The entire media industry has been running without sleep for the past two weeks. From major international broadcasters to small local players, everyone was still scrambling to keep up, and there was no indication that the frenzy would end anytime soon.
Maverick's life becoming a story of its own was not the only thing making waves. His teacher Edward, Dumbledore, Maxime, in fact, all seven of them found themselves under the media's microscope. Dumbledore for instance, turned out to score more headlines, as did the others, particularly in the countries they represented, where the local media focused heavily on them.
Ariel pulled out a few newspapers from the past week and spread them across the table.
[From Schoolboy to World-Shaking Wizard: The Story of Maverick Caesar…]
Maverick flipped through the papers, he was genuinely thrown off by some of them. He could understand them digging into his school and college years, but what the heck was this?
[Magical Prodigy Secretly Cultivated Overseas: Did the Prime Minister See This Day Coming? Coincidence or Conspiracy?]
The conspiracy crap was beside the point. How the hell did these people even find out about this stuff?
Sure, the fact that he had sat his OWLs and NEWTs at Ilvermorny wasn't exactly a secret, but that had only been news in the magical world. It had made headlines for a short while when his teacher first announced that he had taken on an apprentice.
"Don't sell the press short, kid." Michael gave him a look that said he still had much to learn. "A lot of newspapers have already started sharing their resources. Even here in Britain, what do you have, the Daily Press, was it?"
"Prophet…" Maverick said absentmindedly.
Michael nodded without looking, flipping through the papers before pointing out another headline to Maverick.
[Daily Telegraph and Daily Prophet Sign Historic Media Accord, Ushering in a New Era of Cross-World Journalism]
"This happened just three days after the press conference..."
Maverick took the paper and quickly skimmed through it while his father continued.
"Plenty more have followed since across the globe… the line between magical and non-magical news has practically vanished. There's just one news cycle now…"
"Doesn't Hogfarts get newspapers or something?" Sarah suddenly chimed in.
Maverick's brow twitched. He rolled the paper into a tube and gave her forehead a smack without looking.
"Okay, I get it." He nodded, looking between his father and mother. What could he say but accept the fact? Besides, it wasn't really anything to worry about. He was just a little taken aback by how quickly things were moving.
"What else is going on that I ought to know?"
Ariel scrutinized him. "You really haven't been paying attention?"
Maverick gave a shrug and leaned back. "It's the end-of-year exams… I had two weeks to get everything ready, besides, I wasn't about to ruin my record of having zero trolls in my classes…"
"…failing grades." He added after a pause, looking at their puzzled faces.
"Who even comes up with these things?" Sarah tilted her head curiously.
Maverick chuckled, his mind briefly wandering elsewhere. "It's probably some redhead sitting in a coffee shop somewhere had a moment of inspiration..."
Ariel and Sarah: "…"
"Forget it." Maverick smiled and brushed the thought aside, then looked toward his mother again.
"Oh, right…" Ariel once again propped her chin on one hand, meanwhile Michael had already left the table to wash his hands.
"…I'd say that, apart from investigating you and the other six people who appeared on the news with you, most of it has been about history—"
"—you three chat..." Michael walked up behind Ariel, leaned down, and planted a quick kiss on her cheek, cutting her off mid-sentence.
She smiled. "Are you coming back for lunch?"
"Probably not." He replied without much thought, then picked up his briefcase and headed straight for the door. A man in a suit was already waiting there, and he handed the briefcase to him, but just before stepping outside, he stopped and turned back toward Maverick.
"You might want to stop by Buckingham Palace… there's quite a lot happening that's not made into the news also…"
Maverick arched a brow at his father, then gave a small nod of acknowledgment.
Sarah also pushed herself up from the chair. "I'm going to go get ready too…" She then dashed upstairs to her room.
With no one left to interrupt them, Maverick turned back to his mother and prompted her to continue. "You were saying?"
"Right, history…"
---
The press conference revealed that whenever the magical world was involved, the official accounts of those events were altered to keep its existence a secret. And as it turns out, almost every major event in modern history had some form of magical involvement, meaning much of what people knew about recent history wasn't true, or at least contained some level of fabrication.
For instance, World War Two, heck even World War One, turned out to be far from the complete story. Another example, and one that happened much more recently, was the strange incident near Oman involving flashes of light, sounds of explosions, and small earthquakes.
Maverick was actually the culprit behind that particular incident, or rather, Bloodraven to be more precise. It was the cover-up surrounding his fight with Morvain several years ago, only, there was no mention of the name Maverick Caesar anywhere in the new official report. After all, only Edward, Maxime, and perhaps Dumbledore knew the full truth about what happened back then. Everyone else could only speculate.
In any case, the incident drew little real attention, overshadowed almost entirely by coverage of the Second World War and the Kree invasion.
What nobody thought to question, however, was the authenticity of the declassified information.
Perhaps it was because there was simply too much information being released all at once. Or perhaps people genuinely believed that governments wouldn't dare lie on top of an already exposed lie.
Even the harshest critics didn't question whether the information itself was genuine, just the morality of keeping the entire world in the dark for so long.
So. Was everything in those declassified records entirely true? Of course not. Plenty remained hidden still, and a fair amount had been fabricated outright, or quietly mixed in with misleading detail. It might sound like that defeated the whole purpose of coming clean, but that was simply how governments and agencies handled sensitive information.
Carol Danvers, for one. On Pierce's advice, every record of her involvement had been scrubbed from the official account and replaced with a story invented from whole cloth. The public didn't know, and, in truth, they didn't need to know every detail to grasp the larger picture, an alien civilisation had invaded Earth, and Earth, in the end, had won.
On another note, reactions varied with each record that was set straight.
Most people were slowly coming to terms with the new reality and the truth they had been given, but a vocal minority was also there pushing back. A few protests had already broken out in major capitals around the world, but were quickly brought under control as governments were long prepared for such reactions.
Having seen firsthand how powerful social media could become, Maverick was glad it had not been developed yet.
The press also, for its part, was no different. Along with examining the records and reporting their contents to the public, there was no shortage of criticism.
None of this came as a surprise to the leaders of the magical or non-magical world. Not everyone was going to be happy, and not everyone could accept everything so easily. And how long this period of adjustment would last was anyone's guess, but eventually, the world would adapt.
"…I was actually expecting a much bigger mess." Maverick said, taking the cup of coffee his mother handed him.
"It's only been two weeks. But yeah…" Ariel sat down beside him in the chair Sarah had occupied earlier. "Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about you, mister…"
"Uh… what about me?"
"Anything…" she stretched out the word, "special planned for the summer?"
Maverick took a slow sip from his cup, eyeing his mother suspiciously. Did I forget something?
"This… and that." he replied almost absentmindedly.
Ariel kept her eyes narrowed for several more seconds.
"What about Isabella?" She finally asked, leaning even closer as she scrutinized him.
Ah, shit.
"Have you set a date already?"
"Cough… about that…"
She folded her arms and waited.
"New Year's Eve!" Maverick quickly answered.
Ariel's eyes immediately brightened at his answer, and she sat up straighter.
"Is it confirmed?"
Maverick nodded, a smile also tugging at the corners of his lips when his mother suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug.
"Oh, sweetheart…" she murmured, squeezing him in her arms. "I'm so happy for you. You've given me so many reasons to be proud of you."
Maverick's smile grew, "so I have to get married to grow up?"
Ariel released him and stood up. She didn't answer his joke, instead saying enthusiastically, "I'm going to go give her a call right now."
"Now?"
"Mm-hmm…. wash the cup when you're done."
Maverick watched her walk away just like that and chuckled to himself. He then settled back into his seat and continued sipping his coffee when not long after Sarah came running downstairs.
He arched a brow at her. She was wearing…
"Is that supposed to be your X-Men uniform?"
"Training… pretty cool, right?" She spun a full turn to show it off properly.
It wasn't. Too bright, too flashy, and probably wasn't comfortable either.
"Very…" he replied perfunctorily, then flicked a finger, sending the empty coffee cup floating toward the sink. A second flick cleaned it, and he got to his feet.
Then, right there on the spot, he made a circular gesture with his hand, and a small portal appeared in front of him. Its edges expanded outward, glowing with a faint orange shimmer as the opening grew larger.
He wasn't really taking her for training, per se. Sarah was already doing plenty of that, during school breaks, she now regularly travels to the X-Mansion to practice with the other X-Men and develop her abilities.
What Maverick wanted to see was just how far she had come.
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