The Proud Students (random write)

I suppose I could have made this a Tidbit on Thursday, but I didn’t feel like it really fit the feel of those. This was born from a conversation I heard on Kevin Smith’s Smodcast ep.287. Basically they pitched a fairly grown-up variation on the Harry Potter franchise. I thought it was a fun idea, so I decided to give it a shot. So without further ado. 

The Proud Students

The doorknob felt heavy. Fritz thought for sure his WD-40 application had done the trick. Maybe if he just ignored it, Maggie (pronounced Magi) wouldn’t bring up the wand in the closet.

“I see you never fixed the door.” Maggie said.

Fritz sighed deeply. Just let it go, he thought.

“Babe please. It was a rough day. My boss was on us like hell today.”

“Well maybe if you did better at the academy you wouldn’t be packing boxes with phoenix feathers.”

Sometimes things just can’t be avoided. Professor Whirligig had said that during the commencement speech. At least that’s what Fritz thought he remembered. The shots of dragon’s scotch he and his friends did in the parking lot might be toying with that particular memory.

“You want to do this? Fine, let’s do this. We can’t all be chimera slayers or The Fated One.”

“You know I don’t care about that.”

“You don’t? It wasn’t you throwing yourself on him at that graduation party?”

“That was ten years ago. You’re such a temporal ghast, always living in the past.” Maggie said.

Fritz stared down his wife.

“It’s just hard you know? Everyday i have to read about him and that bitch wife of his.”

“And I’m the one who lives in the past.”

Maggie stared down her husband.

“Look, I’ll just cancel the subscription.”

“That’s not the point.”

She prayed that he wouldn’t ask her what the point actually was. It wasn’t like casting a spell. There were no specifics. Most of the time she felt like she was grasping for possible explanations and words to say, like she did with the pixies in The Clockwork Forest.

“Then what is the point?”

“It’s just hard okay. I can’t stand this place. This house, this street. Whatever happened to that vacation Fritz?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. She knew exactly what happened to their plans.

“It went to your Etsy project. Who the hell was going to buy organic potions? They’re already organic.”

The walls and furniture, most of it second hand, was coated in quietness. It wasn’t the hush that Fritz had originally hoped for though. It was only the absence of words, where words were desired not an independent entity of silence. All first year students had learned the difference. He could rectify it with a simple incantation, make his wife speak on end if he really wanted to. He would just need to dig the wand from the closet.

“Look babe, I’m sorry. I know you tried and we’re going to go on that trip.”

“How?”

Fritz wondered if he’d be questioned like he was if he had been the one who had led The Grand Uprising. He didn’t rat them out when he could’ve, that should’ve been enough. He had hid in his dorm when the Doom Chanter Siege begun. He could’ve joined them when it looked like they were going to win. That’s what Griffin Rooleykin did. Last Fritz knew he was working R&D for some carpet company, both flying and regular. He probably wasn’t questioned.

“When the lawsuit comes through..”

Maggie sank into the couch.

“You’ve been betting on that for years. It ain’t happening.”

“Yes it will. The shit that school put us all through, they owe me. Why don’t you think I go to the reunions?”

“Because you’re ashamed?’

“No, it hurts too much to go back. I promise though, as soon as we can, it’ll just be me and you and Shangri-la.”

Maggie doubts didn’t go away, she figured they never would. They’d be her own personal Eternity Pebble.”

“I know hun, it’ll be great.”

Like the Gargoyle of Mizal, sometimes problems just needed to be ignored.