The Experiment
‘I have an idea,’ Draco said, which in Harry’s opinion, was never a good start of any conversation and by the look on his cousin’s face, he was not the only one who was skeptical about Draco’s ideas.
‘Remember back in school, there was that Mara Jenkins girl, who supposedly melted Snape in potions class when he provoked her, but you later found out that what really transpired was that Dumbledore and Snape had hatched a plan to deliberately provoke her to try to get her to reveal her powers in a controlled environment?’
Harry looked somewhat uncomfortable.
‘I told you that in confidence. I don’t think that is supposed to be common knowledge,’ Harry said.
‘Oh, who is Duddles going to tell?’ Draco said waving his hand dismissively.
‘Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that we could try to do the same with Jimmy.
Maybe Jimmy is just too comfortable to need to use his powers. You always had to protect yourself form bullies when you were young, so you had a natural instinct to invoke your powers to protect yourself.’
This time is was Dudley who looked uncomfortable.
Draco went on unperturbed, ‘Remember Daisy as a baby? Anytime we used to babysit her, she was forever climbing on things and falling off? Her natural instinct was to magically slow down her fall to ensure a soft landing. That’s how we first discovered that she had magical powers.’
Dudley’s face had first gone white and then turned red during this exchange and he forced himself to take a deep breath, while reminding himself that Daisy was fine and clearly had been able to look after herself from a young age, despite her clearly incompetent babysitters.
‘Anyway, Jimmy is only interested in playing video games and playing soccer, not exactly activities that spell mortal danger, so maybe he has never needed to trigger his powers?’
Despite his initial misgivings, Harry had to admit that Draco might have a point.
‘But what about your own powers?’ he asked.
‘For goodness sake, Harry, in wizarding families parents try to trick their kids into doing magic from birth. While you muggles do your Peekaboo and Say Dada nonsense, wizarding mums and dads have a very different repertoire.’
‘Such as?’ Harry asked, not letting that one go.
Draco and he were contemplating having a kid, so maybe it would be good to know what sort of mind games Draco was planning to subject their offspring to.
‘Oh you know, my Faaaaaaather would throw a hankie over my face in hopes that I would move it away.’
The two cousins looked at him uncomprehending.
‘Without using my hands,’ he added, rolling his eyes at the two of them.
‘So how do you propose we trick Jimmy into revealing his powers. Surely you are not going to put him in mortal danger?’ Dudley asked.
‘That is the million galleon question, of course,’ Draco said.
Over the next number of weekends, the two uncles took Jimmy out for a series of fun activities.
They took him horse riding and made his horse bolt, but Jimmy just fell off and cried. Harry used a cushioning spell to ensure that his nephew did not break any bones, but the shock of falling of the horse, still had not been entirely painless.
They took him water skiing and magically cut the rope as he was hurdling towards a ramp, but the young lad simply let himself fall into the water and signaled for them to pick him up.
They took him to try his hand at archery and accidentally aimed an arrow at him, but when there was no sign that Jimmy was going to save himself magically or otherwise, Harry had to push him out of the way to guarantee his safety.
Finally they asked him would he like to go skydiving with them the following weekend.
Jimmy went rigid and his normally sleek brown hair stood out from his head, as if he had been plugged into an electric socket.
‘Skydiving with you two!’ he shrieked, ‘Are you trying to kill me or something?’
Much to Jimmy’s surprise, his uncles smiled and high fived each other.
‘Dudley, we have lift off!’ they yelled.
Dudley came running down the stairs and enveloped his son in a bear hug.
He turned to Harry and said, ‘Are you sure?’
‘Pretty sure,’ Harry and Draco nodded as they grinned.
‘Son, I am so glad you are a wizard’ Dudley said to his son.
‘Of course I am a wizard.’
There was a look of indignation on Jimmy’s face.
‘Did you think I was a muggle?’
The three men looked at each other uncomfortably.
‘I always knew I was a wizard, Dad, but have never been bothered using magic. That can wait until I go to Hogwarts,’ he said in a pompous little voice, so typical of the very young.
‘Can I go back to playing video games now?’
The three grown men looked at each other sheepishly and then burst out laughing.