Chapter Text
Stiles has always believed in magic. Ever since he was a little boy, he had believed in the ability of people to do the impossible. His mother only encouraged it, helping him to make potions in the back yard, to word spells to fight the monsters under the bed, encouraging his thirst for knowledge about the occult and helping him whenever she could.
But when he was 9, she was diagnosed.
Potions turned into chemicals, seeming only to speed up the process.
Spells turned into prayers as Stiles watched his mother wither and fade away in front of his eyes.
And when no amount of magic could prevent Stiles from losing the most important person in his world, he turned his back on it all.
But then Scott was bitten, and everything changed.
On the very night that Scott was bitten, Stiles knew something was off. His mother’s old stories nagged at him, trying to tell him something oh so important. As he had done in the past, Stiles took a couple more Adderall and hoped for the best. But when the bite’s effects began to show, Stiles knew that there was more to this than just some animal attack. He delved back into the books he had stored away so long ago (because out of sight meant out of mind), but his mother’s tomes held very little regarding what Stiles suspected. So Stiles did what he does best. He pulled out his laptop and began trolling the internet, searching for anything useful.
One sleepless weekend, and Stiles knew all he needed to.
Werewolf.
It took a while to convince Scott of the truth. That magic was real, that werewolves were real, and hey, you are one! As Scott slowly began to accept his fate, Stiles started to realise his own. His mother hadn’t been merely playing along with a childhood fantasy. His mother had been trying to teach something very important to him. To guide him along the right path. So it was with a still grief laden heart that Stiles returned back to the attic, where his mother’s things lay, to find the truth.
He spent the following night going through as much as he could. His mother’s old books were useful, but contained very little beyond childish fairy tales. The internet held a lot of bullshit, full of sparkly vampire nonsense and obsessions with teen heartthrobs turned supernatural beings. Soon Stiles began to realise that there was very little available to him about magic online. Barely anything, except for the address to an old bookshop of the occult, about 2 hours north of Beacon Hills.
So the next day after school, Stiles, instead of going to Scott’s as his dad believed, drove. And drove, and drove. He got lost a couple of times, but thanks to google maps (and mobile data), he managed to find his way, eventually. Stiles parked his car out front, eyeing up the place. It didn’t look much what he expected. Instead of a ramshackle old building, he was greeted by bright colours – splashes of yellow and orange painted on the recently done-up walls. The shop window was decorated with swaths of sheer cloth with diamantes illuminated by spiralling candles. Large sparkly crystals lined the window frame while large, gaudy necklaces hung from stands, with signs declaring the promises that this piece of jewellery will protect you from x, y, and z. Stiles was sceptical that this place had what he needed. He wanted the classics, dammit, but he wasn’t ready to declare this trip a complete failure until he went inside and proved that they didn’t have anything. He climbed out of his car and opened the front door, only to get quite a shock. Sure, the storefront projected on image. But inside…
Well.
The inside was something completely different. The front of the shop was definitely full of the commercialized, trinkety “magic” he had been anticipating, with prices so high that it must have only been to appeal to the tourists and naïve. But in the back of the shop lay a sight that was very promising. Bookshelves, lined with old tomes. Fonts older than he was. He was even sure he spotted a cauldron or two next to a set of shelves full of what he was call potions ingredients. It was as though Stiles had stepped into his very own Harry Potter fantasy, and he couldn’t refrain from pinching his own arm to prove he wasn’t, in fact, passed out at Lacrosse practise (yet again).
“Hello!”
Stiles looked around for the source of the noise, letting out a tentative “Hi.”
“How can I help you today, son?”
“Be visable?” Stiles muttered sarcastically under his breath, still scanning around for the owner of the voice.
“Oh, sorry! Silly me! Let me just – “
And before Stiles could flinch, a short man appeared from behind the counter, stood atop what Stiles was sure was a step-ladder so that he could see above the wooden desk.
“Welcome! My name is Andrew, how can I help?”
Stiles was still a little surprised by the man’s sudden appearance, and so hesitated before responding.
“Stiles. Looking for books on magic?”
“Of course. Potion making, spell casting, history of, magical items and their properties, magical foods, potions and their effects, magical sex, magica-“
“History” Stiles quickly answered, cheeks flushing red at the words ‘Magical sex’.
“Ah! Follow me.”
The man climbed down off his little ladder and sped walked his way through the maze that was the back of the shop. He muttered to himself as he walked, small affirmations of his directions, snorts of anger when he took a wrong turn. They stopped suddenly in one of the far corners of the shop, where the lighting was poor and the books looked older than his grandfather.
“Here we go, history of magic.” Andrew indicated to all around him.
“Got the one by Bathilda Bagshot?” Stiles joked, but Andrew didn’t seem to get it, as he began to mutter under his breath as he thought.
“I was kidding!” Stiles laughed awkwardly. “Um, which one do you think is best?”
Andrew turned around and reached one right beside him.
“Thy Longe And Tragyk Hystorie of Magyk, by Artemis Langerhorn.” Stiles read from the cover. “Sounds like a laugh a minute. Got anything a bit more recent?”
Andrew reached to his other side, where he withdrew a book that not only looked like it had been printed in the last century, but the cover revealed a new clue into the mystery that was Stiles’ childhood.
“Magic and Mother Nature: The Development of Magic in the Modern World, by Sofia Stilinski?”