Chapter 13

Zach arrived at school with plenty of time to spare for a change. He sat down on the cement steps leading to the front doors to patiently wait for his friend, thinking she shouldn't be long. She rarely spent any time at home, if any, and now he knew exactly why.

Kids started to filter past him in droves. He was actually starting to get worried she wasn't going to show, and he'd have to face his first real day at Hogwarts alone when she rounded the corner and promptly fell on him.

His breath left his body with a whoosh, and he was going to make a joke about her not being able to keep her hands off him when her appearance stopped him in his tracks.

For once she looked like she was the one that had slept in. Her usual well kept self was crumpled and her outfit looked like a blind man had picked it out. Was she even wearing two different shoes?

"Interesting fashion choice," Zach cocked an eyebrow and joked, "Say are faeries colorblind?"

She looked up at him with a sour look on her face, and he quickly became concerned at the dark purple circles under her eyes.

"Hey you okay?"

She nodded and picked herself up, trying to straighten out her wrinkled skirt.

"I slept in okay. Sheesh you do it a million times, and no problem. I do it once and then there's something to be concerned about," she snapped.

Zach lifted his hands in supplication, "Wow someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed!"

"I'm sorry Zach I hardly got any sleep last night. I just can't stop thinking about what the Scottish guy on the council said about my kin"

"The thing is," she continued, "I don't have any. It's just me and my Mom. I don't know who he could be referring to."

"Maybe they were talking about your brother."

"I can't see how; he died of cancer remember?"

"I even went to my Mom's door last night and begged her to talk to me. I know there are old pictures that I could look at-- maybe they would give me a clue -- but they're locked up in my Mother's little 'Fortress of Solitude.' She growled in frustration.

Just then their conversation was interrupted by the principal, "Zachary Reis," he spoke from the top of the stairs, "do you fully intend to be late even when you arrive early" Tuma looked over the brim of his glasses to accentuate his point?

The both of them jumped to attention with Zach quickly replying sheepish, "No sir, sorry sir,' as they scurried to their first class.

When they arrived at their homeroom they learned that things would be done a little differently from now on. Since there was a full manifestation in the class they could feel free to let their freak flags fly as it were, but only after the class ward was applied. Knight asked Lauren to do the honors.

She muttered something at the door and gave a weird hand wiggle again and he felt the essence of her magic. He was starting to get used to the way it felt -- all warm and inviting. It kinda smelled like lilies too. At least he guessed it was lilies. The dads like the lily and linen dryer sheets and it kinda smelled like them.

Zach had attended every human class through the morning where nothing much changed accept for the occasional book floating from one end of the room to the other and super fast kids going about their business with such speed that the back draft they created parted his hair.

There was one major exception though; instead, of the usual hour long period it was shortened to 40 minutes. Knight had informed him before he'd left his class that all his human classes would be shorter from now on to allow for his extra subjects.

When Zach had complained at lunch about not having enough time to complete assignments and the added work; Lauren explained that human schools drone on and on about subjects taking months to teach them when they should only require half the time. She used history as an example: "do we really need to take as long as we do to learn about the Civil War? As long as we know: the when of it, the why of it, the how of it, and the who of it, shouldn't that suffice?" Zach had to agree.

Between mouthfuls of today's Mac and Cheese she'd explained the structure of the day. 'Human classes from 7:45 -11:45, which allowed 6 - 40 minute subjects, then a forty-five minute lunch break then magic classes until 4:30 and training from 4:30-5:30.

When Zach succinctly pointed out that the training session on Friday had at least been 3 hours long, the gang had laughed. Meg explained, 'there's a time spell placed on the training room. Time runs slower in there,' she said in her soft voice. To the human world we've spent an hour in the gym but to us it's been three.

"Trust me," CJ said, "it's a killer."

"Man it sucks. You'll come out at 5:30 and practically crawl home." Quinn added.

"Thank the Gods there's no homework for our magic classes. " Brenna chimed in

Lauren continued, "There's no way they want magic books leaving the school. In fact they are spelled to not pass the magic ward at the doors and just in case you think you'll sneak them out through the window think again." To prove her point she threw one of her books she grabbed out of her backpack at the open window and it flew back with such force that it hit Donnie in the back of the head.

He had protested mightily. And the gang had nearly died laughing.

Kyle had piped in around a mouthful of Cheetos and said, "Brah, just wait to see your first guy forget that he has one in his backpack and try to leave the school."

"That shit slays me. " He snorted.

They continued to talk animatedly as Zach cleared his tray. The hum in his head had continued at a dull roar all morning and he wanted to make a quick trip to his locker for some Advil before the start of what he would guess to be a really long afternoon. He'd ducked into the guy's washroom in the cafeteria before he left though, he just wanted a couple of minutes of silence.

He knew to everyone he must seem like he was handling all this high strangeness well, when in fact he was a nervous wreck. Not the figurative kind but the Spanish galleon kind. Complete with a broken mass, swamped decks, and the skeletal remains of a captain in the bow, kind.

His dads always warned him about the toxic masculine culture. Not to fall into its clutches. They encouraged him to admit his feelings freely and not to fall prey to the idea that guys had to be able to handle anything and everything, never bitching about it. They had explained that don't be a pussy was probably one of the most insidious phrases of his generation.

He didn't need to take on all of life's hard knocks: stoically, never showing the emotions that those moments caused.

"That shit will eat you up," they'd cautioned.

But it still didn't make it easy to express those feelings to others. So he took a few minutes in the handicap stall to feel everything. The fear of the unknown, the anger at the injustice of his new circumstances, the worry that he wouldn't be able to handle it, and the sadness over the future he'd lost. Once done he took a deep breath and exited the stall to find with shock that his image in the large mirror that lined the wall above the sinks was translucent.

He jumped back nearly knocked the entire stall over in his hurry to dive back in to it. No way was he going to let an un-enlightened see him like this, not on his very first day.

He began to pace the handicap stall. Taking deep breaths and giving himself pep talks; Like: you got this, you can do it, you're not going to go to your first magic class looking like Casper the friendly ghost.

Finally his hands stopped shaking and took on a solid appearance again. When that happened Zach's heart rate slowed from a crazy staccato to a nice light gallop in his chest, he wiped his now shaking hands across his sweaty brow and said, "see I told you: you got this."

He nearly jumped out of his skin though when Lauren banged loudly on the door and yelled, "Zach we're going to be late for class; are you in there?"

He squeaked, "Yeah," then cleared his throat and said more normally, "Be right out."

As he washed his hands he looked into a face that was telegraphing:

Who are you kidding? You don't got this; you don't got this one bit.

********************THANKS FOR READING***************

If you liked this chapter Vote, Comment, add, this book to your reading list, or suggest it to a friend. Thank you all for helping me reach my goal of 1000 reads by the end of the month. I have another goal of 2,000 reads and 500 votes and 500 followers by the one month anniversary on 7th of July. I'm giving myself to midnight. *Cross fingers*

Stay tuned, because you're going to want to read more; Zach's finally going to be introduced to the magic wing in the next chapter.

And I'll give three guesses who's going to be his guide and the first two don't count.

A/N still looking for a name for a magic shop run by witches. Something like MissSpelled ? And Go . . .

Best suggestion gets a virtual hug.