A Day Of Parting

Three people riding on broomsticks, flew across the moonlit sky with determined looks on their faces.

miles away from them, several colorful lights illuminated the heavens, as a battle between wizards and witches of two different factions was being waged.

The three people knew that turning back to help their friends would only endanger the person they were trying to protect, so with heavy hearts they flew to the East, in order to escape their pursuers.

Half an hour later, they saw several lights in the distance, and knew that they were nearing a town.

After exchanging a few words with her mother and father, the young witch flying in the center of the formation descended from the sky, while her parents kept watch of their surroundings.

“The time to part has come, my love,” the witch said as she looked down at the basket in her arms with tears falling down her face.

She held her newborn baby lovingly, and kissed his forehead before landing beside a farmhouse. The young witch then walked up toward the doorway, and gently placed the basket in her hands on the ground before kneeling beside it

“Please forgive me,” the young witch said as she summoned a wand in her hand. “I pray that you will grow up to live a normal, and happy life. Know that no matter where I am, I will always think of you, and love you with all of my heart.”

If possible, she didn’t want to do this, but in order to let her child live, she had no choice but to do the unthinkable.

“Ars Vim Extermina,” the young witch said softly before lightly tapping the tip of her wand on the child’s chest in order to destroy his magic circuits, making it impossible for him to use magic at any point in his life.

A second later, a magical crest appeared where the young witch had tapped her wand, and the baby's body glowed crimson for a brief moment before fading away.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Perhaps the process of having his magic circuits destroyed brought him great pain, so the baby cried his heart out, which almost broke the young witch’s heart.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of footsteps headed towards the door, so she immediately mounted her broom, and flew toward the roof of the farmhouse.

Her baby’s frantic cries of pain only grew louder, as if sensing that one of the people who love him the most, left him behind.

The young witch covered her lips with her left hand, as she too wept bitter tears.

It was at that moment when she heard the door opening, and a shout of surprise that came from a woman reached her ears.

“It’s okay, little one,” the middle-aged woman said softly as she picked up the basket of the crying baby in her arms. “Please don’t cry.”

The middle-aged woman lightly rocked the basket, as she searched her surroundings, hoping to see the person who left such a small, and frail, baby on her doorstep in the middle of the night.

“A baby?” a middle-aged man asked as he walked beside his wife to look at the child that was crying sadly in her arms. “Who could be so heartless as to leave a child like this?!”

“Dear, please don’t shout. You will only make the child cry louder.”

“Hah… fine. Let’s go inside first. It’s too cold here, the baby might catch a cold.”

As the couple entered the house, the young witch raised her wand to erase any traces of magic in the surroundings before mounting her broom once more to join her parents in the sky.

She had to leave the town as soon as possible to prevent their pursuers from discovering her tracks. The farther she was away from her child, the safer he would be.

Soon, the young witch’s parents flew by her side, as the three of them headed Northwards.

All three of them had sad expressions on their faces because they had left one of their family members behind.

Even though it wasn’t an easy decision to make, they still did it in order to give the child a future…

A future of living a normal life as an ordinary human.

—------

Several years later…

“Come back here, you little rascal!”

Leaves fluttered in the air as a teenage boy with dark-blue hair ran through the fields like a wild horse that had been freed from the stables.

His blue eyes were filled with mirth at the prospect of foiling his grandma’s plans to send him to Saint Claire Academy.

For Ethan, going to the academy was boring, so he decided to resist his grandma’s plan to… tie him up, and send him there in a cardboard box!

“Ethan! Come back here you dunderhead!” an old, yet powerful, voice called out from behind the boy who was running for his life. “Don’t let me get my hands on you, or you will regret it!”

Ethan chuckled internally because there was no way that his grandma would be able to catch up to him. How could an old hag, who did nothing but teach him Math all day, capture a fit, healthy, teenage boy like him?

Out of curiosity, the smug-faced teenager turned his head to look behind him to check if his grandma was still in hot pursuit.

Although he disliked the prospect of going to Saint Claire Academy, he was worried that his grandma would trip and fall on the ground while running after him.

As he turned his head, the first thing he saw was a flying sandal that was only a few inches away from his head!

A cry of pain reverberated in the surroundings as the sandal hit its designated target in the forehead, making the teenage boy lose his balance and fall on the ground.

“You silly boy, you dare to run away from me?” Ethan’s grandma, Agnes, walked up to the teenager with bloodshot eyes. “You have two choices. The first one is to go to the Academy obediently. The second is to go there butt naked with your hands and feet tied. There is no third choice, so you’d better choose wisely.”

The teenage boy propped himself up on the ground and massaged his forehead, where a red bump had started to form.

“Grandma, how many times must I tell you that I don’t want to go to school?” Ethan asked back with a face filled with injustice. “Besides, Timmy said that Saint Claire Academy looks down on commoners like us. How can someone as handsome, charismatic, and awesome as me, study in a place like that? Wouldn’t that be a waste of my good looks?”

Agnes’ eyes twitched as she looked at her grandson. Although she agreed that her grandson was handsome, charismatic, and awesome, she still wanted him to study in the prestigious Academy in order to find a suitable wife.

She was getting older, but Agnes still wanted to hug her great grandchild. For that to happen, she needed to bring Ethan to the Academy in the hopes that he would be able to nab a heiress, and live a happy and comfortable life.

The richer, the better!

Was that too much to ask?

“Ethan, we’ve had this discussion many times already,” Agnes answered. “Every year you refuse to go to school. It has already been two years since then. Do you really want to grow up as a good for nothing, and play with your silly games all day?”

“Yes!” Ethan replied in a heartbeat.

“You little piece of sh*t!” Agnes roared in anger.

Agnes was usually a very calm old lady, but when it came to her grandson, her temper was always short. Out of anger, she reached under her skirt and pulled out a spiked club that was over two meters long.

Ethan shuddered when he saw his grandma pull out a two-meter long spiked club out of that place.

His first reaction was to say “Eww!”, but he knew that now was not the time to do that. The spiked club posed a real threat to him, and if that hit his face, what would happen to his good looks?

Although he found his grandma’s actions unladylike, the threat of getting hit by something that long, hard, and spiky, made his liver itch.

“Grandma, I realized just now that as a respectable young man, who had just turned seventeen a month ago, I should properly study at a learning institution,” Ethan said in a righteous voice, as if he was a fearless warrior that was about to fight an army that numbered in the thousands.

“It is my duty as a citizen of the realm to study and ensure that our country will prosper for many years to come.”

Agnes who was about to swat her grandson silly with the spiked club was flabbergasted by his eloquent speech. For a brief moment, she thought that using the spiked club to discipline him was overkill.

However, that thought only lasted for a brief moment. She knew how pretentious Ethan was, so she took the matter in her own hands and kicked his bum repeatedly!

The sound of a pig being slaughtered reverberated inside the Gremory residence as Ethan wailed and begged his Grandma to stop kicking him.

The screaming only stopped several minutes later, and the residence once again returned to its peaceful state.

—----