His older brothers were busy with their tutors. Kib and Tryna were playing something baby-ish with Lulli. Menteron was too big for those games now. He was five. He had his own tutor, too, but she had already left for the day. She'd left him a worksheet that he was supposed to use to trace the alphabet again before she came back tomorrow, but that was dull work, and he intended to put it off as long as possible. Outside, it was bright and sunshiney and nice.
He slipped out the back door without telling the elf where he was going. Mum and Father wouldn't be back from work until almost nighttime, so he had ages before anyone would notice he wasn't inside bothering his brothers. But outside was boring too with just himself. Without his twin to provide weird historical facts to guide their play in the sandbox, he quickly discovered that the dirt had lost its appeal.
He tried the swing set next, but without Valr there outjump him or make bets on whether he'd go around the top, that too seemed to emphasize that he was by himself. Harris's broomstick stood temptingly in the back shed, and he'd gone as far as trying to pick the padlock before a lack of audience made even that quest seem pointless.
And only one of his seven siblings had run off to Hogwarts so far. How much worse would it get before Menteron could go? He wandered toward the front of the house with no conscious decision to go there. The trees along the drive were some of the best on the property for climbing, so he shimmied up the first one he came to.
It suddenly struck him as a great idea to try jumping to the next closest one. Squirrels did it all the time, and he was a lot bigger and smarter than a squirrel. It never occured to him that these might be reasons to discourage trying it. The sensation of flying was quite exilerating, and the near miss at catching the other tree only made it that much more exciting. He scurried over to the opposite side of his new host tree, and gave a whoop as he leapt to the next one in the line.
By the time he reached the end of the drive, he had quite forgotten his loneliness and had come to the conclusion that broomsticks were for sissies. Real wizards jumped tree-to-tree. He hardly noticed that he was bleeding from countless small cuts and scrapes on his hands, arms, and legs.
The avenue of trees stretched nearly a mile, and he had been at his squirrel routine for almost two hours. His arms and legs were getting tired, and the space between the last tree of the row and his current position was just a little wider. His final jump fell short, and his grasping hands caught only leaves. Menteron screamed.
He twisted in the air, and he realized he was now falling face first toward the ground. It rushed toward him at an alarming rate. Still screaming, he desperately willed himself to keep turning and for the ground to be soft and cusiony. Landing on his back might have been coincidence. He was already twirling and spinning uncontrollably. But the chances of what should have been hard dry ground sinking under his weight like a giant air mattress and bouncing him back up a few times until he came to a relatively painless halt were pretty slim.
"Cool," he whispered, still on his back, and staring up at the sky through the tree gap he had failed to jump. "Guess that proves I'm no squib." Ever since Clarence had set the couch on fire over two years ago, that had been worrying him. He gingerly propped himself up on one elbow, recognizing with a groan that he had not survived completely scatheless. His whole back hurt.
"Over here!" called out a voice Menteron did not know. There was a rustling of leaves and cracking of twigs as more than one person approached. A group of three boys, no older than Menteron, wearing identical red polo shirts burst through the surrounding undergrowth that seperated the Tragyl property from the rest of England.
Muggles! Menteron identified them with alarm. The 'neighbors' who he and his brothers were under strict orders to never have any contact with. The 'neighbors' who must surely think his house deserted, or, at least, inhabited by crazy hermits or snobby rich folk or crazy snobby rich hermits or rich crazy . . . . something. He stopped that line of thought, having managed to confuse even himself.
The Muggle boys came closer, but stopped in a disordered clump just beyond his reach. Not that he wanted to reach them. He regarded the strangers as if they were wild creatures. Fascinating wild creatures, but wild creatures. He clambered to his feet, the movement sending shooting pains all over. He wavered.
One of the boys sprang forward and caught him before he fell. "Are you okay? We heard a scream."
The vertigo soon passed, and he nodded. Then he pointed to the branches ovehead. "I was jumping and missed."
This announcement garnered an assortment of amazed and sympathetic exclamations. The first boy reluctantly stepped back, uncertain whether Menteron could keep his feet. The Muggle reiterated his original question, "Are you okay?"
"I hurt and I'm kinda shakey," Menteron admitted, "But I'll live." That's what Harris always said when he fell off his broom.
The first boy looked at his hands, then at Menteron. "You're bleeding all over." Menteron looked down at himself, noting the smudged blood where the Muggle had grabbed him. None of the cuts looked especially bad by itself, but as a set, they looked somewhat alarming.
Menteron couldn't really judge time that well, but he knew he'd been in the trees for a long while. It took ages to walk down the drive, surely it must be even longer to cross the distance going from tree to tree. "If you were jumping trees for hours and hours, you'd be kinda cut up, too," he retorted.
"Why were you jumping trees?" another of the boys asked curiously.
Menteron shrugged. "It's fun." He considered the terrifying fall, then qualified, "As long as you catch the next tree."
The boys seemed to accept this explanation. "What's your name?"
"Menteron," he answered before he realized that giving them his name was definitely outside his father's edict of 'absolutely no contact with the Muggle neighbors'.
"I'm Billy," the first boy introduced himself. "They're Greg and Davie. I live right across the street, do you live down there?" He pointed along the tree-lined drive.
"Yeah," Menteron said, uneasily.
"My brother said that place was haunted," one of the other boys, Greg, said with a shudder.
"Tracy's not so bad," Menteron couldn't stop himself from defending the family ghost. "She never leaves the attic, and hardly makes any fuss." It didn't make sense for Greg to be afraid of her. She told pretty good stories, too.
Billy raised his eyebrows. "Tracy?" he repeated, just a hint of nervousness betrayed in his tone.
"The ghost. But how did you m- guys know about her?" He caught himself before saying 'muggles'. He felt quite proud of himself for that.
The boys looked at each other, and in unspoken agreement, took a careful step away from the wizard boy. But they did not flee, and Greg answered the query carefully, "We didn't."
"Oh." Menteron recognized that he must have said something unusual, though what it was he couldn't imagine. They were only talking about the ghost, and Greg had brought her up, hadn't he?
Billy recognized the awkwardness, and tried to diffuse it. "You should get those cuts cleaned up. My house is closest." As an afterthought, he added, "Mum just made cookies, too."
Menteron opened his mouth, but his brain didn't give his tongue an answer. He checked the sun. It wasn't setting yet, so his parents were still at work. But they would know if he went. He could end up right next to Clarence in leg-lock. And unlike his twin, he couldn't stay in one place for more than twenty minutes without going insane.
But he hurt and he was sore and it was such a long walk home and he wanted cookies. "Okay."
Billy led the way to a two-story house that looked tiny in comparison to the Tragyls'. The driveway was short, covered in a dark grey stone that seemed like cobblestone, but smaller, and more closely fused. A blue one of those things, with wheels, that Muggles use to get places, sat on the driveway, next to the house. Menteron tried not to stare, focusing instead on the neatly cut grass and carefully tended flowers along the front of the building.
Billy opened the door, already shouting, "Mummy! Mum!" A woman appeared at the top of a set of stairs. At her arrival, Billy lowered his voice, though not by a lot. "Menteron fell out of a tree, and now he's bleeding, and can we have cookies?"
"Who is -" the woman began, then her gaze fell on the wizard boy. "My goodness, child! Look at you!" As instructed, he looked down at himself. Most of the cuts had stopped actively bleeding, but the blood was drying in dark, flaky clumps that looked more unpleasant than they felt. His legs and hands were stained brown from tree bark, and his shorts and shirt were torn in countless places. He knew he was a mess, and his mother would be embarrassed to know this was the first impression he was making on a stranger. That was, if she wasn't too furious about him visiting Muggle houses in the first place.
The Muggle lady rushed down the stairs as if he were in imminent danger of death and only her intercession would save him. She herded up the stairs, into a small bathroom, and urged him into the tub. Briskly, she helped him remove socks and shoes, then wet a cloth in the sink. He suffered through a scrubbing that attacked his face, arms, hands, and legs. When she finshed, the previously light blue cloth had turned an ugly red-brown. As an encore, she picked several twigs from his hair. Throughout the entire production, she kept up a steady stream of commentary about dirt, trees, injuries, and boys that he tuned out as something his own mother had lectured him about zillions of times before now, usually under very similiar circumstances.
Finally done, she brush dirt and dust off his clothes as best she could, instructed him to wash his hands, and led the way back down the stairs. The other boys had already raided the cookie jar, and a puddle of white liquid proved that they had even managed to pour their own milk. Billy's mum rolled her eyes at the mess, but poured another glass without stopping to chide her son. Menteron climbed into one of the seats at the kitchen table, next to Greg. She put the milk and a cookie on the place mat in front of him. He smiled brightly up at her, "Thank you, ma'am!" They were the first words he had spoken to her.
She smiled back at him, her face softing out of the expression of concern she had maintained during the wash-up. "What's your name, sweetie?"
He took a bite of the cookie. It was really good, better than anything Lulli made. He chewed and swallowed, knowing his mum would really kill him if he talked to a stranger with his mouth full. "Menteron. The cookie is really really really good, ma'am. Really." His mum told him to always compliment peoples cooking because it made them feel happier. And he did, even at Gramma Weasley's, where he had to lie to do so. But Gramma always gave him extra ice cream for dessert for his effort.
Billy's mum's smile brightened noticably. "Thank you, Menteron." She paused a moment before asking her next question, "Are you new in the neighborhood? Or visiting? I haven't heard of you before."
Menteron took another bite of his cookie, buying time to compose a response. But Billy answered first, "He lives across the street." There was a peculiar emphasis on the last three words.
She looked at Menteron sharply, surprise displacing the goodwill his compliment had gained. "The old Tragyl place?"
Menteron swallowed the mouthful of cookie and took a gulp of milk. He looked back at her and nodded with trepidation. His parents said never talk to the neighbors. His parents said muggles didn't like wizards. His parents said the neighbors thought there was something not-quite-right about the Tragyls. His parents said muggles didn't like things that weren't 'normal' for muggles. Jansten said muggles burned witches and wizards. His parents said to stay home where it was safe.
The muggle woman didn't notice his growing terror, looking as she was out the kitchen window toward the locked, ornate wrought-iron gate that had only opened two or three times over the entirety of Menteron's life. With apperration licenses, his parents and the boys' tutors had little use for the muggle street, and floo powder was a much faster method for the brothers to use on the rare occassions that they left the house. "I didn't realize there were children living there," she commented, her voice still coloured by surprise.
Menteron quashed his fears. Billy's mum made yummy cookies and lectured like his own mum, she wouldn't hurt him. He was being stupid and a sissy. "I got six brothers and a sister, too."
Her wide eyes snapped quickly back in his direction. "Don't any of you go to school?"
It sounded like an accusation, and he squirmed uneasily. "We got tutors." Best not to mention Harris and Hogwarts. "Well, 'cept Kib and Tryna cuz they're still babies." Kib was only two years younger than himself, but as far as Menteron was concerned, the difference was enormous. Valr once said that to avoid getting asked questions, the best defense was asking some of your own. Menteron tried that now. "What's school like?" he directed it halfway between Billy's mum and Billy.
"It's okay," Billy said. "We just started today at Becket's Primary. What's tutors like?"
"Bor-ring," Menteron answered with feeling. "I just started today, too. I wrote the alphabet a million zillion times, and then she wanted me to do it again for homework. And my brothers were all still with their tutors when I finished with mine, so that's when I started jumping trees along our drive."
Billy's mum looked horrified by the last revelation. "You were jumping out of trees?" Menteron cringed at her tone. Now that he thought about it, he figured his mum would react the same way if she found out what he'd been doing. "You could have been seriously hurt or killed!" He could imagine his mum saying that, too. "Wasn't there an adult watching you?" That would be where his mum's tirade would change.
"My lessons were done, so my tutor left," he shrugged. "Mum and Father won't be back from work 'til dark. The other tutors were with their students. Lulli, our house el- er - maid, was watching Kib and Tryna." Score two for Menteron! He didn't say elf. He remembered in time that muggles didn't know about them. With only a small grin of triumph, he continued his original train of thought, "Usually, I'd'a just played in the sandbox with my twin, where Lulli could check in on us sometimes, but Clarence is kinda laid up today, so I had to play by myself." Best not to have them ask about Clarence. "What did you guys do at school?" he directed the question to the any of the three boys.
The dark-haired boy introduced as Davie spoke for the first time, "We played."
"Duck, duck, goose," expanded Greg, "Then the teacher read a story."
"Then we had lunch, and after that we played with blocks and toys. Tomorrow, we're supposed to bring in something for show and tell," Billy finished. He looked at his mother. "Can I bring Ratso?"
Billy's mum frowned, "I don't think the teacher wants you bringing in a pet, sweetie."
"You got a pet?" Menteron asked, eagerly.
Billy nodded, as excited about showing it off as Menteron was to see it. "Yeah! He's the bestest and biggest rat in England."
Menteron remembered the big ugly rat that he had assisted the Weasley twins in ratnapping while he visited them two nights ago. "I'll give you bestest, but I bet a chocolate frog I've seen bigger." When Percy had discovered the crime, even Jansten couldn't have created a bigger scene.
"What's a chocolate frog?" Billy asked.
Menteron's eyes widened in sudden alarm. Mum was right, gambling was a dangerous habit. "Ii-iit's candy." If he lost, he'd have his parents disenchant it before giving it away. No. That would require admitting he was not only talking to Muggles, but making bets against them, too. That would not go over well. Well, the frogs only had one good jump in them, anyway. He'd let it jump, then bring it to Billy. Minus the wizard card.
Billy's mum frowned at her son, "You can show your friends the rat, but I will not permit you to accept the wager."
Menteron shrugged at him, and rolled his eyes, affecting unconcern and sympathy for the parental interference. It covered his relief for the way out and embarrassment over his blunder. "My mum gets like that sometimes, too. Says gambling's 'not proper,'" he affected his mother's lecturing tone. He grinned the devilish grin that his family had long since learned to dread. "'Course, we do it so much she's mostly given up lately."
Billy's mum frowned deeper, but she did not admonish a stranger's child.
He finished the last of his cookie, and washed it down with the remainder of his milk. That was a mistake. It gave the muggle woman a chance to recover and pose another question. "Your family sounds like an interesting lot. We're holding a neighborhood barbeque this weekend. Why don't you all come down?"
"No!" he exclaimed, without thinking. She blinked, taken aback. He blushed as bright as his hair. "We, we're not supposed to-" he felt his face flushing even darker, "that is, Father'll kill me if he finds out I - you people are - I mean, we're supposed to keep to ourselves." It only took him four tries to express his difficulty without needing the word 'Muggles'. It belatedly occurred to him that he might have insulted them. "No offense meant, I like you, but Father . . ." he trailed off, not really sure how to foist all the blame away from himself. By the softening of Billy's mum's hard expression, he guessed the incomplete sentence worked well enough. A good explanation finally occurred to him, and he threw it out, a bit desperately, "See, I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
Billy's mum actually smiled in understanding.
In his relief, Menteron added, "My twin was just grounded for running away last Saturday, so I really don't want them to know I left the property." Between the cookie and scrubbing, he realized he'd been away quite a while. "I should probably go home now. It'll take me til dark to walk back," he guessed. "The drive is really long." He honestly had no idea how long it would be before the sun set, or how long he'd need to make it back to the house, so he assumed the two would take equal amounts of time.
"I'll walk you back," Billy's mum offered.
"No! If anyone sees you . . ." his obvious fear clearly bothered her, and she reluctantly relented. That settled, he looked at Billy, "Can I see your rat, first?"
Billy grinned, with just a trace of nervousness. "Yeah, c'mon."
It was dark went he finally reached the house. The sun had set when he was about half way. His legs were tired, and the later it got, the more they dragged, both from dread and from exhaustion. He tried his best to open the front door silently and slip in without notice. But as he was easing it closed, a shout nearly scared him out of his skin, "Teron here!"
In his startlemnt, he slammed the door closed with far more force than intented, and he twirled toward the speaker. It was little Kib, just entering the foyer from the kitchen. Though it was much too late, Menteron tried to gesture him into silence. No avail. More brothers appeared from other doorways and at the top of the stairs. "He's down here!" Jansten's voice floated to him from the second floor.
Shortly, Jansten and his parents arrived at the stairs, joining Brent. Father hardly paused before he swept down the stairs. Mum was close on his heels. His two brothers only moved down a handful of steps, keeping their distance but securing a good vantage point. Valr, who had emerged from the parlor, moved to stand beside Kib. Clarence was no where in sight. Given his condition, that was not particularly surprising. Tryna and Lulli came out of the kitchen between Kib and Valr. Seven-year-old Valr looked very tall among that group.
Father grabbed Menteron by his sleeve and more dragged than led his son into the parlor. Mum slid its door closed for the illusion of privacy, though he knew from experience that it would be no barrier for shouting or raised voices, both of which he expected from his parents. He was not disappointed. "Where have you been?" Father demanded loudly.
"I was playing outside," he answered sullenly. "In the trees along the drive."
Father was not impressed. "You know enough to be inside by dinnertime."
"I tried!" he yelled back, angry that it was only timing that got him in trouble, "I was walking forever getting back."
Father's voice went low and dangerous, "You weren't near the gate, were you?" Too late, Menteron realized the implication of a long walk back to the house.
Menteron didn't answer, and discovered an intense fascination by a small dust mote drifting across the hardwood floor.
Mum frowned. "Menteron, look at me and tell me you weren't near the gate."
He tried, but as soon as he locked eyes with her, he had to look away. Valr said the key to a good lie was eye contact, but he could never manage it.
"Did any muggles see you?" demanded Father, correctly taking silence as guilt.
They'd get the whole story eventually now. "Yes," he answered sullenly. Then, unable to hold back his discoveries, he added in a far more upbeat tone, "Billy invited me over to his house and we had cookies. Him and Greg and Davie talked about their school. It sounds loads more fun than a stuffy old tutor. Billy's even got a rat bigger than the Weasleys'. And Billy's mum is having a barbeque this weekend. We're invited, too, if we want to come."
Mum just looked astonished, but Father's face purple in rage. The man stepped threateningly forward and Menteron briefly feared for his health and even his life. But Father only grabbed a handful of shirt, and yanked him toward the room's closed door. He slid it open with much greater force than necessary, and dragged Menteron toward the stairs. Brothers scattered out of his way, and Mum called "Waltr!" warningly, following close on their heels.
Menteron jerked free and skittered several feet away before turning back to face his father, green eyes flashing with hostility. "Why can't we talk to Muggles?" he yelled. "They're nice! I was careful not to say anything about wizards!" They didn't need to know about the chocolate frog bet. That was an accident. "The only thing they thought weird about us was that we never leave the house, and that's your fault not the wizardry! They didn't even ask how I hardly got hurt falling out of that tree, and that was magic!"
"You did magic in front of Muggles?!" Father exploded, not even recognizing that his son had proved he wasn't a squib or that he could have been seriously injured if he hadn't.
"I did not!" Menteron screamed back, his face flushed red in anger. "That was before they got there! But even if they had been, I'd'a done it anyway!" Not that he had had any control over it. The bouncy ground had just happened.
"Don't you dare take that tone with me!"
"Why not?" Defiance permeated the five year old's stance and voice.
Father's scowl deepened, and his face darkened past red and into purple. "I am your father! You will show the proper respect!"
"Menteron!" Mum's rebuke cut off his retort. The boy glanced around, swiftly. His brothers and sister hugged the walls and corners, making an obvious effort to stay out of the range of fire, without giving up the show. Lulli, hating conflict, had absented herself from the foyer, was no doubt now hiding under the kitchen sink, and trying not to hear. Mum stood a little off to one side, and halfway between the two combatants, as though acting as referee.
Menteron looked back at his father, fists clenched at his sides, refusing to back down. "I want to go to Muggle school," he declared, surprising himself almost as much as his family. The words had come without thought or consideration, but the more he thought about it, the more he knew them for truth. That they were all but blasphemy in his father's opinion was just added bonus.
"Out of the question!" Father roared.
Menteron glared back, antagonism and stubbornness coloring the boy's words, "Then I won't learn to read!" He turned his back on Father and began walking toward the stairs.
"Hold it right there, Menteron Arthur!" His mother's command froze the twin where he stood. "Turn around this instant!" He did so, chin jutted forward in mutinous determination. "Apologise to your father," she instructed in a no-nonsense voice.
Menteron flicked his eyes toward his darkly flushed parent, then back to Mum. "No."
The standoff lasted for several awkward moments that seemed to last a small eternity. "Go to your room," Mum finally ordered. "We'll be up in a minute."
Menteron spun on his heel and resumed his previous course. He was on the third stair when she added, "The rest of you, too." He didn't need to look, to know his brothers scurried after him as though escaping an enraged dragon. He heard the parlor door slid closed again. A stolen glance showed his parents had left the foyer. As he swept his eyes over his siblings, only Jansten met his gaze. "And I thought Clarence was in trouble," he commented ominously.
Menteron kept walking, without comment. He tried to swallow his trepidation, but that only settled it into an unpleasant lump in his stomach. He knew he had gone too far. His father's creativity worried him. If his brother got leg-locked for harmlessly wandering away, what would be the punishment for associating with Muggles and defying his parents?
He smiled nervously at Clarence as he closed the door to their room. His twin sat on his bed, legs straight out in front of him. The fire potions book sat in his lap, a finger saving his page, though, for once, the book seemed to be the last thing on Clarence's mind. "I heard shouting," he prompted for details.
Menteron climbed onto his own twin bed, sitting cross-legged because he could. "I told Father I want to go to Muggle school."
Clarence stared at him, stunned, for a very long time. When he did finally speak, Menteron could only gawk back at him, startled beyond reply. "Fantastic! When do we start?"
Waltr heaved closed the sliding panel that served as the parlor door. "That insufferable child," he muttered in seething anger.
"Try to calm down, Waltr, please," Keri almost begged. "I know Menteron tries your patience like none of the others, but we need to rationally consider what kind of punishment he deserves."
He scowled. "Petrifus totalis seems appropriate." He grumbled the words quietly enough that she knew he didn't seriously consider the full-body-bind curse as an option.
"I did talk to his tutor this afternoon, just to see how he made out for his first day. She said he showed almost no interest in the lesson, fidgeted enough to make her jumpy, and she spent more time telling him how long it would be until she left than she did teaching. She also hinted that with such a hostile student, it would be nice if we reconsidered her wage. He's Clarence's twin, he's got to be bright, but he has no drive to learn. I don't think any tutor will be able to fix that."
Waltr frowned, clearly not liking the direction of conversation. "What are you suggesting?"
"For all his bad grace in the way he asked, I think it would be in Menteron's best interest in the long run if we let him go to this Muggle school."
"No! Absolutely not."
"Waltr," she warned. "Consider it."
He scowled at her. "Even ignoring that we should not bow to threats, no Tragyl goes to Muggle school."
"Until now, no Tragyl had wanted to. The older boys are happy working individually with a tutor; they like the alone time away from their brothers. Menteron is almost never by himself. With Clarence, Valr, and Brent so far ahead of him, he won't catch up without effort. He refuses to try. So either we hold him back until Kib is ready to start reading, or we send him to a school. I don't want him any farther behind his twin than anybody else his age."
"There are wizarding primary schools."
"And how do they differ from Muggle ones?"
"Muggles don't go there!"
She sighed, unable to deny the point. Her own argument went both ways. There was nothing inferior about the wizarding primary schools. Quite the opposite. He could meet children who could go on to Hogwarts with him, but at Muggle school, he would need to leave all his friends behind. Accidental magic would be understood, should it occur. Nobody would think it odd that he lacked basic knowledge of most Muggle customs. "Very well. Wizarding primary school then."
"As far as punishment goes, I'm thinking silencio. All his transgressions were based on his tongue: speaking to Muggles, talking back."
Keri realized she had made a serious error in judgement in letting Waltr use the leg-lock on Clarence. "No. We are not cursing more of our children."
"Nobody said you had to."
She frowned. "Waltr, I said no. No dessert for a week, and he's confined to his room."
"That's hardly a punishment, Ker. Clarence is already all but confined to their room; Menteron would probalbly spend most of his time there anyway."
"How do you expect him to go to school with no voice?"
Waltr sighed as if making a huge concession. "We'll let him speak during school hours."
Knowing it was a mistake, Keri nodded in resignation. "Very well, but let him choose his school - wizarding or Muggle."
Waltr looked taken aback. His face darkened breifly, then returned to normal. "Fine."
They left the parlor. None of the children were in sight. Probably all hiding after the confrontation. Menteron was the only with enough insane courage to face down Waltr in a bad mood. The two parents climbed the first set of stairs, and entered the twin's room. At their arrival, both boys looked quickly toward them, identical expressions of guilty innocence appearing on their faces. Keri wondered what they had been doing or talking about, but let it pass.
She considered either sending Clarence away (a difficulty in his current state) or taking Menteron elsewhere, but decided it didn't matter. Menteron would relate a blow-by-blow description anyway. "Menteron, your father and I have reached a compromise. He will place a spell on you so that you cannot speak when you are home, for the next three days." Waltr shot her a look. No doubt he wanted it to last longer, but three days, even able to talk at school, would be torture for the younger boy.
Menteron looked stricken. "I can't talk? For three whole days?"
"Not whole days. The spell will be lifted while you are at school."
Both boys looked delighted. "We get to go to school? For real? Muggle school?" Clarence exclaimed.
Keri exchanged a startled look with Waltr. "Menteron gets to choose where. You want to go to?"
"Well, yeah!" he answered as though she had asked if he had a head.
Waltr looked seriously at the younger twin. "Clarence, you can already read better than Brent, and they don't teach potions at school until Hogwarts." Keri believed Waltr underestimated Clarence's reading level. He was easily at a higher level than 8-year-old Brent, and could probably best Harris or even Jansten. Though a year younger, Jansten had surpassed Harris in his studies two years previously.
"Can't I go to school and have a tutor for potions?" Clarence begged. "Please?" Menteron nodded his support imploringly.
"I hate to split them up," Keri mused, as much to herself as to Waltr.
"They won't even be in the same class, with Clarence so far advanced," Waltr pointed out.
"I'll pretend to be dumb. Please?" Keri didn't think either twin realized Menteron had been snubbed, though, by the soft snort of laughter from Waltr, he must have caught the back-handed insult.
Keri consulted her husband with a raised brow. He shrugged, and made a push-away gesture. They're your twins, you decide, she interpreted. She frowned, willing him to understand her chastisement, They're your twins, too. He ignored the message, looking back at the boys. She surpressed a sigh and answered their breathless pleas. "Very well. You may both go."
Clarence whooped like the five year old she often forgot he still was. Menteron bounced excitedly on his bed, equally exuberant.
"Now, Menteron, you have an important decision in front of you," she said solemnly, knowing that would get them to calm down more than ordering him to do so would. Menteron stilled, and both twins quieted. "Wizarding primary school has many advantages over Muggle school, though you may choose either. With witches and wizards as your teachers and classmates, you won't need to worry about keeping magic related things secret, or not understanding Muggle things. Accidental magic will be decidedly less disasterous should it occur, and, finally, most of your friends will continue on with you to Hogwarts. At a muggle school, you would need to leave them all when you turn eleven."
The twins looked at each other. She though she caught Clarence mouth the word 'Muggle'. She was glad to see that Menteron gave the decision serious consideration. After almost a full minute of thought, he looked back and forth between his parents. "We're going to Muggle school. Billy goes to Becket Primary. That's the one I want."
Waltr frowned, but did not argue against it. Keri nodded. "Very well. I'll call the school first thing in the morning." She looked at Waltr. "Go ahead."
She left the room quickly, but not fast enough to avoid hearing her husband's voice chase her down the stairs. "Silencio!" She leaned against the wall, and closed her eyes, trying not to feel guilty. She heard Waltr's step moving away, toward the stairs to the third floor. A moment after that, Clarence's words floated down to her, unconcerned, "It's kinda cool, ain't it? Your voice don't work and my legs don't."
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