Thomas Prest: A Simple Magician

"Here we are." Tom said as he opened the door to his house and stepped inside, holding it open for Hermione and Natasha.

Hermione timidly walked in, looking around with apparent curiosity and slight apprehension but she only found a normal-looking hall. And as she walked further into the house, her expectations were once again fulfilled as she could see nothing... abnormal with it.

Of course, Hermione did not expect to find anything magical. If her extended family was magical, she would surely know, no?

But a girl could dream… It would certainly be much easier if her cousin knew about magic.

Hermione already dreaded all the explaining about the Wizarding World and her schooling. It was the middle of the Summer Break right now and in less than a month, she would have to leave for Hogwarts.

How was she supposed to bring this up? Especially when she was not allowed to use her wand?

She will come off as a nutcase!

Only when she was being shown the kitchen did Hermione stop in her tracks, her eyes comically widening as she stared at the... runic circles drawn onto the kitchen board right next to the cooker.

Hermione rigidly turned towards Tom in a good imitation of a malfunctioning fishbot and found him leaning on the wall with his arms crossed on his chest, expectantly smirking at her with one of his eyebrows raised.

Hermione instantly understood she had been had and blushed from head to the tips of her toes.

Realizing her mistake, she tried to recollect herself, taking a few deep breaths to smother her rising excitement and all the questions wanting to gush out of her.

"Y-You are a wizard, Tom!?" She tried to ask calmly but in reality, it came out as something in-between a stutter and excited shriek, her voice was a tad bit too high-pitched for the likes of her audience.

"No." Tom simply dryly deadpanned at her, inwardly wincing and making Hermione confusedly splutter at the unexpected rebuttal.

"B-But...! Magic!" Hermione indignantly argued while pointing towards the alchemical circles Tom usually used for cooking.

Runes were new to her and she had no clue what kind of runic language the one on the kitchen board was but she could feel some kind of weird magical energy from these symbols. If nothing else, they learned how to feel magic in runes during their third year at Hogwarts so Hermione was sure these were runes of some sort!

Tom only chuckled at the girl, slightly shaking his head in disbelief as he spoke, "No shit, Sherlock. We have been together for the last few hours and I was subtly fluctuating my magic, wondering when you would notice. Color me not impressed, Hermione."

That made Hermione speechless... and a bit ashamed she hadn't noticed at all!

She looked at Natasha, not knowing what to say...

"Don't look at me like that. He really was doing that and it was annoying as heck. I hoped you would notice so he would stop. Tom really wanted to test you, you see..." Natasha gave Hermione a helpless smile.

"Oi! Don't act as if you were good at sensing magical energies, Missy." Tom instantly rebuked Natasha, "As far as I remember, that's one of your weaknesses."

Natasha sent him a mock glare for that, "I am working on it!" She stuck out her tongue at him.

Tom and she stared at each other for a few long seconds, making Hermione feel very awkward... When Tom suddenly turned from Natasha to her, "Anyways, moving on..." He light-heartedly said, getting an amused snicker from Natasha as she exasperatedly shook her head.

"I simply wanted to see if a witch like you will be able to feel the magic in the surroundings." Tom clarified his intentions. "You just walked into a heavily warded house but the thing that gives you the first clue that I might have magic are alchemical circles on my kitchen board? Really? Watson would have been so disappointed." He wistfully spoke, causing Hermione to blush in embarrassment as she understood the reference and realized she was being playfully scolded.

She knew it was not her fault but something in Tom's tone made her feel guilty. As if she just failed a written test or something. And for her, that was the most mortifying feeling she had ever felt. She... underperformed! Inexcusable!

Tom decided he tormented the girl enough. Her expression was betraying her speechless horror and while it was mildly amusing, he didn't want her to feel bad about her inability to feel his magic.

This was a test for both him and her, after all.

He simply wanted to see if being a witch or a wizard gave one a natural mana sense.

Apparently, it did not and Tom would not have to be worried about some average wizard punk realizing his identity just from passing him by on the streets.

Tom chuckled yet again to subconsciously show Hermione he was not admonishing her before he playfully spoke, "I am a Magician. You didn't really think wizards and witches were the only magic users in the world, did you?"

Hermione's eyes widened once again.

Magic users other than Wizards!? How much did she not know about the world? Getting to know there was a whole Wizarding Society was a shock and very exciting. A whole new world to learn about! And now her cousin was telling her there is more?

Hermione couldn't hold in her excitement, bouncing on the balls of her feet like a chipmunk drunk on coffee, as she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind, "Can I learn your magic!?"

"No." In the very same dry tone as before, Tom once again deadpanned, causing Hermione to splutter just like before, feeling as if a bucketload of cold water was poured on her head.

"B-B-But why!?" She asked in outrage once she calmed down a bit.

Tom wryly sighed. This was rude as heck. He would have to sit down with her one of these days and explain why asking someone to learn his magic was not a very bright idea. To any magic user, whether wizard or magician, she would come off as a rude bitch acting like that.

Tom knew she had no idea about these kinds of rules in their society but honestly, this was something that common sense should tell her. When somebody spent an incredible amount of time perfecting and learning his magic, making new spells, and improving the old ones, he would not share it with just anyone. Especially not for free.

But for now, Tom decided to give her an answer that would not start an hours-long debate since he could already tell his cousin would not just accept the facts at face value and would try to argue about it. What a bother…

Unfortunately for her, whatever argument she could have had, no matter how reasonable, would fall flat in the face of the simple fact that humans were selfish beings.

Tom shrugged, "Because you are already a witch, Hermione. One of the reasons why the Wizarding World despises Magicians and decided to selectively forget about our existence is that from their perspective we are just muggles who gained magic. Of course, they'd like to think it was by some nefarious means and that we are stealing magic from them..." He rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the little shits.

There was no wonder the Magician Community simply purged any records of the Wizarding Community, deeming them unimportant and useless. Both were at a sort of a cold war where they did not interact a lot, preferring to forget about each other's existence.

Hermione's eyes darkened and she let out a disgruntled sound, about to open her mouth to protest...

She came in contact with the wizarding bigotry and this seemed simply too stupid. Just like their fixation on the purity of blood.

Seeing her about to interrupt him, Tom quickly continued, "But the truth is, our magic systems are just too different. You were born with magic. Different magic from mine. Every bit of mana you absorb will always be transformed into wizarding magic. That's why my way of using magic is unusable for you simply because you would need 'neutral' mana. And that is something your body is unable to mold on its own."

Tom could instantly see that the explanation didn't satisfy Hermione and rather brought her inner conflict. Her eyebrows were intensely scrunched as if she was trying to figure out some impossible puzzle and her lips were pursed into a small frown full of dissatisfaction.

Alas, what he told her was the truth. The same as humans could not just cast magic the same way as the devils simply because their bodies couldn't store and mold the demonic energy, the wizards had a different energy than neutral mana.

They still absorbed neutral ambient mana to refill their reserves as anyone else but it was instantly re-molded into their own kind of energy, the wizarding magic.

That... was what made wizards 'special'.

"Enough of explanations." Tom firmly said as he walked towards the kitchen board, pulling Hermione out of her thoughts. "Go with Natalia. She will show you your room while I will cook something for us to eat."

Hermione could only reluctantly nod and clutch the bag in her hands. She wanted to question Tom more but... for now, she would obediently listen to what she was told to do. After all, she was getting a roof above her head and free food so she didn't want to be unruly.

She could always question her cousin later, no?