"Oh, I forgot, Mom." Gary reacted quickly, taking the Potion from the woman's hand.
Then he hastily threw the pot off his head. "I was napping, and James rode his broom and smashed the window with a rock."
The woman sighed and shook her head, helpless against James's mischievous nature, and walked into the house in her high heels.
Her emerald green Wizard robe shimmered with intricate dark patterns, adorned with white trim at the collar, and a luxurious dark gold brooch pinned to her chest.
The brooch was engraved with a dahlia, its petals complex and its style magnificent, with the word "Shafik" inscribed in the center of the petals.
Her attire conformed to the "mainstream" aesthetic of Wizards; she also had her Black hair coiled into a bun at the back of her head.
As she walked towards the window, she pulled her wand from her pearl handbag.
"Reparo." Her slender fingers held the wand, emitting a white light that covered the window glass, shimmering for an instant.
By the time the white light completely disappeared, the glass was good as new.
The woman's eyes lowered, and she gently stroked Gary's head. Gary closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, pouring the Potion into his mouth.
The bitter taste of the Potion exploded in his mouth, and this astringency seemed to reach his heart, making Gary's eyes slightly red.
From a young age, his magic was extremely unstable. Initially, the Shafeek Couple didn't care; every young Wizard experienced varying degrees of magic outbursts before going to school, and Gary's symptoms were not uncommon.
But as Gary grew older, the situation began to worsen.
The amplitude of his magic fluctuations became larger and larger. When it was weak, Mrs. Shafeek couldn't even sense his magic, making him seem like a Squib; but when it was strong, he could shatter the entire house.
Gary's situation was more like an Obscurial, someone with powerful magic but unable to control it.
Obscurials mostly experience some strong stimulus in childhood, are forced to hide their magic fluctuations, producing an Obscurus, and only then does their magic become extremely unstable and uncontrollable.
However, Gary's early life was very peaceful. Healers at St. Mungo's Hospital repeatedly examined Gary's body, but could not find any trace of an Obscurus.
The Shafeek Couple were helpless and could only spend a fortune each week to purchase expensive Magic Stabilizer from the Prince family.
This stabilizer was mostly used to temporarily stabilize the magic of children from prominent families, to prevent their magic outbursts from scarring their expensive furniture.
Most children only needed to take Magic Stabilizer for half a year. After smoothly passing through the rapid growth period of their magic, the children themselves would be able to control their magic output.
Gary was an exception; he had been taking half a tube of Magic Stabilizer, costing fifteen Galleons per unit, every day since he was six years old, yet there was no improvement.
He was simply a money-eating machine. Although he was a Shafik, a member of the Pure-blood Twenty-Eight families, he was from a collateral branch of the family, and their remaining wealth was not much. His mother worked as a fashion editor at "Wizard Weekly," and his father was an Auror in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Both were wage earners, and their combined monthly salary was less than two hundred Galleons, not even enough to cover Gary's medical expenses. They could only barely maintain their livelihood by selling some family antiques.
Gary was not unaware of his family's financial difficulties, but he was also powerless.
He only knew that each magic outburst would drain all the magic from his limbs and bones, and then it would erupt concentrically. Such outbursts had no warning signs; Gary only felt his body was out of control, and he could only watch helplessly as all the magic poured out, destroying everything in sight.
Since he could remember, he had destroyed his home three times, and this was with the suppression of the Magic Stabilizer.
Each outburst could completely destroy the entire house, turning the floor and toys near him into dust.
After an outburst, Gary's body would enter a period of weakness. He couldn't even lift a finger, all his magic would be drained, and his head would throb as if it had been forcefully split open down the middle with a blunt axe.
His magic would only gradually recover after three days. The peculiar thing was that Gary felt his magic increase with every breath, his strength returning, and magic seemed to grow from his skin.
It was like a living organism; with every inhale and exhale, magic quietly grew.
This feeling was very refreshing, like a dying patient being re-infused with vitality, like an extremely thirsty person guzzling ice water sip by sip.
It was captivating, making it hard to extricate oneself.
Gary did not share this feeling with his parents.
He felt very ashamed. His father constantly traveled for an extra twenty Galleons in travel expenses each month, returning home only once every six months. His mother also continuously took on external writing assignments for that small subsidy.
As he grew older, Gary felt that the Magic Stabilizer's effect on him was negligible. He reduced his dosage, drinking only a quarter of a tube of the Potion each time, saving the Potion to secretly send to Knockturn Alley, exchanging it for some money to deposit into his mother's Gringotts vault.
To pay for his treatment, the Shafeek Couple had long since withdrawn all the gold coins from their Gringotts vault. Normally, Mrs. Shafeek wouldn't check her "empty" vault at Gringotts, nor would she discover the hundreds of Galleons in it.
Gary often told himself to maintain a grateful heart: grateful for his parents' tireless efforts for him, grateful for the new medicines diligently developed by the uncles of the Prince family, and grateful for the free physical examinations at St. Mungo's Hospital and the candies given by the Healers.
He felt that the world had been kind enough to him; he couldn't ask for more. Everyone, including the mischievous James, had shown him sufficient kindness.
Except for Sirius Black.
This ancient and glorious House of Black had produced an incongruous oddity.
He and Gary had been at odds since their first meeting.
Gary found it hard to understand why anyone would speak of their parents that way.
"My parents are just a bunch of Pure-blood-obsessed lunatics; their brains are like they've been kicked by a donkey." This was the first sentence Gary heard Black say to James.
As a child, he was accustomed to his parents' hard work and had enjoyed their meticulous care and attention, believing that all decisions his parents made were for their child's good.
So he sarcastically mocked Black. Black, with his straightforward nature, had never tolerated such an insult. With one punch, Gary was like Tom Cat after being beaten by the big dog Spike.
The two children thus became enemies.
"Come downstairs and watch TV, don't just stay cooped up in your room." Mrs. Shafik patted Gary's head.
"...No, Mom, I want to finish this book." Gary looked up and met his mother's eyes.
Seeing that she couldn't persuade Gary, Mrs. Shafik said no more. She understood her child.
"Mom, this Sunday I want to go to Diagon Alley to buy some school supplies." Gary called out to Mrs. Shafik as she walked downstairs.
"...Do you want me to go with you?" Mrs. Shafik said gently.
"I've arranged to meet James and them... Mom." Gary lowered his head and quietly declined.
"Alright then, remember to be careful," Mrs. Shafik walked back, her high heels clicking on the floor.
"Here..." She emptied her handbag, finally counting out fifty Galleons and handing them to Gary. "Buy new textbooks, don't buy used ones."
Gary had previously seen the prices of first-year textbooks on a mailing list: new books, a wand, a cauldron... the money should be just enough.
"Mom, I can use old books. That way I can save some money. Old books and new books are no different to me..."
Mrs. Shafik's beautiful emerald green eyes narrowed dangerously.
"You are a child of the Shafik family. Although you are a collateral branch, our pride will not allow us to use second-hand textbooks."
Mrs. Shafik said, word by word, "We are Pure-blood, Gary, and Pure-blood should act like Pure-blood."
She went down the stairs. Even at home, her posture remained elegant, her upper body straight, her waist pulled back, moving unhurriedly with light steps.
Gary watched his mother's body gradually disappear from his sight before gently closing the door.
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