Early on a warm September morning, Erebus Flint was on the verge of a breakthrough. He was a boy in his fifth year of schooling at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry. He was rather short for a 15 year old, and had a round faced with tidy brown hair. Hunched in a nook behind a pile of barrels in the Hufflepuff Common Room, surrounded by open books with fold-out diagrams, he was reciting the last element to a spell. He placed a pinch of dried powder of fluxweed upon his tongue.

"Altitudinis Paribuso!" Erebus incanted, waving his wand with a decisive flick. The end glowed with a soft blue light which he touched against his forehead. He didn't feel any different than before.

Hopping out from behind the barrel he saw a gaggle of first years playing wizarding roulette with Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

"Do I look taller to you?" he asked. The first years didn't seem to think so. This spell was supposed to make him taller. What had gone wrong?

He saw Gavin Harwick enter the common room, the barrel door opening for him. He wore the yellow tie of a prefect and usually stood about a foot taller than Erebus.

As Erebus looked at him, he felt his shirt tighten and his robes lift. In moments he could look straight ahead into Gavin's eyes.

"That's quite the growth spurt, Flint," he said, coolly.

"Wait until everyone sees!" cried Erebus as he pushed by him, out to the corridor near the kitchens. The smell of breakfast wafted through and followed him as he ran upstairs to the Great Hall. There the majority of the student body was sitting out on the long tables, eating food summoned from the kitchen below.

Up on the high table, some of the staff had arrived for breakfast, including the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Rubeus Hagrid. The rumour about school was that Hagrid was half giant, and Erebus could believe it as he stood over eleven foot tall. He was sitting next to the Herbology teacher, Professor Longbottom, famous for his actions in the Second Wizarding War, a few years before Erebus was born.

Erebus hurried up through the centre of the hall, past the lonely spot at the end where he'd usually eat, and climbed up the two steps to the high table.

"Thank you for telling me about the fluxweed, Professor!" said Erebus, interrupting his teacher mid-crumpet.

"Wha's that about fluxweed?" Hagrid interrupted. "Not making polyjuice potions are we now?"

"No, Professor," Erebus said quickly. Making oneself look like another would be forbidden magic, but there was nothing in any rules he had heard about making one as tall as others. He met Hagrid's interrogating gaze and smiled innocently.

It was then that things started to go horribly wrong.

Erebus's robes started to lift higher. His shirt tightened more and the leather of his shoes dug in to his feet. Before he knew what was happening, his buttons pinged off and his robes tore along the shoulder. This was not the worst of it. He drew up to a full height of well over eleven feet and the seat of his trousers burst asunder. His clothes in tatters Erebus exposed himself to the entire school. The spell did exactly what it had been designed to do in making him as tall as anyone he happened to be looking at.

The hall erupted into laughter as the students began to notice Erebus's unnaturally huge, mostly bare self standing over them before the high table.

He turned to look at everyone. Slytherin, Griffindor, Ravenclaw and his own Hufflepuff house all laughing alike. And as he looked at them, he shrunk, falling out the last of his clothes. Panicked, before the teachers could help him, he ran naked through the hall past everyone.

Sprinting down to the common room, he hammered on the barrel door to be let in, there he streaked past the first years who caught a glimpse of him as he ran to the dormitories.

There, fully dressed, over-dressed even, he remained all day despite beseeching by Gavin and the other prefects that he was risking points being deducted from the House. When they came in he refused to meet their eyes.

The next day, when he did venture out for lessons, the whispers were unbearable. Erebutts they called him. He became withdrawn. For a week he did no work, became uninterested in spells. He hurried back to the dormitories after his lessons. And each night he cried himself to sleep, replaying the scene over in his mind, each time as excruciatingly embarrassing as the last.

On the eight day of this, Erebus Flint decided he had had enough. He packed his bags with all his possessions: the textbooks he was loathe to depart with (having cost his parents many galleons), his collection of Chocolate Frog Cards, his belt with pouches for spell components and a sealed jar of nurgles (which to all the world looked like an empty jar). He wore black jeans and his mustard house sweater. They felt ill-fitting and he still wasn't sure that he had shrunk back to the correct size since the spell wore off.

He tucked his slender pine wand into a holster at his hip. Finally, he put on his coat and attempted to leave Hogwarts.

He was on the bridge leading towards the town of Hogsmeade when he heard a voice behind him.

"And just where do you think you're going, Mr Flint?" It was Headmistress McGonagall. Erebus had always suspected he wasn't much liked by the headmistress, but then again he suspected he wasn't much liked by most people.

He turned back to see the old witch, but still averted her gaze.

"I'm going home," he said. "I can't be at the school after what happened."

"Mr Flint, losing one's clothes in the great hall may be undignified, but it is hardly the end of the world," McGonagall replied, sternly. "In nine months time everyone will have forgotten all about it."

"I can't live with people whispering about me for nine months!" Erebus cried.

The Headmistress considered Erebus for a moment. "There is another option available," she mused. "But it might not suit a gentle Hufflepuff boy..."

Erebus's heart rose. "Wh-what would that be?"

"I have been approached by the new Headmistress of the Durmstrang Institute about restarting the old student exchange program. We could send you."

"YES!" snapped Erebus, before he knew what he was saying.

"Durmstrang is not as warm and inviting a place as Hogwarts," said McGonagall. "And you would have to study very hard on your return for your OWLs."

"I can study hard. You know I can study hard, Professor," he replied. Erebus suspected the only reason he was put in Hufflepuff was for his propensity for diligence. That and because he asked not to be put in Slytherin like his father. Once in Hufflepuff he had not managed to make the firm and loyal friends he had hoped for.

"This isn't a decision to be taken lightly Mr Flint," said McGonagall.

"It's either Durmstrang or back home to the troll stable," Erebus said decisively.

"In that case," said McGonagall, "providing we can get permission from a parent then you may go."

"My bags are already packed!"

And so it was that Erebus Flint, a mild-mannered Hufflepuff, came to be sent to the Durmstrang Institute.