Making magical memories

[Stephen Hunter King]

For a brief moment more Hunter pondered what his mate was so mythed about as it didn't sound all that strange, but decided to let it go as Sam seemed to want so too. Besides, he indeed had lots of stuff he wanted to show. Last year he had given most of his plush toys to his little sister, but had kept a few of his favourites. Such as a tiger cub which he'd gotten for Christmas when he was seven and a racoon which was much older. These days most of the time they sat on the foot of his bed looking awesome in his opinion, but sometimes he used them as part of imaginative play with Matchbox cars or or almost any of his other toys. But from this trip he'd insisted to get another one. His dad wouldn't let him have a real one as a pet, so he'd bought the boy a fully posable niffler plush toy. It was 21 cm long, with wire sceleton, glass eyes and fake fur, and of course a little tummy pouch. Its paws and snout was made of soft vinyl.
"A new addition to my zoo," he introduced it as he pulled it out of the little box it came with that resembled a pet carrier.


[In real world that's not a plush toy but a hand-made collector's item, hence the price, but in this RPG it shall be a hand-made plush toy for a reasonable price. I wish there really was niffle plush toys that looked like that.]

[Samuel Connor Rees]

Sam appreciated that Hunter helped him change the subjects. That was a sign of a great friend. Instead, Sam followed his's friends gaze and he quickly gathered, that he wanted to show him the newest addition in his toy collection. Sam wasn't really a plush kind of kid, though he had some at his room. He felt a sudden shame as he realized it's been quite some time since he last played with any of them. Many of them were with him since he could remember. That thought conjured up a smile on his face.
A smile that quickly vanished when he finally saw the new plushie. "Oh c'mon! That is the animal! The one the other kid had... he called it uh... muffler? nuzzler! And he said it was magic!" Sam pointed at the plushie despite he knew pointing wasn't very polite. All color washed away from Sam's face as his fragile reality was shattered again. This just was one of these days it seemed...

[Stephen Hunter King]

"It's a niffler," Hunter corrected, surprised to hear that one had been walked in a muggle neighbourhood. Though mostly he cared about who had it been. Perhaps someone he knew had more sensible parents and had recently got a niffler as a pet and he could take care of it some time. He couldn't think of anyone who would not only take a niffler outside but also go around openly talking about its magic.
"Who was he, and what exactly did he say?" the boy looked from Sam to the niffler toy and pretended to be more surprised than he was. "I've been wanting one of these for real because they're so cute but Dad says they don't make good pets. I'll bug him more if they're supposed to be somehow special."

[Samuel Connor Rees]

Sam just nodded when Hunter corrected him. The poor boy was still puzzled by all this. Randon events had the tendency to cluster together but this was a little too much.
"Uh... he was an elder kid... uh... Phoenix? Yeah, yeah I am sure his name was Phoenix," he dug in his memory. Sure, it happened just earlier today but it was a very eventful day with a lot of information thrown his way.
"He was talking a lot... he said it was a magical creature. That his dad got it for him. And that its pouch can hold a lot of items. He pulled several coins from it and... like a small jewelry box?" he said still trying to remember. Since then he decided it was all just a trick and he tried to forget the entire thing. Apparently more stuck in his head than he thought.
"I think he said only wizards were able to even see it... but I could see it so it was all just some weird trick. It made my head hurt..." well in fact the entire situation made his head hurt. Talking about it all out loud made him feel really, really stupid in front of Hunter.

[Stephen Hunter King]

He barely registered the name and that he did not know anyone called Phoenix, as his mind focused on the apparent fact that he'd known a wizard next door for four years without knowing it. All the lost time of fun bummed him out at the same time as this possibility was exciting, and slightly shocking as this certainly didn't happen every day. After a few moments of just staring and pondering he figure it was far more likely that someone had walked a niffler with some sort of a spell on it than it was that someone walked it openly and just lied to muggles. Hunter dropped the cuddly niffler toy on the bed and without a word rushed off, down the stairs, into the dining room and grabbed one o fthe Daily Prophets on the table in front of his father who was reading Saturday's issue.

"Hunter, don't cut anything out of it, I haven't read it yet!" the man called after him as the boy hurried off and back up the stairs, again without a word.
"And no running in the stairs!" Jacob added a reminder, even though it was quite clear it wouldn't reach the obviously busy mind of the little boy.

Hunter ran all the way back into his room and thrusted the newspaper in Sam's face.
"What's this paper's name? What's on the front page?" he asked eagerly. To a muggle it would appear to be yesterday's issue of The Guardian, with boring modern font styles and static photos. But to a squib, a witch or a wizard it was yesterday's issue of Daily Prophet, with fancy old-timey fonts and moving photos.

[Samuel Connor Rees]

There was a moment of awkward silence. Hunter seemed probably more surprised than Sam for some reason. Sam was just about to say something to break the deafening silence when Hunter suddenly bolted out of the room and loudly ran down the stairs, leaving Sam completely flabbergasted. Before he knew it he heard the same loud stomping and suddenly Hunter was shoving some old-looking newspaper in his face. This has to be what going insane must have felt like.
"D-a-i-l-y P-r-o-p-h-e-t" he spelled the name as his mouth was far quicker than his brain.
"Hey cool... where did you get that? At some old-timey fair or something?" his brain still tried to keep a hold of reality. Unfortunately, that lasted only until his eyes quickly flew over the page. Some robe-clad bearded guy was waving a broom a younger-looking lady was smiling while presenting a book... wait... the guy was actually waving the broom. The lady was nodding her head in sort of a bow?
"How is... what... I mean... what?" was the most coherent sentence his brain was currently able to articulate. No, THIS was how going insane must have felt like.

[Jacob King]

Completely unable to relate, Hunter just rushed off again.
"Daaad! Sam's a wizard!!!" he called before even reaching the top of the stairs. As the boy went for his backbag in the foyer where the unsafe wizarding products were, Jacob followed him upstairs.
"He saw the Daily Prophet!" Hunter explained before his father could even ask what makes him so sure about it. Even with this information Jacob wasn't convinced yet. He didn't know Sam's father closely but he thought that in four years he would've noticed if the man was a wizard or at least that they'd by chance met on Diagon Ally. He supposed it wasn't too implausible that a muggle-born wizard was living in their neighourhood, and certainly hoped it was so rather than the charm on the newspapers having expired.
"Sam? Take a deep breath. I'll help you figure this out," the man said calmly as they entered Hunter's room and he noticed the boy's distress. He didn't want to promise anything more, unsure if he'd have to obliviate, cover up or explain further.

[Samuel Connor Rees]

Sam stood there, blinking a few times as if he hoped he can somehow blink everything back to making sense. With no apparent effect, unfortunately. Before he could gather his thought Hunter's father appeared in the room which made him feel a bit better as he most likely wouldn't go along with one of Hunter's pranks.
Nodding at him Sam took a deep breath, followed quickly by another.
"I would appreciate that, Mr. King. I might be a tad puzzled by all... this" he explained. Suddenly Sam felt a bit stupid for panicking earlier, especially since an adult was present and he will explain everything. He knew Mr. King well enough to know, that he wouldn't lie to him. At this point, he was a bit more like an uncle than just his best friend's dad.

[Jacob King]

Whilst Hunter emptied the rest of his souveniers on his bed, Jacob asked Sam to sit down, gesturing to the bed.
"Can you think of anything else very strange happening around you in the past? Earlier this year or last year maybe?" the man asked, sure of that things had happened due to accidental magic--if indeed Hunter was right--but being so young the boy might not remember much, especially far back. But he wanted to establish just how new or scary this might feel to the little boy whom he observed to be signiicantly distressed rather than excited about a seemingly magical thing like a lot of children of his age might have been.

[Samuel Connor Rees]

San followed the instructions, sitting down on the bed. He thought for a moment before just shaking his head.
"I can't really recall anything strange sir," he said but there were some memories that has stuck in his head.
"I mean... when I was younger I remember things falling on their own in the kitchen when I was angry. Dad thought I knocked them down in anger, but I didn't touch anything, but that is about it... weird things happen from time to time, right?" it was strangely easy to just think of weird stuff happening as just some randomness.
"Do random locks locking themselves by themselves count?" he asked. That happened only once and he just thought he closed the door too strongly and it... happened. And it was a bit too convenient at the moment.