Hard to Explain

“What does your dad do?”

“He’s on the council.”

“Is he a politician?” Josh said, wrinkling his nose.

“Kind of.”

“He’s kind of a politician? What does he do for the council? Is he just a general member or is does he do anything extra?”

“He does stuff with the school.”

“With SAS?”

“Yeah.”

“So he’s probably relatively important, then,” Josh says, blinking. “Your family also probably has a long magical history, then.”

Aiden nodded. “It’s all a bit stifling, really.”

“I can’t even imagine how much pressure that would be. That would drive me crazy.”

“It didn’t used to be so bad, but then...”

Josh looked at him. He didn’t really expect Aiden to finish the statement, but he left things open, in case he wanted to.

“As my father’s only child, I get a lot of expectations put upon me.”

“Your dad and my dad sound very different. My dad is continuously impressed that I function on a basic level at school, and I’m his only kid.”

Aiden’s eyebrow raised a bit, but he didn’t outright ask what that meant.

“Years of an ADHD kid with magic in the muggle school system.”

“Yikes.”

“Even worse, years of an ADHD kid with lots of largely uncontrolled magic in the muggle school system.”

“That sounds terrifying...”

“Plus, I didn’t actually know I had magic, so, you know. That made a difference, too.”

“It would, yes,” he said with a nod.

“I blame your dad for that. Although, that’s probably unfair. He probably didn’t have the position at the time.”

“Explain.”

“Well, that’s one of the council’s jobs, isn’t it? The committees in charge of the major wizarding high schools are responsible for monitoring people with magic in their regional zone. I mean, some people go to SAS who aren’t in the regional zone, and all, but the SAS committee would be in charge of looking out for the young people with magic in the east. It’s their job to track magical development, and if they feel like a young person’s magic is being too conspicuous or destructive, they can step in and tell a young person from a muggle household about their magical abilities before they approach their high school years, or they can take steps to enroll wizards and witches from any household in a magical elementary skills, where they will learn control of their magic.”