"It's magic! MAGIC!" Richard exclaimed. Then, seeing the mocking smile on Gerald's face, he realized that trying to prove anything was pointless. Waving his hand dismissively, he said wearily, "And who am I even trying to convince?! Fine… Dad, do you remember how the house shook last winter?"
"Of course, Richie."
"That wasn't an underground explosion. I had a magical outburst back then."
"Nice try."
A broad grin still lingered on Mr. Grosvenor's face, and his reply carried a consoling note.
Richard gave up on trying to convince his father. He slowly rose from the armchair and trudged tiredly toward the exit. At the door, the boy turned back and said,
"Dad, when you talk to Uncle Charlie, don't say I didn't warn you."
At that moment, the door suddenly flew open. Richard barely managed to jump aside, missing the dangerous wooden "projectile" by just a couple of inches.
The breathless valet John burst into the study. Behind him, Steven—the driver and bodyguard—loomed in the corridor. John swept the room with a stunned gaze and took in the small-scale devastation. Pens, pencils, and cigars were scattered across the floor. The desk drawers were pulled out.
"Sir, forgive the intrusion," he began, "but what happened here? We heard a terrible crash."
"Ho-ho, John!" Mr. Grosvenor waved his right hand carelessly. "Richie was just demonstrating an unsuccessful trick. The equipment couldn't handle the strain."
The father winked at his son, who rolled his eyes toward the ceiling in exhaustion. Then Mr. Grosvenor added,
"Richie, next time use stronger wires. Or better yet, conduct your experiments on different furniture. That table, after all, is an eighteenth-century antique."
Richard desperately wanted to swear like an adult, but what was permitted to an ordinary person was not allowed to an aristocrat. A few times curse words had already slipped from his lips in the past, for which he had been whipped—not painfully, but quite humiliatingly.
"All right, I'm leaving," Richard forced out, and then exited the study.
***
The royal charity reception took place the following Sunday. Richard went there with his father, just as he had last time.
This time, the elder and younger Grosvenors arrived an hour early. There were very few people in the palace's luxurious ballroom.
The elder Grosvenor began looking for his friend, while his son did not stray a single step from him. When Prince Charles was finally spotted, Gerald approached him and said warmly,
"Charlie, hello!"
"Oh, G!" the elderly prince greeted his friend with a broad smile. "Good to see you. Hello, Richie."
"Good afternoon, Uncle Charlie."
"How was the trip?" the prince asked.
"Thanks, Charlie, the road was surprisingly clear today. We even arrived much faster than usual," Gerald replied. "Want to hear a joke?"
"A new joke?" Prince Charles brightened. "You know I love that sort of thing."
"Recently, Richie picked up a new hobby—magic tricks. And last Sunday he announced that he's a wizard," the elder Grosvenor recounted with a mocking tone. "But that's not all. As proof, he prepared a trick—using some kind of stunt, he lifted my desk into the air, though he then dropped it from a great height. If the table hadn't been so sturdy, it would have fallen apart for sure."
"How interesting," the prince said, not laughing at all as he studied his godson closely. "Richie, will you show us this trick?"
"It's not a trick, Uncle Charlie. I was very angry at the time that my father didn't believe me, and I used a directed magical outburst. At least you tell him that I really am a wizard."
"There you go," Gerald chuckled kindly. "That's exactly what he told me. And Charlie, just imagine—Richie practically came up with a whole fantasy-story plot. Supposedly, wizards live near us in hidden reservations, they have a school of magic and their own secret ministry. And when he turns eleven, he'll be taken to a school of magic and wizardry."
Instead of the expected laughter, a question came from Prince Charles, who looked utterly serious:
"Richie, where did you learn all this?"
"I just… knew it, Uncle Charlie," Richard shrugged. Unsure how to present the information, he decided to play the fool. "The knowledge just appeared in my head, and I clearly understood that I was seeing a possible version of how the future might unfold."
"And how often can you predict the future, Richie?" Prince Charles asked with interest.
"That only happened once, a little over a year ago, after a strong magical outburst. Back then, I didn't yet understand that I was a wizard. And when I realized I had supernatural abilities, I couldn't believe it for a long time. At first, I thought I was a mutant, like in the X-Men comics—but then I suddenly and clearly realized that I was a wizard."
"All right, Charlie, don't play along with the child!" Gerald said.
"Actually, G, your son is right," Prince Charles replied. "I was only surprised that he knows about the magical world without having even met a Hogwarts professor yet."
"Hogwarts?" Gerald raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"That's the name of the school of magic and wizardry for Britain, Scotland, and Ireland," the prince explained.
"Oh, Charlie," the elder Grosvenor rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, looking like a man tired of a joke. "Please! This isn't funny anymore."
"Gerald, have you seen me joke?" the prince asked, maintaining a serious expression. "It's the truth. Since the time of the Inquisition, wizards have hidden themselves from ordinary people. They have their own educational institutions. If a child is found to have magical talent, they are required to study at a school of magic and wizardry in order to learn to control their gift. Only a small number of people know about the existence of wizards: myself, the Queen, the Prime Minister, the heads of the intelligence services, and certain special agents. As well as the parents and close relatives of mages born into ordinary families—or, conversely, ordinary people born to wizards."
(End of Chapter)
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