Young Justice: Salem
July 18th, 2010
The trip to Salem did not take long. I’d actually already visited the city once since I’d found myself in this world. In my world, Salem contained a magically-protected and hidden monument to all the innocent wizards and witches killed by Muggles before the Statute had been signed. It had been one of my first stops while I had been confirming for myself the absence of certain landmarks that existed in my world.
I had been unsurprised to not find the monument in question, but I also hadn’t found any other signs of wizarding habitation. Thus, it was a slight shock to learn that Kent apparently lived there. His home was likely hidden behind some very impressive wards if I couldn’t see a single sign of their presence with a magic sight spell active.
I made it to Salem just after eleven in the morning. I apparated onto an out-of-the-way streetcorner, hidden from view by both a disillusionment and muggle-repelling charm. It took another thirty minute to find the address that Kent had given me, with me needing to resort to asking a handful of passersby for directions before I finally narrowed in on the correct location
When I got there, I found absolutely no signs of Kent or his home. The address led me to nothing but an empty, grassy lot some ways away from the closest other building.
Out of curiosity, I recast my magic-sight spell and looked around. Nothing. I could see the ambient magic flowing slowly through the lot, without a single break or spark that might indicate there was something there. Very, very impressive. It took a great deal of effort and some incredibly powerful magics to hide a location so thoroughly I certainly wouldn’t be able to manage such a feat, not without a few decades of research or access to spellbooks I’d never had the opportunity to study.
Since it was still well before noon, I decided to wander around the lot, seeing if I could spot something. No ward or charm was perfect. A properly motivated muggle could walk right through a repelling ward, unbreakable charms could fail if the magic put into them was disrupted, and even the Fidelius, one of the most powerful protective spells ever created, could be defeated by a sufficiently prepared attacker.
I had barely made it a handful of steps when suddenly the world was illuminated by a nearly blinding pillar of light right in front of my eyes. I staggered backwards, my left hand flying up to futilely shield my face and my right clenching tightly around the handle of my wand.
Even with my eyes squeezed shut and my hand covering them, I could still see it. It took me several seconds to realize what exactly I was looking at. A pillar of magic so bright and powerful that it physically hurt to look at. On my third attempt I finally managed the counter-charm to my magic-sight spell and my shoulders sagged in relief as the blinding white light vanished.
I straightened, blinking spots out of my eyes, and stared up at the building that was suddenly present where moments ago there had been nothing but air and grass. It was a tower, its sides perfectly flat and square and it stretched up high into the sky like a giant obelisk. It wasn’t as high as the astronomy tower at Hogwarts, but it was still quite massive, easily more than fifteen stories and perhaps taller. Such things were hard to judge from my current angle.
It was also positively brimming with powerful magic. Even without being able to see it––and there was no way I was going to be recasting that particular spell right now––I could feel the magic in the air now, like a prickle on my skin and an electric buzz in my gut.
My awe at the spells that must have gone into this place only increased. To not only perfectly hide such a structure, but also the magic around it until it was completely unnoticeable was a monumental feat. Perhaps Kent knew the details of its construction? Such knowledge would be of great aid when I finally acquired a new home for myself on this Plane.
A loudly cleared throat pulled me out of my reverie and I hastily turned to where Kent Nelson was leaning out through a large open door in the base of the tower. “A little early, but there’s no reason to keep you waiting around in the sun and the heat. Come on in, Hydrys, I’m just finishing up my lunch.”
“My apologies. I wasn’t certain how long it would take to find your home and thought it better to be early than late. I inclined my head and headed inside. Kent held the door for me until I was fully past the threshold, then closed it behind me, the door vanishing into the stonework without a trace. The tower’s entrance hall was rather bare. The walls and floor were both made from the same smooth, slightly golden-yellow stone, and the room was illuminated by torches along the walls burning with smokeless golden flames.
I looked around with interest. The air was alive with magic and I could feel the wards, ancient and incredibly potent, humming around me. Now this was the home of a powerful wizard. The wards here were the match of any I’d ever seen, matching or perhaps even exceeding those that protected Hogwarts.
“Could I offer you something to drink?” Kent asked as he walked slowly past me, his cane clicking softly against the ground with every step. He stopped in the center of the room and rapped his cane sharply against the floor, the sound echoing off the walls and floor.
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The ground in front of Kent smoothed out and then a large stone cube rose smoothly from the floor in front of us. The face facing us rippled and then two metal doors slid smoothly open. “Some water would be lovely, thank you,” I answered as I followed him into what was clearly some form of magical elevator. The doors slid shut behind us and we both turned to face them.
There were no buttons on the inside, and I didn’t feel the elevator move at all, but when the doors slid back open a moment later, we were elsewhere. Outside the elevator was a vast space filled with floating stairs and platforms. Either we were underground or this was an incredible level of spatial expansion, far beyond what most wizarding homes used. Perhaps even both.
It slightly reminded me of Hogwarts. Some of the main stairwells, particularly when the staircases were feeling particularly troublesome, looked just like this. That impression only rose as Kent led me up one flight of stairs, then down another. Then he made a sharp right turn and stepped through an invisible door pretending to be the edge of the platform.
Through the door was a perfectly ordinary looking kitchen. There was a plate with a half-eaten omelet sitting on the kitchen island and a window in the same wall as the door we’d just entered through that looked out on the grounds outside the tower.
Kent waved his cane and a glass rose from the drying rack, filled with water, and then floated over to me. I plucked it out of the air and took a sip while Kent sat down and dug into his food. “I hope you didn’t have any problems getting here?” he asked between bites.
“Not particularly. It took some time to track down the spot, but some of the muggles were kind enough to point me in the right direction.”
Kent finished chewing the food in his mouth, then waved his fork through the air. “I meant to ask yesterday, but muggle. That’s what your people called non-wizards, hmm?”
I hummed softly. “Essentially? Different groups had different names they used. I believe the Americans called them No-Majs, and the term specifically refers to those with no magic born to families without magic. A magicless child in a magical family would be referred to as a squib.”
“Does that happen often?” he asked curiously.
“Not particularly. Once, or perhaps twice, in a generation in particularly large families, but typically less. It's hard to say for certain however, as bearing a squib child carries with it some level of stigma, so it is possible that the true number is actually higher than that. The likelihood is also known to increase significantly after a woman’s third child as well, so few families ever attempted for more than that.”
“Squibs,” Kent enunciated slowly, “Not a particularly pleasant word, that. And what exactly happens with these squibs?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “It depends. In my family, they are typically sent away to an estate in Spain to study potioneering. Not all potions are brewable by squibs, but many are and it is one of the few forms of magic even they are able to perform. Other families…well, there are always rumors, but not much I can say for certain. Some end up living amongst the muggles, others are hidden away.”
Kent did not respond for several long minutes, continuing to slowly eat his eggs. I sipped at my water, content to allow him to finish his food at his own pace. I was the one who’d arrive early, and this was preferable to waiting outside.
When he finally did say something, it was not a direction of inquiry that I was particularly happy to hear. “So, you know, I’ve been looking into planeswalkers.” He set his fork down and half-turned in his chair to look at me. “And I haven’t found much, but there is one thing I’d like to ask you about. My books tell me that, for their spark to ignite a planeswalker must go through something very intense. A moment of great emotion or revelation.”
“I didn’t know that, though it does make sense. Strong emotions can have interesting effects on certain forms of magic.”
“It is indeed a common phenomenon, though not one present in my own preferred Order magics. Order magic is all about control and precision, and strong emotions can get in the way of proper casting. In any case however, I’m curious. What exactly was enough to push a young man like you so far over the edge?”
I considered lying, but I wouldn’t put it past the wards here to be strong enough to tell the truth from lies. At the same time, the full truth would probably get me into trouble that I wasn’t currently in a good spot to get out of. In a world with so many fewer wizards than muggles, the magical community had an even harsher stance on crimes against the magicless, and a former superhero like Kent Nelson would be even more strongly opposed.
Fortunately, I’d already prepared what I was going to say in just such a scenario. “It's not something I would like to go too far into. Suffice to say, there was an incident and then a horrible miscarage of justice.” Seriously, even two weeks later I was still fuming at the Wizengamot’s ruling. Life in Azkaban for what was barely even a crime! I deserved at most a moderate fine, maybe two- or three-thousand galleons.
At Kent’s raised eyebrow, I continued. “I can’t be certain, but I believe I was betrayed by my Lord uncle and cousin. The heir to our family has always been jealous of my talent and achievements and convinced his father to go along with things to get me out of the way. The internal politics of Noble Houses can be very messy and cutthroat––I’m lucky he did not simply dose me with something during a family dinner.”
Nothing I said was a lie, but it did leave out any information that might anger the man in front of me. Hopefully he would be willing to let things lie now that I’d told him that much.
Kent stared at me silently, then nodded. “In that case, I apologize for prying. It is a tragedy when one can not trust their family to stand behind them through thick and thin.”
“I completely agree. Family is––should be,” I corrected myself, “everything. The fact that our Patriarch and his heir were willing to betray our bond of blood to strengthen their own positions is a travesty that I will not soon forget.”
Kent finished his food in silence, then levitated his plate into the sink and stood up with a soft goan of exertion. “Well then, I do believe you came here for a reason, young man, so we best get on that. First however, is there any specific category of Order magic that you would like to focus on initially? I don’t have that much time to teach you, so it would probably be best to pick one option at first.”