I went early to get breakfast. I hoped to meet Will there, but to my disappointment, he didn’t show up. Not even till the end. Should I bring him something to his common room? Would that be strange? It surely would be. We barely had our first date. Yes, breakfast delivery to your bed is something for after the third, maybe the fourth date. On the other hand, if he was really ill, then it would be totally normal to do it after the first. Damned, why is there no guide for something like that? Can someone please give me a bit of common sense? My whole family lacks that, so we take the family package.

I looked over to Severin's tables and saw how a few students were cheering at the table… Okey, that couldn’t be true. I went over and saw how Uncle had betrayed me. He had completed the shrinking potion, and a one-inch version of him was fighting against animated chess figures.

Besides the feeling that we should take the family package, common sense two times, the betrayal hit me hard. I had poked Uncle the whole week, and he always sent me off, and now he was fighting alone instead of together with me.

I silently waited for him to finish while his students cheered him on. I know he noticed me. His movements became more stiff and less flashy than they could be. I know he held back because I developed a few of the flashier moves together with him. Naturally, these moves were just for pure aesthetics, but they were still our moves, and I know he felt bad for using them while having me excluded from the event without asking beforehand.

"Uncle, we need to talk.” I said calmly. If he had done that the day before, I would have probably already started to curse him before running away, but Will had shown me that stubbornness and the endurance to finish a whole conversation could pay off.

“Charlotte, I’m sorry. But your mother had…” Okey, I know where this was going and I already hated it.

“I don’t care; you were the chosen one. You were the amazing Uncle. The person I could go to when I had something I couldn’t talk about with mother. I have trusted you, and then without a word, you do this.” The broken chess pieces were just symbolic of what he had destroyed with his actions.

“What should I have done? Your mother and I have different opinions, and she said you should have absolutely nothing to do with it, but I cannot spend time with you and not talk openly. We have never done that, and I knew I couldn’t.”

Okey, I can say that I can understand him a little, but that doesn’t mean that we can just return to how it was, especially if the situation hadn’t changed. I mean, he was barely as big as a finger of mine, but I was under no illusion that it would change anything between us. Not that I ever considered fighting against him, but when I saw him battling the chess pieces, I had the urge to poke him a little with my nails.

“Why do you all think I can’t decide what’s best for me? I’m an adult, you know.” Just a week ago, I would have never called me an adult. But if adults behaved like they did, I could do it too.

“Just legally, we both know that you are a child by choice.”

“But that’s just for the unimportant matters. If there is a war…”

“Not If. When there is a war… The war is inevitable; the question is just which site starts it.”

“What, Why? Can’t we negotiate with them? If they don’t want the children, they just need to send them over. No need to kill anyone.”

Uncle smiled at me. I know that smile. He shows it when I say something naïve or stupid.

“At this point, it’s not about the children anymore. You fail to grasp the whole situation and, more importantly, the motives of each side.”

“Then explain it to me. Why is that so difficult? You did it multiple times in the past.”

“It's not so easy. When I said you don’t know the motives of each side, I was generous. You probably don’t even know how many sides there are. We have the church. They hate all wizards and want to eliminate magic because it’s a domain only their god should be able to possess. Then there are the church wizards. They get used by the church to achieve their goal, while the wizards try to get into positions that the church can’t simply remove them afterwards. They achieve that by winning battles. If my idea about them is right, if they won, they would reconstruct the magic system and make it something like a divine energy system. My spies told me they are even discussing building a giant church and using it as a school. They would basically copy our system but attribute anything to their god. Then there are the religion-free wizards. There are people like me who think that we have two options. One is to eradicate the church wizards and then only accept children from wizarding households to prevent any repeat of what is happening at the moment. The other option is to wage a total, all-out war. While the initial casualties might be immeasurably high, after that, we could extinguish any faith with almost no effort, and all magical children would receive the support they needed. Then there is a faction around Gregor. While he doesn’t want to start the war, he wants to win it. He would try to save as many children as possible and strike back in full force as soon as the war begins. He thinks we would have more support from the common wizards that way, but I think behind all his supposed bravery is a coward unwilling to do what needs to be done.”

I couldn’t help but smirk at Severin’s comment about Gregor. Everyone idealized him as the mightiest wizard alive, so hearing that Severin called him a coward was quite satisfying.

“Then there is your mother. She believes in a prophecy that a wizard who graduates within the next ten years will stop the situation. She has a few supporters because of her reputation as a seer, but it's not much compared to Gregors or my support. And lastly, there are a few oddballs like Seraphina. She has suggested two outrageous theories that might actually work but, in short term, would do nothing. She wants either all wizards to convert to the religion, support the Church wizard faction, and end the war before it even starts, or we could give the Nowitzs a few revolutionary technical improvements and introduce the belief that there is no higher power and that everything can be explained by science, and even if not, that is just because we lack the right tools for the moment. Then there are the parties that just want to profit from the situation. Trading groups on both sides try to fuel the war. But instead of finishing it fast, they want it to last for a long time. Then I heard about a wizard…”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Stop it, Uncle. I don’t need to know about every single wizard in Great Britain.” What relevance has it if there are three wizards that live in a shak that want to feed the top church people hallucinogens and then “descend” as their gods to stop the war?

“And that’s why I say you are a child. You need to understand people’s goals and motivations if you want to rope them in.” blababla blabla. At this point, he just wants to convince me that he hasn’t wasted his time collecting all this information.

“So, what can I do? How can I help?” That’s the only relevant question for me. A war sounds terrible, and I don’t want it to happen, but if there is a war, I want to make sure we win it.

“That depends on the side you want to pick. But if I should make a recommendation that would bring you the least amount of trouble, I would say you can help with your mother's plan.” What's mother’s plan? I thought it was a Prophecy with a capital P. That thing should work without me doing it.

“Helga would be disappointed to see your expression right now. A Prophecy that gets ignored by everyone is really unlikely to happen. And as much as it steals my time at the moment, even I wouldn’t ignore one of your mothers’ prophecies, so I have taken in three personal students. Just like Seraphina and Gregor. Ironically, only your mother hasn't, but she is spending all her energy to focus on all students. She is probably working herself to death right now.” Why did I hear about this for the first time? Oh right, Uncle didn’t talk to me for the whole week, and Mother was obviously too busy.

“So you want me to take in a student too?” Did I just get a promotion? From student to teacher? Just wait, Will; you will get detention as soon as I see you.

“Not your own, no. But you could assist in a few lessons once in a while. You know, my three are quite the slacks in potions, so you could help me by teaching them the basics. Or you could help Gregor. He had just introduced his new course, Defense Against Martial Weapons. I’m sure you could help there.” Defense Against Martial Weapons? That sounded so cool, and I wanted to go immediately. Sadly, my lecherous, perverted, cheater uncle was giving these lessons, so helping there was not an option.

Still, Uncle Severin knows that I would never help my least favorite family member, so he was basically saying I should do his work. But on the other hand, teaching potions could be fun. And it would help Uncle and Mother.

“So when can I hold my first potion class?” Now that I said that, I was really eager to teach. I could meet a few people who were unable to run away from me. I can make them work. They have to laugh about my jokes. Wait. Is that even a thing? Uncle never told jokes in his lessons. Only HE does that. So no jokes in class.

“Wednesday, first lesson after breakfast. If it goes well, you can teach them permanently.”

“Fine… But I want a few of these shrinking potions.” They looked so fun.

After getting my well-earned potions, I needed to find something to do. I could prepare my first lesson. It needs to be super awesome and cool. Or I could find Will and talk with him about that boyfriend thingy. It was really difficult not to tell Uncle, but I don’t believe I can remain silent for another few days.

I guess, unless I run into Will, I should probably start with rereading the first year schoolbooks about potions.

A few minutes later, as I hadn’t meet Will on the way, I was in my room, I planning my first lesson. I spent hours working on it. Carefully planning how I would start the lesson and what I would teach them. It was a really marvelous experience. So marvelous that I forgot lunch. Damned, I needed to eat twice as much for dinner now. Don’t want to become a skeleton now that I have a maybe boyfriend.

But the lesson I planned was awesome and absolutely worth it. The brats better be grateful.

So I went to dinner. I had high hopes of seeing Will again. But once again, my hopes were crushed. Was he avoiding me? Did I do something terrible? Was he just playing with me? No, No. I need to stay positive. There is probably a reasonable explanation for it. I mean, I forgot lunch too, so maybe he just forgot breakfast and dinner. Yeah, that’s probably it. Can happen to anyone. Right?

“Charlotte. Come here. I want to introduce your students to you.” My favorite uncle appeared behind me, with three students behind him.

Wait a moment. They aren’t first graders. Nooo, my lesson. It was all for nothing.

"Charlotte, this is Morgana Fay.” She looked around sixteen years old. Black long curly hair, light-tanned skin, black robe, sweet smile, and blue eyes. I would give a lot to look like that. I have two Gold Coins and ten Shillings. Do you want to trade?

[https://imgur.com/apNpGQc.jpg]

“This is Merlin Smith” Wow, that guy's chin looked like a butt. He should definitely grow a beard. A long and big one to cover it. He also looked as if someone had broken his nose once. Is he really a wizard? Why doesn’t he fix that? Well, at least his brown hair looks like it's well maintained. “And this is Augustus Black.” Black, Black, Black? Where have I heard that? Oh yeah, a super-ancient family. A few hundred years old. They came to Britain with the Roman invasion 300 or 400 years ago, or something like that. His face looked like someone had chiseled it out of mamor, and he looked quite muscular. But he doesn’t have those cute freckles that Will has, and his black hair is also boring compared to Will's red. But he looks a bit taller than Will. Well, not that it's important to me how that guy looks. He is my student. Damned, are those eyes cool. One eye is brown, and the other one is blue.

They all looked around 15 to 16 years old. Was that an accident, or was there a reason Uncle picked them? Anyway, not my problem. I just need to do as I was told. Like good little workerbee. Bzz. Bzz.

Ohh, they didn’t look too amused to see this little workerbee. They all looked as if they were just polite because Uncle was there. Why did I accept teaching someone?

“Hello, Nice to meet you. I’m Charlotte Elenor Humblehill, but you can call me Charlotte. Calling me Professor Humblehill would just cause confusion.”

“You are not a professor yet.” Oh, that was sweet, uncle. Humilate me in front of my students. What comes next? Giving me detention? Where will my authority go when this continues?

“Oh right. Yes, no professor, but I’m good with potions, so I will be responsible for you this year.” They still look at me with that polite smile. Uncle, please help.

“She is really good, and I can guarantee you that you will learn something from her.” Thanks, uncle, you are the best. “If, in the unexpected case that she doesn’t know something, you can still come to me, but I think that won’t be necessary.”

Was it good or bad that he said that? They look at me like it was bad. Uncle shouldn’t have mentioned that there is a possibility of me being unable to answer anything. I worked hard to get as good as I am, and some fifth or sixth graders won’t be able to beat me.

The dinner that followed was a little nightmare for me. Especially Morgana looked at me with contempt as I took my fifth chicken leg. I had skipped lunch, okay? I don’t always stuff myself like that.

“So how come a beautiful girl like you is teaching us?” Oh no. Mother told me about those people. The good-looking, flirty types of men. Can I just tell him to screw himself? I mean, I’m already taken. Will, fight for my honor right now! Ahh damned. Do I have to do everything myself.

“That’s my niece. Keep it in your pants.” Yes, uncle, give him another clap against the head. And I was right—he is that type of guy. Uncle just wanted to warn me right now. I’m sure.

Butt-chin, on the other hand, was a nice guy. A little insecure, but that will go away as we get to know each other. At least as long as I’m allowed to teach him like I want.