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“Honestly, Mister Dumbledore sir, we just don’t know what to do with the boy.”
Albus didn’t reply to the matron. He was busy studying the mystery before him.
The room felt rather barren, especially compared to the dorms of his beloved school. Tiny beds, a closet, and shared dresser. Assorted toys and books. A single dressing mirror, and a single boy in front of it intently looking at his reflection. Young Tom Walker.
“Poor child,” she continued. “All that nasty business between his Mum and Dad and that Frank Hobbs. Nora’d been seeing Frank; she’d been told her dear husband was killed in the War, you know. Except Captain Walker wasn’t!”
She leaned in, delighted to share gossip. “Nobody knows what happened, but the captain returned one night, and the next morning the neighbours found the three of them cold on the floor. The son now an orphan.”
The boy didn’t show any signs of noticing that the adults, or that one was talking about him. No signs of anything going on around him whatsoever, near as Albus could tell.
“They say that Tom must have seen the whole thing, they do,” the matron insists. “But he won’t say anything, not a word no matter what. Acts like he can’t see or hear anything, either. Nasty business, it surely was,” she tuts. “Nasty business.” Finally, she realised her guest wasn’t going to be talkative and left, tutting her way down the corridor.
The professor was perturbed. The boy held exceptional magic within, Albus was sure of that. Yet nothing he did could reach the barest glimmer of consciousness. He cast memory charms, sent forth Legilimency probes, each without success. The barriers were simply too strong; trying anything more powerful might irreparably damage the child.
Frustrated, Albus even tried shouting, then snapping his fingers and waving his hands in front of the lad’s face. Nothing. He simply kept staring in the mirror, showing not the slightest reaction.
He sighed heavily and made a note to return. With a healer. This was beyond his skills.
He’d left the building just as a delivery truck pulled up. Workers started offloading crates of amusements, all from the bombed ruins of a nearby funfair. One tilted over to the ground, and a metal ball clanged loudly against a bell.
Upstairs, Tom’s image in the mirror jerked at the sound. Then smiled.
Tom might never use a wand. But soon, he sure played a mean pinball. And that was all the magic he needed.