The Gathering: The New Order of Merlin Book 1

51. The game's on

       When Saturday came, everyone was excited to see the game, especially the children who had never seen a Quidditch match before, like Colin, who was in an excitement overdrive, which he attempted to satisfy by jumping on his bed.

"Merlin, you said that Old Religion is about magic. Is it different magic from what they teach us here?"

"Yes." Merlin was glad to talk about it. "It's wandless magic."

"Really? Can you show me some?" Colin plopped down and sat on the edge of the bed expectantly.

Merlin considered what to show them. He didn't want to do anything too spectacular, he was supposed to be a child after all, but he had to show them something impressive enough to keep their interest. He decided to do what he used to be able to do as a child before he even learned what Old Religion was.

With a flick of his finger, the books on Colin's bed floated up and swirled around him.

Colin giggled and fished one out of the air. "You did that during the food fight! I thought it was Peeves."

"Yes." It felt so good to not have to hide his magic from his friends anymore.

"That was you?" Jack asked.

"That's like telekinesis!" Colin squealed. "How many objects can you move at the same time?"

Merlin looked around him and lifted everything off the floor, all the furniture, rugs, trunks, shoes, and dirty robes Colin had dropped on the floor. The little boy squealed and grabbed hold of the bedpost as his bed rose. Jack looked down to the floor from his floating bed and giggled. Merlin lowered everything back to where it was and pretended to be exhausted.

"Since we're sharing, Jack, do you mind showing us what you can do?"

Jack blanched. "Me? I don't know telekinesis."

"But you can do wandless magic, can't you?"

Jack looked between them, frowning, then sighed. "You've seen my magic already."

He held out his hand palm up and a snowball formed in it. Merlin observed the boy closely and noticed no flash of magic in his eyes. This was curious. If he wasn't using Old Religion magic, how was he doing this?

Colin gasped. "You can conjure snowballs?"

"Actually, they're frostballs."

Jack threw it forcefully at the wall where pieces of it stuck and slowly spread out as intricate swirls of frost. The white tendrils adorned the stone wall as if someone was painting them with an invisible brush.

"Frost is my thing. I can make all sorts of things with it."

When he dropped eye contact, it stopped spreading. Merlin gained a new respect for the boy. This required a lot more control than the usual wandless magic that children created by accident. It was as easy for him as moving objects was for Merlin.

"Your sister too?"

"Elsa's specialty is ice. It took her a while to get the iceballs right. When we were small, some of her iceballs were solid, giving me extra motivation to not get hit." Jack chuckled. "But she's really good at it now."

"You guys can do such cool magic," Colin said. "I feel so left out. I don't know any tricks like that."

"Surely, you've done something by accident," Merlin said. "They wouldn't have discovered that you're a wizard otherwise."