Magic is Outside the Norm

My alarm goes off at 6:30 every morning. I take a shower, dry my hair, do a little make-up – but not too much because it's technically against the rules. I then go to school. Just like everyone else. There is safety in normalcy.

That said, I have a secret. Something that only my family knows and I am never, ever allowed to speak about publicly. My grandfather was a magician. He's been in jail for as long as I can remember. I have spoken to him a few times, but I know better than to listen too deeply. After all, I don't want to be lead astray. There's safety in normalcy.

There was a day not too long ago when I found myself next to a river. I was just skipping stones with a few friends and passing time. You know, normal kid stuff.

But then I saw something glittering amidst the rocks in the river and waded in to pick it up. It was a small black pen which was very clearly out of ink. There was a certain feeling I got when holding it in my hand. I can't fully describe it. It was like I was meant to hold it in a way. I knew I couldn't just leave it, so I brought it home, telling myself that I would figure out how to recycle it later.

There's safety in normalcy, and I don't think anything I did that day was abnormal

When doing homework later that evening, my normal pen ran out of ink, so I dug dug into my drawer and pulled out the one I fetched from the river earlier. I knew it was empty, but without thinking anything too deep, I tried to write with it anyway. Surprisingly, it worked, and produced a small trail of jet-black ink, but I did notice something odd. Every time I looped certain characters, like for "o"'s and "a"'s, I saw a small flash of light coming from the page. At the time, I didn't think this was abnormal. I just thought my eyes were just playing tricks on me, so I continued to finish my homework as usual.

I turned it in the next day. I got a C. Everything was as it normally was, and there is safety in normalcy.

But during the day, I couldn't stop thinking about the flashes of light I saw the night before. When I went home, I took out the pen and fresh page of paper. I then took a second to think about what I was about to do, and felt my heart racing a little for a reason I couldn't quite explain. I then put the pen to the page and drew a large circle. When I completed it, I was shocked by a huge flash of light and fell off my chair.

I knew in that moment what I had done. It something I knew was abnormal. Something I knew I should not have done. Magic.

In the following few weeks, I would spend a few hours a day drawing different things, circling them, and seeing them come to life. I found a few rules to follow and ultimately started to learn how to draw magic circles. Every day, I was incredibly excited to go home and practice a little more. In my excitement, I found myself doing a number of abnormal things. I wouldn't do homework. I would stay up a little too late. I wouldn't even hang out with friends.

Then, one day, everything came to an end. There was a knock on the door and a loud, threatening voice appeared on the other side. It said, "Open up! This is the police. Come out with your hands up!"

I did as I was told and was placed in handcuffs. The officer said, "You're under arrest for irresponsible and underage magic usage. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court." Through the window, I then saw another officer rummaging through my room, trying to figure out what kind of magic I was using and how I was casting spells.

I went with them willingly. After all, there is safety in normalcy, and I was abnormal.


Prompt: You always thought your wizarding life would begin with something like "yer a wizard, Harry." You never expected it to actually start with "you're under arrest for irresponsible and underage magic usage."