Henry Spellman
September 13, 2020 8:15 AM
I just wanted to watch TV. by Henry Spellman
OOC - Co-written with my super awesome brother.James Harding surveyed the foyer of the building he was in. It neither looked nor smelled like a particularly pleasant place to live. Additionally, the elevator appeared to be thoroughly broken and the paperwork stated that his visitees lived on the thirteenth floor. He weighed up his options. Obviously, in an area like this, he was supposed to be careful what magic he did. It wasn't 'no magic' though. Sometimes a particularly vicious dog needed a sleeping charm. Sometimes non-magical people needed to see to believe. He was permitted to do whatever magic was needed to get the job done, and was currently debating whether sparing himself a walk up thirteen flights of stairs qualified. He ruled out giving the elevator a helping hand. From the curling edges and the way it was hanging off on one corner, it looked like the handwritten 'OUT OF ORDER' sign had been there for sometime. A sudden, albeit temporary, revival in the elevator's status was likely to draw more attention. Also, technology and magic didn't mix well. Aparating straight up to the thirteenth floor landing would have been preferable but it was impossible to know whether anyone would be there to witness it. A hominim revelio was not likely to give him a reading specific enough to that location, and naturally there were people here in the general sense of 'here' because it was a tower block. With a sigh, he settled for a cooling charm under his shirt, and a long walk up the stairs.
He got to the top, identified the right apartment door and knocked.
For the first few hours he was home alone, Henry Spellman took advantage of the privacy. Well, first he took advantage of the fact that there was no one around to make a mess and he tidied up the kitchen and living room especially, since that’s where his mom would spend most of her time when she got off work. When he was done with that, he got his guitar and practiced a bit. Satisfied that he had done everything that he was supposed to do, he checked out the window. He wouldn’t necessarily see his brother walking up the street at the exact moment he checked, but it was better to check just in case. Finding no one outside other than the usual traffic and noises of life in downtown Phoenix, Henry didn’t bother to suppress a grin. He was gonna watch Forensic Files.
Henry loved true crime and liked to think that maybe someday he’d become a detective and find out that his father was part of some international criminal ring, where he was the mastermind, and then Henry would get to bring him to justice and all would be right with the world. He liked the order to it, and the procedural elements; things that were neat and orderly and things that had a right way to do them were usually less complicated. If he did it the right way, then it would be done right. Playing guitar wasn’t like that but he still liked to do that too.
He got his Magic the Gathering cards, eager to flip through them for the umpteenth time, and settled in front of the television set. They couldn’t afford proper cable but one of the neighbors let them use their Netflix login on their old, hand-me-down PlayStation, so long as there weren’t too many people using it already and no one was using it in the middle of the day when the weather was nice. The only games they had on the console were the ones you could get for free, so Netflix was their best shot at electronic entertainment most of the time. He had just clicked it on when there was a knock at the door. With a sigh, he decided it was probably a debt collector, or a scammy salesperson, and clicked the TV back off before it could make any noise. Apparently, he would now be spending his time home alone pretending he wasn’t home at all, at least until the person went away. He left his cards to check out the peephole in the door, which only confirmed his decision to ignore the knocker, as he didn’t recognize them, and then returned to his spot on the floor near the TV (it was also near an open window which afforded some amount of cool air) and flipped through his cards.
James stood back. There was a thorough absence of noise following his knock. No scurrying footsteps. No ‘just a second.’ The first second after knocking was expected to be silent, but when the silence stretched beyond that, it felt like a missive tumbling into the void. He raised his hand, and tried again, even without any real conviction that he would be answered.
Most of his house calls were done at evenings and weekends. Most non-magical people worked the same hours as magical people, so his nine to five was, in fact, everything but those hours. Occasionally however, you ran up against this sort of thing. Or, of course, people went out for the day. He really thought that appointments would help, but given that they were here to explain the whole thing, it was a bit of a dragon and egg sort of problem to think of sending a note in advance. It was odd though. The trace applied to the children only. Different states had different rules on how much they were allowed to survey the parents in order to set up the visits, but often the argument went that tracing the kids would do well enough. Where kids were, so were their parents. When he’d checked the maps back at the office, it had indicated that there was a magical presence in this building right now, and he hadn’t taken that long to get here.
“Hello?” he addressed the door, giving it another knock. “I know you’re home,” he tried. It wasn’t like the empty apartment was going to be able to laugh at him if he turned out to be wrong.
“Actually, genius, I’m out here,” came a voice from the other end of the hallway.
James jumped, turning to see a boy with a freckled face and short brown hair leaning against the wall. For a moment, he was surprised to see him holding a bludger’s bat, but then he remembered that similar sports existed here.
“Hello,” he smiled. “Are you Oscar or Henry?”
“I’m Oscar,” he replied. Whilst he knew it wasn’t fair to expect a stranger to know this, his irritation at the question showed in his voice. He then stopped to consider the fact that the man knew his name. Both their names. He frowned in concern.
The walls were thin in places like these and Henry was perfectly happy to lay there and pretend the guy outside wasn’t outside until he heard a more sarcastic version of his own voice respond. Stifling a groan, he clambered over the back of the couch and snuck back up to the peephole to find his brother talking to the stranger. Because of course he was. The odds of this going well if Henry left his twin out there alone seemed pretty low, but he’d have to blow his cover to let him in. Of course, if he didn’t let him in, his cover would still probably end up blown, he just wouldn’t have been the one to do it.
When he heard his and his brother’s names given, he moved a little extra quickly, undoing the chain and deadbolt and then yanking the door open. “You’re back,” Henry said to his brother. “Mom just got in the shower,” he added meaningfully, not wanting to give the stranger reason to think it was just the two of them.
“Ah, hello Henry,” James smiled when the door was opened. The boy’s explanation that his visit was ill-timed explained why the door had not been opened, in spite of them being home, and he was just relieved to find that they were there, after all. “When she’s out, do you think you could let her know I’m here? It’s important for me to talk to her - to talk to all of you.”
“She paid the gas bill yesterday, if that’s what you’re here for,” Oz glared. This had happened before - sometimes the companies didn’t update their records quickly enough to stop people coming round. He couldn’t remember whether the gas people were ones who came in person to cut you off, or if they just did it from their office. He also was pretty sure that he and Henry weren’t going to be involved in any discussions about the gas bill. The fact that he knew both their names, and was interested in talking to them too rang different alarm bells, even if it had taken a minute for them to start jangling, “And we’re fine,” he added defensively, stepping into the gap his brother had made to let someone their size through the doorway.
“It’s not about any of those things,” James assured them, starting to read more into the wary looks both boys were giving him. It was less the auror of people who mistrusted a stranger, and more the one of people who never found knocks on the door to come with good news. “But I do need to talk to you. I have something important to tell you-”
“We’re good with the amount of Jesus in our lives too, thanks bro,” Oz informed him, shutting the door.
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Henry Spellman
I just wanted to watch TV.
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Oz Spellman
September 13, 2020 8:23 AM
But we don't have one (legally) by Oz Spellman
OOC - yeah, this was like.... 'teamwork' too. But we're still different people.Henry stepped back, glad that his brother was inside, and looked at him warily. "It's gonna be real awkward when mom gets home if he's still out there." It wasn't, of course, the first time they had lied to someone coming to collect debts or sell religion but it never got easier to Henry, who would have preferred to pretend he wasn't there, and would have done so if not for Oz. If not for Oz was a pretty common trope of Henry's life, but he didn't resent his twin for it; usually, it was a good thing.
The fact that Oz had apparently walked home and not been picked up meant mom was either working overtime tonight or just running late leaving, and could be home anytime. Again, pros and cons. "Do we tell this one to come back? He seemed like the waiting type." Henry and Oz were both well aware that there were different types of knockers. The let-me-in-now ones, the I'll-come-back-later ones, the I'll-wait-right-here ones. There were others but those were the primary people that appeared on the doorstep of their little apartment.
For a second, as Oz slipped inside, and they both made their excuses, they had been united against a common enemy. Then the door snapped shut, and even though the man was still out there, he felt far more like he was facing off against Henry instead. If Henry was right, and this one was a waiter, they were boned once a longer-than-shower-time elapsed. Henry was such a crap liar...
“Why’d you say she was in the shower?” Oz groused, keeping his voice low so that the thin walls did not betray them, “Why’d you open the door?”
Henry rocked up onto the balls of his feet, anxious when his alliance with Oz seemed to disintegrate. “I wasn’t going to say anything until you got here. Why’d you give him your name?” he retorted, not half so sharply as his brother was capable of. “I was pretending no one was home until you got here. What was I supposed to do? Just leave you out in the hall with him? Let him think you were walking in here all alone?”
“He already knew both our names,” Oz pointed out, gritting his teeth because it was an effort to keep his voice low enough to make sure the man didn’t hear them, “I was just making sure he knew I was me not you.” Okay, he supposed he could have flat out denied being either of them, but that had pushed his buttons. He didn’t like the thought of people mixing up which of them was which. He shrugged off Henry’s other point moodily. It would have been fine. He could have handled it. “Who do you think he is?” he changed the subject.
Henry could not for the life of him understand why Oz insisted on not thinking things through. He was capable of it and proved it after the fact most of the time. Henry could tell that Oz could think of other options now, he just hadn’t thought about it beforehand. Impulsiveness was dangerous and Henry didn’t like to take risks. He wasn’t about to push it though, so he let the topic change when Oz asked about the man outside again. “I don’t know,” he admitted with a frown. CPS wasn’t out of the question but that was only because the guy knew both their names and who else would know both their names? “Did you get into trouble at school?”
“No!” Oz responded, with enough volume and annoyance that this probably reached The Lurker.
“Shh!” Henry said, waving his hands.
“Do you recognise him from school?” Oz challenged, lowering his voice again, “Or do you think I screwed up so much they’ve called in a specialist?” he asked. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to that, even though he never even got in that much trouble at school. Okay, he wasn’t perfect Henry with his perfect record at everything but Mom had drummed it into both of them pretty thoroughly to study hard and not run their mouths. She had drummed it into him more often because Henry had like, got the lecture when they were two or whatever and just stuck to it ever since, whereas Oz needed reminders. He slipped up. He back-chatted. He messed about but he’d never been a seriously ‘bad’ kid.
Henry was shaking his head before Oz even finished. He didn’t think his brother was a bad kid, just that sometimes he made bad decisions. That was fine; everyone made bad decisions sometimes. “I don’t recognise him,” he admitted. “He doesn’t look like a specialist,” he added, not sure how to answer the question otherwise. “And the school would probably have told mom if someone was going to come over for us.”
Right. The guy looked wrong, and school would have phoned. Those were the reasons why Henry believed Oz hadn’t screwed up. He flopped down on the couch-bed (currently in couch mode), draping himself over the sagging arm with his back to his brother.
“Whatcha watching,” he huffed, nodding to the paused TV. Now that someone knew they were here, there wasn’t much point keeping quiet. “Is it that freaky murder show again?” he asked. Henry nodded, feeling a bit embarrassed. He usually didn’t watch his ‘freaky murder shows’ when anyone was around, except maybe Oz, and comments like this were the sort of reason why.
Oz toyed with the remote. The murder show was kinda cool. It was better than the boring science shows Henry also liked. Oz kind of enjoyed all the gory details. As it was on pause, the content warning had popped up in the corner informing them that it was 16+ and that this particular episode contained ‘murder, autopsy and graphic images.’ Which was maybe not the best thing for them to be caught watching, on stolen Netflix, if the man was from Welfare. Unless he already knew and that was why he was here. Oz had totally heard that people took all kinds of data from what you watched and how accounts got used, and people even got busted over account sharing if they weren’t careful. Henry was the homebird. Henry was the one who logged into the account the most, and who chose the goriest shows, specifically when mom (the only one with a right to watch them) was out. So, who was the screw up now? Maybe his brother was about to get busted… “We should log out!” he declared, “He might be the Netflix police.”
“I don’t think Netflix police are real,” Henry said with a lot more confidence than he felt. “But even if they were, he wouldn’t know our names.” He turned to look back through the peephole, only to find the man still outside, looking awkward and fidgety to Henry’s untrained detective gaze. “He’s still there,” he whispered to Oz when he was done.
Oz was not taking any chances. Whatever agency the man was from, stolen 16+ Netflix was not a good look. A quick few button presses and they were, at least, in the clear from being caught in the act, even if he was pretty sure that didn’t wipe the paper trail.
“Choices are wait it out or try to buy him off with an excuse, like mom’s not feeling well,” Oz shrugged. “I say give it fifteen minutes and hope he gets bored.” That was like, forever. Oz wasn’t sure how someone could just stare at blank walls for that length of time and not go insane. He glanced back at the TV. The blank screen and the silence extended around them.
“So, play guitar or whatever,” he shrugged at Henry. “Or flick through your nerd deck.” Henry wasn’t exactly at a loss for things to do. Oz was gonna go use the bathroom for real. There probably wasn’t enough hot water for a proper shower right now, plus it made this screeching noise that might alert The Lurker about when it was on, and when the person showering was done, but he could run a basin of water and get the worst of the sweat and dirt off his face. And not have to sit in awkward silence, or worse still try to talk to his brother for fifteen minutes.
Henry rocked on his feet again, not sure what he should do. He was sort of glad that Oz didn’t make fun of him for stuff like guitar and Magic most of the time, but he also wasn’t sure how he felt about being told to just go do those things so they didn’t have to hang out. Not sure he wanted to risk today being the day that Oz decided to tear up his cards, he scooped up his deck from where he’d dropped it before and shoved it in his pocket before heading back to get his guitar. He’d already practiced his scales so he supposed it would be best to play an actual song now. He wished he knew a song about telling people to go away. If Oz was going to wash up, Henry could check out his cards some more, but then the knocker guy might hear water running, especially if Oz opted for a full shower. So guitar it was.
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Oz Spellman
But we don't have one (legally)
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Henry Spellman
September 13, 2020 8:24 AM
Well the TV part is legal. Just not the *whispers* Netflix. by Henry Spellman
Oz was still in the bathroom when footsteps outside sounded. For a moment, Henry thought maybe they’d gotten lucky and the guy was leaving, but the footsteps were distinctly approaching, not retreating. Henry was quiet, setting his guitar aside and sneaking to the door to peek out the peephole yet again. There was a lot of stretching and craning his neck happening today.“Who are you?” a woman asked in a short tone, every bit as distrusting as her boys were.
Henry pulled the door open, figuring his mom would be better off with more information than less. “He was asking for Oscar and me,” he told her, hating to admit that that’s who they were but knowing it was no good to pretend that wasn’t the case. Using his brother’s full name, though, might be enough of a clue for her that something odd was happening, as if the sketchy dude waiting on the doorstep wasn’t. She raised an eyebrow, looking as intimidating as was possible to do in a wrinkled server’s uniform.
“My name is James Harding,” he informed the woman. Given that Henry had confirmed that his mother was inside, he wondered who this was. An auntie? Mom’s partner? “I’m here to talk to all of you,” he stated, deciding that spelling out the situation but with as few details as possible was going to be the easiest way forward. “It’s a conversation I would rather have inside,” he added.
“Got ID?” she challenged him, not about to let a stranger into the apartment based on his name alone.
“Of course,” James smiled and nodded, reaching into his pocket. He held out a piece of paper to her. They had never found a particular agency it was helpful to claim they were representing, so the paper merely suffused her with a sense of being Definitely Official and Very Much Alright. He watched her eyes glaze slightly as she looked at it.
“Right, okay,” she agreed, her tone softening slightly as she led him inside.
Henry’s eyebrows came together as he looked between ‘James Harding’ and his mother. That was an unusual reaction. What could the man have shown her? “Oz is washing up,” he muttered to his mother for explanation as he stepped back to let the two of them enter.
“Okay,” she nodded, “Stick this in the fridge,” she requested, handing him a brown paper bag. Shifts at the diner came with lunch, and she always brought hers home. They had two different managers, and today it had been Mr. Finkle, which was the better kind of day. The set lunch was a main and a side, and the diner portions were generous enough that even on a non-Finkle day it was a good basis for a dinner, padded out with some home cook fries. But Finkle knew she had twins. He tended to give her lasagne with a side of another piece of lasagne. Burger with a burger on the side. Already packaged up in a take away box, and handed to her without pity or judgement. It was the little things like that that made her not lose her soul completely in hours spent under the harsh neon lights. Today had been a good day, right until she’d walked up the stairs and found a stranger lurking outside her front door. A stranger who was now inside, and who she now found she wasn’t still totally sure of.
“What did you want?” she asked him, the suspicion returning to her voice.
“I wish to talk to Oscar, Henry and at least one of their legal guardians,” he informed her, choosing his words carefully. Henry had referred now to Oz washing up, which he assumed was the other boy. He wasn’t totally sure who was actually here (except, ironically, being fairly certain which twin was which) or whether certain truths had been bent. He had no wish to assume it was not perfectly possible for a second mother to be out back, nor to assume that everyone had two parents. Families came in all shapes and sizes. He also had no wish to call attention to their lie, if that’s what it was. He could understand their anxiety at being called on if they had been home alone. “Am I right in assuming that that’s who I have here now?” he checked, as the shorter haired twin emerged from the bathroom. “And that that’s what everyone likes to be called?” he added, because he had learnt from his wife Elaine’s experiences, and checking that everyone was who you thought they were was probably a good idea before beginning.
“Yes. I’m Monica,” she clarified, given that so far he had only referred to her as ‘legal guardian’ and that seemed like it might get cumbersome.
“I prefer Oz,” Oz informed him. It wasn’t any great show of trust or intimacy. Everyone called him Oz, even the teachers. He was only ‘Oscar’ when he was in trouble, which he really hoped he wasn’t right now.
Henry shrugged. “I’m Henry,” he said blandly, like he thought it was both perfectly fine to go by your given name and also like he thought it was a totally boring given name.
“Right. Lovely,” James smiled, trying his best to sound reassuring. “I work for a government office in an organisation called MACUSA. It’s a different branch of the government to the one you’re used to hearing about. We work with magical people. In short, I’m a wizard. And we’ve detected enough magical energy around your building to believe that you are as well,” he explained. He didn’t try to explain more than that, because this was the point at which most people had something of their own to say, or needed a minute to process. Or occasionally started throwing things and telling him to get the heckity out, only with usually less polite language.
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Henry Spellman
Well the TV part is legal. Just not the *whispers* Netflix.
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Oz Spellman
September 13, 2020 8:26 AM
The day that Netflix Cop changed our lives for ever (or some crud) by Oz Spellman
“What the ----” Oz was first off the bat in terms of reaction, but didn’t get much further than a phrase which prompted ‘Oscar, language!’ from his mother.Henry's first thought was his deck of cards in his pocket. He'd gotten them all legally. Was there something wrong? He didn't want to give them up, and instinctively put his hand over his pocket. There were lots of different wizard cards. They mostly controlled other people and some of them could fly. Since he hadn't exactly gotten to league level yet, he doubted that was what this was about. He drew a little closer to his mother, both to give and receive the small protection that proximity offered.
"I think you need to leave," Monica told the man, unconvinced that she should have let him in in the first place, and not entirely sure why she had.
“Is this some new age cult thing?” Oz asked. He sort of didn’t want Mom to throw the guy out. Okay, getting recruited to an actual cult was a bad plan (Henry had watched some of those documentaries too) but if there were people door to door culting instead of just Jehovah’s witnesses? That was fun! Could they not at least wind him up for a bit like they’d done sometimes with cold-callers, back before the phone had got cut off? It wasn’t like they could watch serial killer stuff now that mom was back and this actually had the potential to be way more entertaining.
“I can assure you all this is both very real and very important,” James said. It was not unusual for people to not believe him, or to have negative reactions. He only hoped they’d be more reasonable once he added evidence rather than less. With a twitch of his wrist, his wand appeared in his hand. It was actually from a neat little arm holster, but it did have the effect of appearing somewhat by magic. He had found that this both helped with the general effect and also didn’t give them time to think he was getting out a gun or doing anything else untoward. “I’m going to cast a simple, harmless spell on your, uh, potato chips,” he informed them, glancing around for something that was easy and unfrightening to levitate. He made them sail across the room and back to the counter. “Has either of you ever made unusual things happen?” he addressed the boys, “Things you can’t explain?”
For Henry, the easy answer was no, and it came to mind quickly, even in the shock of watching the impossible happen. Unusual things didn't happen to him. In fact, even usual things didn't happen to him. His guitar rarely went out of tune, his cards were always orderly and clean, his flashlight batteries never seemed to die no matter how many nights he stayed up reading under the covers, his hair didn't require much brushing, and he didn't even have any exciting injuries to talk about. He was the very plainest of plain boys, especially beside his brother. There was one time he threw a banana peel at the trash and actually made it in, but that only seemed unusual because he was much more likely to get up and walk it to the trash. Henry was as ordinary as the bag of chips.
“Like, falling off stuff and not getting hurt?” Oz suggested, cautiously. He was lucky. Or just good at pulling stunts. He was the embodiment of the notion that kids bounced. Except that one really notable time that he hadn’t. But for the most part, he’d lived a charmed life in terms of injuries. “Or, like, can we make stuff disappear?” he asked, an example from that very day swimming to the surface of his mind along with a bubble of guilt. It had only been a pack of gum. It didn’t matter... “Or like, not disappear but um,” he trailed off, not sure he wanted to finish sharing that example, “Like, fixing stuff that gets broken? Before anyone finds out?” he asked, definitely avoiding his mother’s eyes.
“Yes. That sort of thing,” James nodded, “Some of it, hard to say. Maybe you just stick good landings,” he added, regarding the examples of not getting hurt. The rest was promising though, and one person in the room at least seemed to be believing him, “But things that you struggled to explain, even at the time. Like you said, broken things just getting fixed would be a good one. There’s a special school for people like you,” he gestured, encompassing both twins, “Magical ability is like any other skill, you need to work on it. I have some information about various institutions-”
“We can’t afford private school, so you’re wasting your time,” Monica informed him. She wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that she had definitely just seen a bag of potato chips fly across the room, but people who cold called and weren’t after money that you already owed them usually wanted to put you in the position of owing it. Or to sell you some idea. Religion, debt, or sales. Or coming to take the kids away. If he had to fall into a category, she guessed sales was the most harmless. She could easily refuse.
“There is a certain amount of government funding available. Many places are fully sponsored,” James explained, “Without training, magical powers can be dangerous. As such, the magical government puts considerable effort into making education accessible for everyone who shows magical ability, like your boys."
“You. Um. You think my twins have superpowers? And you want them to go to some government funded school?”
“That’s about the size of it, yes,” James nodded.
“Him too?” Oz asked, jerking a thumb at Henry.
Henry was generally skeptical about all this but the idea of a magic school did intrigue him. Almost any school would be better than their current situation, and this sounded like a chance to learn something new. His mood deflated rapidly at Oz's question. He could almost make himself believe that it was meant to be assurance that they could go together, but there really was no mistaking the tone for that and their mother's response confirmed as much.
“You are genetically identical, Oscar,” Monica snapped, “You may have to accept that yes, at times, you have things in common with your brother.
“That is usually how it works,” James nodded. Both of the boys' names were on his list, after all. “Were all those examples yours, or things that could have come from either--"
"I'm not special," Henry interrupted, almost sharply. "I haven't done anything like that. You must have made a mistake." Perhaps if Oz was happy, he wouldn't try so hard to be different, and then mom wouldn't be so worried. Perhaps if there was some space between them, Oz would be happy.
“Henry,” Monica stated consolingly, placing a hand on his shoulder and shooting his brother a reproachful look, “Henry’s very bright,” she informed the man, “I have his school reports-”
“That won’t be necessary,” James held up a placating hand, “We’re fairly sure that both the boys are magical, though we can have that tested if need be. I suppose what I want to know at this stage is whether you all believe me?” he checked, “People don’t always, you see. Or they’re not so keen on their lives turning upside down. But if you accept the idea of both the boys going off to magical school, then we can talk details,” he suggested.
“I suppose,” Monica agreed, scanning both boys’ faces (but especially Henry’s) for any sign this move wasn’t welcome. As the magical man spread his brochures on the table, she couldn’t quite say she believed him (though had that picture just moved?) but she didn’t not believe him either. And it wasn’t like the thought of them getting out of here hadn’t been what they’d always been aiming for. Just she’d pictured it being about eight years from now, and nothing like this. Still, magic, an opportunity that sounded like winning the lottery, and a ticket for them both out of here. It looked like it was really happening.
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Oz Spellman
The day that Netflix Cop changed our lives for ever (or some crud)
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