Breaking Magic

I have the unique honor—or rather, dishonor, of getting to watch Adam Wolfe fail miserably for five hours straight, five days a week for the next two months.
Okay, he doesn't fail in every single class, but it's a close run thing. He's halfway decent at Astrology, but the class alternates with Astronomy on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the second Ms. Perry starts talking about red shifts and parsecs, Wolfe is lost. He struggles in other mundane classes as well, English Lit and Contemporary Magical History—not because he's stupid or anything, but I think it's because all the other stuff going on in his life, from stress about classes like Incantations and Meditation to the political crap he's stuck in the middle of with the Council, has left him a stressed out, unfocused mess.
I almost feel bad for him. Now that I see him all day long, it's actually a little painful to watch, especially since I know he's not actually totally incompetent. We exchanged essays for peer review in English Lit, and while his was a rambling, incoherent stream of consciousness, the themes he identified were good, and he pulled strong evidence out of the text to back it up. On the (extremely) rare occasions when he does manage to master a spell in Incantations, he out performs everyone in terms of strength and skill, even me.
There's talent there, and intelligence. It's just wasted on him of all people.
I'm sitting at the dinner table at home, serving myself another helping of green bean almondine while my parents talk politics.
“I mean, all this business with the MRF is bad enough, but I was talking to Alistair Harper yesterday, and he said that the other Council members are growing increasingly concerned about Jennifer Cross's intentions.”
The mention of my headmistress's name make my ears perk up, and I'm suddenly listening to the conversation I had previously been focused on tuning out.
“I know that she supports the Reform movement, but that doesn't make her some... saboteur or rebel leader, dear,” my mother says, frowning at my dad.
“Not now she isn't, but how long can she resist the impulse to use that Wolfe boy to further her political ideologies?” says my father, waving his fork in the air so passionately that a green bean went flying.
“I don't think she would do something like that,” my mother hems and haws. “She disapproves of the MRF's tactics as much as the Council does, and I doubt she would use the boy for her own purposes like that.”
“She may disapprove of the MRF, but half of the MRF's members used to be Reformers, who jumped to the extreme side of things because they resented how ineffectual the Reform movement has been. How long until that woman goes over to the other side herself? And she's the headmistress, for Circe's sake! She could be indoctrinating all of our children as we speak!”
I snorted, and my dad glared at me. “Nobody is being indoctrinated like brainwashed child soldiers at school, dad. The only things being shoved down my throat are interpretations of Othello and transfiguration spells.”
“Aren't you taking Contemporary Magical History this year?” my dad demands. “What have you been taught in that class so far? What has the teacher been telling you?”
I have to physically restrain myself from rolling my eyes. “It's all very middle of the road and impersonal, dad. It's pretty obvious that the teacher is going out of his way to give only the bare facts. I can't even tell if he's a Council supporter or a Reformer himself. Besides, I heard that we're not even going to be talking about really contemporary stuff. We're not going to learn about the drama with Wolfe at all.”
Wolfe's mere existence had made huge waves in our world, but I privately agreed that it wasn't entirely appropriate to dissect the political turmoil surrounding him while he was sitting there in the middle of class.
My dad seems to be struggling to decide whether he supports or opposes the ban on mention of Adam Wolfe. “Still,” he finally blusters, “there is serious concern that Jennifer Cross may decide to use the boy to further he own goals, just as much as the MRF wants to. He's devoted to her my all accounts, it wouldn't be hard for her to turn him into her own personal weapon. Perhaps he's already being primed for that. I've heard he takes private lessons from Richard Donovan, who's also a known Reformer. Solomon knows what he's teaching the boy!”
The boy, the boy. It irritates me that my dad keeps referring to Adam as a “boy”. He's eighteen now, like I'll be in another week, and I sure as hell don't feel like a boy. Maybe not exactly a man either, not while I'm still in high school, but a damn sight closer to “man” and “boy”.
As scrawny as he was, Adam's shoulders were broad, his jaw was covered in stubble when he forgot to shave, and his eyes spoke of carrying the burden of the pressure he was under every single day. Adam Wolfe was no boy.
“I'm full,” I say, pushing back my chair and standing up. My dad hardly notices, he's back on track with his rant to my mother, whose eyes have grown a little glassy as she pretends to listen.
I head up to my room, thoughts of Adam Wolfe swirling around my head.