Rose goes very still.

"Honey, dudkins, don't be silly. You are too old to believe magic can be real."

Gabe squints at her. "Okay, a bunch of magic things has been happening. And I don't know, I think you could have known something about it."

"No, dudkin. That's silly magic is a silly thing, and you shouldn't believe in whatever tricks your cousin is playing on you."

"He doesn't believe in magic either! And don't call me Dudkins!"

Rose opens her mouth to respond to that.

Or rather, she tries to open her mouth. It's like her jaw and tongues are a solid piece of stone. And she can't move then at all, and can only produce the most pathetic noises.

"Mom?"

Her eyes still move and scream fear since her mouth can't do it on her behalf.

She is placing her hands over her jaw and neck. Then she takes a deep breath, the air goes in, the nose, is... rigid? She is not sure, but it's working. But... but... her dudkin...

Her dudkin takes a step closer...

She takes a step back, but then decides to step forward and try to... mime at her mouth.

Who still looks rather normal, and is not even opening or closing.

"You can't talk?" Dudley says in a squeak.

Slow nod. Okay, they, Oh, right. She crosses the room towards the phone and picks it up, dialing the emergency services.

Gabe doesn't know why she is doing this when she can't speak. But, oh, right. He can speak.

He takes the phone without needing to be told to. "Hello? My mom can't speak-"

There is a loud popping noise, like someone had took out a particularly squeak cork.

What? Rose can't say.

There are people in her backyard.

Those people.

No.

She grabs Dudley's wrist in the middle of giving them their address.

"Wow, you're hurting me, mom."

But then the backyard door opens, and they hear people coming... wearing robes, the same kind that the people that want to greet Henry use.

"-it was already unlocked." Says one to the other. "Oh, hello."

Gabe drops the phone. "Who the fuck are you?"

Rose reaches for a knife.

"Language, young man!" Says the other man. "Now, we believe there is some problem here? Oh- that is unnecessary."

With a neat and gracious move, a wand appears in the man's hand and with a swish the knife flies away from Rose's grasp.

"Oh. Oh. You guys are magic." Gabe realizes. Of course, the weirdly robed people that appear out of nowhere are magic.

The one that didn't take the knife away smiles. "Indeed we are! We came here because of the sudden emergency. Second one today, even. You and your cousin are quite the handful."

Rose manages to make a confused strangled noise, without any aid of her mouth. She reaches for something else and is trying to shield Gabe with her body.

"Okay, ma'an." Says the non-smiling man in a business-like tone. "We work for the ministry specifically to help in cases of wizard children that do spontaneous magic, like what just happened."

"You don't need to explain to her." The smiling man says. "She is Henry Potter's aunt."

It clicks in Gabe's head that mom knew!

"Anyway, we can fix the problem and go our way." The smiling man pulls out his own wand.

Rose would love to be able to object to this! She tries! She will go for uninformative glaring.

"Hmm? Well, you can fix your mouth in a second," says the smiling man.

Glare.

"And we won't punish your son for the uncontrolled magic he did to you?" the slightly-less smiling man tries to guess.

"Wait? I did that!?"

"Yes... Didn't your mother explain it to you?"

No! Rose tries to grab Gabe and run to the door.

This probably would be much simpler if Gabe was cooperating, but he is not.

And there are two wizards specifically trained to deal with situations where muggles are panicking because of magic here.

They shoot a pair of stunner bolts. And Rose falls in a heap on the ground.

Gabe is pulled off balance and falls on his butt next to her. "The fuck!?"

"Language young man." Now the smiling man was not smiling at all. He levels his wand to aim at Gabe's face.

"She is alright, lad!" The other raises his voice. "That just put her to sleep. She was panicking, and we still need to fix her mouth."

"Yeah, can't have kids like you harming their own mothers," the no-longer-smiling man adds. "The Ministry of Magic is forgiving to a point."