Chapter Text
Tommy Shelby hadn't always believed in magic.
And why should he had? He'd grown up surrounded by promises of a huge black enchanted castle that was actually a wizarding school, magical wands that could do almost anything you wanted, and flying eagled-like horses allegedly called "hippogriffs"; and it all had sounded completely fascinating, of course.
But he'd never really seen anything, now, had he?
His father, for instance, who was supposedly a wizard who had studied magic and possessed some kind of magical abilities, had never shown him any magic tricks. Despite all of his children's pleadings, Arthur Snr always refused, stating that he had renounced to doing magic a long time ago. Tommy wasn't at all content with that explanation, and wasn't sure he believed his father; after all, if magic was real, then Tommy couldn't figure out how someone would just give it up. Even less his father.
His siblings, on the other hand, were absolutely convinced that magic existed, and that someday they'd be able to do all kinds of seemingly impossible things. Things like flying, or turning vegetables into chocolate, or making oneself invisible. Tommy wasn't gonna lie; he would love to be able to fly , high in the sky, with the wind rustling through his hair and clothes, and the whole world below! He imagined it might feel a bit like riding; freedom, speed, power at the tip of your fingers, and your heartbeat racing inside your chest.
No, make no mistake, Tommy would love for it all to be real; but he just didn't understand how was it was supposed to work. Things like flying, or one thing turning into another just out of nowhere, they made no sense. And no matter how many times or how many people Tommy asked, no one would bloody show him how! At first Tommy had been innocently asking, just curious as always, but when adults started giving him too vague answers, he started to grow suspicious; were they hiding something from him? Why wouldn't they tell him much about the magical world? Was it because they thought he was too young to understand, or was it something else entirely?
Tommy didn’t know, so he had kept asking. Surely there had to be someone he knew who understood the way of the wizarding world, after having spent years studying on a magical school.
He tried with his father first, of course, but he didn’t get any kind of valuable information. Arthur Snr snapped at him after Tommy's third question and just walked away. Tommy had tried asking him again on a few more occasions, but he had gotten nothing in response, apart from annoyed grunts and some slurred insults. In the end, Tommy just sighed and added his father to his long list of things that didn't make sense.
Fine, then. Tommy could get his answers elsewhere.
The next summer, he decided to try the people at the Romani camp instead; the communities themselves were steeped in old Romani magic (that Tommy, sarcastically and with a bit of bitterness, called “gypsy witchcraft”), but also had many wizards and witches who had studied wizarding magic as well.
Tommy knew that within Romani communities this kind of magic was allegedly a very common trait; still, wizarding magic itself was not very welcomed, as even the less strict Romani families insisted that different kinds of magic should not be mixed under any circumstances. This meant that magic wasn't allowed within the camps, and that the young witches and wizards who went to Hogwarts to learn how to control their magic, and then came back for the summers, were strictly prohibited of doing any kind of magic there. All the other adults at the camps, apparently, had decided to renounce to their magic by the time they were out of Hogwarts, so that they could stay in the Romani camps with their families. The other option for the ones out of Hogwarts was to keep their magic and never set foot on the Romani camps again, but it seemed no one ever went for that one, which Tommy found completely absurd. After all, assuming wizarding magic was real in the first place, it would be loads cooler than the old rituals and superstitions from the Romani communities.
But then again, people also had their families in the camps to take into account at the moment of deciding whether or not renounce to their magic, and Tommy supposed that family counted for something.
So when they went to visit the Lees for the summer, Tommy knew not to expect any displays of magic. Still, he knew most of the adults there had gone to Hogwarts, so Tommy had figured they would just know things, and would be more willing to explain than his father had been.
No such luck. At first they did have good predisposition, but Tommy quickly realised that these people either knew nothing, or didn’t want to feed too much into a lie.
Tommy kept asking, though, and over the course of that summer some of his distant relatives tried explaining the basic functioning of the magical world, but had quickly given up at Tommy's persisting and infinite inquiries. Once, for example, he'd learnt that the way to make yourself invisible was, supposedly, by covering yourself with an invisible cloak; no one had ever seen one, though. And when Tommy had asked exactly how could a cloak make you turn invisible, people would say it just did, or answer something along the lines of:
“Its enchanted,” Tommy would frown.
“But how enchanted?”
They would shrug, “Just enchanted.”
Tommy could tell that adults weren't very invested in trying to convince an eight year old that magic was real if the boy in question was "hell-bent on not believing", as they'd say. Now, Tommy knew he was stubborn, but he wasn't being stubborn about this, no; he was just being curious, and he just wanted a reason, a good one, to ease his suspicions of everything being just a big feeble lie. Proof, or a thorough explanation, maybe.
But adults didn't care that much anyway, and so Tommy was left dissatisfied and frustrated. They also had kept reminding him that, either way, magic as a whole wasn't allowed in the Romani camps, and that they had renounced to their own magic long ago. None of those reminders were particularly useful though, as Tommy did already know that, thank you very much. He'd just been about to give up when Edmund Lee, an old mate of his father’s, had chipped in on the conversation loudly:
“But why are you looking at us for answers, boy? We don’t do magic anymore.” he had laughed sharply, looking amused at Tommy. “Just ask your old man. He’s still got his.”
Tommy had blinked slowly and thanked the man, and then walked away quietly, as this new revelation sank in; so his father had lied. Tommy wasn’t particularly surprised by that, but the question was why. Why would his father lie, why would he choose to live without magic even if he still had it, and why had he never said anything.
Tommy felt rather proud of his instincts, as he himself had always wondered why the hell had his father renounced to his magic. All that time, he knew there had been something off about it; he just hadn’t know what.
When he was younger, Arthur Snr had lived part of his life in the camps and the other in Small Heath, where Tommy's own grandad had started the betting business. Since Tommy's mum had ran away from her family and come live in Small Heath with him, they hadn't gone back to the Strong clan, though they continued visiting some of the other Romani families, like the Boswells or the Lees.
Tommy just didn't get it; his father had had the perfect opportunity to keep his magic, as after studying in Hogwarts he could just have stayed in Small Heath and make use of his magic as he pleased. And he'd given that up for, what, summers on the road with the Lees? The chance to see Aunt Polly and his stepmother in the Boswell clan every once in a while? No, his father wasn't like that. He would have never given up something like magic so easily, and of that, Tommy was sure.
But as much as Tommy wanted to find out what on earth was going on, he knew he couldn’t just confront Arthur Snr with the truth, nor ask him about it. Tommy was certain his father would not answer, but he though he might get really angry about it. Plus, Edmund Lee could have just been talking shit, as he often tended to do, and telling his father about it would maybe only work to get Tommy into trouble.
He wasn’t sure what would happen, that was the truth. And Tommy didn’t want to risk it, so he filed this piece of information neatly and saved it for the future, deciding not to act on it. Yet.
• • •
In his house once again, Tommy decided to try on his last option for information on magic: his mother. She wasn't a witch, but Tommy’s mum had lived her life, before running away with Arthur Snr, in the Romani camps, surrounded by people who were magical.
So Tommy asked her about it, and she had some fun anecdotes to tell about old friends of hers, but unfortunately his mum lacked the detail and the knowledge that Tommy was looking for.
She did tell him again a bit about the "gypsy witchcraft", though, which Tommy didn’t mind, as he liked those stories a lot; Tommy knew his mother had some kind of weird Romani abilities, like predicting the future, or maybe talking to ghosts, or reading your tea leaves — well, at least that was what Tommy had imagined, when his mum told him that if she hadn't run away from her ancestral Romani family to get married with Arthur Snr, she would have ended up being one of those creepy old ladies from the gypsy camps.
His mother went on telling him about how she had run away from her family. Tommy had always liked to listen to that story, being also the story of how his parents had gotten together; it sounded exciting, a bit romantic, and very dramatic. Apparently, his mum had been born with some rare, incredible Romani powers, that needed to be "carefully nurtured and tamed". This basically meant she wasn't allowed to get married nor have any kids, and that she would just have to grow old and become a wrinkled lady with foggy eyes who performed rituals and told the future. Tommy's mum would explain how she had never wanted that life for her, but that she had never done anything about it until she had met Arthur Snr. They had fallen deeply in love with each other, and then run away together and settled in Small Heath ("why couldn't you just have gone to London, mum?!", Tommy would ask every time, and his mum would laugh, every time, "or just anywhere but Birmingham!"). There, they had married and set on to make a family together and live happily ever after.
If he was being honest, Tommy could never really picture his parents as the couple from that story. Something must have gone wrong somewhere along the way, for the madly in love couple to end up like they had. As far as Tommy could remember, his parents had never seemed to be very head over heels for each other, they’d always been just… distant. Tommy wondered if marriage did that to people, or if it was just his parents.
Still, the story was pretty good and Tommy believed every word of it, weird gypsy powers included.
Now he thought about it, it was a bit strange, that. Tommy was sure gypsy witchcraft existed, and he had never wondered otherwise. But maybe, Tommy told himself, it was because it just wasn't the same as magic tricks or being able to fly, which didn't make any sense, no; ghosts and destiny and predictions somehow felt more plausible, more real.
Maybe it could be because Tommy had grown up surrounded by all those Romani rituals and superstitions, and he'd even witnessed prophecies coming true. So by this point, he didn't really feel the need to doubt, after summers and summers of visiting the Romani camps. It just wasn't hard to believe in something when he had everything at plain sight to see.
But it wasn't the same with magic. The other kind of magic, he meant; Tommy had never ever seen any sign or proof of its existence, and everything he'd been told about it seemed to have loads of loose ends that nobody knew how to explain. It almost felt like magic was hiding away from Tommy, making it impossible for him to catch sight of it.
Tommy guessed that was why he had always questioned wizarding magic; it was hard to believe in it if he never saw anything, if magic always slipped away. Tommy had hoped that if he just asked people to show him magic or prove its existence to him, they would; but this had never happened, and all that Tommy had managed to do was annoy everyone, himself included, with his doubts and suspicion.
Sometimes Tommy wondered if it really was worth putting all that effort into finding out the truth, just to end up more and more disappointed every time. Maybe it wasn't.
There was someone, though, who in contrast to everyone else around him (who didn’t like to deal with Tommy and his questionings of magic), had always been willing to try and convince Tommy that magic was real; and that someone was Arthur, Tommy’s older brother.
Somehow, it looked as if his big brother was a strong believer of magic, even though he had nothing more than silly empty promises of its existence. Still, Arthur seemed very sure of what he was promising, which was odd; confidence had always been a lacking feature on Arthur, so Tommy had been more than a bit surprised when his brother had claimed his belief on magic so strongly.
But then again, Arthur had always liked to please their father, who has supposedly been a wizard, so maybe that was just it. Because Arthur, unlike Tommy — who would annoy his father to no end in search of some founded arguments — , was way more likely to give in to whatever Arthur Snr said, accept it with open arms, and just trail behind him blindly.
As such, he'd also never miss a chance to tell them all again how father had once done a magic trick for him, which sounded as if it was the highlight of Arthur’s life, for the way he told it. He’d tell how their father had supposedly made a spoon with soup float into Arthur's mouth, after he had refused to eat it. John and Ada would stare in awe at Arthur who, beaming with pride, would tell the story over and over again. Tommy, though, was not buying it, and one time he decided to confront Arthur about it, which developed into quite the argument.
“You said I was there! How come you remember and I don't, then, eh?”
“You were too little, Tommy,” Arthur had answered, dismissively. Tommy crossed his arms and stared at his brother intently, brow furrowed.
“I was four! And you were only a year older than me.”
“Oh, I dunno, Tom. Maybe you forgot” Arthur shrugged; Tommy was sick of people shrugging at him.
“No,” Tommy insisted, “The reason I don't remember is because you’re inventing it!”
A few seconds of silence went by, while his siblings seemed to take this in. In the floor by the couch, John was looking very concerned indeed, as deep in thought as a seven-year-old could possibly be, while little Ada seemed on the verge of tears. Arthur, though, flashed them a weirdly cheerful smile each, and continued, earnest:
“I'm telling you, Tom, I’m not lying! I even remember you giggled and clapped your little baby hands together,” Arthur made a grab for Tommy's wrists , sniggering, “ and kept babbling about magical soup spoons for weeks!”
Arthur was now on top of him, laughing, and tickling his brother mercilessly.
“Oi – geroff!”, Tommy gasped between breathless laughs, while John and Ada giggled from the floor and cheered their oldest brother on.
Some nights, Tommy lay awake at night thinking about Arthur's anecdote; his mother had confirmed it, but Tommy had the feeling that they were all just having him on, waiting to see if he'd fall for the prank and believe that magic did exist, only to then point at him and laugh. Besides, Tommy was sure he would remember something, if that had really happened; maybe not remember, but just know it. Surely Tommy hadn't just woken up one day and started questioning if magic was real or not after having witnessed an actual magic trick. No, that just didn't make sense.
Tommy couldn't remember when exactly he had started doubting magic, because it felt like he had always had. He had started asking questions not that long ago, but the doubt had always been there. Now, if he had seen the magic trick, even if he wouldn't be able to remember it, then surely some notion of it would have stuck with him; some acknowledgement that magic was real, some kind of certainty. It would have just been another fact about the world that one doesn't consciously learn, but rather just absorbs, and then it sticks with you forever.
His mother, for instance, had once told him about the time he'd put his hand flat on the oven and burned himself quite gravely. Tommy couldn't remember the incident, but his mum said that since then, Tommy became extremely careful around the oven and never touched it again. To this day, Tommy knew to be careful around hot things, including the oven.
This way, Tommy was pretty sure this concept applied to magic as well; if he would had seen it, he'd have believed it, and would believe it to this day. But he didn't believe it, so therefore he hadn't seen it, so therefore Arthur was lying and his mother was in on the joke, as were all the bloody adults in his life!
His father was another loose end to that way of thinking, though. Arthur Snr definitely wasn't the kind of man to keep up a pretense of a whole fantasy of reality just to feed into his children's imagination; even less when that also fed directly into Tommy's "fucking interrogations". He would have revealed the horrid truth that magic wasn't real by now, if that had actually been the truth, seeing as that would have ceased Tommy's questions.
Honestly, what a bloody mess. That left Tommy thinking that at least some part of it all might be real.
Tommy just didn’t know what else to think, and he refused to keep asking his father. After all, Arthur Snr had always been easily irritated by Tommy's many questions (magically inclined or not), and once those had earned the boy a few slaps around the back of the head, Tommy learnt to keep his mouth shut around his father.
Still, it wasn't as if Arthur Snr had ever talked much about the hypothetical magical world either way; Tommy could tell he had some sort of resentment against it, frustration maybe, or even some kind of hate. When John once asked him why did he hate magic so much, Arthur Snr had grown wary and tense, and Tommy had been sure he'd been about to slap his little brother. However, Arthur Snr took a deep breath and, instead, he reminded his kids, through gritted teeth, that he didn't do magic anymore, and so therefore he had no reason to talk about it.
After that, not even magic-enthusiastic Arthur Jr dared to bring up the topic of magic around their dad again.
He did have a wand, though, their father; he kept it hidden, but Tommy had stolen it a few times and stared at it endlessly, not daring to wave it around too much. It didn't really look like what Tommy imagined as an ordinary magic wand; it was more like a very solid and rather small branch, bits and pieces of wood sticking out and everything. He'd even seen his father use it, once. Or try to, at least; he'd been pointing it at his empty bottle of whiskey, murmuring low under his breath, and doing wonky movements with his wrist. Tommy almost expected to see the bottle fill with whiskey again, or tip to the floor, or shatter in a million pieces of dark glass, or even melt into a puddle of liquid glass! – but none of that happened. The bottle just stood there, solid and unchanging. His father gave up after a few minutes with a frustrated sigh, and went to grab another bottle from the attic.
Looking back on that occurrence, Tommy wondered if maybe, just maybe, his father hadn't given up on magic, but magic had given up on him. Would that even be possible, assuming that magic was possible in the first place?
Tommy didn't know, and he didn't like not knowing. This way, it was just easier to operate on the belief that magic wasn't even possible at all.