Waking up, Kieran yawned and gave himself a big stretch.
Last days talks had been extensive, but he was happy and relieved about the final results and agreements that took place.
His parents now knew magic was real, and they were accepting of him being a wizard and Aunt Abi being a witch.
His young body still required a lot of sleep, so he knew his dad and mum likely had a lot of questions for Aunt Abi after he was put to bed.
After all, Aunt Abi had been forced to give muggle explanations to magical events for years, his dad was likely going to want to find out whatever he could about his surrogate sister, with their new perspective.
As he looked at the calendar next to his bed, he saw it was Monday, the 1st of April and as he looked towards the clock in his room, he saw that it was 4am.
I am up early!
He was about to go back to bed when he stopped himself.
It is April’s Fools.
He was, for the first time ever, up before his parents and Aunt Abi; this was the perfect opportunity to have some fun, he certainly could use it after the stress from yesterday.
Thinking about his three possible targets, he decided that the target should be his aunt.
Surely she will appreciate a good prank first thing in the morning.
Worst come to worst, my parents will keep me safe from her wrath…right?
Tapping his chin, he thought about what kind of prank he could even pull off as a 5-year-old.
His body was rather small and not very strong at all.
He then remembered that his dad had a big stepladder and buckets outside in the shed, and that thought led to him getting a brilliant idea!
Going outside to the shed, he took a deep breath of the cold morning air and brought his dad’s stepladder inside, luckily it wasn’t too heavy.
It took an hour of solid, and more importantly, silent work, but he managed to set up a bucket of water above Aunt Abi’s room, attached to a string connected to the door.
The moment Aunt Abi would open her door and stepping out, the bucket would tilt and pour cold water over her, and Kieran would be long gone when that happened.
Despite being sort of confident she would take it in good fun, one could never really know.
He had some good hiding spots in the house he had discovered over the years, that he planned to use, just in case.
Kieran didn’t prevent the huge smile on his face; he could not wait for this prank to succeed.
He briefly considered with some trepidation how Aunt Abi would retaliate, but surely it would be fine.
He opened the terrace door to let some fresh air inside and then decided to sit in the living room, on the couch, watching some morning television.
Perfect distance to hear Aunt Abi fall for his prank.
After sitting and zoning out for a bit, he heard some steps and saw his dad come into the living room, hair ruffled, wearing simple casual wear while yawning.
“Oh, morning son, you are up early,” his dad said, joining Kieran on the couch
In silence they watch the television together, Kieran almost forgot about the prank as he enjoyed his dad’s company.
Knowing his dad would need to get ready for work soon.
…
Hector secretly glanced at his son, seeing Kieran completely calm, making him release a silent sigh of relief.
He was happy at seeing this, because it meant yesterday’s heavy talks didn’t affect his small boy, at least not in an obvious way.
He relaxed further in the couch, enjoying the idyllic morning peace.
He had to prepare for work soon, but for now he just enjoyed sitting with his son in peace.
“KIERAN! YOU LITTLE BRAT!” Hector jumped at the loud screech and yell, wondering what set Abi off so early in the morning, then when he heard what she said, he snapped his head to his right, seeing Kieran’s eyes widen, then his son quickly got up, almost tripping over himself as he rushed away while Hector watched dumbfounded.
“Oh right…it is the 1st of April…” he said to himself.
A short while later, he was startled at a vengeful Abi entering the room, wearing a casual blue dress, utterly soaked in water head to toe.
He noticed her scan the room, before her sharp gaze pinned Hector to the couch.
Hector remembered all too well how much his little sister hated mornings, and this didn’t help.
“Where is my little nephew, Hector?” she asked with a fake sweet voice and fake smile, staring intently at him.
Hector hesitantly pointed at the terrace door that was open, and Abi immediately stormed out in search of the prankster.
He quietly wondered to himself if Abi would figure out that he gave her the wrong direction, knowing Kieran ran to his wife’s study room.
He shrugged, then recalled that he and Victoria gave Abi permission to use her magic freely in their house last evening when Kieran slept.
He started worrying about his sons’ chances.
As Hector sat wondering if his son would escape his vengeful aunt, his wife came into the living room.
She looked at the open terrace door and sighed while sitting down where their son had sat moments before.
“Did her yelling wake you, honey?” Hector asked, wrapping his arm around her.
“I was already awake, just relaxing in the bed. Was considering how we should start Kieran’s lessons. I think I have a preliminary plan. I went to check Abigail’s room after she ran after Kieran. Our son placed a bucket of cold water above his aunt’s door, and it tilted down on her when she opened it.”
Victoria shook her head exasperatedly while leaning against him.
“This is your genes at work,” Victoria said fondly.
“Did he escape?”
Hector could not prevent the chuckle from escaping him.
“I think our son has underestimated his aunt. He is likely assuming Abi will get tired from searching and forgive him and laugh about it, but I know my sister. There is a reason I never pranked her again after I did it once when we were kids. She returns the prank in a bigger way every time. Kieran is going to be very soaked when we see him next.”
Victoria gave a small giggle too.
“Abigail would lose the prestige of her aunt status if she didn’t instantly establish the pecking order after a prank like that. This is Kieran’s first prank; he has never done anything for April’s Fools before.”
Nodding in agreement, Hector wondered if it was a one-time thing following the stress from the talks from yesterday, or if their son would try again next year.
He would never admit it to Victoria, but he hoped Kieran kept pranking people.
He liked seeing his own traits in his son.
He even kind of hoped his son would keep trying to prank his aunt, succeeding where Hector had failed.
A successful prank where the victim did not get brutal revenge afterwards.
Would be very heartening and entertaining to witness.
Hector suddenly heard the distant mad cackling of Abi, followed by a massive splash and a soft male screech.
He shook his head, his son needed to learn that he should pick prank methods very carefully, lest this happens again.
Cold water in the morning?
What was he thinking?
…
At the breakfast table, Kieran sat glaring at his aunt, who smirked smugly at him from across the table while eating her toast.
She was merciless!
Blimey, he was just five years old.
He fully expected her to chase him a little bit and then give up and congratulate him for a well-done prank, but that was not what happened, in the slightest.
I hid well at first.
That particular spot in his mum’s study room was impossible to see even if you entered the room, and he was silent!
As he was relaxing in his hiding spot, he saw it.
A small light floated into the room where he was and stop at the exact location in the room where he hid.
He realized it the moment the light stopped.
She used magic to find me!
He obviously fled by escaping through the window, but it was useless, the light followed.
His Aunt Abi was completely shameless, where was the fairness?
She was an adult witch, and she used magic to find him and track him down, the light even let out a sound while it chased him.
If he wasn’t busy escaping and panicking, he would have admired the spell…
He was still somewhat confident he was small and fast enough to escape her once outside, but then she used the Levitation Charm on him, to make sure he couldn’t run.
He still remembered the shock he felt when she started madly cackling while conjuring a bunch of ice-cold water and absolutely soak him.
He even left out an undignified screech at how cold it was.
She may have removed the water and heated him up afterwards to prevent him becoming sick, but that did not excuse the absolute shamelessness of using magic to take revenge.
As he glared at his smug aunt, he swore, one day, he would get her in a prank so well that she could not take revenge, no matter how long it took!
After breakfast, Kieran sat with his mum with her giving him some study material.
Then she started explaining math, mentioning she wanted to set a baseline at where Kieran’s level was at.
He knew he was considered smart, but he was unsure in displaying the mathematics of his former life.
He decided to show himself as good at subtraction and addition, very smart for a five-year-old, but not an extreme anomaly.
He planned to treat the lessons as a refresher and dedicate himself to the homework his mum would assign to him.
The hardest lesson would be writing, his fingers were not yet used to writing properly, so that would take legitimate training and getting used to.
For reading he planned to start simple then ask his aunt to give him a book for wizard history, hoping she would give him A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot.
In his former life, it was just a book, but now he could properly read the book, learning about the true history of the world he was now living in, he couldn’t wait.
If I perform well with reading an advanced book, maybe I can get permission to read The Standard Book of Spells, Magical Theory or other magical books.
That would be wicked.
The world of Harry Potter had so many books that were only mentioned in name, and he wanted to read them all.
Even Lockhart’s books, the man writing them may be a phony, but what happened within them was true and he was interested in reading the books that caused countless witches to admire the man.
Under his mum’s supervision he did his best at writing numbers with the assignments she gave.
He answered some questions during the process, enjoying seeing his mum’s smile whenever he got a question right.
Eventually the studying for the day was over, and Kieran was given the permission to spend the next day practising his magic, as long as he promised to not let the magic be seen.
Aunt Abi was very strict when she informed Kieran about how important it was to keep magic hidden from muggles, it was wizarding society’s most sacred rule.
Kieran seriously nodded that he understood, wanting to convince his aunt that he was taking the topic seriously.
As Kieran went to bed later that evening, he fell asleep to the thought of finally getting to experiment properly with his magic.
He may be staying the course, but he would still discover everything the wonders of magic had to provide for him.