CH 2: Ignorance Was Bliss (Patreon)

David’s mind raced to find an answer for the dilemma that had just walked into his life. As far as he could reckon he had two choices. 

The first and most tempting by far was to do nothing. Sell the woman and her daughter a trunk, some unenchanted piece of wood that would hang around the poor child’s neck like an albatross until she was smart enough to replace it, and pretend that this had never happened. If everyone was lucky he would never hear from her again and everything would continue on as it had been. He would continue his research in peace and the girl would get sorted into Hufflepuff or Gryffindor–she was far too sunkissed to be a ‘claw–and get to explore a wondrous new world.

The problem was David was too jaded with the wizarding world to believe that. He had lived through the First Blood War, and even sheltered behind the walls of Hogwarts things had gotten vicious. Muggleborns and the “wrong” kind of halfbloods had been victimized at worst and ostracized at best. He had had friends that disappeared over the summer, only to resurface in a brief obituary; some blasé line in the Prophet that made sure to spend half of the sentence that the death of a child and often their families merited mentioning their blood-status the only evidence of what happened. Although it was never confirmed, there were persistent rumors that the more enthusiastic Slytherin upper years practiced unforgivables on muggleborns who didn’t have connections to protect them.

Even worse, the girl might not learn to keep her head down before she spouted off important information like where she lived and how much or little protection she might have at home. 

David suspected this second war would be briefer than the first. He only remembered there being eight movies and they were onto the plot of the fourth or fifth one by now. Even discounting his meta knowledge, wizarding Britain was far more fragile than it had been at the beginning of the first war. In return, it would likely be far more brutal. A political bloodletting as both sides attempted to savage the other before the country collapsed in on itself or their respective magical titans grew too old to field. 

Rumblings on the Continent even suggested that the ICW was likely to come down hard if renewed war threatened the Statute. Whoever emerged victorious needed a fait accompli to present to the international community when they came calling.

The Smithwicks had all the hallmarks of a family that the Death Eaters would have their recruits cut their teeth on: unimportant, deeply muggle, and isolated. If Aldeburgh burned down because some racist seventh year wanted to try their hand at fiendfyre well that was no skin off a blood-purist’s back.

“Mr. Hull?”

No, there really wasn’t a choice was there? David was no hero. If the girl and her mother didn’t live less then a few miles from him he would have happily done nothing. But he equally wasn’t as willing to bury his head in the sand like most wizards seemed to and hope things would work themselves out. That was the only reason he was about to ruin a decade of peaceful life he told himself. It had nothing to do with an innocent child staring in open curiosity around his shop, decked head to toe in bright colors and a shirt that proudly proclaimed her devotion to some awful boyband. A child that had no idea of the shark-filled waters she had been unknowingly thrust into. It was the only rational choice.

“Mr. Hull, are you alright?”

“Pardon me ma’am, I was a million miles away for a mo’,” David gave Mrs. Smithwick a far more sincere smile, “Emily got a Hogwarts letter, did she?”

Mother and daughter both gasped. Before Mrs. Smithwick could respond, her daughter veritably exploded with questions.

“You’re a wizard Mr. Hull? Can I see your wand? Can you show me some spells? What's the coolest kind of magic you can do?”

David rocked back on his heels, stunned by the ferocity of his pint-sized inquisitor. Maybe she would be a ‘claw after all, he thought. 

“I’m so sorry for her, Mr. Hull,” she apologized profusely, “the man that dropped off her invitation was very brusque and refused to answer any of her questions. Emily Marie!” she turned and towered over her daughter, “that is not at all how we ask questions. You know better than that! Goodness gracious darling, it’s like you were raised by wolves sometimes.” 

“Sorry, mum.”

“It’s not me you should be apologizing to!” 

Emily turned and looked at David bashfully, “Sorry Mr. Hull.”

David smiled wryly, “it’s fine, I understand that magic is exciting.” Taking a brief look around the store to confirm no other customer had wandered in, he surreptitiously pulled out his wand. Chuckling lightly at the wide eyes of the duo in front of him he gave a brief wave, locking the front door and flipping the sign to closed. Another flick set a mild notice-me-not, just powerful enough to deter curious window-shoppers. Resisting the habit to dismiss the wand back to his holster, he instead laid it out on the counter. “I believe that answers your questions, little miss?”

“So mint!” the girl breathed before she began bouncing on her toes. “I can’t wait to be able to do that! When will I be able to do that?”

“The spells themselves you should be able to do by Christmas if you study hard,” David said, glossing over the mild ward he cast, “doing it silently will take a few more years.”

Mrs. Smithwick rested a hand on her daughter’s shoulder fondly, as if trying to calm her down while knowing how futile the action was. “I appreciate you answering her questions Mr. Hull, the Professor didn’t have much time for her.”

“That’s surprising,” David admitted, “normally the staff does a decent job introducing future students to the magical world. What did he look like?”

“Well not to speak ill but…” Mrs. Smithwick hesitated before continuing, “he had rather greasy black hair and an unfortunate nose.”

“He looked like a bat!” her daughter chimed in cheerfully.

Ah, that’s unfortunate, David thought. He had heard through the grapevine that Severus had been hired at Hogwarts some years back but he had assumed Dumbledore would know better than to send such a dour man to do the introductions. “I believe I know the man in question,” he said, “not the most personable of fellows, but a genius in potions.” David thought that he was being rather diplomatic. He had never hated Severus like Potter and Black seemed to, but he still thought the man was a cunt.

“Oh yes, potions. I saw that in Emily's letter. Not quite sure I understand what all that entails. Will she be mixing things in a cauldron like Macbeth?”

Snape really dropped the ball on this one, David realized. It was looking like he would have to do the whole introduction himself. “Among other things,” he said, “it is a versatile field, although not one I ever had much success in. If you would like I could come over this week and cover what Severus skipped over?”

The woman sighed in relief, “Oh could you? That would be lovely. Why don’t you come over for dinner around six tonight? My Harrold will be home and if we wait any longer I’m afraid Emily won’t leave you alone.”

Seeing the girl nodding fervently in agreement David chuckled his assent. “Very well, that works for me.” He paused briefly, remembering what brought the pair into his store, “don’t worry about the trunk right now, I’ll explain more tonight but it’s not what you need for Hogwarts.” He picked up his wand and dismissed his ward before opening the door for the Smithwicks. 

As he made his way back to his chair after seeing the two out he let out a mournful sigh, knowingly just how much work he had volunteered himself for. Hopefully once the daughter had left for Hogwarts things would quiet down again. At least he should be able to impress upon the young witch the necessity of keeping her home town quiet.

At precisely six o’clock David knocked sharply at the Smithwick’s door, a bottle of wine tucked under one arm and a trio of books shrunken in his pocket. As he waited for the door to open he took a cursory look around the front lawn. A well maintained garden and clean front porch sat in front of a modest, if weathered, brick faced house with slate shingles. Tucked into the corner of the porch were a collection of beach toys that must have been the daughter’s and in the driveway sat a Vauxhall in the uniquely hideous brown the British seemed to love.

Before David could give in to his temptation to charm the Smithwick family car into a more palatable color he heard a pattering of feet approaching the door before it was flung open so hard it nearly bounced closed again. 

“Mr. Hull, you’re here!” Emily shouted gleefully. She turned to someone out of view before he could muster up a response. “Da, Mr. Hull is here! I told you he would come!”

“And I never doubted you, sweetpea,” said her father–Harrold Smithwick, David presumed–, “now why don’t you help your mum set the table while Mr. Hull settles in.”

“But da!” the girl whined, already heading back to what David imagined was the dining room, “I have so many questions!”

“And I’m sure he’ll be happy to answer them after we eat,” he turned back to David, who still hadn’t managed to get a word in, and held out his hand, “Sorry about that, she’s been bouncing off the walls all day according to the missus, coming up with questions she wants to ask. Harrold,” he said in way of greeting, “It’s awfully generous what you’re doing for us.”

David shook the man’s hand. David wasn’t a particularly large man, and Harrold made him appear tiny. He was nearly a foot taller and looked three stone heavier than the wizard, most of it muscle. “David,” he responded, grateful that Harrold wasn’t the type of man to turn a handshake into a contest, “and it’s no bother,” he lied. “It’s the duty and privilege of a wizard to introduce the next generation to their new world.”

Harrold let go of his hand, eyeing the calluses on David’s palm thoughtfully, “well come in, Sarah has whipped up a chicken supreme and you don’t want to miss it.”

David suppressed a grimace as he followed the man to the dining room. It wasn’t often that he missed his first life, but it was inarguable that the cuisine had been better. They emerged into a quaint dining room with pastel blue walls, a table already set for the meal, and an eager child impatiently waiting to be served. He handed Mrs. Smithwick–please, you must call me Sarah–the bottle of wine he had brought, momentarily stunning the woman.

“Is this a ‘61 Bordeaux?” she asked in disbelief, “this is far too generous, I cannot accept.”

He could only shrug abashedly. “Is that a good vintage? I got it in return for some work I did for a client in France. I’m not much for–” he paused and considered his audience “–non-magical alcohol so I’m afraid it’s all the same to me.” That successfully derailed the conversation in a different direction as Sarah scurried to place the bottle somewhere safe, returning to find David and her husband discussing the benefits of Ogden's finest.

Over dinner, as David did his best to hide his distaste of the meal in front of him, he elucidated on the topic of warding to the fascination of his hosts. “I’m more or less a security specialist,” he explained, “I set up magical defenses around property or objects that people want protected.”

“What kind of protections?” Harrold asked, “is there a limit to how big or small you can ward.”

David wiggled his hand side to side, “Sort of. The bigger the property the weaker the protections generally, unless you have a magical battery of some kind to boost the energy so to speak. Like spreading paint too thin. The analogy breaks down when you consider that the more a warder understands the protections he’s raising the more efficient they are. And some wards interfere constructively while others interfere destructively, sorta like ocean waves but not at all. It’s complicated.

“As for the protections that can be created, anything really. It could be as simple as a burglar alarm to something as complex as the wards on the tombs of the Pharaohs.”

“The mummy’s curse is real?” Emily exclaimed.

David nodded around a mouthful of overcooked chicken before forcing it down. Oh how he wished he could use the vanishing charm wandlessly! “It’s real and it’s mean. More than a few cursebreakers have died trying to break into the pyramids.”

“How awful,” Sarah said, “what is the difference between a curse and ward?”

“About the same as the difference between archeology and grave robbing, I reckon,” David admitted, “semantics mostly. If you go by the Ministry definition then a ward becomes a curse when there is no one alive who can shut it down non-destructively, but that’s a load of codswallop. Just a bunch of bureaucrats in stuffy robes drawing lines that don’t exist naturally.”

Harrold nodded in solidarity. Bureaucrats were largely the same with or without magic. “How did you get into such a complicated field? Surely there are easier jobs out there.”

“Ah, well, that’s because I’m not a particularly good wizard,” David said sheepishly. Seeing the confused looks on the family’s faces he continued, “this is actually useful information for your daughter to learn so I’ll go into a little more detail. She’ll learn early on that spell casting is composed of a few key components, namely the incantation, the wand motion, and the intent behind the spell. The first two can be dropped with experience, but the intent is always the fundamental component of spell casting.” He paused to take a sip of water to wet his throat and wash the horribly rich sauce off his tongue before continuing. The family was fixated on what he was saying; it was the most still he had ever seen the girl.

“Unfortunately for me, as spells become more advanced, that intent often comes with an emotional component or a complex abstraction. You need to literally feel a certain way or believe in something inherently contradictory to cast your spell. I could never do it. I was told by my professors I was too regimented in my thinking.” He shrugged. “So I went into runes and warding, where following a formal logic is actually required.”

Privately, he blamed his reincarnation. Forty years of life where the rules of logic and physics ruled absolute was hard to set aside. No matter how much he understood that magic made the impossible possible, there was always some part of him that doubted. Doubts that could ill be afforded at the highest levels of spell casting. 

Mercifully, dinner was soon after finished and the party moved to the lounge room. Over a cup of coffee David fielded a long list of questions that Emily had managed to come up with since getting her letter: yes, unicorns were real; no, wizards hadn’t been to space; the coolest magic he had ever seen was Dumbledore animating a score of stone dragons–no reason to say the only reason he had done so was to defend Hogsmeade from an inferi attack; yes, the wizarding world had its own unique bands.

After half an hour with no end in sight, David “remembered” he had brought some first year textbooks he had dug out of his trunk and unshrunk them to give to Emily. Squealing in delight, she gave a perfunctory thank you before running to her room with her new prizes. The three adults sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the suddenly empty air. 

It was Sarah that broke the stalemate. “We can’t thank you enough for doing this David, I know you’ve taken a lot of time out of your day to help us.”

“It was a pleasure,” David lied once more, “it is always a joy to have such an… animated student.”

He must have not been quick enough on his euphemism because Harrold chuckled and said, “Aye, she can be a handful at times, but she’s our handful.” His wife gave his hand a squeeze before leaning into his shoulder. The room descended into silence once more before David regretfully cleared his throat.

“There is something I feel the two of you must know, but didn’t want to bring up in front of your daughter.” Seeing that he had the couple’s attention he continued, “magic is a vast and wonderful thing, but it is a tool wielded by man and so wonderful oftentimes becomes terrible. The wizarding world is… complex.”

“What do you mean by complex, David?” Harrold asked.

“What you must understand, and what many muggleborns never do, is that Wizarding Britain is in many ways a totally different country than Muggle Britain. Often not for the better.” Before he could be interrupted he barreled on, reaching for an analogy that the two would understand. “It is not dissimilar from Apartheid South Africa, although the discrimination is broken down along genealogical lines instead of racial ones. The further back a person can trace their ancestry in the wizarding world the higher in society they can rise.”

“And our daughter will be at the very bottom,” Sarah said, her eyes smoldering. 

“Unfortunately, yes,” David said, “it won’t be unbearable at Hogwarts, the professors do their best to keep it out of the halls, but rare is the muggleborn that rises high in the wizarding world after graduation. And I’m afraid there is worse.”

“Worse, how can there be worse?” Harrold said angrily, “you just told us our daughter will be a second class citizen at best when she graduates.”

“War. Fought along those same divides. Wizarding Britain has been in an uneasy peace the last decade but it looks like there will be another blood war in the next few years.”

“Harrold, it would break her heart, but maybe we don’t let her attend,” Sarah said, “I will take a daughter who hates me if it keeps her safe.”

David hurried to interrupt before the idea could grow. “I’m afraid you can’t ma’am. Once the Ministry has identified a potential student, they must receive at least five years of training. They believe it is too dangerous to let an untrained wizard or witch potentially violate the Statute. They’d take her away from you before they’d let you take her out of Hogwarts.”

“Are you telling me,” Harrold asked, his face growing so red it verged on purple, “that there is nothing I can do to keep my daughter safe?”

David shook his head regretfully, “I’m afraid there isn’t much. Teach her to be careful about what she talks about at school. She’s safe enough there, but if the wrong sort finds out where she spends her summers then she could be in danger. If you would like, I can set what wards I can around your house and escort your family through Diagon Alley so she can get her shopping done safely.” 

Wait, why did he offer that? There was no reason he needed to escort the girl and her parents school shopping. If they were attacked in the Alley, it would have no impact on David's well being. It was too late to take it back unfortunately, Sarah had already tearfully accepted. 

As the three of them finished their drinks quietly, David could only think about how little he was looking forward to going back to Diagon for the first time in years.