I know I said I wasn't going to start publishing until February and weekly, but I've written three chapters in two days and I'm very motivated.
If I see that this one gets a lot of stones, I might release another one before February.
Otherwise you will have to wait until the first Monday of February.
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"A wizard? Is that what you are? Besides, you said you were an Auror. What's an Auror? And what exactly is the Ministry of Magic?" I began asking, trying to sound interested and excited. Meanwhile, after checking the little man's physical condition, Butler positioned himself behind my chair and, using the communication system, ordered some tea from Jules.
After listening to my series of questions, Áine seems to relax after what happened a while ago outside with Butler and begins to realize that she has come to deal with an 8-year-old boy, not her bodyguard.
"Oh, how cute~, you're curious, aren't you? Well, the answer is yes, I'm a witch."
Áine takes out her wand, which causes Butler to prepare to end any possible threat against me, and she tenses up for a moment, as if she were having flashbacks of what happened a while ago, until I make a quick gesture with my hand to Butler to stop and make him take a step back, after this Áine relaxes and continues doing what she was about to do.
She looks at one of the books on the small table and hits it with a quick flick of her wand. At first nothing happens, but suddenly its pages begin to move as if it were a bird and it starts to fly around the living room.
"Fascinating," I say, and it certainly is. It's not the Levioso spell; she's not controlling the book, the book is moving of its own volition. I remember seeing this in Legacy.
"A flying book!" I hear a shout from the doorway. It's Jules with the tea we ordered a second ago. "See, Neoth, the book flies by itself."
"Yes, I see it," I say with a sigh. "Miss Áine O'Connor, I'd like to introduce you to Juliet Butler, the housemaid and sister of Domovoi Butler, my bodyguard." I say, pointing first to Jules and then to Butler.
"You're the one who was with that grumpy dwarf who wanted to turn me into a rabbit," Juliet says, pointing at Áine.
She stifles a laugh. "And you're the one on the other end of that intercom, asking me to pull a rabbit out of a hat."
"So you're an Auror? And what do Aurors do? And..."
"Why don't we let Miss O'Connor answer before we continue asking questions?" I say, cutting Juliet off.
"Thank you, and you can call me Áine," she says kindly as Jules looks at me, annoyed? "The first thing I want to say is that there seems to be a mistake here, my partner is an Auror, I work in another department, I am the head of the department of relations between magical species," she says proudly.
Damn, department head, why are you here? And I just realized she hasn't even checked on her colleague's condition yet. Well, if she doesn't care, I care even less.
"I mean dragons, unicorns, and stuff like that," Jules says cheerfully, incredibly interested, and with a twinkle in her eye.
"No, no, no. That's the one about magical creatures; we deal more with the relationships between wizards and other species, such as centaurs, goblins, vampires, werewolves, mermaids, and things like that."
"It's because of Neoth, isn't it? I knew he couldn't be human. Maybe he's a gremlin who ran away from his family and was adopted by the Fowls." Jules says, and Áine laughs.
Now she's picking on me for no reason, what's wrong with her?
"I can assure you that little Neoth is human, it's best if I explain from the beginning the reason why I came here." she says, laughing at Jules' comment.
"You see, when someone performs magic, it generates a signal that our surveillance equipment picks up, but we don't monitor all parts of Ireland. We focus on areas that aren't part of the wizarding world. Normally, if a Muggle-born minor performs magic, a teacher from Erehnoll School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is sent to explain what happened." At this point, Jules raises her hand like a little boy. "Yes?"
"What is a Muggleborn and what is Erehnoll?"
"Muggleborn refers to wizards born to non-wizards, and Erehnoll is the school Irish wizards attend from the age of 12. Every country has its own, and ours had its first year in 1014."
So the name of the Irish school is Erehnoll. I'll have to look into it. Also, that date is much earlier than Ireland's independence in 1922, very curious.
"Okay, but let's continue if you don't mind. Where was I?" She pauses, lost in thought.
"A teacher is being sent." I remind her.
"Oh yes, of course. A teacher is sent to explain everything about the magical world. Normally, children perform magic by accident, but this seems to be a rather unusual case, since it wasn't accidental magic but rather a spell, the Lumos Charm." She looks at me as if waiting for an answer.
It's time to unleash all my acting skills, Lupin III enters the scene.
"Well, Miss Áine, you're going to be surprised." I say, trying to sound shy and awkward, while I put a hand to the back of my head and look away. "Well, you see, I was practicing my Latin and suddenly this happened." Then I raise my hand, palm up, and say "Lumos." Suddenly, a white sphere of light appears above my hand, which disappears after a few seconds.
Miss Áine is left speechless, not quite understanding whether what she has heard is correct or not.
"You say you were practicing your Latin?"
"I bet he's the weirdest eight-year-old you've ever seen in your life. What kind of kid prefers studying and practicing Latin instead of going out to play?" Jules says, playing along.
"Hey, studying new languages is really useful for business," I say, following the show.
"Good for business? But you're only 8 years old, plus you already know Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and now you're studying Greek and Latin." She says angrily, I'd even say really angry; either that, or she's improved her acting skills a lot.
"Wait a second," Áine says. "Why do you study so much? And why do your parents let you? Besides, where are they now? Are they working?" she begins to ask, a little angry and worried.
"Miss Áine, they didn't inform you when they sent you here." Butler says as I pretend to cry and Jules comes over to comfort me.
"Inform me about what?" she begins to ask, but after observing the situation for a while, she starts to imagine what's happening. "You don't mean to say that?"
"Unfortunately, yes, Neoth's parents abandoned us two years ago, and since then I have been his legal guardian."
While Butler and Áine are putting on a soap opera around me, I take the opportunity to get between Jules' breasts and enjoy them, while Jules and I conduct business in hushed tones.
"Keep this up and I'll consider getting you a pony."
"I don't want a pony anymore, I want a unicorn and a dragon, and that's non-negotiable."
I sigh with resignation, knowing that it is inevitable.
"Okay, okay, but you'll have to learn to take care of them yourself. Besides, I want more hugs like this, and maybe something more in the future."
"When you're older you might get something more, you little pervert," she says as she pulls me aside and smiles kindly at me, then kisses me on the forehead.
"I'm sorry, little Neo, I didn't know, and I wasn't informed," she says sadly as she hugs me tightly. When did I become the protagonist of The Matrix? My name comes from the glorious God-Emperor of Mankind. Respect me, but I forgive you because you give good hugs. "I think your parents would be proud of the kind of person you're becoming, but I also think they wouldn't want you to work so hard and that you should enjoy life more." She says as she releases me from the hug and looks into my eyes with a kind and understanding expression.
Well, I don't know what to tell you about my mother, but my father taught me to steal, cheat, disguise myself, and seduce women. He was a playboy until he met my mother and settled down, or so he said. I wouldn't be surprised if I had a half-brother or sister out there somewhere.
For God's sake, he took me to a French cabaret when I was five years old and left me forgotten with the cabaret girls for a week, supposedly so I could socialize a little more.
"Okay, fine, fine, let's stop this now," I say, pretending to act tough while still feeling sad inside. "So, you came because I used a real spell and not accidental magic?" I ask, pretending my voice cracks.
"Actually, that has nothing to do with my job, nor is it the reason I came here and not someone else. The reason I came is related to the Goblins and the Fowl Clan."
I bet my mother will finally be proud of me, right? All this time she kept telling me stories about the Goblin gold and the Fowl's dreams of stealing it, and in the end I'm going to be the one who does it.
"You see, this story has to do with your ancestor, the Goblins, their Gold, and this mansion before the statute of secrecy existed. The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was a law in the wizarding world that was first signed in 1689, the law was laid down by the International Confederation of Wizards to safeguard the wizarding community from Muggles and to hide its presence from the world at large."
I think I'm going to need popcorn.
"You see, these lands were originally Goblin lands, and there was a very important gold vault here for them. But your Muggle ancestor, about 1,000 years ago, managed to expel them from these lands and keep them for himself, along with the gold. Since then, there has been bad blood between the Goblins and the Fowls. But after the creation of the Statute of Secrecy, the memories of all Muggles who retained memories of the wizarding world were erased, including you Fowls. But every so often, a Fowl appears who discovers something about the wizarding world, and we have to erase their memory. Perhaps this is the place, since it's on a ley lines, and magic attracts magic."
Now I understand where the itching in my hands comes from when I think about Goblin gold and Mom's stories and the pictures about magical creatures were actually a system of clues to discover the magical world.
"So you're here because the Goblins want their lands and their gold back?" I say, trying to sound scared.
"No, no, no! You see, goblins have a rule about gold: Once a human successfully separates gold from goblins, they can keep it, and no goblin can ever get it back." Good grief, this rule is very similar to the one in the book of the fairy folk in the Artemis Fowl universe. "And this doesn't just apply to gold, but to land as well. My job is primarily about being an intermediary and public relations between wizards and magical species; in this case, I'm here as a messenger." I don't like where this is going. "Sorry, Neo," she says, pulling out a scroll. "The message reads as follows: Any goblin who makes a deal with a Fowl will be sentenced to death, by goblin law."
Wait a second, didn't Rob say he wasn't going to have debts or enemies? So what is this? Give me back my money, author.
(Technically you didn't have any enemies until you did magic, and it's not your enemy but your family's. If you want to blame someone, blame the goblins for being greedy and spiteful. Their real goal is to make you beg them for money and then take away your land.)
Oh shit, you fucking Goblins, you know what, I'm going to make you live in poverty from now on, you'll be begging me for my gold.
My ancestor stole some of your gold, I'm going to steal it all.
After all, traditions must be preserved, right?
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I tried to make this chapter a bit more entertaining.
What are your thoughts?
And I just want to say one more thing before I finish:
Aurum Est Potestas