one day at lunch while the two of them were discussing the recent text they had both been translating in Study of Ancient Runes, "how do you feel about Defense Against the Dark Arts as a class?" The question came out of the blue and caught Tim by surprise, mostly because he assumed that she already knew his views on that topic.

"Oh, it sucks," he stated bluntly. "The book is just a bunch of essays by snobs who think they know more about wand-waving than each other, the curriculum is designed to discourage any practical application of defensive magic, and the teacher is a government official who has no knowledge of the Dark Arts, refuses to engage with her students, and is too lazy to plan lessons that don't exclusively consist of reading someone else's book."

Hermione snorted into her pumpkin juice and smirked up at him. "I agree, especially about Umbridge. I don't think she's teaching us anything." Tim could tell she was trying to take this conversation in a specific direction, so he nodded along and let her continue. "Sometimes, I think that we'd learn more on our own."

Tim liked where this was going. "So you want to start holding your own little Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons behind her back, and you're wondering if I'm interested?"

Hermione's jaw dropped a little as she stared at Tim. "H-how did you—?"

"I'm all in," Tim assured her. "Who's teaching?"

"Harry, if he's up for it," she said, relaxing a little. "He's great at it, and he's been in a lot of life-threatening situations, so he can really teach us what it's like to be out there."

Tim wasn't quite sure if she wanted to know what it was like to be 'out there.' Granted, Tim had never fought dark wizards, at least not of this community's variety, but his experience of being 'out there' was a lot of on-the-spot, half-baked plans, shaking hands that can't hold a weapon, and life-threatening injuries with long-lasting consequences. Was that really what she was planning on getting herself into?

Then again, if the rumors were to be believed, a war was fast approaching, and he wasn't sure these kids would have a choice whether or not to participate. As someone who had been in all sorts of wars, Tim almost felt obligated to offer his services to them. Maybe he wouldn't be teaching them spells and charms, but teaching them how to blend into the shadows, how to throw a punch (and how to take one), how to guess the trajectory of a bullet (no need to throw up a Shield Charm when you can get out of the line of fire), how to perform non-lethal maneuvers…

Okay, now he was starting to plan lessons. Guess I've already made my decision.

"Sounds great!" Tim said, giving her a thumbs up.

Hermione's face brightened. Tim wondered if he was the first person whom she had asked about this. "Brilliant! I'll get back to you with a time and place in a bit. Just…" she trailed off, her eyes wandering past Tim. "…just give me time to get Harry on-board. I think he needs a little convincing."

"Well, if he's done everything you say he has, he should be an excellent teacher," Tim assured her.

She nodded. "Oh, and…" She paused for a moment, as if hesitant to ask. "D'you think that any of the other Ravenclaws would want to join? I mean, I've already talked to Padma, and Michael Corner told me that Anthony was interested, but…what about your other friends?"

That was a good question. Tim knew that Cordelia was frustrated with Defense Against the Dark Arts (she had only ranted to him about a dozen times about the 'inefficient teaching method' and 'not being prepared for O.W.L.s'), and she seemed like the kind of person who would join a study group. And if she came, Aruna would definitely come, if only to rebel against authority. And, if the both of them joined, Purdie would almost certainly be interested. Tim felt certain that, even if Purdie didn't believe Harry's account of Voldemort's return, that wouldn't stop him from joining the group.

"I'll talk to them," he told her. "Anyways, what did you think about the end of Merlin's third thesis, On the Bones and Flesh?"

Tim spent the last two days of his detention dusting the portraits of headmasters and headmistresses past that hung in Dumbledore's office, a task which took such a lengthy amount of time due to how chatty all of the portraits were when Tim was around. They all seemed to think it necessary to impart on him their entire life's stories.

"…and that was how I concocted the counter-curse for hair loss—hey!" Professor Vindictus Viridian looked aghast as Tim slid over to Amrose Swott and started dusting his picture frame.

"Are you seriously surprised that he doesn't want to listen to your silly stories, Vindictus?" Heliotrope chortled from across the room.

"Bold words coming from the witch who won't stop blabbering about her blasted bushes to anyone who'll listen!"

Tim found their arguments extremely amusing, to say the least, and they provided good entertainment during his detentions. By the end of Friday night, Tim had learned the names of every Hogwarts headmaster and headmistress and had a basic understanding of their respective biographies.

"I believe we can call this a night," Dumbledore finally proclaimed at around a quarter to nine, nodding slowly. As Tim prepared to head out, Dumbledore stood up from his desk. Tim stopped, waiting for the man to say whatever was clearly on his mind.

"It has been a pleasure getting to know you over the past week, Timothy," Dumbledore told him, hands folded in front of him. "I foresee great things in your future here at Hogwarts." Internally, Tim felt like this was a little bit of a stretch, seeing as Dumbledore had no clue why Tim was actually here, but he took the compliment, nonetheless. Tim had to admit, he'd also enjoyed getting to know Dumbledore. Tim could tell a lot about someone just from being in their workspace for a week. He'd come to know Dumbledore as an incredibly well-read individual who had a passion for education, and he seemed to care quite a bit about the modern affairs of both the wizarding world and its Muggle counterpart. All in all, Tim felt extremely relieved that he was one of the good guys. And he was one of the good guys. That, at least, Tim had come to learn as a fact when the man spent a solid three hours talking with probably the most insufferable person Tim knew just to help a student of his. Finally, Tim felt like he had something concrete to report to Constantine and the rest of the Justice League by extension, and, when he got back to his dorm, he quickly began penning a report on the old wizard and the benefits of including him in the wizarding war conversation.

The following Monday, Tim found himself on the receiving end of another plethora of letters from home. The highlight this time was that Tim's therapist had followed through on his threat to contact Tim at school if Tim didn't contact him first.

Dear Tim,

You haven't written to me yet, so I took the initiative and decided to contact you myself. Apparently, this is going to be sent by owl? Is that as weird to you as it is for me, or is this just another instance of me needing to expect the unexpected? Anyways, I'm not sure if you remember this, but I gave you some homework last time. Actually, I'm certain you remember it, it's the doing it that's the real kicker. But I'll write it here anyways so you can't ignore it. My homework was to enjoy yourself, remember? I know you're not big into the whole 'talking-to-yourself-in-the-mirror' tactic, so I want you to write down a list of things you're looking forward to in the next couple of weeks, and then I want you to circle them if you enjoyed them or cross it off if it turns out you didn't like it as much as you'd expected.

We're past the point where I have to ask you questions to get you to tell we what's going on, so all I can ask is that you'll write to me within the next week or so. You don't ever have to send the letter if you don't feel like it. Just write down what's going on in your life. Whether it's me or God or Alfred the Cat, someone needs to hear what's on your mind. But don't feel bad if you don't get around to doing it. I know you're busy, you know you're busy, and it's important to give yourself some grace when it comes to deadlines and whatnot.

By the way, I'm really proud of you for going on this trip. I think it's going to be a real growing experience for you, and it feels (to me) like this is exactly the kind of change of pace that you've been talking to me about needing. I wish you well on this new adventure.

Sincerely,

Wren O.

After Ancient Runes, Tim made sure to spend a solid twenty minutes making a list of things he was genuinely looking forward to in the future.

-Hogsmeade trip

-secret DADA club?

He tapped his pen against his lips. Was that really all there was to look forward to? Maybe he was supposed to come up with activities?

-chess against Aruna

-letters (reading/writing)

Was this his therapist's way of telling him that he needed to be getting more enjoyment out of life?

Maybe he has a point, Tim thought to himself, doodling little bats in the margins of his paper like he was in middle school again.

What had made school enjoyable back then? History had always been fun, same with algebra and biology. He'd had a lot of great teachers back at Louis Grieve and Brentwood and Gotham Academy that gave him an appreciation for learning. There'd also been so many people Tim hung out with—Ives, Steph, when she'd transferred, Bernard, hell, he'd even managed to befriend his old roommate Wesley Thomas, and that kid had been anything but friendly when Tim first met him.

It was the people. The people had made school a place Tim could trust.

Tim looked back down at his paper and started scribbling down ideas.

-talk with Luna about conspiracies

-knit with Purdie (learn that cool pattern he was doing last week)

-talk w/ Harry/Ron/Cordelia abt Quidditch (ride a broomstick?)

-get involved with Hermione's house-elf thingy

Tim looked over his list and smiled to himself. To hell with keeping a 'professional' relationship with these people. Tim was going to befriend every witch and wizard and…and whatever nonbinary magical people called themselves (he was gonna have to ask around on that one) in this castle. It was about time he started taking care of his own social needs.

(Two days later, Tim nodded at a Hufflepuff from the D.A. whom he'd started talking to, and he began to roll the word around his mouth that they'd provided for him. Wix…wixen…huh. You learn something new every day.)

In the Harry Potter universe, "wizard" is used as both a descriptor for the world around them and also the name of a male witch, which makes sense in an English-speaking country, and I'm not going to use "wixen" as a gender-neutral term for wizard stuff, but I do think it's important to recognize that, if this was in a modern setting, there would definitely be students at Hogwarts who would want to go by something different than "witch" or "wizard," so now Tim is aware of such, which is good, because there's a nonbinary Hufflepuff in the D.A. (an OC, obviously). I debated a couple different gender-neutral words for magical people, but I think "wix" sounds like something people would gladly go by nowadays.

Also, congrats to Tim for finally deciding to connect with everyone on a deeper level. Just because it's an undercover mission doesn't mean he isn't allowed to make friends along the way, right?