Gabe looks between the no-longer-smiling man and his wand. He nods.

"Why don't you get off the floor," says the once-again-smiling man. "I will fix whatever happened to your mother. And we can get out of your way. Mr. Walsh, can you keep an eye on him?"

"Of course."

No-longer-smilling man waves his wand and Gabe's mom starts floating off the ground. The two walk and float towards the living room.

Gabe clenches his jaw. His worry is enough to make him not at all curious about the magic business.

"Why don't you get off that ground?" Mr. Walsh asks. "This won't take long at all. And your mother will be good as new."

Okay, Gabe will do that. But he will be grumpy the whole time.

Gabe gets up and takes a chair without inviting Mr. Walsh to do the same.

Mr. Walsh notices that and - remembering some key points of his training - takes a chocolate bar out of his pocket. And offers wordlessly to Gabe.

Okay, maybe he won't be completely grumpy.

The narration would like to remind everyone that the boys are not even ten years old.

Mr. Walsh gives him a tight, almost smile. Gabe notices he just took candy from strangers, but fuck it, the bar has crunchy sugary thingies that fizz in his mouth like soda.

"So, you must have had quite a day. Two incidents of spontaneous magic."

Gabe gives a noncommital "mhmm."

Awkward silence.

"What is like living with Henry Potter?" Mr. Walsh asks, clearly trying to keep the conversation going at any cost.

"It's okay, why it wouldn't be?" Gabe says between his final bites of chocolate.

"Oh, I guess you wouldn't know. ...Your mother might not have told you everything."

Gabe is chewing, and he is impulsive enough to not have much of a vocal filter, but he won't waste perfectly good chocolate by spitting it out. Table manners is one of the few rules that he is okay with follow.

So he has time to think.

Apparently mother knows something? Yeah, she wasn't just "teaching" him that magic is not real. She was trying to hide it. And Gabe was angry because he could kind of tell? Maybe he should feel guilty about it? Heh, for later.

"She didn't want to tell us much," Gabe says with a pout that is mostly faked. "Can you tell me, sir?"

Mr. Walsh pauses. "Well, I am not sure how much I should." Another pause. "They usually just send a teacher to tell children like you, but I suppose you do have magical family."

"Like me?"

"Muggleborn, wizards that are born from two muggle parents."

"Ah, right," Gabe says in the tones of someone who already knew that, lying by default, despite not being the most tactical lie.

Mr. Walsh picks up on it. He is too well-trained to squint at the child.

"What did your mother tell you?"

"Uh, nothing. She pretended that magic didn't exist."

"I see," Mr. Walsh says, mostly to himself. "And what do you know?"

"Not much?"

Mr. Walsh gestures for Gabe to go on.

"Well, Henry is magic, and I guess I am too. Or always has been..." Mr. Walsh nods, and repeats the gesture, "and... and..."

For once, Gabe's brain caught up with his mouth. Even he has more sense than to say the thing about the books. But he already spoke 'and', it would be suspicious if there was nothing beyond that and.

So Gabe says the first thing that isn't 'Henry remembers some weird books with magic' and that thing is.

"And there is an evil wizard called Voldemort."

Abrupt silence.