Chapter Text
Elliot Chase figured he was pretty normal. At least, as normal as a teenager like him could ever get. He knew he stuck out in a crowd, being an abnormally tall redhead in a sea of average-height blondes and brunettes. Growing up, he never had a place to fit in, and he felt casted out from the people around him.
Then he started to do things, things that he didn’t do intentionally or even know he was doing. Of course, he knew why he was doing these things. He had grown up with his mother talking all about how she went to a school to learn magic, and that he’ll one day go to a school like that, too.
He hadn’t once questioned it, because it’s all he’s known. His father, however, never had liked the fact that she could do magic. His mother never told him what happened when she told him, just that he was extremely shocked.
In the end, he stayed with her under the condition that she not use magic. His mother loved his father too much to leave him so she agreed. When he was younger, he thought that this was where his parents' love story ended. A happy ending with the family together.
Of course, the story never ends. You just reach the last page. You don’t get to see what happens after the cover of the book is shut, instead telling yourself everything was perfect. But for Elliot, it wasn’t. Now, here he sits, at the top of the stairs, listening to the sound of his mother and father yelling at each other over the same thing they always do.
Magic.
“The boy’s out of control, Eliane!” Elliot heard a bang, as though his father slammed a pan onto the counter. “He’s learning, Thomas! He’s learning to control it! That’s why these schools exist, so they can learn to control their magic, and keep things like this from happening!”
The sound of broken glass filling the trash can was suffocated as they argued over the other. “It was just one vase! He got scared, Tom. It’s normal.” His father scoffed. “Normal? The kid’s nowhere near normal, Elaine.”
“Where I come from, he is! Kids who grow up with magic in their blood end up doing things like breaking vases from across the house. It’s a sign that they’ll eventually go to one of those schools. We’ve talked about this, Tommy.” There was a short silence as she kissed his cheek, and rested a hand on his face.
“I know we have. We’ve been together for twelve years and you’ve prepared me for this many times since but actually seeing it happen? It feels like a fever dream, Ellie. And not the good kind.” The argument had calmed, and Elliot could hear footsteps coming towards him so he rushed back to his room, making sure the door didn’t make a sound when he shut it.
His mother still came into his room and sat on the bed with him, as if she knew he heard them anyway. They sat in silence for a long time before he spoke. “Why am I different?” Elaine wrapped an arm around his shoulder, pulling him closer. “I promise you baby, being different isn’t as bad as people make it out to be.”
“Everyone says that. It doesn’t help.” She sighed, kissing the top of his head. “I know, Eli. And you won’t be that different for long. You’ll get your letter soon, and you’ll go to a school with other children a lot like you.”
Elliot fell asleep that night, in his mothers arms. Surely enough, he woke in the morning to a letter on his nightstand.
“You have been accepted into Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”