Chapter Text
It was a grizzly April day, less than a year after Jack's rediscovery that the strange man showed up at Alex's door. In that time, he had been living under the 'care' of one Ben Daniels, although he was home so infrequently that the only suggestion of this fact was the signature on the papers Miss Bedfordshire brought out every time nobody came for Alex at parents' evening. Not that he didn't try to be home more often for Alex- it just wasn't really possible.
He was not living with Jack, as she needed to go back to America for her father, and the rest of her family who implored her to go to therapy, after they heard an abridged version of events. She had been sad to leave Alex, but ultimately realised that for her own safety she should leave, and besides, she couldn't be used against him if he had no connections to her.
Alex knew all this, and most of the time he was fine, really, to be constantly alone in his house, head too full of past explosions and yelling to concentrate on anything. But sometimes, when the rain was just this side of too loud, and the streetlamps just a little too bright, and Alex curled up in the small space between the fridge and the cupboards where Jack would never find him when they used to play hide and seek, a place that he could see anybody entering the room but no one could see him, put his chin on his knees and he wished she hadn't left.
It had been one of the latter days, the day the man arrived.
He was dressed head to toe in black- worn, but still shiny shoes, smart trousers, button up shirt, long thick overcoat, hair that had seen one too many days without being washed -and had a distinctly miffed aura around him.
"Alex Rider, I presume?" he asked, hooked nose raised and top lip curling as if smelling something particularly unpleasant.
Alex, who had already been on guard and had a small combat knife in his hand that was behind the door, tensed more. "Who's asking?"
The man sniffed again, "Severus Snape. Is your guardian in?" He gestured to the rain that he was only just sheltered from, by the overhang above Alex's door, so Alex, after some deliberation, stepped aside to allow him entrance, keeping the knife in his hand hidden. He did not trust this man, and was not planning on being caught off guard.
"No. What do you want?" he asked, and the man - Severus - looked disproportionately disappointed at his tone, as if he'd expected Alex to immediately know why he was there and now to his every whim.
"I do not wish to be here any more than you wish for me to be here, I am certain. However, the headmaster requested for me personally to come to you. I have some information that may be somewhat... shocking... for you, I'm afraid. Were you at all aware that you happen to be a wizard?"
Alex's shoulders relaxed, though his hand around the hidden knife was still tense. So that's what this was about, not MI6, or some other organisation hell-bent on revenge. He had honestly forgotten he was a wizard, at this point, as Ian had pretty much forbidden him to speak of it, after he had stopped having bursts of accidental magic. "Yes, I am. What's it to you? I haven't misused it, or told muggles, even Ben, or done anything underage. Why are you here?"
He knew the wizarding community was very secretive, as Ian had explained how it worked in detail when he showed signs of being a magic user, so didn't know why he was being contacted now. Severus sighed deeply, nostrils flaring again. "Well, that's one less thing to explain. Did you realise that your presence has been hidden from the Ministry of Magic? Or were you not aware that someone had been making such a large effort to keep your identity a secret in the eyes of our government?"
Alex started. He what? "Um, I don't know what you are referring to. I haven't done anything like that, but my uncle might've. I don't have to do anything with paperwork, do I?" Severus didn't seem to know what to do, and floundered as best as a greasy man looking like he came from a funeral could. Did he think Alex would just admit to government fraud or something? "If it helps, he didn't seem to like the whole magic thing. He had a wand and all but I'm pretty sure he kept it locked up somewhere, or broke it. He didn't let me talk about it, if it makes you feel better he didn't want me to know about you just as much as you don't know about me. Is there anything I can help you with?"
Alex was pretty relaxed now, this guy was probably not going to harm him, and even if he did, if he really was a wizard, his hand-to-hand combat skills were probably sub-par. The man sniffed again. "Not me personally. But you'll need to talk to some people from the Ministry, to get you on the files. Don't know why they sent me, though." He let out a long-suffering sigh, as if he had been asked to look after a classroom full of children who didn't want to be there. "Probably expected me to be good with brats like you. Well, you'll need to come with me to the Ministry, then. Get over here."
Alex hid a grin as he gave the man his arm (Putting the knife surreptitiously in the holster under his jacket). Whoever thought he'd be good with children must be a delusional old fool.
Like most people unaccustomed to Apparating, Alex hated it. However, unlike most people, it wasn't the squeezed-through-a-test-tube part that Alex didn't like- he had been shoved in enough extreme situations that he didn't really care anymore -but he didn't like that his safety, and possible his life, was in the hands of a person he only knew by name and unpleasant attitude, and he didn't actually know where he was at any point until his feet hit the ground again. To infuriate the greasy man, though, he made sure to hide his displeasure and slight nausea at the experience, and only smiled, and straightened again, once noticing he was at the entrance to the Ministry. Ian had made sure he knew the locations of all major wizarding places.
Severus then escorted him through the telephone-box-lift to the Ministry of Magic. Normally, Alex might have admired the sculpture, but he was dragged along by the haughty wizard before he had time to evaluate the escape routes. He was lead through a series of corridors to an ordinary looking desk with an ordinary looking person sitting behind it. When she looked up, her bored expression split into revulsion, before she schooled it into indifference again. "How can I help you, Professor, Mr..."
"Rider," Alex finished, giving her a winning smile that she ignored.
Severus, or Professor Snape, Alex guessed, straightened to look at her down his hooked nose. "This is the ever-elusive Alex Rider. He's here to register."
The lady's surprise was only shown in the slight widening of her eyes, before she sent off a paper aeroplane which presumably was a message, and sent them off to another dull-looking desk and duller-looking person. "Alex Rider? I have some questions for you. Thank you, Severus, I will take it from here."
Severus nodded and left. Alex briefly wondered how he was going to get back, but he knew the tube and bus systems well enough so he wasn't worried. The new person turned to him. "Hello Mr Rider. Could you tell me your full name, please."
"Alexander Jonathan Rider."
The guy asked a lot of standard questions about him, his guardian, etc., when:
"All previous education, magical and not?" At this question the wizard's eyes seemed to become sharper.
"Um, I went to my local primary school, now I'm in my last year at Brooklands comp., I had no formal magical education, but Ian taught me enough so that I had no... Outbursts..."
He seemed to accept this. "Any other form of education?"
Alex didn't think the OSA would let him say about his week at Brecon Beacons, or, heaven forbid, Malagosto. "Um, I have a blackbelt in Karate, training in MMA, and a coast guard licence if that counts?"
The guy didn't look like he knew what half of those were, and Alex stifled a laugh. "Yes, yes, that's fine ..." He scribbled some stuff down on his parchment. Alex didn't realise they still used quills and parchment.
After some more questions about his medical history (Alex blagged his way through. He really hoped no one was going to examine him...) then he was asked if he knew why he hadn't been detected until now.
"Uh, maybe Ian did something? He didn't like magic…"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, he didn't let me talk about it, he taught me enough so I wasn't clueless and had enough control not to randomly have bursts of accidental magic. Other than that there was no trace of magic in my life. What do you mean…there was no trace of me? How did you find me now?"
The older wizard sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "These past few months you have given us a massive headache. There was no record of an Alex Rider displaying magical ability - we have a record of all wizards, muggleborn or not, which would normally have flagged you as a magic user when you were eleven - until the Hogwarts roster put your name on last year. But it was like there was some kind of spell that made it very difficult to find anything about you. We were just about to crack it, then it disappeared. It only reappeared a few months ago, and we had to restart the spell cracking to find out anything from you."
"Oh."
"Oh, indeed. There is no record of an Ian Rider on our system, so it's likely he's involved."
"If it helps, it would have disappeared when I went to America, and my uncle died almost two years ago."
"Yeah, we know. Thank you."
He was free to go, after a warning that he would probably get another visitor sometime soon.
He caught the tube back, and decided to forget about wizards for now. After all, that tactic had worked for more than five years, why would it not work now?