Zack opened his eyes to a cool, refreshing sensation washing over him.
Depleting his magic reserves the previous night had apparently been the right call. A few hours of genuine rest had left him pumped and raring to go, practically buzzing with restless energy.
Zack felt energetic in a way that defied simple explanation, sharper, lighter, more awake than he had any right to be at this hour. He cast a suspicious glance at his stomach.
Please don't let it be that potion.
If the potion proved to be effective, he couldn't imagine having to drink that slog every day. Shoving the dreadful thought aside, he swung his legs off the bed and stood. He walked toward the door, then paused. Instead of reaching for the knob, he opened his palm and gestured with a slow twisting motion.
The knob rotated on its own. The door swung inward without being touched.
Zack stared at it for a moment, something warm blooming in his chest. His powers were growing faster than he'd anticipated, and frankly, it was exhilarating. He washed up quickly and headed downstairs.
What greeted him at the bottom of the stairs was not what he'd expected.
Dalton sat across the counter in his signature black suit, a newspaper floating at reading height before him. The pages turned on their own each time his eyes reached the end of a column, and a cup of tea rested within easy reach of his hand.
Interesting.
Zack checked the clock on the pub wall. Four in the morning. He was up even earlier than yesterday. Though given how energised he felt, his body had apparently decided sleep was no longer a priority.
He scuttled towards the table and pulled out a chair for himself, unable to contain his curiosity. His eyes were already fixated on Dalton's every move.
Silence stretched between them. Zack respected it.
He understood mornings well enough to know that interrupting someone's quiet could sour a conversation before it even started. So he waited, letting his occasional glances do the speaking for him.
Dalton noticed. Of course he did.
"Would you like some tea?" The question arrived without any shift in his gaze, eyes still resting somewhere in the middle of the newspaper.
Zack had expected exactly a dry, economical offering, just enough to keep interaction possible. He nodded.
Dalton flicked two fingers toward the counter. Before Zack could properly track the motion, a cup sailed through the air and settled neatly in front of him. The kettle followed without being asked, tilting itself to pour a steaming stream of tea. A spoon materialised next, carrying sugar that dissolved itself with a lazy stir.
Zack's eyes widened.
Wandless magic.
He glanced at Dalton's hands. There was no wand, no visible instrument, just bare fingers.
It truly was wandless magic. In the films, wandless magic had been treated as something bordering on myth. Most wizards considered it an inferior substitute, and those who pursued it were rare enough to be remarkable. For a man who'd introduced himself simply as an enforcer to demonstrate it over morning tea, with the same effort one might use to scratch their nose.
Something isn't adding up.
Another thing that irked him, as his eyes flicked down to the cup, was that the tea had no milk whatsoever.
What kind of psychopath brews tea without milk.
Zack pushed the thought aside with some effort and looked at Dalton directly.
"Was that wandless magic? How did you do that?"
The reaction was subtle. There was a faint twitch at the corner of Dalton's eye, the briefest flash of something that might have been surprise. Understandable, really. An eight-year-old knowing that term at all was unexpected. Zack watched the man weigh his response, turning it over in his head as he took a measured sip from his own cup.
Then, after a few beats of deliberate silence, he responded.
"Yes. In my line of work, it isn't uncommon to be proficient in niche aspects of magic." His gaze lifted just long enough to gauge Zack's reaction before returning to the paper.
In my line of work.
Zack's ears perked at that phrase. It was clear that his line of work was special; however, how many professions would even focus on such a niche aspect of magic?
Right now, Dalton didn't seem the type to be an Auror or an Enforcer. The knowledge he held seemed too obscure, his movements too subtle. Everything about Dalton pointed toward someone who had spent considerable time cultivating the art of not being noticed: the dark suit, the impossible hours, the way he occupied a room without seeming to take up space. He was hiding in plain sight and doing it exceptionally well.
Dalton had secrets. That much was obvious.
"I see," Zack replied, keeping his tone light. "I read about it in one of the books upstairs. I just wanted to know how it actually worked."
Zack's eyes burned with curiosity. He wanted to know everything. To read Dalton like an open book to satisfy that strange itch in his thoughts. However, getting Dalton to reveal his secrets was likely out of the question.
He didn't seem the chatty type. Zack also had nothing equivalent to offer. The dynamic between them wasn't something that allowed for an exchange of that level.
As much as it bothered him, he had to let the questions go, for now.
The conversation that followed was surprisingly comfortable. The two discussed their day-to-day activities, and Zack shared some of his own musings on magic. Dalton, it turned out, respected boundaries as naturally as he breathed, and once Zack demonstrated he had no intention of prying into things that didn't concern him, the man answered his questions with straightforward brevity.
When Zack mentioned wanting to learn magic, Dalton didn't flinch or grow guarded.
He simply nodded and turned a page.
"Being interested is good. But magic is a dangerous subject." Dalton paused. "Let's have this conversation in ten years."
Zack sighed internally. Dalton had somewhat given him a polite refusal. But that hadn't completely dampened his spirits.
On the contrary, Dalton's views on him had changed. The fact that Zack was talking so passionately about magic had left a deeper impression on the man.
A mutual understanding had quietly settled between them, fragile but present. Dalton's business was his own, and Zack's curious nature was his. Neither would push.
Still, that didn't stop Zack from studying him from behind the rim of his teacup.
Whatever Dalton's actual position was, political, magical, or something else entirely—He clearly sat high on whatever ladder he'd climbed. The evidence was everywhere: in the way he held himself, the economy of his movements, the quiet authority that required no announcement
Even the people who had visited them a few days ago seemed very respectful.
Is he really a bigshot?
Zack was quietly turning this train of thought over in his head when Dalton folded the newspaper with a crisp snap and set down his cup. The interaction concluded as efficiently as it had begun. He rose, retrieved his hat from the rack by the door, and checked his watch with a glance that suggested he was running precisely on schedule, or perhaps slightly behind it.
He directed a single, measured nod toward Zack.
Then stepped outside with a faint pop, his form twisting away through space until nothing remained.
Haah.
Zack exhaled slowly in the silence that followed. That had been the most Dalton had spoken to him across the entire span of their acquaintance, and even then it amounted to perhaps two dozen sentences.
Still, it was something.
He watched the empty doorway a moment longer, then turned back to the counter.
It was five in the morning. Zack knew that Sophie wouldn't be up for another hour, give or take.
Plenty of time to practice cleaning up.
He carried both cups to the sink and rinsed them under the tap. Then, on impulse, he turned and gestured toward the cupboard. The cups lifted, drifted across the room, and nested themselves back on their shelf without so much as a clink.
He raised an eyebrow. The weight hadn't registered at all.
Emboldened, he soaked the washcloth under the tap and flicked his attention toward the windows. The cloth promptly launched itself across the pub and began working methodically across each pane, polishing without being directed to anything specific.
Zack watched it for a moment, then shifted his focus to the broom propped in the corner.
It shot forward and swept the floor with businesslike efficiency, raising a thin cloud of dust before clearing it toward the edges of the room. The washcloth peeled off the windows and descended to the tables without being asked, moving from one surface to the next in a wide arc that left each one gleaming.
Zack stood with his arms loosely folded, conducting it all like an orchestra that had already memorised the score.
When everything was done, he guided the broom back to its corner and turned the tap on for the washcloth, watching in mild amusement as it scrubbed itself clean beneath the running water.
Not bad for a first try.
He smugly pulled a stool out from beneath the nearest table and sat down, letting the quiet settle around him again. The pub looked better than it probably had any right to at this hour, and he hadn't broken a sweat.
Zack's thoughts finally drifted to his training and progress.
He'd cleared the first milestone in his journey.
He could use simple magic, deliberately, and it was surprisingly responsive. Spells seemed out of reach for now, and that was fine. Spells required precision he hadn't built yet.
Physical training was further down the list as well; it was something to pursue seriously in a few years once his frame could actually support it. Because a stronger body meant a more durable foundation. And durability mattered, because magic without stamina was a weapon that turned on its wielder.
He'd already experienced that lesson firsthand. Draining his reserves had left him genuinely helpless, and "helpless" was a state he had no interest in revisiting.
Magic is a muscle. Work it to failure, let it recover, repeat. Simple enough in theory.
The concerning part wasn't the training. It was the recovery window. Hours of vulnerability were an uncomfortable gap, one that physical conditioning could partially bridge. The longer his body could endure strain, the longer his magic could sustain itself without cracking. That much was straightforward logic.
What he lacked now was reading material. Three days of enthusiastic skimming had stripped the upstairs bookshelf completely bare; not a single volume remained unexplored.
For now, he understood almost all the books at a basic level. But he wasn't really planning to dive in-depth on each subject. He'd rather be exposed to more new knowledge than try his hand at mastering whatever he'd learned.
However, that required new books.
I'll have to ask Sophie.
As though summoned by the thought, the clock struck six, and a familiar sound of footsteps descended the stairs.
Sophie appeared at the bottom landing in a regal green dress that suited her effortlessly, her natural blonde hair catching the early morning light in a way that made her look almost absurdly picturesque for this hour.
She stopped when she spotted Zack already seated at the counter. Her expression shifted into warm surprise.
"Zack, you're already awake." She crossed to him and folded him into a hug before he could comment. Her hand found his hair immediately. "You should have woken me if you were down here alone."
"I wasn't alone," he said, muffled slightly by the hug. "Dalton and I had tea before he left."
Sophie pulled back and blinked at him. Then a slow smile broke across her face.
"Is that so? Brilliant. Looks like you two are getting along nicely." She laughed softly, reaching into the pocket of her dress to produce an eleven-inch wand, its surface grooved and wrapped with delicate metal branches that spiralled toward the tip like climbing vines.
So that's her wand.
Zack watched her with genuine attention as she flicked it through the air, setting breakfast into motion with practised ease.
He could feel the magic coursing through the wand, though it carried a distinctly richer quality than his own. It was denser somehow, more concentrated. It was like the difference between a controlled flame and an open fire.
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A/N: Had guests over so couldn't upload. THROW STONES. LEAVE a review, thx.