“So,” Black said.
“Since you’re ready to talk and no longer looking at me like I’m crazy, I’ll start my story again.
Do you mind?”
Sara and Tom, slightly embarrassed under his gaze, lowered their heads and nodded carefully.
“Excellent.
Simply excellent,” Regulus smiled, the corners of his lips turning up.
He put his cup down on the table and continued.
“Where to begin?”
He paused for about a minute, thinking something over to himself, then nodded.
“I’ll start with the basics so you can understand,” he said, steepling his fingers and looking intently at the young couple.
“First of all, you need to understand that the magical world is not a kind fairy tale with a happy ending.
It’s a very harsh reality.
Sometimes so harsh that it turns into what you Muggles call dark fantasy.
Yes, exactly that.
With its own heroes and villains, good and evil, light and dark, humans and non-humans.”
“But what does that have to do with us?” Tom asked, hearing the not-so-pleasant preamble.
“Everything, Mr.
Massimo.
Everything.
But allow me to continue my story, which will explain it all.
Do you mind?
Or do you think what just happened was a mass hallucination?”
“No, I don’t.
And no, I don’t mind.”
“Good.
So.
As it’s commonly known, magic has existed since time immemorial.
Even in the Stone Age, as Muggles call that time period, wizards possessed the gift of magic.
Muggles are you, ordinary people who do not possess the gift.
Muggle is not an insult.
It’s like a distinction of species.
You’re not offended when someone calls you white-skinned, are you?
Muggle is the same.
Muggles are people deprived of the gift and unable to acquire it.
Which is quite sad, don’t you think?”
He paused for a couple of seconds, letting that sink in, then continued.
“Magic.
What does it mean for you?
There’s no point in explaining to you Muggles where magic comes from, why it exists, how it’s used, or much else.
What you need to know is directly related to your son.
Kael, I remember correctly, don’t I?”
“Yes, Mr.
Black,” Sara answered.
“You’re absolutely right.”
“Wonderful,” Regulus said, picking up his cup of tea and looking into his own reflection in the liquid.
“Your son, Mr.
and Mrs.
Massimo, is a wizard.
It sometimes happens that children are born with the gift into Muggle families.
These children fall into two types.
The first are Mudbloods.
Mudbloods are weak wizards who are descendants of degenerated magical lines.
Yes, that happens.
It happens that wizards, having accumulated too many curses, lose their magic.
And yes, you heard me right: curses.
It has a very direct meaning.
For example, we don’t have to look far.
Sara, do you remember those dogs in the park?” Seeing the woman flinch, he continued.
“I see you do.
So, do you remember what they looked like?
Torn clumps of fur and skin, unpleasant colored saliva, and the smell.
You could smell them from twenty paces away.
That is a curse.”
Regulus paused, giving them time to process.
“Curses aren’t contagious, are they?” a nervous Tom asked.
“Oh, an interesting question.
Sara, they didn’t bite you, did they?
No?
Then good.
You’re not cursed.
So, where was I?
Mudbloods.
When a wizard accumulates a large number of curses, it sometimes happens that he or his descendants lose their magic.
In ancient times, and even in some modern families, such people were exiled from the magical world to the Muggle world.
They lived there, bred, and over time the curses weakened enough that some descendant could awaken their magical abilities.
As a rule, such people were weak, both magically and physically.
After all, a bouquet of various curses had been affecting their bodies for many generations.
That didn’t do them or their descendants any favors.”
“May I ask a question?
Our son, is he a Mudblood?”
After thinking for a moment, Black didn’t answer immediately.
“He’s about eighty percent likely to be the second type of wizard born into a Muggle family.
A Blessed One.
Blessed Ones are people blessed by Magic itself.
As a rule, they are born to Muggles who have had no wizards or Squibs in their ancestry for twenty-five to thirty generations.
Squibs are wizards so weak that they cannot perform standard magic, but that’s a story for another time.” He paused, thinking about something, then continued.
“Blessed Ones.
A treasure for the magical world.
Such people are strong, both physically and magically.
Such wizards carry no curses.
Quite the opposite.
By marrying a pureblood wizard, they can weaken or even completely remove curses that have been placed on the family line.
Such wizards are hunted.
There is a real war over them.
I strongly advise you not to spread the word that your son is a Blessed One.
And I promise to do the same.”
He took a sip of tea and continued.
“Now let’s talk about the lives of Muggle-born wizards in the magical world.
First, all Muggle-born wizards are required to attend Hogwarts, the magical school of England, at age eleven.
That’s non-negotiable.
Your son was born in England, right?
His first magical burst, in your case the teleportation from the park to your home, happened in England, right?
He is automatically enrolled in Hogwarts and entered into the Book of Names.
If you try to keep your son from going, or run away abroad, they will find you and alter your memory so that you think you sent him to Hogwarts yourselves.”
Sara and Tom went pale instantly.
How could they not?
What if they erased everything related to their son?
“Now you understand that this is inevitable.
You might be wondering why I’m telling you all this.
The thing is, I owe you, Tom.
And it’s not like with you Muggles, where if you owe someone, you just forgive the debt.
With wizards, it’s different.
If a person saves a wizard’s life, whether they are a wizard or not, and does so without selfish motives, the wizard’s magic records it as a Life Debt.
The wizard is obligated to repay that debt.
Otherwise, Magic itself will punish them.
And the consequences are no joke.
Up to and including the loss of magic.
And that is the greatest punishment for a wizard.”
Tom and Sara sat there as if struck by lightning.
You don’t learn every day that by simply doing your job, you’ve put someone in your debt.
A debt with a capital D.
“How do you know when you’ve repaid a Life Debt?”
“It’s very simple.
The wizard himself knows.
At some moment, he just understands: from this point on, I no longer owe you.
I have fulfilled my obligation.” He placed his empty cup on its saucer and continued.
“As for your son.
In his room, I was checking to see if he was a wizard.
As I said, your son is a wizard, and his magic carries no curses.
I’ve decided to repay my Life Debt through your son.
I think it will be more useful to him.
Do you mind?”
“No, not at all.
That’s the best possible outcome.
We couldn’t have hoped for better.”
“Excellent.
To settle the debt, I will provide you with three services.
First, to tell you about your immediate future.
I hope I’ve done that in full.
Second, to pay for your son’s education.
Hogwarts tuition is not cheap, you see.
Muggle-born students study on donations from magical families.
In payment, after graduation, young wizards must work off the money spent on them.
I don’t think you want your son working for Merlin knows who for about ten years.
And finally, the third service: on his third birthday, I will provide your son with literature that he should read before attending Hogwarts.
This literature is the required minimum that young wizards from magical families should know.
Is everything clear?”
“And why his third birthday?
Isn’t that too early?”
“That’s beyond my control.
I’m not a good Samaritan.
If it weren’t for the Life Debt, I would never help a Muggle family, understand?” Regulus said, his eyes flashing dangerously and darkness swirling in them.
“Perfectly clear, Mr.
Black,” Tom answered, instantly losing any warmth in his voice.
“Good.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve already wasted far too much time.
Good day to you.”
As the last word left his lips, the young wizard disappeared.
Sara and Tom sat in the living room for a long time, thinking about the words of the man who had turned out not to be as nice as he’d first seemed.
Only the sound of the crack that had echoed after his disappearance, along with the empty cup on the table and the raven statue, testified to the presence of a third person in the living room.