Chapter Text
Giggles bounced around the air as Felix tore down his neighborhood street with an empty super soaker in his hand. If he could just make it back to the garden hose to refill his watergun then maybe Jack would go back home for dinner equally as soaked as Felix was.
An unholy shriek left Felix’s mouth as he felt the full force of the remaining water left in Jack’s watergun soak the back of his shirt. Not like it wasn’t soaked before. It absolutely was and his mom was going to have his head for it.
“Ha! I got you!”
Felix turned around to see the other boy looking triumphant at the puddle of water slowly forming under Felix due to the sheer amount of water that had been shot at him.
“That’s not fair! I needed to reload!” It left Felix’s mouth sounding far more whiny than he had hoped.
Jack just smiled and shook his head sending water droplets flying everywhere.
“Nah mate, just accept it. You’re soaked.”
Felix’s only response was to roll his eyes and walk over to the curb that he and Jack had sat on together for the past ten summers. Jack soon threw his own water gun into the grass and joined Felix on their curb. Jack looked over at him with a glint in his eye.
“So….are you excited for school to start? I mean just think of all the beaches we’ll have access to!”
In another few months both of them would leave for magical school, something the two of them had been talking about for years as the only two wizarding boys in the neighborhood. Te Whetu sat somewhere far out in the Pacific Ocean, though neither of them could remember exactly where.
The important part was that it had beaches. Warm white beaches. Crystal blue waters. Fish the color of the rainbow.
Well, at least according to every student they’d ever talked to.
Jack was convinced he was going to swim with magical sea creatures before the end of his first month. Felix wasn’t convinced about that, but he was sure that falling asleep to the sounds of waves crashing against the dorm sounded a lot better than falling asleep in his bedroom at home.
He was also convinced that he would have extremely easy access to places to refill a super soaker.
“Of course I am! Then I won’t have to run to the garden hose to refill my water gun!”
Jack rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to probably make some snarky remark about the poor state of Felix’s wet clothes, but was interrupted by a shout of “Dinner!”.
It was still light out as the summer sun hadn’t yet set but both boys knew that it was time for them to head in.
Felix pushed himself up off the concrete wiping away the little pebbles that had stuck to his skin making small indents before reaching out a hand to help Jack up. The other boy took it before trudging over to retrieve his water gun from where it was laying in the grass.
Felix giddily waved goodbye to his friend shouting to him “See you at school!” with a large grin on his face that was returned by Jack before he turned and sprinted back to his house so he would be back in time for dinner.
As Felix pushed open the front door to his house he kicked off his muddy and wet shoes, wincing at the scolding he knew he was going to get for letting them get ruined. Greeted by the smells of kimchi and jajangmyeon he dashed into the kitchen still dripping water behind him.
His older sister Rachel was already at the table seemingly looking down at the floor but Felix knew better. She was likely actually reading under the table that muggle magazine he saw her sneak into the house a few days earlier.
Rachel had bribed him and bought his silence with the promise of a pack of water balloons hand-delivered by that weird muggle boy she talked to sometimes.
She looked up and her eyebrows raised as she looked him up and down and noticed the puddle of water beneath him.
“Wow. Impressive. I didn’t know it was possible to become a puddle.”
She dryly remarked while flipping to the next page of her magazine.
Felix glared at her and a quick glance over to their mom confirmed that she still had her back turned to them cooking at the stove. He was operating on borrowed time.
Just as he turned to slink back towards his bedroom, now realizing how the smell of food had overpowered all rationality, his father emerged into the kitchen.
“Felix.”
Ah and there it was. The flat disappointed tone his father had seemed to perfect over the years. Felix winced as he turned to face his father.
“....Yes?”
His father glanced down at the puddle. Then back up at Felix.
“Explain.”
His father’s demand was what made his mom’s head whip around from where she had been stirring the noodles at the stove.
A shout of surprise left her mouth as the wooden spoon in her hand was quickly exchanged for dish towels. The jajangmyeon on the stove was abandoned as his mom tried to absorb all the water that was falling onto the floor.
“Uh well. I was playing with Jack outside, and um. We got wet?”
His statement turned out to be more of a question than he would’ve liked as he dared a glance at his father’s face only to be greeted by a blank stare.
“Go change.”
It wasn’t a suggestion but an order of what he was to do if any semblance of peace and order was to remain intact in the house.
Felix scrambled past his father dripping more water onto the floor much to his mom’s dismay (or at least he thought that was what her shout was about as he ran out of the kitchen).
On his way to his room, he poked his head into his little sister’s room to see she was still playing with her dolls and he reminded her to head on down lest she too face the wrath of their parents that night.
He quickly changed out of his wet clothes and then put on nice, warm, clean, and very not wet clothes, before making his way back to the kitchen.
By the time he returned to the kitchen the food was plated on the table and there were no longer puddles of water, just shining streaks that the towels had left. Felix was relieved to see Olivia had listened to him and was sitting in her chair next to Rachel who looked extremely unamused.
Felix gently sat down in his seat expecting the next round of scolding to begin almost immediately but to his surprise it never came. Everyone passed around the food and began eating in near complete silence.
Rachel looked bored as ever, Olivia had jajangmyeon sauce all over her face, and his parents were exchanging glances from across the table. The silence was broken when his mom cleared her throat and set down her chopsticks.
“Felix. You know that you are at the age where most kids are sent off to receive a proper magical education. Your father and I were discussing and we would like to enroll you in school this fall.”
She looked like there was more to say but based on the way her lips were pursed she didn’t really want to say it.
Felix was immensely relieved that this was the conversation his parents had apparently planned for the dinner table that night. He would far prefer this discussion over being scolded for bringing puddles of water into the house. In fact, he was happy to have this talk!
“Oh yeah! Jack and I have been talking about Te Whetu already. It sounds like it’ll be a lot of fun!”
Something in his mom’s expression tightened and Felix began to wonder what he had said that was wrong but carried on.
“Jack and I already picked out what dorm we want! It’s one of the ocean-facing ones. He says-”.
His father cut him off to say the words that would break little Felix’s ten-year old heart.
“You won’t be going to Te Whetu. You will be attending Hogwarts with Rachel in the fall.”
An overwhelming amount of confusion and hurt filled Felix’s mind. He knew Rachel went to Hogwarts but he’d always assumed that she’d chosen to go there. Nobody had ever told him that he wouldn’t get to choose too.
“But-” His protest is cut off before it can even begin.
“You will attend Hogwarts.”
His father said it with a tone of finality that meant that any more push back from Felix would not be tolerated and would result in a much less pleasant night than it was already turning out to be.
Felix could feel himself shutting down as all his visions of what his next seven years would look like were shattered. There would be no dorm with the seabreeze coming in through the open window and the sound of waves lulling him to sleep. There would be no sand tracked into the dorms. And there would be no Jack to go with him on all his adventures.
He could feel himself numbly going through the motions of cleaning his plate off and trudging back to the safety of his room. He vaguely registered that he had flopped onto his bed, letting his tears soak his pillow.
Maybe Hogwarts wouldn’t be so bad?
The tears continued to fall.
Maybe he could find a seabreeze somewhere, it was up on a coast wasn’t it?
He opened his mouth and let out a silent scream into his pillow.
Jack and him could probably still write letters, the owls would just take longer to get there.
The tears just came harder no matter what Felix tried to tell himself because Felix would be attending Hogwarts in the fall and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.