Unfortunately, it's gonna be a couple more chapters before our boy goes to Hogwarts, but, for now, enjoy him going shopping and getting his first real glimpse into the wizarding world.

"So," Steph said, blowing a huge pink bubble of gum and letting it pop in her face without even flinching. "Wizard school."

Tim choked on his sip of coffee, and it took him a solid ten seconds to recover. "How did you—?"

"I asked Bruce what the meeting was about," she interrupted, leaning over Tim's chair and slipping his mug from his suddenly-spasming hands. "I assume you weren't planning on letting me know any time soon?"

Tim looked away from the Batcomputer and down into his lap. "I—it—well—I was thinking about it…"

"Sure you were," she said dryly, and she promptly tossed Tim's mug (one of Bruce's, to be precise) over the guardrails and into the infinite abyss beneath them. Tim counted to twenty before he heard it shatter against a stalagmite.

Steph grabbed the back of Tim's chair and yanked it so that the two of them were now face-to-face. "Whatever happened to moving to Ivy Town?"

Tim grimaced, feeling his stomach do backflips. "M-maybe next year?"

"Maybe next year?" Steph let out a frustrated growl and grabbed two big chunks of her curly blonde hair like she was ready to pull it out. "God, you're the master of impulse decisions, aren't you?"

"Says the woman who just chucked my coffee mug into the Batcave."

"Tim! I thought we were in this together!"

"You're taking online classes at a community college," Tim pointed out. "You can do them anywhere."

He immediately realized that he had made a mistake. Steph's jaw dropped, and Tim saw the beginnings of tears forming.

"I can't fucking believe you," she choked out, letting go of her curls. "We promised to make decisions together. Not once did I sign up for you making decisions for me."

You could just move to Ivy Town without me, he almost said, but then he thought about how Steph might react to him suggesting more things for her to do.

"I fucked up!" Tim said instead, unable to look his girlfriend in the eyes. "It's just that I'm the only one who can do this job, and this is an end-of-the-world scenario—"

"—and you can't disappoint everyone," Steph finished with a little whimper, "because you always put everyone else first."

"But not you," Tim argued, though he wasn't quite sure who he was arguing for anymore. "I just assumed that we'd be on the same wavelength, that, I dunno, like, you'd agree with all the alternatives I had thought about."

"Of course you did," Steph muttered, wiping at her eyes with the palms of her hands. She didn't seem murderous anymore, but she was still furious, that much was clear to Tim. "You always think everything through. Fuck."

"I'm sorry," Tim repeated, curling up into a ball. He'd fucked up so badly. "I'm so sorry, I'll talk with Bruce and see if I can back out—but no, no, I can't do that to Zatanna and Billy, not after saying yes—but I can't just leave you like this, that's just fucked up, no—no—" Why had this all sounded like a good idea a week ago? Why did Tim still trust his own judgement after all the stupid mistakes he'd made in his life? "I'm sorry," he repeated, as though that might somehow assuage Steph's anger. It had usually worked with his biological father, Jack Drake. "I'm sorry, god, I'm sorry, I just—"

He looked up. Steph was gone.

The next morning, Tim awoke to a very long string of texts sent from the night before:

Listen I'm sorry I walked out on you like that. That wasn't cool. I was just frustrated that you're going to be gone for so long. I don't want you to go, but I can't just make you do everything I want. You're your own person, and so am i.

Itt's okay for you to go to Britain. You don't' need my permission. But the whole thing about just switching college plans wasn't cool. I stand by that.

That being said, you did raise a fair point. Also, I realized that it's not healthy for me to make plans that are reliant on the plans you make. If I'm moving to ivy town, it has to be because I really want it, not just because you're there. So I think i'll keep living in your (our?) house and take classes online.

Also I'm really sorry for making fun of your social anxiety. I know that it's hard for you to say no to people, and I shouldn't be making light of that.

Tldr sry for overreacting, I don't' hate you, it's okay if you move, I have my own plans

Oh oh also pls don't think I'm breaking up with you I love you so much and I can still totally imagine living the rest of our lives together and we still haven't had sex and I'm not going out without a fight so yeah it's not a break up

Xoxo

Tim immediately responded with his own word-vomit:

Hey, Steph. Thanks for being so understanding. I'm also really sorry for throwing this on you all of a sudden. That wasn't cool of me, either. I just wanted you to know that you don't have to apologize for being mad and frustrated. According to Wren, apologizing for having emotions is also not very healthy? That came as a surprise to me too lol

I'm also really sorry for coming up with all those back-up plans for you. That's not for me to decide. You're totally right, that wasn't cool. But I'm really happy that you're making plans for you first and us second. I think that's really healthy.

Anyways, I also still love you a lot, and I'm really relieved this isn't a breakup. I'm totally not breaking up without first having had sex. That's just dumb.

Xoxoxo

"Hey."

"Hey."

"So, life."

"Ugh. Life."

This was how every session with Wren started.

Tim still remembered the first time he hobbled into Wren's office two years ago with his fake crutches. It had been so relieving to be able to just sit down and remove his leg braces and casually announce that the whole thing was just 'a stunt to get the reporters off his case.'

"Steph and I had an argument," Tim started, practically collapsing onto Wren's couch. "It was bad. But then we made up? I'm not sure. Are we allowed to be friends again so quickly?"

Wren smiled gently. "Well, that's up to the two of you, isn't it?"

"I guess so…" Tim bit his lip. "Did…did Bruce tell you about my new mission?" Wren shook his head. "Cool. I mean, yeah. So, I'm enrolling in a wizard school."

Confusion was written all over Wren's face. "You're…a wizard?"

"No, not really," said Tim. "Billy and Zatanna made me this cool amulet out of a piece of the Rock of Eternity. It's gonna give me magical powers."

"Huh." God, Wren was a saint for putting up with all the weird nonsense Tim and his family got into. "Didn't realize that was something you could do."

"Neither did I," Tim admitted. "But anyways, I'm moving to Britain at the end of the summer, and I'm gonna be there for, like, an entire school year, maybe less if things work out in my favor."

"That's a big change."

"Yeah, it's terrifying."

Wren gave him that look, the one that silently willed Tim to elaborate further.

"I mean, like, I'm gonna have to learn approximately four years of magic over the summer if I'm to successfully transfer into classes with my person of interest. It's definitely gonna be a challenge."

"It certainly sounds like a challenge," Wren agreed.

"Yeah, so I guess I'm kind of anxious about doing all that. I've never done magic before. Not only that, but I have to read up on the wizarding world, so I don't out myself as an outsider."

"Ah, so you're undercover."

"Yep." Tim's leg bounced in excitement. "I love undercover missions."

"You've done some before?"

"Oh yeah, loads of times. When I was, like, thirteen, I chose this ridiculous name, 'Alvin Draper,' and I got my ears and my nose pierced just because I wanted a cool disguise for this crazy ninja camp I went to. The nose piercing's closed up since then, but I still wear earrings every now and then when I'm feeling particularly flamboyant. And 'Alvin Draper' continues to be my main alias."

"Will 'Alvin' be attending this magic school?"

Tim shook his head. "We debated it for a while, Zatanna and Billy and I, but we decided that having a bit of a paper trail would be less suspicious than 'Alvin' showing up out of the blue. Plus, I'd have to wear a glamour charm if I didn't want people to find me out, and apparently those things aren't so effective amongst other wizards." Upon seeing Wren's politely confused face, Tim quickly explained the basics of a glamour charm.

"You sound really excited about this," Wren commented after Tim spent another half hour explaining the ins and outs of his mission.

Tim nodded. "Oh, I am. It's gonna be great."

"This is either gonna go great or go terribly." Tim scanned the piece of stained parchment that had been delivered to Zatanna via owl, apparently.

Something something 'aptitude test'… something something 'delighted to have you'… something something 'Albus Dumbledore.'

That caught Tim's eye. One of their two persons of interest, the headmaster of Hogwarts, was going to send a representative of the school mid-July to Gotham to oversee a magical aptitude test that would decide if Tim could really jump into his fifth year. This meant that Tim had about a month and a half to acquire all the materials necessary to learn the core curriculum of magic and then subsequently master all of the coursework. There were about four more pieces of parchment attached to this first one which detailed everything from a booklist to choices for elective courses. It was kind of funny that this letter contained more information about Hogwarts than Zatanna, Constantine, and Billy had been able to find in the last three months.

"So, according to this, you have to be proficient with up to fourth-year material for Potions, Transfiguration, History of Magic, Charms, Astronomy, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Herbology," Zatanna explained, her eyes slowly widening as the list continued. "Additionally, if you want to transfer into an elective, you have to be able to catch up with your grade in that class within the first semester. Damn, Tim, this is a lot, even for you."

It was a lot, even for Tim. Not that he was ready to admit that, of course.

"I'll be fine. Just get me some textbooks, and I'll get started," said Tim, giving her a thumbs up. "Speaking of which, where does one get all these supplies? I haven't exactly seen any stores selling wands while grappling around Gotham."

"Diagon Alley," Constantine grunted. "Always busy this time o' year, but you'll be able to find whatcha need. Don' worry, I'll show you 'round. Been there before, 's th' only place in Britain where you can get quality ingredients for some o' the rarer rituals I perform."

"Diagonally," Tim repeated back to himself in disbelief, but he couldn't stop grinning, he really couldn't. "They have a shopping district named 'diagonally.' This just keeps on getting better and better."

To get to 'diagonally,' Tim and Constantine would have to zeta from the Watchtower into London, and from there, the two would travel to this shady pub called the Leaky Cauldron which housed the main entrance to Diagon Alley behind it, which was a pretty shrewd business move in Tim's opinion.

"Now, I've only been 'ere a couple o' times, but stay close to me anyways," Constantine told him, tapping the bricks in a pattern with his lighter. As soon as he stepped back, they began to shift, pushing each other out of the way and forming a large archway that led into a narrow cobblestone road lined with peculiar little shops. The street was full of people in robes hurrying here and there, but it was not crowded by any means.

Tim let out a soft gasp, taking it all in as he and Constantine started walking. The district had a sort of vintage atmosphere about it. The small wooden constructs and simple stone buildings gave off a distinct late 19th century feeling, and Tim thought that it would be appropriate to see a couple horse-drawn carriages here and there.

"The big, pretentious one is Gringotts, the wizard bank," he explained, nodding towards the white marble building they approached that was easily the largest building for miles. It looked like it was made with traditional Doric influences, and on either side of it the road split in two different directions. "You brought some money, right?"

"Yeah," Tim replied, still peering around at all the buildings. Zatanna had given him the basic rundown on wizarding money, and it had been an extremely interesting topic. The system was fascinating; apparently, the lack of production costs that came from being able to use magic meant that prices within the wizarding world were generally fairly low in comparison to the rest of the world. The value of the Galleon was somewhere around six British pounds, which came out to a little less than seven and a half US dollars, which is quite a lot of money to be held in a single coin. Also, someone had the odd idea of putting a Galleon at seventeen Sickles and a Sickle at twenty-nine Galleons. And people said the U.S. Standard was hard to calculate.

"Just a warning," Constantine said as the building came more into view. "The place is run by goblins. Have a very reputable business, keepin' track o' all the wizard money in Britain, but I wouldn't trust one otherwise."

Tim raised an eyebrow. He probably should have expected other magical species to be a part of the wizards' society, but it was still all he could do to not stare at the small, gnarled being that stood as a sentinel in front of the vast doors.

The plan was to go shopping and not attract any attention, but Tim could feel the stares of various wizards as he walked down the street carrying a sizeable bag of coins. The goblin in Gringotts, on the other hand, had not been fazed when Tim had handed them a couple thousand dollars in cash, simply narrowing his beady eyes and disappearing behind his tall desk, reemerging with a large stack of coins that he carefully counted out.

"So, I was thinking we get the wand and clothes first, seeing as they're the lightest items," Tim explained, letting Constantine guide him to the first store, "and then we can get the heavier items and pile them into whatever cauldron we buy, assuming it's not gonna, I dunno, blow them up?" He glanced up at Constantine to gauge his reaction. "I'm not exactly sure how cauldrons work."

Constantine snorted, twisting the cigarette in his mouth. "Pretty sure they're just a bunch o' large bowls. Wand shop's on the left 'ere." He pointed to an old single-story building that had probably seen better days, which was a thought consistent with the sign above that claimed they had been in business since the Iron Age.

Following Constantine through a door with a particularly noisy set of hinges, Tim entered what looked like a shoe store that had just moved in. It was a single, small room filled with small boxes piled haphazardly on top of each other to the ceiling. There was a single spindly chair to their left in front of the dusty window that neither of them elected to sit on, given that it looked one stiff wind away from collapse.

For a couple seconds, the two of them glanced around the room, looking for some further instruction on what exactly they were looking for or from whom they should be buying said item.

"Oi," Constantine suddenly grunted, "anyone 'ere?"

There was a moment of silence broken by a rustling noise coming from one corner of the room, presumably behind a large pile of boxes.

Then, "Greetings," came a soft voice from behind the two of them.

Constantine flinched noticeably and spun around on his heel. "Bloody 'ell!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "What was that for?" Tim, for his part, did not react so harshly to the appearance of the figure behind him; in truth, he had sensed movement behind him barely a second before. He turned around to find himself face to face with a small old man, his back slightly hunched and his eyes unusually wide.

"You two are an unfamiliar pair of faces," he commented, staring at the two of them and nodding as if all was now clear. "And who might I be serving today?"

Tim held out a hand in greeting. "That would be me. Tim Drake-Wayne. Would you be Mr. Ollivander?"

The old man reached out an arm, presumably to return the handshake, but, to Tim's surprise, he grabbed the boy's hand by the wrist and moved to Tim's side to further examine his arm, lifting it up and down in his hands as if testing its functionality.

He hummed, looking him up and down with pale eyes that were nearly pupil-less. "This is your wand arm?"

"…yes," Tim said slowly, glancing over at Constantine, who was watching the man with narrowed eyes but remaining silent.

The man, whom Tim would have to assume was Mr. Ollivander for now, nodded, as if pleased with the fact that Tim did indeed have a fully articulated arm, and procured from his robes a tape measurer which he then used to measure every possible ratio on Tim's body.

"Ollivanders has been making wands for centuries, Mr. Drake-Wayne, and each is crafted with individual attention and precision," Mr. Ollivander began to explain to Tim, filling in the silence while he worked at his measurements. "You will be receiving a one-of-a-kind wand. In general, we use the standard set of wand woods, but what sets us apart from other wandmakers in the world is the selection of unicorn hair, dragon heartstrings, and phoenix tail feathers as their cores. They are the finest of materials in and have been the cores of what many will consider the finest wands around." The length of tape rolled itself up by some unseen force, and Mr. Ollivander left Tim's side to busy himself with searching through boxes, muttering to himself as he went.

Tim and Constantine looked at each other with mutual expressions of unease.

"Here we are," Mr. Ollivander exclaimed in a hushed tone, procuring from one box a long, pale stick with a handle carved out on one end. "Cypress and dragon heartstring, nine and a half inches, very flexible." He stepped forward and offered it to Tim, who took it in his hand and rolled it around in his fingers, examining it. It was a very fine piece of craftsmanship; it was not completely straight, but it was smooth, and the handle was a nice pattern of crisscrossing ridges.

Tim reached for his bag of money that was seated next to him, but before he could bend down to retrieve any form of payment, he found that the wand had been snatched out of his hand by Mr. Ollivander, who hurried back to the piles of boxes and placed the wand back into its respective box. However, instead of ringing up the item and reporting its cost to Tim, the man dove back into the boxes and began to rummage again for something else. He emerged again, this time with a slightly darker wand, handing it to Tim, who reluctantly took it and looked it over.

"Red Oak and phoenix feather, ten inches, swishy," he explained, and then stepped back, folding his hands in front of him. "Go on," he continued. "Wave it."

Tim narrowed his eyes, lifting up the wand and moving it back and forth a couple times in short, brisk movements. "Is…this one better?" Tim asked.

"We shall wait and see," Mr. Ollivander replied, but then a couple seconds later he continued, "Evidently not," and took the wand away again.

"Um, so what sort of things affect what type of wand is good for me?" Tim called to the man while he was hunched over digging through boxes.

Mr. Ollivander hummed again. "We'll find out soon enough. Don't worry, child," he added, "one of them will choose you, I guarantee it."

One of them would choose him. The wording was intriguing, but Tim did not feel particularly surprised that there was some element of mystery involved in the selection of a wand, or, he supposed, the wand's selection of him.

"Apple and unicorn hair, nine inches, unyielding."

It was placed in his hand and subsequently taken away in a matter of seconds. Tim let out a sigh, wondering if they should have gotten here earlier.

There was a slight commotion as one of the smaller stacks tumbled over when Mr. Ollivander stepped away from it. He trotted up to Tim with another fancy stick. "Ebony and phoenix feather, eleven and three-quarter inches, quite bendy." Tim took it in his hand and waited a full minute before it was inevitably taken back.

"Cedar and unicorn hair, ten and three quarter inches, hard." He folded Tim's fingers over it and patted his hand approvingly. Tim waited for a moment to see if this, too, was going to be taken away, but upon seeing no such attempt be made, waved it back and forth again.

Tim suddenly felt a tingling in his toes that moved all the way up his spine. When he flicked the wand in one direction, the tip glowed a blue-white hue, and from its tip spouted several thin trails of some sort of pale liquid which evaporated before it hit the ground.

This had to be the one. Tim felt like his hair was standing on end. He turned to Mr. Ollivander, and managed a brief, "I…uh…" before the wizard plucked it out of his grasp and started to bag up the item.

"Marvelous," he muttered to himself, his large silvery eyes trained on Tim, who was still taking a moment to find his bearings. He was still not quite sure what had come over him. Perhaps it was because this was the first act of magic he had actually ever performed. His heart was pounding, and he felt like he had just finished sparring with Dick.

When he had successfully bought his wand, Tim placed it safely in the depths of his book bag, hefting up his sack of money and turning to grin at Constantine. Constantine winked at the kid, and Tim even saw the faintest hint of a smile creeping across the man's face.

The experience at Ollivanders set the mood for the rest of the morning. Though nothing would physically shake him as much as receiving a wand, Tim was still mesmerized at every shop they entered. Everywhere had a delightful, mystical air about it like they were a part of a Willy Wonka set piece. Even little things, like the way that objects would self-operate, filled Tim with an odd excitement. It was all so charming and quirky.

It soon became obvious, however, that Tim was sorely lacking in his knowledge of the wizarding world and would need to read up on things before school started so he wouldn't blow his own cover. His first challenge of the day manifested itself about ten seconds after he walked into Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. It was a small shop with the outward façade of every other two-story shop in Diagon Alley but an interior that one might easily mistake for an Elizabethan manor until they noticed the stools that waddled around the place or the mannequins that changed poses every couple of seconds. Madam Malkin appeared from a side room and waved him in, or at least Tim assumed she was, because the woman skipped introductions and went straight to measurements. Like Mr. Ollivander, her tape measurer did most of the hard work while she went over to a rack of robes and started sorting through them.

"And what colors do you wear?" she asked, glancing back at where he stood, tape measurer zipping around him.

Tim paused, trying to work out the phrasing of her question. He rummaged through his book bag and pulled out the crumpled-up shopping list. "Uh, black."

"A Hufflepuff, eh?" she said, pulling out a set of robes with a yellow and black-lined collar. "Now step up on the stool, if you would."

"Oh, um, actually I need solid black robes," Tim explained hurriedly before she could pull out any of her supplies. "Sorry."

Madam Malkin stopped whatever she was doing and turned to him, narrowing her eyes in confusion. "You seem a little old to be a first-year. Is this for some sort of job? I have other robes better suited to specific professional environments."

At this point, Tim knew that he had missed some basic wizarding information during this exchange, and he hurriedly tried to cover up his mistake. "Oh, I'm transferring in."

The woman paused, gave him a one-over, then nodded and picked back up the robes which she had originally intended on giving him. "Don't get many of those," she told him, reaching into her own mauve robes and pulling out a wand. "Though it's not a problem, it's an easy enough fix." She tapped the colored collar of the robe, which detached itself and flew off of the robe, folding itself up on a nearby shelf. The result was a plain black work robe, just as the supply list requested.

She handed him the robe, which he slipped on as he stepped onto the stool. "Can I assume that you will also be needing a cloak for the winter?" she asked, starting to pin things up.

"Yes, thank you." Tim watched her work, glancing around at some of the other customers present. There were two small girls being fitted with robes similar to his own, and further back, an older girl with long wavy locks was wearing a robe lined with maroon and gold. Catching Tim's gaze, she perked up and winked, waving at him from across the room.

Tim hurriedly turned his attention back to Madam Malkin's work. "Are transfers really that rare?" he asked her, not wanting to stand out even more at Hogwarts.

"Well, every couple of years I get a Muggle-born whose magic didn't really manifest until later, sort of a late bloomer, or sometimes a child whose parents wanted to try and homeschool their kid early on. What's your story?"

Tim blanched, looking around the room for Constantine and spotting him far away trying on a pair of dragon-hide gloves. This was unfortunate, for Tim had suddenly realized that he did not have a fully formed story as of yet, and he spend the entirety of two seconds coming up with something, because if there was one thing Tim was good at, it was pretending he knew more than he actually did.

"Oh, um, yeah, my parents weren't super fond of the schooling options in America, so they homeschooled me for a bit, but then they passed away unexpectedly, so for a while, I wasn't receiving much of an education."

One thing he had decided with Zatanna was that he would go by his real name and age. This would both help Tim come up with backstory information on the spot without grasping for straws and would save him from having to develop a fake identity that could be discovered the moment someone said, "Hey, does that kid look like Tim Drake-Wayne?" Also, having dead parents was a great way to not have to back up his stories.

Seeing that Madam Malkin hadn't reacted oddly to anything he had said, Tim continued. "My current guardian suggested attending an actual wizarding school so that I could complete my O.W.L.s and be able to get a real career in the wizarding world, so we looked into a couple options before settling on Hogwarts. He sent a letter to the headmaster and, thankfully, I was accepted."

"Well, isn't that exciting, dearie," Madam Malkin cooed, looking very much like she would have patted Tim on the head had his head not been several feet out of her reach. "All right, then. I've just about finished up." He hopped off of the stool, eager to avoid any more potentially incriminating conversation.

The majority of Tim's supplies were bought fairly quickly, as Tim and Constantine were eager to avoid social interaction if at all possible. This swiftness, however, proved in vain, for the amount of time Tim spent in Flourish and Blotts took up the rest of the morning and bled into the afternoon.

Tim thought that he had prepared himself for the siren song that was leather-bound encyclopedias and plush armchairs, but, like most of the wizarding world, he had vastly underestimated what would be thrown at him. There were bookcases that stood several stories tall (and it did not escape Tim's notice that the building definitely appeared to be a single-story high from the outside). There were lecterns upon which large dictionaries were perched that always seemed to know the word you were looking for before you said it. And there were so many ladders.

If it had just been textbooks, they could have been in and out in under an hour. However, about a minute into browsing textbooks, Tim caught sight of a book called Merwyn: A Cursed Hand and picked it up and began to flip through. Three hours later, after not only finishing that book but plowing through The Tales of Beetle the Bard, A Guide to Toadstool Identification, and Merlin's Beard! Magical Artifacts of the Twelfth Century, Tim found himself about a quarter of the way through British Isles' Laws of Conduct When Dealing with Muggles Vol. 3 when he felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up from his pile of books to find Constantine standing over him, snacking on a carry-out container of fish and chips.

"Kid, you've been at this for hours," he said in between bites. "I left at noon, walked down Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley and Horizont Alley, which was a new one for me, went back to the Leaky Cauldron to order lunch, and yet you're exactly where I left ya."

Tim glanced up at the grandfather clock to his left and noticed with a start that it was, in fact, 3:39 in the afternoon and not, in fact, 11:03, when he had entered the store.

"Oh!" He felt his face flush, and he ducked his head in embarrassment. "Um, yeah, sorry…I…uh…" He glanced down at the large stack of books he had yet to read. "Just…give me a minute."

After six minutes past the promised one-minute mark, Tim and Constantine walked out of Flourish and Blotts, Tim's cauldron piled precariously with about two dozen books. After all, Tim was trying to cram five years of magical knowledge into a single summer; some light reading wouldn't do him any harm.

Constantine reached into his jacket and pulled out some sort of food item wrapped in parchment paper and wordlessly handed it over to Tim, who fumbled for a moment, trying to get a hand free without dropping his load.

"Thanks," Tim grinned, unwrapping with a bit of difficulty (given the lack of two hands) what appeared to be a Cornish pasty. "You've been a huge help, Constantine."

The man grunted, twisting his cigarette in his fingers.

Did I want to write an argument between Tim and Steph? No, not really, but I felt like there needed to be that conflict (and then I panicked and had them make up super quickly lol). Also, sorry to everyone who was hoping that 'Alvin Draper' would be featured in this story. Not today, folks.