Magic Theory

Four Houses, One Choice

"You excited to go back?"

Excited? Matthew was practically bouncing in his seat. He couldn't wait to get his shaky hands back on his wand, to feel the coarse wood under his fingers again. It was not as if he had not been immersed in magic all summer. The writing assignments were educational, and he had finished them in a decent amount of time, but he missed how it felt to actually create magic. Now that he was enrolled at Ilvermorny, he couldn't afford to do wandless magic outside of school without consequences.

"How was your summer?" Matthew asked.

The older boy shrugged. "We didn't do anything interesting. How was your audition for the WADA?"

"I decided not to go. Don't ask me why, but I have the feeling I belong here for now," Matthew said with a quick shake of his head.

"You just wimped out."

"Yes, Jason, stage fright finally got to me. It took 10 years, but it finally struck."

"Have you been acting since you were two?" Jason raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe," Matthew scoffed. "You don't know my life." Both boys laughed. Jason smirked and looked out the window at the scenery rushing by. He would never say this aloud, but he was jealous of such a little kid. After sending five kids to Ilvermorny, his parents would never have the money to send him to another school, even if he first managed to get accepted.

Matthew in the meanwhile had no brothers or sisters. He hadn't even met Jason's siblings, although they had to be on the same bus, but he thought that Jason's summer could not be very boring with them. Matthew's parents had taken him to New Orleans for a week, where he got to visit a close friend, but otherwise he had been left alone as they worked. Considering he lived in a town populated mostly by no-majs, he did not have a lot of friends his age to hang out with over the summer. That made it easier to focus on his work, but he still found it to be incredibly boring once he was done.

It was not as if Jason was his only friend, and vice versa. Both boys had plenty of other friends in their own respective years. Jason, being a sixth year, would not have even associated with Matthew normally. They had nothing in common besides being in the same house. They never would have said more than a few words to each other had Jason not been assigned as Matthew's "buddy" the year before.

Matthew's very first day at Ilvermorny was more nerve-wracking than any he could remember. Even though he had gotten his robes fitted no more than a week before, he could not help but feel as if they were too baggy. He did not want his first impression to be that he was frumpy. While his father was unable to send him off, his mother stood with him at the bus depot. "You look handsome, sweetheart," she said soothingly as she put his bunny's cage on the bus.

"Okay. Thank you." His voice sounded higher than usual. He cleared his throat. "I should get on the bus now,"

"Oh, Matty, let me have one more kiss." She put her hands on either side of his face and kissed his forehead more than just once. Matthew's face felt hot. As embarrassed as he was, he knew that once he stepped onto the bus he would not see his mother again until Christmas. He wrapped around her waist one last time and exchanged "I love you"s before stepping onto the bus.

The bus ride from New York to Ilvermorny lasted a little over three hours. Matthew sat next to a girl named Courtney who was also attending for the first time. Courtney was shorter than Matthew and took up most of the seat on her own, but he did not complain lest he make her feel bad. He was small enough that he could fit. She had hair a shade darker than his and muddy green bespectacled eyes. Courtney had never been so far away from her home state by herself, and since her mother was a Native witch, she had little idea what was in store. It was her step-mother's idea that she go to Ilvermorny, and since her father was a No-Maj and wanted very little to do with Courtney's birth-mother, he agreed to send her. Matthew talked to her about what he knew from a combination of his parents' tales and his own research. "You don't have to worry about anything," he told her. "When we go in, just don't look up if you get self-conscious easily."