(Arcane Tinker) Chapter 2: Artful Explosions

Chapter 2: Artful Explosions

4 June 1991, London, England

He hadn’t seen her this happy in months, maybe even years. He would do his best to keep it that way. He would make sure nothing ruined their night. Of course, that was when the screaming started, and Dean’s world turned upside down.

The drive to the restaurant was peaceful. Dean simply enjoyed his mother’s company. They rarely spent any time together. Nurses in Britain were notoriously underpaid, and his mother had started to do extra shifts whenever they had a big expense coming up. This slowly snowballed into becoming a common occurrence.

At first, Dean had thought that his mother didn’t want to spend any time with him. It was a bit hard at the start when she stopped helping him in his studies, but seeing how exhausted she was and how proudly she kept looking at him, made all his doubts disappear. His mother loved him with all her heart and was practically working herself to death to do so.

Which was why the dinner was so bittersweet; it was the first time in a while that they could eat out without straining their budget, but the truth was that the fact that he got a full scholarship would free his mother from most of his financial obligations until university. But that came at the cost of spending even less time as her, since Eton was a boarding school.

He took a deep sigh after he swallowed a mouthful of pasta. Oh, this really was good food.

His mother noticed his mood and gave him a worried look, “What is it, Dean?”

“It’s just. If I go to Eton, we won’t be able to have moments like these. We’ll barely see each other outside of the holidays. I can’t imagine doing it for years.”

“Oh, honey. I’ll miss you too, but I think we can more than make up for it during the holidays. And there are those visitation weekends, too, where I’ll be able to go see you. And tell you what, since I have a bit of money saved up that I won’t get to spend on you because of your scholarship, I’ll buy you a mobile phone. This way, we can talk to each other every day. What about that?”

That brought Dean short. Mobile phones were expensive, like really expensive. The cheapest models were at least a thousand pounds, but a few used older ones could be sold for less. It was a new product, one rarely used for businesses. And his mother was willing to pay that much just to talk to him, with their budget?

A part of him wanted to protest such an exorbitant purchase, but instead, Dean gave her an excited smile, “Really? A mobile phone?”

Who could blame him; mobile phones were amazing, but the opportunity of speaking every day with his mother was just too much of a perk for him to protest.

His mother returned his expression with a smug grin of her own, “Come on, kiddo, I don’t think I can handle spending so much time without talking to you. The important thing is that you do your best in school. This is the first step for your future, and I know you’ll show the snobs at your school how smart you are. I can almost imagine it, you being a doctor or a fancy banker. All I’ve ever wanted in my life is to see you grow up as a successful man, one who would not have to face the things I did when I was growing up.”

The young man gave his mother a smile but felt inwardly uncomfortable. He loved his mother, he really did, but in statements like these, he understood just how much she cared about him, how much she dedicated herself for his sake. It was like Emma Thomas lived solely for him.

Dean shook his head, “Alright, I’ll do my best, but I want you to do something for me too.”

His mother gave him a questioning look and he continued, trying not to feel embarrassed, “If I’m not going to be there, I don’t want you to be alone anymore. I want you to have friends, go out with them, even a boyfriend. Anything.”

His mother practically jumped to hug him, “Aww, honey. You’re worried about me, huh? Don’t be worried, your mum is going to be fine.”

“I know, but I don’t want you to be just fine. I want you to be happy, to enjoy yourself.”

The older woman’s smile turned gentle. “I know. Sometimes I wish you’d learn to live for yourself a bit.”

“I am. It’s you and me against the world, right, mum?”

The rest of their dinner went nicely enough. His mother kept talking about all the activities they wanted to do together before the start of the school year. That had lightened the mood a bit. A lot of them were things that they either didn’t have the time or the money to do normally, but his scholarship did give them a bit of flexibility in that regard.

All in all, by the end of the meal, going to Eton didn’t look as daunting as it used to be. In fact, he was looking forward to their summer together. His mother always knew how to subtly change his mood. It was uncanny. He hadn’t even noticed how she did it. Was it some kind of Witchcraft or something?

Dean knew that his relationship with his mother was deeper than that of his classmates. She gave everything for him, and in turn, he wanted to do the same for her. It probably wasn’t a healthy thing, but there was no one else who truly cared about his mother other than him, and no one else who truly cared about him but her. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

As he told her, it was both of them against the world.

They exited the restaurant with smiles on their faces and went on a walk back home. The restaurant was close to their apartment anyway, and they saved up on the bus fare. Having a car in London was pretty impractical. Public transport was often faster and cheaper in the long run.

In the middle of their journey, his mother sighed once more, “What is it, mum?”

“Nothing really. It’s just that you have no idea just how relieved I am about your school. Money was really getting tight around here. The landlord has been raising the rent when he renewed our neighbours’ leases, and I’m afraid that we might be next.”

“Will we be able to afford it?”

She shrugged, “Hopefully. In the worst case, we would have to move to a smaller apartment after the lease expires, which is next year, so we have some time to prepare. Still, I hope we won’t have to move; I liked this one since it’s so close to the hospital. I’ll figure this out. I always do, after all. You don’t need to bother with this stuff and focus on your school. You’ll need to show the snobs at your school, with the dozens of private tutors, how smart you are. This is just the beginning of your life, Dean. You know what comes after this, a good university and then a good job. Just don’t forget about your mother when you grow up to be the wonderful man, I know you could be.”

Dean rolled his eyes, “Of course, mum. I could never forget you.”

His mother could be insistent sometimes about her ambitions for him. It was a bit of pressure on him, but she meant well. His mother had put all of her hopes and dreams, all of her love and faith, into him, and he would not disappoint her. He wished that she would let off her pressure a bit, but he knew that it was more for her than for him. It was her psyching herself up, using this image of him, this dream, to move forward despite the hardships she faced every day.

Still, his mother must have seen his reaction and him playfully on the shoulder. She opened her mouth to say something, only for a loud banging sound to overwhelm what she was going to say.

It happened in a fraction of a second. One second, they were walking side by side, then they flew away into one of the stores, and then everything turned dark.

He was disoriented when he finally opened his eyes once more. His ears were ringing and every single bone in his body ached. The world around Dean seemed to spin as he staggered to his feet, his vision blurry and the air thick with dust and smoke. His head pounded fiercely, a relentless drumming that echoed the ringing in his ears. As he steadied himself against a shattered display, he noticed that the loud noises were gone still.

Dean tripped once more on a piece of debris and gaped as unfamiliar, vibrant jets of light streaked through the smoky haze, casting eerie shadows that danced along the crumbled walls and broken glass.

What the fuck was going on?

He squinted, trying to make sense of the scene before him. The air crackled with energy, and the ground vibrated underfoot as if the very earth shared his disorientation. Explosions of colour, brilliant blues, searing reds, and pulsating greens, erupted in the space, each burst accompanied by a sonic boom that rattled his chest. Figures moved within the chaos, their outlines blurred and distorted by the turmoil.

He noticed that the figures were holding some sticks, which they waved around like madmen. At least they would have been madmen if it weren’t for the fact that jets of light kept appearing from their sticks.

A particularly large burst of golden light exploded overhead, showering the area with sparkling embers that fizzled out before they touched the ground. For the first time since the explosion, Dean truly looked around him, and he saw his mother.

She was lying motionless on the ground. But what really took his breath away was the growing puddle of blood around her.

Dean practically crawled his way towards her, ignoring the broken pieces of glass that kept cutting him, ignoring the pain he felt with every movement, all to get to her.

He looked at her, staring into her eyes. His mother was awake. She was hurt, a large pane of glass had impaled her stomach, and yet she smiled, “Dean.”

“Mum, please.”

“I… Love… You so much… I’m so proud of you...”

Dean's voice cracked, the words barely escaping as tears blurred his vision. His hand reached out, trembling, to gently touch her face, brushing aside a strand of her hair matted with debris. The noise around them, the crashes, the explosions, seemed to fade into a hollow, distant echo. In this bubble of devastation, it was just him and his mother, her lifeblood seeping into the broken tiles beneath them.

"Mum, don't talk like that, you're going to be okay," he whispered, his voice a mix of desperation and disbelief. But even as he spoke, he felt the cold grip of reality tightening around his heart. She coughed, a weak, painful sound, and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

She reached up, her hand shaky as it cupped his cheek. "Be strong..."

Dean nodded, tears streaming down his face, as he clutched her hand against his cheek.

Her smile was a faint, brave curl of her lips as her eyes fluttered closed, her hand falling limp in his. The golden lights continued to burst overhead, casting a surreal glow over the scene, a son holding onto the last moments with his mother, surrounded by a world still caught in chaos.

After what seemed like an eternity, the explosions stopped. A man, wearing a red hood, appeared from thin air, floating like some kind of ghost, and slowly moved around, ignoring the piles of bodies all over the street. He turned to one of the masked attackers, “Good job. Start cleaning up before the ministry arrives. The gold will be deposited into your accounts in an hour.”

“And the civilian casualties?”

“What about them? They’re just muggles. Dispose of them and of any witnesses. We can’t have the Aurors getting anywhere with their investigation, can we?”

The hooded men nodded in affirmation, and the man in the red hood disappeared. The men waved their sticks, and the street repaired itself. However, one of the men pointed his stick at a weeping woman, who suddenly fell dead with just a jet of green light.

One of the attackers was walking towards him without saying a word, and he knew that this was it. These were his last moments.

Dean started hyperventilating. He was going to die, wasn’t he? He was going to die next to his mother, alone. There was no one left in the world who gave two shits about him. These assholes and their magic sticks were going to kill everyone and there was nothing he could do about it. They weren’t even going to get a burial. His mother wasn’t going to get a burial.

They would be forgotten. No one would mourn them. No one would mourn his wonderful mother. No one would remember the cheeky smiles she had whenever she surprised him with a day out. No one would remember the effort she went to just for him.

All of her sacrifices were for absolutely nothing. His mother had been working himself to death for absolutely nothing. He would never see the fruits of her work, the life they could have had. With him gone, it was all so meaningless.

That little fact, for some reason, made everything click. As if he moved by instinct, Dean Thomas touched the ground which warmed up to his touch, and he pushed everything into it. The fear, the pain, the suffering, the grief. Everything went into the ground.

And just like that, the ground started to glow and shift as if it were a liquid. Seconds later, it exploded, vaporising everything around him, everything but him and his mother’s body.

But he didn’t care. He simply cradled his mother’s body, trying to retain whatever remained of her warmth for just a bit more. As foreign, yet strangely familiar, memories invaded his mind and his body felt even more drained and tired than it ever was in his life, everything slowly turned to blissful darkness.

AN: That went kinda dark pretty fast, but you probably noticed that Harry Potter elements in the story. I hope you like it. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.