Lux sat in his bed at the ‘Cracked Cauldron’, staring up toward the ceiling as his mind wandered. The revelation of just how bad it was for muggle-borns caused Lux to ask a whirlwind of questions, and Robert gave him the night to think about his options, and whether or not he wanted to return home.

Apparently, being a muggle-born wizard was pretty rare nowadays. Robert had said that he might get upwards of five students per year, but as low as one. He wouldn’t say how many he found this year, just that it was more than just him.

He assured Lux that the school does everything they can to assure that information doesn’t leak out. However, the information was shared within the United Wizards, the lead magical branch of government for the entire world. Although the school acts as a separate entity from the UW, and their interference is minimal due to laws and regulations, they still have the resources to apply pressure at times.

Recently, there had been talks about muggle-borns undergoing testing, to get a detailed analysis of their powers, and where in their family history they inherited magic from, and most eccentric of ideas, possibly creating laws to make it illegal for them to have children. The latter was an extreme thought that few had, supposedly, mainly because there were still groups of wizards that had the ‘Aa’ genetic trait. The logical conclusion would be if you were to ban the muggle-borns, you would have to exclude that group as well, which consisted of a few famous and powerful witches and wizards, so that was unlikely to happen anytime soon.

A few muggle-born, over the last few years, were enticed one way or another to volunteer in a research program headed by a not-so-subtle Purist by the name of Frederick Plum. His hateful viewpoints were disguised by a thin veil of promises to ‘fix the problem’. Most of the muggle-born returned from testing unscathed, having a few extra galleons in their pocket, and said nothing extraordinary had happened. However, a handful never really showed up again, except in a small, well-placed news article in the UW’s newspaper about how they returned to the muggle world and gave up magic. Convenient.

Robert explained there were rumors of small skirmishes over the news, fighting between two groups of people that have yet to outwardly declare civil war. The overarching state of the magical community proving to be a major distraction to the noise the civil unrest was creating. Between birth rates dropping, magical ability decreasing, and the ever-increasing need of the muggle world to rely on magic, everyone’s hands were in multiple cookie jars just trying to figure out which one needed them the most.

Robert said that there would be no shame in going home. About half of his students chose to return home, and he completely understood their decision. It was dangerous to be a muggle-born, and not for the faint of heart. The risk increased once he was out of school, obviously, but being a student still garnered some risk. However, Robert said they needed more of them. To become great, to show that they belonged. That being muggle-born was a gift and a blessing, not a curse. Robert actually had no issue with having everyone’s genetics tested and to figure out whether they were ‘AA’ or a ‘Aa’, so if they choose to be selective about who they procreate with, they could. He did not believe, however, that the UW could tell him, or anyone, that they had to do anything when it came to having children or their natural rights as magicians.

Lux played out all the scenarios in his head. Returning home, not returning home, staying for school then getting out as soon as possible, pretending he was from a magical family, telling the truth and standing his ground… everything had pros and cons.

Lux dismissed returning home after toying with the idea for a few moments. He was given an opportunity, a gift, to be able to not only help his parents and himself but potentially future generations of Averys. He had taken his parents’ parting words seriously, and he didn’t want to let them down.

Another thought had entered into his head when thinking about what to do, and it was a foreign concept for him to say the least. He barely had a girlfriend once in his life, a neighboring farmer about an hour away, so thoughts of marriage rarely entered his head. He couldn’t dismiss, however, the impact he would have on the family name from here on out. At the very least, even if he married someone outside of the magical community, he would still have roughly a 50 percent chance to have a child with the magical gene, and even more if it was someone within the community. He, and his future family, could help so many people.

Lux sighed while twirling his wand before pointing it toward the ceiling.

“Lumos.”

The light slowly flickered into existence, shadows dancing around the room from the low lit radiance. He had been practicing on and off throughout the night while he wrestled with his thoughts, and he was getting better at it. The light wasn’t any brighter necessarily, but he was able to maintain concentration on it easier. He was beginning to feel the beginning workings of a connection to the spell.

Initially, Robert had said he should feel the connection with his wand, and through that, help maintain a connection with the spell. At least for Lux, he didn’t feel that at all. The connection, instead, came from within himself, and he used that subtle feeling to extend it toward the wand, which he found to be the hard part.

Nonetheless, after the last hour of practice, he was getting it down fairly consistently.

I’m doing magic… real magic. Lux, not for the first time tonight, finally let his brain catch up to his entire situation. He really was a wizard. With Robert not around, casting spells by himself, it helped clear up the last little bit of doubt that maybe this was some elaborate hoax.

If I pretend to be from a magical family, as long as they don’t ask too many questions, I should be able to fly under the radar for a decent amount of time. On the other hand, I’m not ashamed of where I come from… so should I hide it just because a group of people thinks less of me?

Lux wrestled with the idea before settling on waiting to see how meeting future students went and just trust his gut. If he felt like people were asking around, and it felt aggressive, he would adjust his story. If it didn’t seem as bad among the student body, and maybe this issue with just in the post-school world, he could be honest and find friendships with like-minded individuals.

Lux lit a few more candles by his bedside and reached into his backpack to pull out a copy of ‘The History of Magic, edition 3’ – written by Grim Bagshot. Apparently, the first addition covered up until the 19th century, with the later editions being editorial additions by people from the Bagshot family. Skimming the book made this quite obvious by not only the author’s notions, but due to the writing style changes suddenly once you moved past the end of edition one. Lux decided he wanted to try and read something from the book every night before he fell asleep. Especially if he had to lie about coming from a family of wizards, he needed to have a better understanding of his new world.

“Non-magical people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic flame-freeze charm, and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises." - Bathilda Bagshot

Lux chuckled internally at the particular excerpt, but read in detail about this section in magic history. Admittedly, Lux still struggled to accept the fact that the world around them had slowly fallen apart while wizards seemingly did nothing to stop it until millions had already suffered. How many wars could they have prevented? How many lives could they have saved?

As he read in detail about the witch hunts, he began to understand the fear that must have developed within the wizarding population, at least slightly. With the poor hygiene of that century, different diseases were a fairly common occurrence. A simple cold or flu could kill people, especially children.

Speaking of children, it was also fairly common to have a high mortality rate in newborns. Historians estimated it to be roughly around 20 percent, at least. Not to mention the high mortality rate for the mothers giving birth.

As the decades went on, a group of women had seen enough. They were in a new world, starting a new life, and people around them were getting sick and dying from things they could have easily prevented with magic. So they helped, even though it meant exposing themselves. That group would go on in human history as being a part of the Salem Witch Trials.

Clearly, not a good look for the muggle community, wizards and witches across the world cemented their belief that non-magical humans were not capable of accepting the role magic could play in their lives.

Lux closed his book and took a big sigh, feeling a little better about his animosity toward his new community. It wasn’t gone, nor did he think it would just reading a brief section in history, but it did let him try on the other person’s shoe, so to speak. He blew out the remaining candles and the room fell into darkness. He rolled over and closed his eyes, trying to empty his mind as best he could. Tomorrow, he would be starting school.