“Protego Bulla”

Robert’s wand lit brightly as a thin blue mist began to fill the air around them. Lux watched in awe as over the next few seconds the mist began to thicken, until it began to migrate a few feet away from them where it settled and began to form a kind of bubble. It obscured their vision slightly, but not enough to impede them in anyway.

“For the radiation” he said. Lux nodded – he told him where the telephone was and he was slightly worried about how they were going to get around the fact that no one was supposed to go there without any protective equipment. Lux glanced back at his parents, who were standing on the porch, arms around each other. They had done their long goodbye already, and Robert was kind enough to step outside while they reassured each other they were making the right decision. He thought back on the moment.

“This is an opportunity to be something, Lux, and to be apart of something greater than yourself.” His father had said, gripping him by the shoulders while they held eye contact, their eyes glistening with unshed tears. “You are kind, selfless, and one of the best people I have ever met.” Lux glanced away, uncomfortable with the praise and afraid it would break the dam holding back his emotions. “Remember yourself, Lux. You aren’t a kid, you are a young adult with power and responsibility far greater than any normal man would have.” He patted the tops of his shoulders multiple times, gripping tighter. “You can handle the weight, though. I already know you have thought about what this means, for us, moving forward. But it isn’t just about us” he motioned toward his wife and himself, “it’s everything Lux. You can change the world. I know it.” he finished his speech, beaming with pride.

“Change the world... come on Dad, little much don’t you think?” He said as his voice cracked with emotion.

His mom walked forward. “It’s not, and you know it.” She said, looking at him evenly. Of course Lux thought about it, hell, he daydreamed about it often as a kid. Having the power to change things for the better… become rich and famous and all that nonsense that would ever be reached. Having the capabilities to change the fabric of reality around them, it was only something he had played out in video games or in his imagination… except now, it was a reality. Would he live up to his epitome of change?

“It’s… a lot.” Lux said, looking down to the ground, the weight of the situation starting to settle on his heart.

“It is, I don’t think I could do it.” His mother replied, lifting his chin up so she could look at him. “But you aren’t me. You aren’t your father. You’re better than either of us, I’ve seen it.” she said smiling.

“I’m barely a B student mom.” Lux said, trying to shift the praise to self-loathing to help ease the pressure.

She scoffed in reply. “If you think that being able to answer what year and month the US Civil War happened has anything to do with your capabilities as a human being, then you are sorely mistaken. I’m not talking about what’s up here.” She said pointing at his mind. “Although that’s more impressive than you give yourself credit for, I think. No, I’m talking about here.” she said, pointing at his heart. “It’s your best quality. Use it.”

Lux shook his head, bringing him from his memories back to the present. While some parents might have sugar-coated the situation, saying “Just do your best we are proud no matter what”, Lux’s parents didn’t have that relationship with him. It was up to them three to keep the farm running, to keep food on the table, and to live life to it’s fullest. They would never disrespect each other by expecting less than what they thought the other could achieve.

“Hold onto my arm, and don’t let go. This will feel… strange.” Robert grinned, and Lux’s heart began to beat a little faster as he waved goodbye to his parents. This was the first time Robert came across as mischievous, so he figured this would be an interesting experience. He already explained apparating to him earlier, so he sort of knew what was going to happen.

Lux’s gut churned, and he felt the whole world disappear in front of him. His body began to feel like he was being squeezed tightly by an unseen force. The world spun, and within a second, he appeared in front of a telephone booth in the middle of an abandoned street, buildings half broken and windows shattered. The remnants of a place long forgotten.

As a wave of nausea began to threaten his lunch to evacuate from its current location, Lux put his hands on his knees and bent over, his breathing slow and study to try and keep everything where it should be.

Robert just laughed loudly, providing no comfort. “God, I love that part.”

“...you are a sadist.” Lux managed to whisper as the world slowly began to right itself.

“Wow look at you, eighteen years old and already showing off some adult vocabulary.” Robert jested.

“Does this… get better?” Lux asked. He was trying to focus on the fact he freaking teleported across the country, but he felt so crappy it was hard to really be excited about it.

“Much. Only happens the first few times. Plus you learn to close your eyes.”

Lux glared at him. “That does seem like it would have been helpful to know.”

“Now ya know!” Robert smiled innocently.

They eventually made their way to the telephone booth, which ironically, looked really well kept and maintained. Robert explained it was due to the enchantments on the booth, but to muggles, it would look like an ordinary broken phone. Although wizards were known, the inner workings were not. They tried to keep as much secrecy as they could about their lifestyle and mechanisms of everyday magical life.

When they entered the booth and closed the door, Robert waved his wand and the mist dissolved, ending the spell. The contraption they were in offered plenty of wards against the toxic environment.

“So why couldn’t you just do the teleport thingy back to where we need to go?” Lux asked Robert.

“That distance is a little out of my skill range I’m afraid. You won’t find many wizards that can go that far without a magical item to help aid them.” Robert motioned to where they stood. “Even the distance we currently traveled is at the edge of my ability, and I was only able to do so because of how often I have been to this exact location before. Familiarity with your location helps increase the distance we can travel.”

“Where exactly did we wind up at?”

Robert smiled. “Somewhere in Texas”

Lux whistled at the thought. “I can’t wait until I learn how to do this. It is going to be the first thing I learn!”

Robert smiled apologetically. “That’s going to have to wait a while, unfortunately. We don’t teach apparating until your sixth year, and even then, only some wizards are able to use it with any kind of benefit. Some only can manage to move a few dozen miles at a time.”

Lux frowned. “How come?”

“Well, you will learn more about this in school and on your own time, but I’ll give you a quick summary.” Robert waved his wand and they began to move downward like an elevator, going beneath the Earth’s surface. Lux’s eyes widened but stayed focus on Robert who had momentarily forgotten he was escorting someone who had never seen a telephone booth act as a mode of transportation before.

“Over the last one hundred plus years or so, our magic has gotten significantly weaker with each passing generation. There are exceptions, obviously, but the average has steadily declined.” Robert shook his head. “On top of that, the birth rate of magical people has declined as well. Our numbers are maybe half of what they used to be, maybe even more.” He looked at Lux and rested his back against the glass of the booth and sighed. “Once we became involved in the muggle world, which I’m glad we did don’t get me wrong, but it spread us pretty thin. Not only do we need to take care of business on our end, but throughout the entire muggle world as well.” Robert shrugged his shoulders. “There just isn’t enough of us to go around, not for forever anyway.”

Lux pondered that in shock. All of this was new information to him. A life without the aid of wizards was a life the world couldn’t possibly be ready for. “Does everyone know about this? Like the United Nations and our government?”

“Sort of.” Robert said, adjusting his robe and taking a moment to decide exactly how to answer this. “Maybe not to the severity that it should be. All of our researchers, theologians, and magiologists have been working nonstop over decades to figure out what is going on, what can we do to reverse it, or what we need to change to prevent it from getting worse at the very least.”

“Any prevailing theories?” Lux asked.

“None that have any concrete evidence.” He paused and looked at Lux in the eyes before sighing. “Not like you aren’t going to find out on your own anyway, might as well prepare you for it.”

“Greaaat” Lux groaned, drawing out the word. “Let’s hear it.”

Robert shifted uncomfortably. “Well, you see, there is a not-so-subtle amount of wizards and witches who believe that muggles, and muggle-born children are to blame for part of the problem.”

Lux clicked his tongue. “Ah, glad to see prejudice expands across all of humanity and not just the non-magical kind.”

Again, Robert’s eyes shifted awkwardly. “Well… it isn’t really prejudice you see. There is some evidence…” Lux interrupted.

“Seriously!?”

“Sort of. The theory explains the decrease in birth rates, but it does not explain the reduction in magical prowess of the community.” Robert took out his wand and began writing in the air, using the space as a 3D paper of sorts.

So cool, Lux thought to himself.

“How much have you learned about genetics?” He asked.

“Some, but pretend I don’t so I don’t miss anything.” Lux replied, hanging on every word. He needed to know the backstory of why he was about to be hated by a good chunk of the student body, and possibly a good amount of professors.

“A lot of different genes have different levels of expression and dominance. For example, eye color.” He drew two lower case a’s next to each other (aa), one capital and one lower case (Aa) and finally two capital letters (AA). “In order to have blue eyes or green eyes, you need to have the recessive gene for it. Not only do you need the recessive gene, but you also need to have it expressed twice.” He pointed to the two smaller a’s with his wand. He then moved to the big As. “Here, brown is the dominant gene. Since it is dominant, it only needs to be expressed once.” He moved to the Aa part of his drawing. “So even though this one has one dominant trait and one recessive, the dominant wins.”

Lux nodded his head. He actually knew a fair bit about science and mathematics, they were two of his favorite subjects. His explanation was simple, and not 100 percent accurate, but it covered the majority of it.

“What gives us our powers is a magical gene found in all wizards and witches, and fortunately, it is a dominant trait. So it is fairly common to produce wizards and witches, as long as one has the trait.”

“So why would someone hate a muggle-born? I had a gene express later in life right? How would they even know if I was an ‘Aa’ or ‘aa’?” He said, saying the words big a and little a to show what he was talking about.

“Unfortunately, it is because we know now. Of all the muggle-born wizards who participated in different studies, over 98 percent of them were an Aa trait, meaning even though it showed back up later in life, it still carried a recessive quality to it. Wizards and witches often get their gene mapped early on, and some Purists try and make sure their kids only marry into a family with AA genes.”

“Purists?” Lux asked, although he pretty much knew the answer.

“It’s what they call themselves.” He said with a scoff. “Bunch of hoity-toity bullsh..crap if you ask me.” He trailed off from finishing his sentence, which made Lux laugh.

“Bullshit is right.” Lux finished for him, which earned a laugh from Robert.

“They do have a point, though." Robert reluctantly admitted. "It is true, scientifically speaking. I just personally don’t think that overrides the humanity aspect of treating people like lesser beings based on the expression of their magic…” he trailed off, his face becoming flushed in anger.

“Anyways,” he said, trying to keep the conversation going. “You will run into some of that group in school. They don’t advertise who is muggle-born and who isn’t, but it can leak out if you aren’t careful.”

“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll pay attention.” Lux said, giving him an encouraging smile.

“Well, change of subjects from that foul conversation, we are here!”

Lux looked at him questioningly, light from the sun beginning to peek through the telephone booth’s windows. “Here as in…?”

“Yup! Welcome to Scotland!”