My dad is not a cool dad. He's a dorky dad with a cool hobby. A man who wears knee high socks with his shorts is normally banned from being seen in public but because my dad plays the saxophone for a local band, he can get away with more crimes against fashion than other people ever could.

He says the socks make him look more professional when he's teaching a class. He normally bums around in sandals unless he's performing or running his bar.

Sixteen years on this earth and I should just be glad he's hiding his creepy toes from my classmates.

They are disgustingly hairy, like a sasquatch. He uses them to pick up loose change on the floor of the house in a horrific display of dexterity.

"Do you have to come lecture dressed like this?" I gestured at him in his floral collared shirt, board shorts with sock clad feet and the sandals he wore with them. "You look like a tourist!"

"Tourist? Songbird, I'm comfortable." He adjusted his saxophone case, "Besides, it's part of the old band vibes."

"Yeah, that's fine. At home. With your family. Not in public."

"They're not here to see me, they're here to listen to you sing and for me play sax."

"Ugh…"

"Hey, my saxophone skills got me my first of many dates with your mom."

"Ew."

I had seen the pictures of my parents being young and cool, and I would not have believed it without photographic evidence. My mom was really beautiful even in those terrible seventies fashions. Dark skin, thick curly hair and a beaming smile. My dad still looked dorky, only he had shaggy dark hair and a leather vest with some shorts that were far too short for a man. He was tall and thin and I did not see the appeal on my mom's part. She said he had nice shoulders.

"Seriously, she asked me out after a show." He adjusted his glasses. "Her exact words were that she thought I was hot."

"Ugh. Please no."

"Your disgust only fuels my need to continue."

I made a strangled noise that sounded more cat than human as I led the way down the alley to the wall that would lead us to the school. The bricks separated leading us to a secret street known only to the magical community that populated the city.

The New Orleans Academy of Magic was a small, hidden street down an alley in the heart of the city with old buildings that were used to teach each subject. The Academy had a particular focus on potions, music and the banishing of shades alongside the more standard curriculum. My mother was a graduate of the school and she had always spoken of it highly for its acclaimed musicians and the famous potioneers.

There were multiple entrances to the school all over New Orleans, it looked like the shopping street for magical items called the Seventh Avenue, but it was more of an outdoor campus. I walked up and down this street every day for classes from my dormitory in the garden district where I stayed during the school week. The street was a dim yellow that glimmered from the sunlight and glowed to light the path in the dark, so we always felt safe coming back from dinner on campus.

"Zuri, I'm proud of you for coming here instead of taking the offer from Ilvermorny."

"Really?"

Dad nodded and shifted his saxophone case as we walked down the street, a low hum of noise from a nearby bistro's outdoor diners. "Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic school but…" He paused for a moment. "It was a big choice for an eleven-year-old but coming here allows you to succeed on your own merits and talents rather than being compared to your brother and your cousins be it through your professors mentioning it or a comparison you would make yourself. I think I would have preferred this to Ilvermorny in all honesty."

I looked at my dad with an incredulous expression.

"Your uncle Jack was the perfect son, I was kind of a goof off. Got in a lot of fights too." He tapped a bump on his nose with a finger, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "I didn't really fit in with the other students. They were very elitist."

"How so?"

"Oh, you know, too much old money, too much elbow rubbing and an overall unpleasantness from being sheltered from other people with real problems their whole lives."

"Who broke your nose?"

"Steve Winslow. He runs his father's old bus company now."

"What did you fight about?" I asked, wanting to know what exactly would drive my kindly father to violence.

"He was making noise about how much they pay the drivers, that they should be paid less for such an easy job, my friend Heaven's father drove one of those buses and I knew the family pretty well. We started arguing, he punched me, I knocked out two of his teeth afterwards. The teacher pulled us apart and gave us detention. I put a hot rock in his bed that night. He screamed. He's now a richer asshole."

We stopped in front of the music hall where there was a senseless banging of drums coming from inside.

"You hit him with your delicate sax hands." I teased as dad checked his pockets for his identification.

"Your dad's got some scrapper in him. I fought your uncle once, too."

"You did not!" Uncle Ulysses was a man who was average in size, but built like a brick house. "He adores you!"

"He wanted me to leave town and never speak to your mother again, I wasn't going without a fight."

"I've never heard this story!"

"I'm old, the memories just come back like that." My father laughed and flashed his identification to the teacher's assistant who allowed us inside. "You'll do the same thing when you're old. Telling your kids about the stupid things and pulling out surprises to mess with them."

"Like you told Quincy not to get too comfortable with his hair when he was thirteen."

"He was getting vain, it seemed to be a good idea to tell him about the graying problem in this family before the denial set in."

Sweet Merlin, he had been planning that for years. My poor brother with his perfect hair being told about the Graves family graying problem was a household amusement. Poor Quincy. Not really. He had been spending too much time in the bathroom doing things to his hair.

"Yeah. I wasn't sure about it at first but I do think I made the right choice coming here. Quincy complained about the long shadow Alex left over the dueling club and Audrey was the top of her class through school. I didn't care to get involved in that mess. Besides, coming here means I can spend more time with you."

Dad blinked as he looked at me, seemingly taking in the passage of years before he threw an arm over my shoulder, squeezing me to his side as we walked to the auditorium. "You're my favorite daughter, Songbird, you know that?"

"You have another one I don't know about?"

"Yeah, your evil twin. Turned her into shoes so I could afford the good one." He planted a kiss on my head before we entered the classroom.

When he kicked off his sandals in the middle of the act and slid across the stage in his socks while playing his saxophone I didn't have it in me to be annoyed. The applause from the students had more energy than teenagers usually displayed and with that grand entrance, my dad was able to start his lecture on his experience as musician to the graduating students, he spoke about his life, passion for music and that he owned a bar to make ends meet while playing gigs with his band a few times a month. That this career was not just about money and fame, that many of the people in this room would never have that level of acclaim and it was wise decision to look at other avenues to support themselves financially while they pursued something they loved.

Oo0Oo0

Author's Note: I had to write one healthy father-daughter relationship from the Graves family. John's a good man whose committed to embarrassing his children.