Who: Magnus Bane & James Potter When: Backdated: Early August Where: The Magic Guild What: Talking About Magic Rating/Warnings: Family Friendly Status: Complete
Lately, James had been spending a lot more time at the Magic Guild. Amycus had told James that that’s where he was keeping his school books, and since James’s own books hadn’t come through the dreams yet, he needed to use Amycus’s if he intended to get at all proficient with his own magic. Which he certainly intended to do. Magic had never been something James liked or thought about before he’d started dreaming - fantasy and all that other garbage was for nerds and James Potter was no nerd - but now that he had it for himself he wasn’t entirely sure how he had managed to live without it.
Most of the time, when he went to the guild, James was there alone. He generally preferred that; it meant that he could practice, and fail, any new spells without anyone else needing to see him do it, so that when he finally performed them in public he’d perform them flawlessly. But today, as he stepped into the guild, he was surprised to see someone else there.
“Hullo,” James greeted him. “I wasn’t expecting to see anyone else here.”
Magnus spent most of his days at the Magic Guild, checking in on anyone who happened to be there and reading various books. He was especially interested in the ones from other dreamers’ worlds. Other dreamers’ magic and abilities fascinated him, which was one of the many reasons he’d decided to take over the Magic Guild when him and Alec came back to the OC.
Today Magnus had been in the library, reading a few passages from his own Grey Book when he heard someone come in and he looked up to see the young man, “I’m here most of the time actually.” Magnus smirked and closed the large, green tome. “I’ve seen you around a few times in fact.” Magnus was fairly familiar with most of the magic users who spent time at the Guild.
James hid his embarrassment of never knowing Magnus had been around pretty well, he thought. “It looks like this is the time we get properly introduced then,” James said cheerily instead, holding out a hand. “I’m James Potter, pleasure to meet you.”
“It does at last. Magnus Bane.” He shook James’ hand, yellow, cat’s eyes taking in the other man, “You’re one of the ones with a wand, correct?” It seemed like every magic user in the OC had a different way of harnessing their magic and magic wands was one of those ways, which Magnus found fascinating.
“I am, yes,” James said. “From the same dream world as Amycus.” If Magnus was here often, he assumed, at least, that he knew who Amycus was. “I was actually just coming in to read some of Amycus’s school books. I haven’t gotten my own just yet. Do you not have a wand, then?”
Magnus nodded at the name, “Yes, I’m familiar with Amycus.” He had seen the other man around the Guild often enough and spoken to him a few times, “Did he tell you where they are? If not, I can show you.” Magnus had rearranged the library when he took over the Guild and had a specific section for the books that belonged to other magic users, which included the glass case that he had put Eliot’s mated books in. “No, I don’t need a wand.” He lifted a hand, blue sparks of magic dancing around his ringed fingers.
“I know where they are,” James assured Magnus. Unless someone else had borrowed them recently and hadn’t returned them to where they had been, but he couldn’t think of who would do that. Lily still wasn’t far enough in her dreams to have even dreamed of Hogwarts yet, and Amycus and Regulus both knew where they books were supposed to go. He supposed there was Sirius, who he’d seen a couple times on the Network, but he was under the impression that Sirius had yet to dream.
“That is wicked,” James said, his eyes sparkling with excitement at the wandless magic. “What else can do you, Sparklefingers?”
Magnus thought for a moment, a smirk crossing his lips as a book suddenly appeared, as if out of thin air, in his hand, “I think this is probably one of the books you’re looking for.” He held one of Amycus’ books out towards James. He had thought about summoning a cup of coffee or something else, but it made more sense to summon something that James would be looking for otherwise.
“Wicked,” James breathed, taking the book as if to make sure it was real. The spell seemed similar to Accio, except James still needed to say the words for it to work and whatever he summoned didn’t just appear out of thin air. It had to fly from wherever it was being kept, which meant that the spell was limited if you or the object was in a closed room.
“I have to admit, I’m feeling a little jealous here,” he said, with a grin softened the words.
Magnus smirked as he watched James as the Wizard took the book from him, “I can summon pretty much anything, but it still comes from somewhere else. My husband doesn’t really like it too much. He claims it’s technically stealing.” Not that Magnus summoned things as much as he did in the dreams, but sometimes he simply didn’t feel like making a cup of coffee in the morning and would just summon a cup from the cafe down the street.
James snorted. “I guess if you want to look at it that way, all magic is technically cheating.” After all, what else could you call it when all James had to do to get ready in the morning these days was wave his wand around. “So you should use what you’ve got if you’ve got it. Coffee shops will never miss one cup of coffee anyway.” He frowned to himself a little. “So how does that work on their end? Does the cup just,” he snapped open his fingers, as if miming something disappearing, “poof from the counter?”
“More or less.” On a few occasions when Alec had been busy doing something, but Magnus had wanted his attention he’d simply conjured whatever it was that Alec was looking at. Of course, Alec had been used to things disappearing in front of him and ending up in Magnus’ possession, but he’d never actually witnessed a stranger’s reaction when it happened. “I can only imagine that they think they’re seeing things and try to go about their business as usual.”
“You know, if they’re from here, they probably don’t give it a second thought.” James still wasn’t entirely sure how people could live here and not notice all the weird things that had happened here - James had joined the Network nearly as soon as he had moved to the OC so he’d never experienced the county’s idiosyncrasies without having the inside scoop, so to say. But even if they never dug deeper into the weird things that happened, they were probably still used to them on some level.
“What else can you do with your magic?” James asked.
Magnus chuckled and nodded, “You’re probably right. Most people here have to know that something is up. All those strange cover ups and all that.” It probably sounded strange to most people, but while he and Alec had been away Magnus has actually missed all the strange things that happened in the OC. To an extent of course.
“There’s a number of things I can do.” The easiest of course, that he could show James, were glamours and in less than a moment Magnus’ yellow cat eyes were back to their previous, pre-Warlock shade of dark brown.
James liked his magic, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. But, well, he had to admit that he was a little jealous. Just being able to do magic, without the use of a wand or spell words was something only the most skilled wizards in his dreams could do, and even then, it was limited. It was hard not to be jealous when Magnus made it look so easy. But, well, at least he didn’t have cat eyes.
“That must come in handy when it comes to avoiding strange looks,” James said with a half-grin. “I might be able to change my eye colour, but I’d need my wand.” And the proper incantation, but he figured the spell wouldn’t be too hard. He did have a certain knack for transfiguration.
Magnus nodded as his eyes turned back to yellow, “It does. I’ll be honest though, I don’t cover them up very often any more. Most people just assume they’re contacts.” People who actually knew that Magnus was a Warlock knew they were his real eyes of course and usually they just thought they were cool.
James laughed. “I guess it’s not such a big deal when you’re an adult.” He had definitely teased some of the weirder kids who’d worn oddly coloured contacts at his boarding school.
“We’ve got all this space here. How would you feel about showing me a couple more tricks? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” James needed to practice his magic anyway, and as far as he was concerned, there was no better way to do that than if he was showing off for someone else.
“I’d be happy to show you more tricks. Come with me,” Magnus gestured towards the practice area that had been set up for magic users to practice their defensive spells, “And I’m looking forward to seeing some of yours.” While Magnus was glad that he didn’t need a wand to use his magic, he was definitely intrigued by the idea of it.