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[Alfred Gorbach]

It was no secret to anyone with even mild experience of Alfred that most days weren’t good ones, but this one was especially bad. He’d overheard a man in town talking about how proud he was of his son for some school achievement, tossing in a few casual words about how much he loved him. And Alfred had to wonder, did that dad mean it or were those just empty words people say when the conditions are right?

He was once loved too. Or so he thought. He was once praised. His dad had said those things to him. But then also:
“All those years I thought I was raising a champion, but turns out I was just training a circus act,” his father had said.
“You were supposed to be my legacy. I built you to stand straight, shoot clean, and act like a man, and now you’re gonna do what? Wave a stick and mumble words like some freak show?” his father had shouted.
“All those arrows you landed… I have to wonder. Was it really you, or that tainted blood guiding them?”

That was the final straw. He’d stood there, trying to take it like a man, just like his daddy taught him, but those were the final words that broke something.
The ones that let the tears fall.

And they were about to do the same now, but he sure wasn’t going to let that happen. He looked up at the sky, sometimes that helped keep the waterworks at bay. His nose was red and prickling again, a sensation so common these past days he wondered if there was a way to numb it.
Didn't seem to help. He had to do something. And fast. Preferably while walking in the opposite direction from that park with its picture perfect families, picnic spots straight from a magazine, and all that love that only seemed to exist under the right terms. Terms he most certainly hadn’t met.
He picked up a stick and started beating the grass as he walked, like it had personally offended him.
“I’m not a freak,” Alfred mumbled.
“I’m not a freak!” Slash.
“I,” slash. “am not,” slash. “a freak!” Slash.​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

The first trick Laura had picked up with her new magic, if that was even really hers, was a vanishing act.

Deep down, she knew it wasn't her aunt's fault she was in this situation as much as her mother suggested otherwise. She liked her aunt, and she had no recollection of Aine ever doing any sort of magic. Not that she actually knew what magic looked like, but she felt like she'd know if something had been done to change her and make her into a witch herself. But her mother's anger and grief at the prospect of her daughter - that was to say, Laura herself - being different and taken away to go to what felt like a convent far from home left an impression on a young girl. Spending some time with her aunt amongst magic was something of a begrudging concession by her mum, and while Laura wanted to be nice to her aunt at the first opportunity she found herself running.

She had no destination in mind, she just kept running until a voice stopped her in her tracks. Tilting her head curiously she looked at the boy and at the grass, and back up with a raised eyebrow while she caught her breath. "Was the grass being rude to you?" she asked, unable to stop herself. At the very least, it was something to think about that wasn't everyone fighting about her at home. "Are you okay? Um, you're probably not a freak?" she added, mildly unhelpfully. Her phone vibrated in her pocket with a message and Laura with not an insignificant feeling of guilt ignored it.

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

Death was seriously underrated. Would it come now, Alfred would take its hand without a flinch. Disappear into nothingness. Far from the place where someone had just witnessed his meltdown in public.
He froze and didn’t know what to say. Could he just… bolt? The embarrassment was physical. Chest tight, skin tingling. He didn’t even want to look her way.
But he had to, didn’t he?
She sounded like she was trying to be nice, which somehow made everything ten times worse. The kind of voice people use when they stop on the street and ask if you’re lost. Not because they care, but because you look so wrong their moral compass forces them to speak.
And yeah. He probably did look like that.
Repeating things like some deranged… well, freak. Honestly, if she hadn’t looked concerned, that would’ve been more alarming.
He finally looked her way, praying his face had remembered its original color.
“Depends who you ask,” he muttered. His voice cracked at the end, so he coughed to kill the sound.
Then, hitting the grass for emphasis,
“And, uh… it started it. I was just… defending myself,”
Defending yourself, really, dude?
Oh great, round two. Humiliation and shame burned right through him, hot and suffocating.

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

Laura nodded slowly, making herself busy as she reluctantly pulled out her phone. There was a message from her aunt, telling her not to go off too far or her mum would probably end her. Laura grimaced. She had no doubt her mum would if anything happened on Auntie Aine's watch. She pocketed the phone again without responding, not really wanting to contribute to that. It felt uncomfortable.

Almost as uncomfortable as the boy looked, she thought, blinking a few times at the response. "Oh, great, do I have to watch out for magic grass, now, too-" she blurted, quickly shutting her mouth as she realised. She wasn't supposed to talk about it, because now everything had to be a big shameful secret. Like how she'd have to pretend she was going to Sydney for school to all her friends. Like how her aunt had to speak in half-truths until that letter showed up. She coughed, awkwardly. "I've got matches if you want to set things on fire instead?" She did tend to carry odds and ends. A Swiss army knife was at the top of her wishlist.

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

Excuse me?
She just acted like everything he said was perfectly normal. And then proceeded to check her phone.
What?!

“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing at her phone and then up at her.
And the fire comment, okay, that nearly made him laugh, but the first part?
“Wait, stop, what did you mean about the magic grass?” He looked dead serious.
Was she from the same show he was?
No way.
Except… wasn’t this the place where the school was supposed to be? Well not exactly here, but...
And what were the odds of bumping into someone like that?
Nah, no way.
Well… was there a way?
Could there actually be someone else like him?
“On… on the off chance,” he added, pulse picking up, “do you ever catch yourself wondering if you’re a freak too?”​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

Laura realised she was probably being rude. She'd thought she was just being kind of casual, not looking too invested so as not to make him feel like he was some kind of weird thing to observe. At least, that's how she hoped it came across. Most of her guy friends didn't go in for aggressive sympathy or nosiness. But she supposed distraction worked too. Could it be that the reason he was upset was in part that he was, perhaps, in the same situation she was? Awfully convenient, but she supposed her options here were to subtly pull the 'I know that you know that I know' thing with dancing around magic without directly saying it...and if she was wrong, then if the magic police were going to arrest her they could maybe prove she wasn't magic and put this whole thing behind her. If she was right, then at least someone else got it.

Alternatively, she could start setting things on fire. That would at least change the subject.

"Um," she started, fiddling with the sleeve of her jersey as she pondered how to actually phrase things in a subtle way rather than go for the pyromania. Eleven year olds weren't known for subtlety. "I didn't think so, but a little birdie said I might be..." she stated, carefully, feeling quite proud of herself for the way she'd put it together. "Well, Jenny and Chantelle always call me one, but that's only because the boys don't want to kiss them when they could play footy with me, not for any, uh...'magic' reasons..." she made quotation marks with her fingers, rolling her eyes and quickly shutting her mouth before she went on and on. She'd undermined the first statement, unfortunately. "Okay, did you get a weird letter too?"

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

Kissing?
He blinked. What.
That wasn’t the part he was supposed to get stuck on, but it lodged in his brain like a splinter.
He cleared his throat, adjusting his grip on the stick like it mattered.
“Right, so just to recap.. you’re quoting birds, mocking your bullies and throwing in kissing while confirming I wasn’t the only one who received stuff from people who think owls are an acceptable postal service?” This wasn’t a question. More like a system reboot.
A short pause.
“Cool.”
“Cool, cool, cool… A normal Tuesday.” This was a lot to process. That meant.. what?
For one, evidently he wasn’t the only one. Sure, they probably didn’t build an entire school just for one Alfred, but.. this was big. Proof he wasn’t about to spiral into a padded room.
Well. At least he won’t be there alone.
He exhaled slowly, though it didn’t help much.
“So what now?” he asked. Then, in the same breath, “Do we, like… shake hands? Swear blood oaths? Start a cult? I didn’t read the brochure.”​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

Laura scratched the back of her head, shuffling from one foot to the other in a bid to find a stance that felt at all natural. The heart of the matter was, unfortunately, nothing felt natural right now. "Yeah, that's basically it," she said, shrugging as though to say 'what can you do?'. Still, though, the fact that he very much did seem to be in the same boat was a massive relief, and she felt her shoulders relax just a little. She didn't even know they were tensed. "That or we were both poisoned and we're deep in delulu-land. I don't think so though. It probably would've made the news before now." Yes, that seemed logical enough.

"If you asked my mum, she thinks it's already a cult, so joining another one on top of it is probably a bit much?" she offered up, finding herself making more jokes out of nerves. Good thing her mother wasn't here, she thought. She always hated when her aunt did that. "I think the big magic families do blood rituals and stuff. I don't really wanna join 'em. I heard the kids from those families are the real freaks." She made a face, awkwardly shoving her hands in her pockets. Handshakes were the kind of things she only did when she was pretending to be an important businessman with her friends as part of a private joke. "Though I'm gonna try and find a way to get out of this, if you want in. What's your name, anyway? I'm Laura. Or Loz, or LZ, whatever."

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

The sunlight felt way too bright for the kind of conversation they were having. The wind was still blowing, the birds still chirping, and a random dog was barking in the distance, but everything felt muted. All of this was so disorienting.
"I need to sit down." The rush of thoughts was too overwhelming. She knew. She really knew. He could probably ask her a million things. Would she tell him? Would she lie? Could he even tell the difference?

"Actually no, walk with me? I think better when I'm moving," he added, tossing the stupid stick away.
"My fam... hm. So like... hm." He still hadn't moved, and if he had to grade his own words on their ability to say what he meant, a two month old would probably outscore him.

"John," he said at last. "John Doe. Ask my owl, it's totally legit."
This was yet another thing he didn't fully understand. Why something as basic as a name had become the one thing he never wanted to give. Not since he got here.
Or maybe not since his own father started using his name like a curse. And that wasn't even his father's to do whatever he wanted with. He had his mother's last name. Why? That was another thing he never thought about until the whole magic is real revelation. But still. A name was the very first step in any normal human interaction, and his gut reaction was to dodge it. Which was dumb, because if LZ was going to go to the same school he was, she would find out eventually.
But that was an eventually problem.
"But if I'm being serious, you can call me whatever you want," he said. "And on a side note, I know literally nothing about what you just told me. Like, big magic families and real freaks, or what even defines freak."
He was talking like someone held at gunpoint and the only way out was setting a world record for words per minute.
"I'm not even entirely sure what I am, as you could tell by the whole grass scolding episode, and I have zero baseline for what... what..." He waved a hand vaguely. "... to compare what you're saying to, and judge what you tell me. And, and..." The point of this monologue grew wings and flew away. He had completely lost the trail of his original thought.
He exhaled sharply.
"What I was trying to say is that whatever you tell me, I'll probably believe it. So please be... ugh... true?" He glanced at her again, quieter now.
"It's a pretty crap deal, if you ask me, because I'm probably not going to be very honest with you."
A pause.
"But I promise I won't lie."
That felt important to add.
"If you wanna start walking the other direction, now is the time. But if you don't... I'll help. I'll try to help you with whatever it is that you want to get out of."​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

Despite the aforementioned mutual dislike from certain girls in her class at school, Laura got along with people pretty well for the most part. She liked to think she could call most of the people in her class friends, or at least be friendly to them. But her best friend was a boy named EJ. Well, that was the name she stuck with, and he'd been the one to gravitate towards using LZ. He was American, so the 'zee' worked far better than the 'zed' she would have used. Laura was reminded a little of him seeing the way this boy was freaking out. EJ tended to freak out about things too, every now and then. Most recently it was because they were shutting down the servers for Dogs of War IV, and he hadn't been able to convince his parents to get the new version, nor did Laura own a copy for them to play together. Laura had had to bite her tongue so as not to double down with 'I won't be able to play anyway, I'm being sent to a weird magic school where they don't even have electricity'. Remembering that stung, so she shook her head as she half jogged as she walked as a distraction to herself.

"Yeah, okay," she eventually assented with a shrug. "Mum says boys do nothing but lie anyway, so it's no big deal." Although, her conscience reminded her, she was the one who was going to have to lie to EJ. "And you can't really be lying about saying that you're lying, cause then you're telling the truth either way, and I seriously doubt your name is actually John Doe." She felt quite clever for that one, for a brief sparkle of positivity amongst everything else. Maybe she wasn't a genius, but she liked to think she was a bit clever. "I'm just happy to be able to talk to someone about it at all, even if you're just going to respond with bullcr*p. I can't tell any of my friends. So I have no reason to lie. Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye." She was very solemn, placing a hand over her heart for emphasis. "I want to get out of going at all, since it's probably been a mistake. If they make me go, I'm breaking out until they get the message that they can't hold me. They won't have security cameras or anything, I know." There was perhaps a very small part of Laura that was curious about magic, and to be fair to Aine, she had said there were good parts to it. But all the lead-in seemed definitely not worth it.

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

He gave a short, awkward laugh and shoved both hands into the pockets of his hoodie. It stung that she thought he was a liar, that she thought all boys were. It should be a big deal, but arguing would only make it worse. To him, not being honest and lying weren’t the same thing at all. And as for his name, she probably didn’t share his questionable hobby for a kid barely into double digits, watching gory shows and listening to brutal fantasy audiobooks, so it was only natural she didn’t get the John Doe joke.

“No. No, it isn’t. John Doe is a name for someone whose true name is unknown or withheld, and in my case it’s the latter, obviously, for reasons I don’t want to go into right now.” He fixed his gaze on some spot far in the distance.

“And I promise it’s not because I come from some murderous weirdo family. At least, I don’t think I do.” He grimaced. “Ok, forget it. I can’t exactly guarantee I’m not from some serial killer branch. But as far as I’m aware of my family tree, I’m not tied to any vengeance seeking child eaters.”
He kicked a small stone down the gravel path.

“I’m really not helping my case, am I?” He scratched the back of his neck, wincing. “I’m rambling. Sorry.” He had no idea why talking to her felt so awkward. It wasn’t like this normally. Maybe it was the breakdown earlier, or the fact that he hadn’t pulled himself together yet, but everything felt strange and off balance. Or maybe it was just that she was the first person he knew was like him, and if this was how the track record for witch and wizard communication was going to go, the future didn’t seem too promising.
“Wait. How do you know they don’t have security cameras?” His brain finally sparked with the fact that this was an important piece of information. “And secondly, are you from here or am I talking to another import?”​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

"Oh," Laura responded, nodding in understanding. She knew it sounded obviously fake, but she didn't have all the context behind it. "Oooooh, that's why EJ calls himself John Dog in Dogs of War. I was like but his name isn't even John, it's Elias..." she rambled, fidgeting with the inside of her pockets as she talked. She wasn't usually prone to rambling, but it seemed to be a side effect of keeping so much bottled by force. Now some words were being let out, more seemed to spill out as she went. She wondered if she should've gone with a fake name too, but it was too late.

"I didn't think they ate children," Laura added, bluntly in response to the boy's defensive comments. "My aunt says they just keep making more of them." It had been one of the many things her aunt had vented about in 'the thing about the magic world is...' and Laura hadn't entirely understood exactly everything about what she'd said, but she at least got that much down. "I'm not from here. I'm from Melbourne. My aunt's a witch," she at least was sure to keep her voice low saying that. "I didn't know she was. Nobody else in my family is, though." As far as she knew. She wasn't exactly close to her father and his family but considering his sporting career figured he probably wasn't a wizard. She wanted to add that she probably wasn't herself, but that would be too much of a lie, and she'd agreed to be honest. "She's been telling me some things but my mum doesn't really like it being talked about. That's why I'm here, well, while my auntie's at work, 'cause something about, um, immersion." That was more honest than she needed to be, perhaps, but Laura was just a bit relieved to voice these things.

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

“Make more of them? What, breed them like chickens?” He shook his head, making a mental note to ask later who this Elias person was, and if he was going to that school too. He noticed she looked a bit out of place herself, and that felt like a tiny win. At least he wasn’t the only one stuck in no man’s land.

“Our mothers have something in common,” he scoffed, voice going flat. “And I’m here for the same reasons. Do you think that’s part of the starter pack for kids like us? A deflective mom and a good old auntie to pick up the pieces?” Then, out of nowhere, before LZ had a chance to answer, he blurted, “What if we just became criminals? Actual criminals. They’d have to deport us, right? And if we get deported, we wouldn’t have to go to that school, right?” He kicked a clump of dirt, voice dropping, almost to himself. “Better than letting them drag us off like cattle for some fancy wizard barbecue.”​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

Laura loved her mum, really, she did, but she would have been lying if she said she wasn't a tiny bit resentful of how upset she was over this whole situation. Laura felt she should've been the one who was the most upset about it, but instead she was having to pretend she hadn't heard her mother exploding at her aunt and suggesting it was her fault that this whole magic thing had happened. Perhaps it was that it had taken a little longer to sink in so that by the time Laura realised it wasn't a joke and she wasn't really happy about it, she couldn't really compound on the misery by expressing that out loud. Maybe she'd have to call her uncle, put him in the awkward spot between his two sisters so someone else could share her misery. Until then, relief was overpowering resentment just in knowing she wasn't quite so alone.

"Sure, chickens, something like that." Laura knew where babies came from, but she knew that wasn't exactly the sort of conversation to launch into, especially not with someone she'd just met. She made a face at the comment about mothers and aunts, about to argue that her aunt had a habit of making things more confusing rather than less, but she abruptly shut her mouth at the idea presented. "Hmmm...yeah, that could definitely work," she agreed, briefly forgetting the minimum age of criminal responsibility was a thing. Judging by some of the comments her aunt had made, Laura was apparently one of the first in line for some ritual sacrifice by virtue of non magical parents, so avoiding such a fate was definitely a good thing. "I've got bobby pins, so we could, I dunno, break into a house and steal something," she suggested, not mentioning she hadn't really learned how to pick locks properly yet. She rummaged through her small backpack. "Bobby pins, matches, an apple, couple of freddo frogs...do you want one, by the way?...stick of gum, compass, spool of string...sure, Auntie Aine works for the magical government so she'll totally freak out if we break the law but their government must be kind of messy if they have her working in law there, she hasn't even graduated from uni." She rolled her eyes as she talked, momentarily forgetting the boy would probably have no idea what she was talking about.

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

Alfred stared at her, mouth dropping open. Nothing semi intelligent came out, so he shut it again.
“Yes, I’d like one, thanks” he said, reaching out for the frog. “Well. I got me…” he added, dumbfounded. “I can be the distraction. I probably look unstable enough.”
But then the word government caught up with him.

“Wait. Your aunt works for the government? The magical government?” His eyebrows lifted. “Wow. What do they even do? I mean, this place, here, it’s run by the, uh, regular government, right? So what does the…” The sentence trailed off and he scratched his jaw, already giving up on finishing it properly. “That sounds so cool,” he said, genuinely impressed.

Then his expression shifted as another thought hit.
“But it also means we need to up our game,” he said thoughtfully. “I mean, your aunt probably wouldn’t let you end up in some wizard juvie, but would she actually pull strings? Or would she be one of those face the consequences, L types?” He looked at her, then quickly looked away “Because in that case, if we’re doing this, we need to go big. So she can’t sweep that under the rug.”
And then completely out of nowhere, he added, “You’re impressive.”
A beat.
“I mean, the bag. That bag is impressive. You being that prepared. Not like.. I mean, whatever, you get it.” He suddenly found the gravel to be a particularly interesting object to observe. The stones. Such admirable shapes.​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

Laura handed over one of the frogs with a shrug. She couldn't exactly judge about looking unstable or not, considering the way her family was lately. Herself included, apparently. She took one herself, opening the packet and thoughtfully taking a bite. She shrugged a bit at the government comment, because while it was kind of cool, her aunt made it sound anything but. "She says she mostly just gets coffee and files stuff. Pretty boring. Like answering the phones, 'cept I think they don't have phones?" Though, in all honesty, Laura wasn't sure she really understood what the magical government did. "They had to have someone come out to talk to my mum and me about this magic stuff, so I guess they mostly just like, have the law about keeping it secret?" She made a face, not fully convinced about her own statement. "I'm hoping she can find out that it's been some kind of mistake that my name got put down, but like, she and my mum are kinda mad at each other so it's a bit awkward asking."

Laura shook her head, not really wanting to get bogged down too much in her own family drama. She rummaged around in her bag a little more to distract herself, her face warming a little at the compliment. "Oh! Um, thanks, I'm in Scouts." Though not for much longer, she realised, if she was forced to go to magic school. Another reason to find a way out. "I don't think my scout leader will be too happy if I break the law, but like, it's really really important and for a good reason, so that's okay, right?" She bit down on the other half of the chocolate, a little desperately as she did. "But like, we'll both get out of this, somehow."

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

He bit into the frog. It was a little squashed from being in her backpack and the chocolate had that cheap, waxy texture that stuck to your teeth in the least satisfying way. He suddenly remembered he didn’t even like sweets all that much. More the idea of them. Like enjoying chocolate was one of those default normal kid things you were supposed to crave. But yeah, another unticked box for his dad’s list of all the things that were wrong with him.

He noticed L shook her head, like maybe she regretted saying too much. Or maybe this was the part where she’d pull it all back and wrap it in a joke the way he would. And for some reason, that didn’t sit right with him.

“You don’t have to stop talking,” he said, lifting his gaze. “About the family stuff. I mean, you don’t have to talk. But I don’t mind. Helps,” helps to know you’re not the only one walking around with your pieces barely duct taped together. But that wasn’t even the best part.
“We…”
He stopped chewing when she said it. We’ll both get out of this. She didn’t say she, or he, or you and I. She said we.
We.
He knew it was just a word. Knew she probably didn’t think much of it. But it meant something to him.
“Yeah, we will think of something,” he said, a little too fast. Reassuring.
And it finally clicked why talking to her had felt so weird and off balance. He was used to being perfect. Used to having to earn the right to be seen or included. Be sharper. Better. Wittier. Smarter. Hide the weak spots. And if that wasn’t working, if he could feel the cracks, then bite first, take control of the narrative. Make a good impression, make sure the sponsors noticed, but she had just seen him at his worst. Angry. Messy. Saying he had nothing. Saying he’d be useless. And she kept talking to him like it didn’t matter. No guilt trips, no mocking, no remarks, no making him feel smaller. Like it was okay.
That was so not the way he had been raised for the past eleven years.

He didn’t know what to do with that.
He didn’t have the script for conversations that didn’t have to be performative.

He reluctantly took another bite.
“And totally,” he added, voice muffled by chocolate. “The police also break speed limits to catch criminals. Sometimes we gotta do what we gotta do.”
“Oh and uhh.."
He glanced down at the gravel again.
"Why is it that you really, really don’t want to go? I mean, not that an upset scout leader or children eating cults aren’t solid reasons. But you said it felt like a mistake. You really meant that, didn’t you?”
​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

Laura gave a wry smile at the boy's reassurance. "Nah, I mean, I said I don't think you're weird, I don't need you to think I'm weird instead." Honestly, Laura thought she was perfectly normal, and therein lied the problem. She liked being normal. She liked doing things like going to scouts, playing footy on Saturday mornings, hanging out with her friends. The little rituals she and her mum shared, like going out for icecream on a Friday night and languid brunches on a Sunday morning. Taking a day off school every now and then and watching weepy movies together, crying everything out and having it wrap back around to laughter after a while. The more she thought about how much she'd lose, the more likely she was to start crying and make things worse for everyone else around her by getting so upset.

"I mean like," she mused, taking the leap from the conversations she'd overheard between her mother, her uncle and her aunt. "It's kind of illegal of them, right, to take kids away from their families and force them into not being able to see their friends and family? And then tell them that they have to lie about it or they'll be in big, big trouble? Like, that sounds so suss to me," Laura said rather insistently, clutching her backpack to her chest as she scuffed her shoe in the dirt. "Mum thinks my aunt must've cursed me or something, maybe by accident, I don't remember her doing anything on purpose. Like the magic's rubbed off. I don't think I've done any magic." There were a couple of inexplicable cases of moving items between places or finding herself in a different room to where she thought she was, but that was easy enough to handwave as being really tired. Though she didn't intend to talk much about her family, it all kept spilling out. "...and it's just me and mum at home. I don't wanna leave her." For as long as she could remember, it was the two of them against the world. Uncle Conor and Auntie Aine were around a bit, but for the most part it was just her and her mum. It made Laura's chest ache terribly when she'd heard her mum crying at her aunt about how 'your people can't take my little girl away from me'. If she could fix this, she would.

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

“Oh, you’re safe, trust me,” he said, giving her a small, closed-lip smile and motioning for them to start walking again. He finished off his chocolate and crumpled the wrapper in his palm.

He listened to her and noticed he still felt at ease. He would know. He had been paying a lot of attention to how he felt lately, trying to isolate one culprit and cut it out. Not to be happy exactly, but at least to stop feeling crippled by waves of sadness and anger and homesickness for a place that didn't want him anymore.

What she told him should have triggered something. Usually things like that did. Those were the kinds of topics that drowned him in those uncontrollable waves of emotion, but there was none of that now. He could still breathe easily.
Maybe that chocolate wasn’t so bad after all.

The tug to reveal a piece of himself finally came, as expected, when she mentioned possibly being cursed. His shoulders stiffened. She had already seen his worst sides, maybe saying something real wouldn’t be that bad?

"You know, ugh..." He spotted a trash can nearby, tossed his wrapper in, and held out his hand toward her in case she wanted to give him hers too.

"Maybe that's the whole point? Maybe there are parents who think their kids are cursed, and then they use that school as a place to get rid of unwanted children they no longer have a need for. Maybe that’s why grownups came up with it." It wasn’t exactly a direct admission, but it was the best he could do with every defense mechanism in his head blaring red warning lights.

"And yeah, me neither." To him, magic was something from books and screens. Big explosions. Grand gestures. He had done none of that. Sometimes, when he felt really intense or really, really wanted something to happen, it sort of did. But that was probably the case for everyone. If you really, really wish for something, things happen. Right?

"What... what about your dad?"​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

There was a vague sense in the back of Laura's mind that here she was, spilling too much information to this boy and she didn't even know his name. But perhaps that was a good thing. Either she'd find a way to avoid going to this magic school and he'd never see her again, or otherwise she'd have an ally within the walls to help her. She was also vaguely aware that perhaps he wasn't going to see her as an ally if he wouldn't even give her his name, but she supposed she'd just have to try and think positive. In a direct contrast to everything she was saying, seemingly. She passed over the wrapper of her own frog with a grateful smile, at least remembering some of her manners. "Thanks."

Laura's steps hesitated a little at the boy's comment, busying herself closing her bag properly and swinging it back over a shoulder. She wanted to ask a little more, but somehow felt like if she did pry she'd spoil the maybe hopeful sort of friendship by getting too nosy. But Laura wasn't stupid. She'd overheard plenty of grown up conversations and gotten the implications even when things weren't said directly. She understood enough to pick up that whatever the case with this boy's family was, it wasn't good, and she definitely ought not to ask. Even if he asked about her own dad. For a moment she was surprised anyone would ask. A few people at school knew because they'd overheard their parents, and then the story had spread so everyone inevitably heard. Of course, he didn't know her surname, and this also wasn't Melbourne.

"Oh, he's not around anymore." She took a couple more steps, and then stopped, realising that probably was more confusing than it needed to be. "I don't mean, like, he's dead or anything, I'm pretty sure he moved to Perth or somewhere with his new wife and kids." Truthfully, Laura barely even knew him. The worst part wasn't that he wasn't around, it was the parents giving her and her mother the sad sympathetic looks. The perils of minor celebrity, specifically minor sporting fame. Running off with an influencer while your wife's at home with a very young child gets people talking, if nothing else. "Please don't say you're sorry or something though, it's always so weird when people do that."

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

He tossed out her wrapper with a quick nod at her thanks.

He was still feeling weirdly tense, like he’d said too much and now the sky should fall or something. But nothing happened. The Earth kept spinning. The world moved on. He took a breath, slow and quiet, trying to settle the hammering in his chest.

“Oh.” It slipped before he could catch it. Genuine surprise. He’d assumed her dad had died, or maybe just didn’t know about her. Not that he’d left. Not that he’d chosen a whole other life somewhere else. Because what kind of idiot gives up someone like her? She was in the Scouts. She had chocolate frogs in her bag and could probably tie twenty seven different kinds of knots. From what he’d seen, she was one of the most likeable people he’d met over here (the most, but he wasn’t going to admit that to himself yet). And it suddenly made sense why her mum gave her that warning about boys being liars.

Made him feel stupid for comparing their mums earlier.

“I was actually gonna go with thank you,” he said, glancing her way. He knew what it took to say stuff like that. Saw the way she fiddled with her bag, how she shrugged off the sharp bits like they were no big deal, but didn’t dodge them. She let him see it. Let him see her. Knowing full well they might end up at the same school, knowing he could’ve been the kind of **** to use it against her.

And that made him feel… safe. Or safer, at least.

“And it makes me want to ask, like, a ton more questions. Like how well he knew you before he left. Or what it’s like, knowing there’s half siblings out there somewhere, but I probably already act like some nosy cop with a flashlight in your face, but.. ” he once again found himself with two excess arms he didn’t know what to do with, so he stuffed them back in the hoodie pocket.
“You make me feel seen. And I haven’t even said anything. Make it make sense.”
Oh crap, he might’ve done it again. Said too much.
He looked away, kicked a stone down the gravel path again, but then went rigid. She was standing there and being brave. He could be brave too.

“You do,” he added, using every ounce of internal strength to force himself to look at her.

Still, it probably sounded like a weird thing to say, especially without knowing the storm of thoughts behind it. The fight to keep certain things unsaid. Yet the second it left his mouth, he knew it was the kind of thing that wouldn’t let him sleep tonight. Or the night after.​

 

[Laura Zavaglia]

Perhaps, thought Laura, the benefit to going to such a weird school would be the lack of foreknowledge about her home life. Which she had, in all fairness, spoiled by spilling it to a stranger. It had never necessarily been any sort of secret. But here it didn't matter that her father was some kind of footy hero. She blinked a couple of times. She shouldn't have been trying to find upsides, as that didn't solve the problem. If her parental situation was anything to go by, however, some problems weren't something to solve and instead just something to live with.

"Not that well, I wasn't even one yet," Laura explained lightly. She supposed it may have been worse if she had actually known what living with her dad was like in the first place. She suspected it was a lot of him being busy with training and games and everything. "I talk to him at Christmas and stuff, but it's more like a distant relative you barely know I guess? Like they're technically family, but you don't really think about them too much when you don't see them. And they probably don't think about you that much either, so, like, you're better off with the people who actually do I guess." She was reminded a little of her other aunt, the one who lived over in Europe. Laura might have met her in person twice at best over the course of her life. She wondered if perhaps she shouldn't have gone into talking more about family, or even if he'd understand her explanation, but here she was now.

"Um. Well," Laura said, her face reddening a little at what was said. Here she was just spilling words at random, letting things off her chest, and it felt like it meant more than she realised. She gave a small smile, pleased yet embarrassed, and kicked a pebble of her own. But it was rude not to return his gaze, so she looked back up and met his eyes. "I'm not gonna pretend I know what you've got going on, and like, you don't have to talk about it if you don't wanna. We can do something else, like hit things with sticks some more or climb a tree and yell or something." She worried that by drawing any attention to it whatsoever, she'd upset him, but it felt like the right thing to say in this situation. Even if her suggestions might have been odd. "You're pretty cool. Definitely not a freak."

 

[Alfred Gorbach]

When she looked him in the eyes and said he was pretty cool, he knew he was cooked.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a cold automated voice, the kind you hear before missiles launch or the world ends, kicked in.
“Attention! This is not a drill. Emotional containment breach in progress. Seek immediate evacuation.”
Sirens. Red strobes flaring. System lockdown. Emergency override. Pull the plug. Cut the power. Abort the mission. Every instinct screamed at him to back off. Say something stupid. Laugh it off. Run.
But of course he didn’t. Because he was Alfred. And if he wasn’t Alfred, if he was someone better, someone easier, someone more like the boy his father had tried to make, maybe his parents would’ve still wanted a son like him.
And still… it felt good. Soo good. To just stand there with every nerve exposed and not scrambling for a way out. That was normally unbearable. Because people were normally... normal. With normal lives and their normal parents and their normal hobbies.
But it was different with her. She’d gone first. She’d exposed herself and then left the door open. No pushing. No expectations. Just… space where someone like him didn’t have to feel like a mistake.
He had a strong feeling he was going to regret this later, but right now it felt like the first thing that had actually gone right in a long, long time.
He didn’t say anything right away. Just looked at her, really looked, and nodded. A kind of I heard you nod. Her dad made more sense now too. He hadn’t known what he was walking away from. And she didn’t miss what she had never really had.

Alfred’s eyes dropped for a second, the gravel shifting under his shoe. “Thank you,” he said at last. Quiet, but with the full weight of someone not used to saying it and actually meaning it.

He tried not to fidget. Looked back up. “Aaand I think I’m kinda done with grass, so climbing up a tree and yelling sounds like the perfect kind of therapy right now.” He gave a faint, almost embarrassed smile. “Just not too high up,” he added. “My dignity's hanging by a thread as it is.”

Then he straightened up, cleared his throat, and tapped a fist to his chest like he was about to deliver something official. “Chapter One in the epic tale of How We Got Ourselves Kicked Out of Wizard School before the term even started. Shall we?”​