Burn
"Candles?" Anthony said, his brow furrowed.
His new friend Terry Boot leaned over, glancing at the waxy candles Anthony had laid down on his hands, just unwrapped along with shiny candleholders. He scratched his dark, curly head of hair and shrugged. "I dunno. Decoration?"
Terry may not have known, but Anthony did know why his mum had sent him candles, and at that point he rather wished his mum wasn't a muggle, and then she'd know that wizards and witches weren't actually religious, and not Jewish at that. Maybe it was his dad's fault, becoming one of the very few Jewish wizards in England and not ever really mentioning to Mum that the wizarding world was rather secular.
"Shabbat," Anthony muttered, a trace of bitterness in his voice. "She's expecting me to celebrate Shabbat in Hogwarts, and of course I need to light the candles, as that's more important than challah or anything."
"Oh, you're Jewish? I hadn't met any wizards yet who were religious." Pausing, Terry eyed the candles again and added, "I'm Christian."
Anthony nodded, not really listening to Terry but going through the motions. "How does she expect me to light them?" he demanded. "We're only in our first week of school, I'm positive there're no matches in a place like this, and I heard we don't learn how to make fire until later in the year."
"I saw this bushy haired Gryffindor girl practicing it in the library yesterday," Terry said. "It's 'incendio.' She got it right, but she almost burned something and Madame Pince lectured her for ten minutes straight."
"Incendio," Anthony murmured. "Right."
--
"And how did you burn your fingers so badly?" Madam Pomfrey asked, Anthony Goldstein's hand in her aged one. The fingertips looked far from healthy in comparison to the fingers of Anthony's left hand.
"I was trying to do Incendio," Anthony muttered, his right hand taut with pain. "I did it, but my wand fell out of my hand onto my other one, and nearly got onto my leg."
Madam Pomfrey sighed. "There's a reason you're not taught it this early on in the year," she said, making tutting sounds. "Why were you even trying to, anyway? To get ahead?"
Anthony muttered something incomprehensible.
From farther back in the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey, probably looking for the potion to remedy the pain, replied, "I'll take that was as 'no, but I don't want to tell so you can just go with that if you want.'"
Madam Pomfrey, Anthony decided, must have become very sharp from healing so many students. Besides, she probably had never heard of Shabbat, anyway.
Anthony stared at his fingers, a bit surprised that Madam Pomfrey hadn't asked why or how it had fell out of his hand, or if that was the truth. He shuddered at the memory. Who would invent a spell like that?
--
Fire. Anthony hadn't ever really been scared of it, though he had always grimaced at the idea of getting burnt from it. But had it ever had this hypnotizing quality? Anthony stared at the fire on the tip of his wand, waving from side to side, a sharp, bright yellow color that hurt his eyes, yet he couldn't tear them away from it...
"Anthony?" The shove in the shoulders from Terry didn't jolt him into consciousness, and the wand stayed firmly gripped in his hands.
Swaying, bright, burning, yellow – beautiful? Certainly not deadly, it was too...too...something to be deadly, to really burn. Right? Right?
His mouth open, Anthony lifted his right hand; he needed to touch this beautiful, otherworldly thing (though it could deserve the title of "being," in Anthony's opinion). He grasped it, slid his fingers under the dancing flames (he momentarily wondered if the flames danced to a particular beat or song, though it had no feet, not that that mattered) – and screamed, his tone a sharp dagger that had deadly precision.
Fire – shouldn't – hurt – that – much...It was too beautiful! Too lovely, too innocent (or was the innocence a mask?)...
Anthony's dad had touched fire once, he remembered, but he had only winced and then swore, not screamed.
Too hot. Too burning. Too searing, scorching, scalding. It traveled its way into his hands, though stayed on the wand, crackling and electrifying, making his hands shake uncontrollably.
"G-go out! Out!" he screamed, his wand starting to slip from his hands.
"Aguamenti!" Terry shouted, his wand streaming water onto Anthony's wand, quenching the flame. He darted a glance at Madam Pince, who looked absolutely murderous, her face like a tomato. "I don't know what went wrong with you, but I'm taking you to Pomfrey before Pince slits our throats," he hissed, taking a still dazed Anthony by the arm.
"Too beautiful..." Anthony whispered throatily, his dark brown eyes wide.
--
Madam Pomfrey sighed. "Don't you know that fire produced by Incendio is hotter than the average flame? I know it warns you in spell books."
Anthony looked down at the floor, thinking about the flame his wand produced. The only fire he would ever get close to would be in the fireplace, and he would definitely stay a fair few feet away from the Shabbat candles. Fire was too dangerous and deadly, too deceiving and betraying.
--
"Incendio! Incendio! Incendio!" Alecto Carrow shrieks, and Anthony is jolted back to the present with the next fire of Incendios. (No pun intended, Anthony thinks bitterly as he screams on the inside.)
"Think the spell is so useful now for your filthy muggle customs, Goldstein? It deserves far better than that! Incendio!"
The Incendios are much harder than when Anthony uses them for lighting the Shabbat candles, obviously because of the different intents and forces. As yet another stream of piercing yellow flames strike Anthony in the back, he knows for sure he was right as a first year. Too deadly – too deceiving – too betraying.
But still so beautiful...
As much as Anthony loathes and fears the Incendio fire, he craves it and wants it, and not like the kind of horrified interest one gets when they see something particularly disgusting and awful, but a want, a need...and Anthony hates it, both his need for it and the oh-so-beautiful flames that shouldn't be beautiful, shouldn't be so absolutely bloody hypnotizing and breathtaking when they burn and hurt and scald so damn much. It's not right, not that anything has been for the past few months among the punishments and Carrows and the war and the DA's strong revival.
The flames dance over his body, and Anthony wonders if they are performing to the evil tune of Carrow's spirit, a song gone twisted and wrong.