Wands and Fireguns

09. Eloping Owls

'...Magic?' I echoed, arching dubious eyebrows up at the professor. He answered with a nod, persumably waiting for me to give him something more to work on other than the imitation of a goldfish.

He is lying pat, I chided to myself. Of course he wants you to believe he does magic, it's the oldest trick known since kingdom come.

The professor watched me until he reached out to grab a wooden stick out of the raincoat that had dried up since the first time I had seen him enter the orphanage. I tensed. Was he seriously trying to trick me to believe this grifter? Although I had never seen the circus nor had I ever heard about a magic school, wooden sticks and schools of magic were not something you heard in polite society.

'Have you ever done or seen things that you can't explain? Things that don't usually happen?' He tried once more.

I furrowed my brows a little at his questions. Of course I had done things that don't usually are supposed to happen! Last week I got myself arrested- I might add that's highly abnormal for someone my age. However, would it be wise to mention this to this hard boiled egg? I fear not.

'Sir, are you a stool pigeon?' I asked queasily.

Now it was his turn to furrow his brows and look at me like I just danced the flamenco on top of a flivver. 'I don't quite believe I am. Are you?'

'I'm eleven, Sir. How am I supposed to work for the government?'

Standing up, I walked from the bed towards the door to close it. I had an eerily feeling that this conversation was going to lift some eyebrows by anyone that decided to wander by. Best to be safe- I didn't want to get made fun of for talking about magic with some crazy professor. I had enough crumbs to deal with.

'You're very witty. Can I offer you some sherbert lemons?' the man looked up with those twinkling eyes, smiling at me like it seemed the most common thing to offer candy to a pratical stranger.

However, I didn't refuse food in any circumstance. Especially were it to be candy.

'...Yes?'

The purple robed fellow grabbed an empty jar from my desk, looking at me with a look that asked can I?

I didn't knew whatever he was supposed to be doing with an empty jar however I nodded, presuming he was going to preform a magic trick. Walking over to the bed, I sat down before him once more and watched as he pointed the wooden stick at the jar, muttering something that sounded like: 'Mutare ad cinerem.'

With amazement I watched as a sudden sparkle of white light appeared in the jar, shooting from the wooden stick that the man held towards it. When it slowly faded, the glass jar had been filled with the infamous candy drops he had previously spoken of.

Wide eyed I stared at the jar. Back up to the professor. And back at the jar.

I blinked.

Once or twice, I couldn't remember.

'Is... t-that...'

'Yes.'

'And...y-you are..."

'A wizard.'

'...am I...?'

'A wizard? Well, yes. However the female equivalent of a wizard would be, a witch.' He answered simultaneously. After a minute of silence the professor held the jar towards me. 'Sherbert lemon?'

As a normal person would've simply grabbed one candy- I took the entire jar away from him and tried to locate a light switch or anything that could've explained what just had occurred. But there were none. There was no other way to get the candy inside the jar other than by dropping it and I certainly didn't see a monkey up his sleeve to have accomplished that without fault.