23 July 2014
Chapter Ten
The early morning sun invaded my room through the flimsy venetian blinds, stealing through the shadows to greet my eyelids with a gentle kiss as I slumbered away the exhaustion of another hard day's night.
I opened my eyes just a crack and shut them immediately. So much for sleeping in. I really should have invested in some curtains when I moved into the room facing the sunrise.
"Ugggghhhhh." Instead of rousing myself to begin the day, I turned over to face the purple wall, tangling my sheets around my bare legs. It was my day off and there was no sense in getting up before I absolutely had to.
My eyes preferred the sight of purple to the sight of sunrise, and I slowly began to drift away again. In sleep, no thoughts of the night or senseless bets or Freddy Weasley or James Potter could assault my dreams…
Wait. I jolted upright, forgetting my desire for sleep. Thoughts of last night were coming back to me, and they were occurring more quickly than I would have liked them to. My brain pieced together the information as if I were just coming down off of a hangover.
"Potter… Freddy… the bet… professional pool… Freddy's friends… Oh Merlin," I mumbled. My voice was heavy with sleep, something only a heavy dose of coffee could cure. Thinking through my interactions with the two cousins from the night before, I remembered the fact I kept from Freddy: that I had met James Potter, and had promised to tutor him at pool. For Potter, I would have to keep the opposite secret: that not only was Freddy my boss, but that he had also enlisted my help concerning the bet.
And on top of all of that nonsense…
I groaned and flopped over into my array of colorful pillows. Potter and I had fought at the casino. I said some very nasty things to him—and I meant all of them—but a tense atmosphere was hardly conducive to a healthy tutor-student relationship. That would require some patching up.
A quick glance at the clock told me that it was only half past eight. I had an entire day before my meeting with Freddy, and in that time, I had to do some major damage control. Disentangling myself from my sheets, I half-walked, half-stumbled over to my cluttered desk.
But before I could pull out my quill and parchment, I heard a rap on my window. One of Potter's owls, back again? When we said our awkward goodbyes on Tuesday night, I told him that I would owl him during the course of the week, but that wasn't good enough for James I'm-the-Greatest Potter. On my day off from the stultifying Quality Quidditch Supplies, the Quidditch player sent me no less than three different owls—two of them from the Kenmare Owl Post Express Office—before my shift at the Star on Wednesday, and I sent them all back with no answer.
Big mistake. My lack of communication had driven him to enter the lion's den that was the Shooting Star in order to seek me out, which led to our fight…
"What a bloody mess," I mumbled, drawing up the blinds and shielding my poor eyes from the sunlight. The owl perched on my windowsill gave me a curious look (if owls can be said to look curious, that is) as I struggled to open the window with one hand.
"Fine, you bloody bird," I growled, jerking the window open at last. The owl gave a self-righteous hoot and hopped inside, offering me its right leg. "Thanks, I guess."
I removed the missive with clumsy fingers and gestured towards the owl cage in the corner. "Go on, eat up. Sephronia still has some food left over from yesterday."
The bird clacked its beak in gratitude and flew over to the cage as I opened the letter.
It was not Potter's handwriting.
"Dearest Annie,
I hope you've slept well, and I hope that this letter finds you awake. (You probably think it's early, don't you? People in the adult world wake up before eight o'clock on the weekdays, you know.) Anyways, just wanted to remind you that you need to meet me at ten. Wear something nice. It's kind of a big deal.
div align="right"XOXO,
Freddy"/div
Freddy. Of course. I looked over at the little owl, which had an uncanny resemblance to the owl post office birds that Potter had sent me the day before, with its small body and golden-brown coloring. Freddy had a tendency to change messenger birds on a weekly basis, just so that the magical authorities couldn't keep track of his correspondence as much as they'd like to. He tended to go for more flamboyant birds, however—the bird he used the previous week had been a golden-breasted starling, native to Africa. I never asked where he got his vibrantly-color, nonnative missive carriers, but I was certain that it couldn't have been through legal means. It was a rare day when he deigned to use a normal owl to deliver his all-important notes.
Tearing off a bit of parchment, I wrote my reply:
"Freddy,
I'm not your 'dearest' anything. I still remember the time and place we're supposed to meet. I know to wear something nice. You don't have to remind me.
div align="right"Anne"/div
With one slight gesture from me, the bird was back at my fingertips. I tied the letter onto its leg and gave it an affectionate pat on the head.
"Bite Freddy for me, okay?" The bird nodded (if birds can be said to nod, that is) and flew off into the ghastly sunlight. I shook my head. Damn Freddy and his surprisingly intelligent birds.
Settling back into my comfy desk chair, I gave my task a lot of thought. If I sounded too pleasant in my writing, Potter might believe that I was planning on being his friend. If I sounded too mean, he might get angry all over again and refuse to meet up with me. Neither outcome sounded appealing, especially when I thought about how he started tormenting me as soon as he met me…
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iIt was my first time on the Hogwarts Express, and I was hopelessly lost. The compartments were all filled with people in the upper years, people who had established their friend groups already and didn't seem to need any more company. My usually endless supply of confidence was beginning to plummet when I found an empty compartment.
"Phew," I muttered, lugging my trunk behind me.
But I had only gotten the chance to shove my trunk in the storage compartment and sit down when I was interrupted by the opening of the glass door.
"Come on, James, let's sit in here," a familiar voice called. I groaned inaudibly. The person attached to the voice was none other than my sister, Beatrice, who was entering her third year with high marks on her exams, a new haircut, and lots of friends.
She stepped into the compartment, closely followed by some girls who wore the same kind of red-and-gold tie that she did, and some boys with the sort of carelessly-styled hair that takes hours to pull off. As she gabbed to her friends, she didn't notice me hunched in the corner of the compartment.
Finally one of her friends, a tall, gangly boy with glasses and dark hair, looked over at where I sat.
"Hey, Bea," he interrupted her, nodding in my direction. "Looks like we've got an ickle firstie in our compartment. What's your name, firstie?"
Before I could stutter out a response, Bea had grabbed my wrist. She yanked me up forcefully, her fingers digging into my skin. "Oh, this is no one," she said, her voice full of disdain. "Just my sister…"
As her voice trailed off, I pleaded silently with my eyes./i Don't say the name, don't say the name, don'tsaythename…
i"Porky Collins. She can leave."
Her friends, including the boy who had spoken to me, all started laughing. I could feel my eyes starting to brim with tears, so I turned away to grab my trunk. As I whirled around, trying to wade through the laughing third years, I ran into the dark-haired boy.
"Whoa, watch out, Porky," he smirked. "You might cause an earthquake if you're not careful."
And so I made my escape amidst their laughter./i
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When she returned from Hogwarts after her second year, Bea quickly made it known that she wanted nothing to do with me. She was always off with her friends, coming home with stories about the magic that their parents did and begging Mum to let her get her hair styled like her friends did. I was nothing but her little sister, seemingly magic-less and slightly chubbier than the average ten-year-old.
The insults began with "Squib" and got worse from there. Soon, she was telling me that I was a fat, useless Muggle every time we crossed paths, and finally, she sabotaged my first name and turned it from "Portia" to "Porky." It was no wonder that I didn't want to be a witch, because I knew that if I went to Hogwarts, her insults would continue and perhaps even get worse. I never expected to run into her on the train, nor did I expect her to unleash the awful name as soon as she thought I was encroaching upon her territory.
James Potter was not my first bully, but he was the one who took the name and ran with it. After that awful incident on the train, Bea never had to insult me again. Potter did all of her dirty work for her. Even as a first year, I was certain that it was his all-too-obvious crush on my sister that compelled him to begin, but it was his own adolescent maliciousness that caused him to continue.
And so, as I began my "apology note" to the despicable James Potter, I wondered why I was even bothering to do so in the first place. There was the allure of Freddy's business proposition, of course, and the fact that if I could teach Potter how to play pool like a proper gentleman, it would be a far sweeter victory for me when the time came. But then again, the way he had acted at the Snoozing Dog and again at the Shooting Star was confusing to me. The James Potter who bullied me would never ask me to call him by his first name, nor would he apologize for something he believed he did wrong. My written apology would have to be just as sincere as his verbal one was, although I didn't mean all of it.
With memories of my awful Hogwarts years swirling through my mind, I finally dipped my peacock feather into the pot of violet ink and began to write:
"strikePotter, you ugly toad /strikeJames,
I must strikeask you to apologize for being an idiot /strikeextend my sincerest apologies for our strikefight that was your fault/strike altercation strikelast night/strike early this morning. strikeYou said/strike I said some things that I strikereally did/strike truly did not strikebut actually idid/istrike mean, and I could tell that it upset you greatly. For that, and for not returning your strikefar too many/strike missives, I am strikenot/strike sorry. However, I must ask you that in the future, you refrain from sending more than one owl per day. I will strikenot/strike do my best to answer promptly strike(no I won't)/strike from now on.
I think that strikeI need to punch you in the face /strikewe need to talk. Would strikeyour face /strikeyou be able to meet strikemy fist/strike me at Café Lumos on Vertic's Alley at half one this afternoon?
div align="right"strikeNot at all yours /strikeYours strike(in)/strikesincerely,
Anne"/div
I read over my work and sighed heavily. The first draft was finished, and though it had taken me about half an hour longer than it should have, it was oddly cathartic. It felt good to write nasty things about him and accuse him of idiocy on a parchment that I was supposedly going to send to him. The letter itself would have to be rewritten; it was messy with my crossed out insults and my sloppy left-handed scrawl. Potter might have had poor eyesight, but he would have no trouble reading the spots that I had crossed out.
Sipping my coffee (which I had gotten while taking a procrastination break from writing the letter), I pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment and began to rewrite, this time in my neatest handwriting. I left out the insults, but I still added them in my mind, cackling to myself as I wrote.
Finally, it was finished. I signed my name with a flourish and called for Sephronia, who was perched in the tree outside my window. My crazy barn owl much preferred basking in the sunlight to napping in her cage, a thing that we disagreed upon almost daily. She glided to the windowsill, giving me a stern look for interrupting her nap.
Only Sephronia could make me feel bad for asking her to do her job. "Listen, Seph," I said, waving the letter in the air to dry it. "I'm sorry for making you do this, but it's absolutely necessary, I'm afraid. Could you deliver this to James Potter for me? You've got to go over to Kenmare, which is a far stretch, I know. I promise that I won't make you do anything else today."
Sephronia cocked her head. She was incredibly intelligent, and even though I didn't know Potter's address, I knew that she would be able to find him. She would stop over at the Diagon Alley post office, where she could be redirected to the address of the most famous prat of our generation and sped on her way with the specialized magic of the Wizarding Postal Service. Holding out her leg slowly, she gave a condescending hoot.
"Oh, don't give me that," I muttered, attaching the letter to her leg. "It isn't exactly my fault…"
But the lovely barn owl was gone before I could finish pouring out my troubles to her. I doubted very much that she actually cared, anyways.
I watched her fly until she was only a speck against the hot summer sun and then headed off to the shower. Merlin knew that I deserved it.
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The answer came quickly—about an hour later. It took me by surprise to see my owl coming back to me and perching on my desk with her leg extended expectantly. My hair was still damp from the shower, as I couldn't be bothered to dry it with a quick charm, and I had barely begun to think of how I could possibly phrase my verbal apology to the prat. Sephronia took off as soon as I removed the tiny scrap of parchment from her leg, bound for her favorite branch so that she could avoid any more letter carrying duties. Lazy bird.
On the scrap of parchment, Potter had written one word that was hardly worth the Express Flight spells that he paid for in order to send Sephronia back so quickly.
"Okay."
I crumpled the parchment and blasted my hair with a Drying Charm. "Hattie!" I yelled. It was almost twelve-thirty and I hadn't seen her even once. Her room actually faced the side of the building that didn't get blasted by the morning sun, so she typically got a lot more sleep than I did. (This was probably also down to the fact that she had tasteful curtains and decorated walls and an eyeshade, but I never was very good about decorating, anyway.)
Going into the kitchen, I saw Hattie in all of her pajama'd glory trying to pour herself some tea from the kettle. She was yawning as she did so, and therefore, she was about to miss her cup. I thought it wise to interrupt this disaster waiting to happen.
"Whoa, Miss Neat Freak, you're going to spill that," I grinned. She stopped yawning and trying to pour her tea, shooting me a bewildered look.
"Thanks, Annie. When did you get up?" she asked, pouring her tea the proper way this time.
"Oh, four hours ago. I suppose you slept in?"
She grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. Long night. A woman came in with her face stuck in a haunted toilet plunger."
The stories from the graveyard shift at St. Mungo's never ceased to amuse me. Witches and wizards were highly accident-prone, and Hattie's patients were often the worst of the lot. "Oh really? How does a toilet plunger become haunted? And how does said haunted toilet plunger end up stuck to one's face?"
She sat down at the table and I joined her after pouring myself another cup of coffee. There was plenty of time before I had to meet Potter, and I wasn't planning on looking terribly nice for him.
"Well," she sighed. "As it turns out, there are a couple of steps. First, one must die of asphyxiation by toilet plunger. Then, one's soul must remain to haunt the bathroom, and subsequently, the plunger itself. Then, a living being must move into one's seemingly vacated flat. And clog the toilet. And then attempt to use the toilet plunger that is haunted by the ghost of the dead party."
I snorted. "That sounds rather complicated. Why couldn't the ghost just haunt the toilet, like Moaning Myrtle does?"
Hattie giggled. "I asked the ghost that myself. She told me that it was the toilet plunger's fault she was dead, so she chose it instead of the leaky U-bend of the toilet in her flat. Needless to say, the woman who had her face stuck in the plunger wished that the ghost had haunted the toilet instead…"
Hattie and I continued to regale each other with tales of our ridiculous night jobs for a little while, but when the clock struck one, I stood up. "Sorry, Hats, but I've got to go out in a bit. Is Ethan coming up from Somerset tonight?"
She blushed, causing me to grin. "Yeah, it's his day off from the sanctuary. I actually get to sleep through the night, too, because Healer Bones has generously given me the afternoon shift tomorrow. We're going on a date." Ethan Longbottom, our best friend and fellow Hufflepuff, was Hattie's long-time, long-distance boyfriend and a plant specialist at the Modesty Rabnott Snidget Reservation in Somerset. They'd been dating since our seventh year, when he finally mustered up the courage to ask her to go to Hogsmeade with him. Even after all this time, the mention of him caused Hattie to blush. I was slightly sickened by how lovey-dovey they could be, but they were the cutest couple in the entire Wizarding World. I was happy for them, although I constantly marveled at how they were able to keep up such a good relationship while both worked full-time jobs and lived so far apart.
"Well, good," I responded, putting my cup in the sink. "I'll probably be seeing you before you go off on your little outing. See you later."
"See you." As I walked down the hall, I heard her turn the faucet on. Hattie's neat freak tendencies counterbalanced my utter sloppiness, which worked out well when I didn't want to wash my own dishes. I wasn't taking advantage of her, though. With my hard-earned money from two ridiculous jobs, I paid the Wizflix bill every month. And if there was one thing that displeased Harriet Ryers, it was not being able to watch the newest episode of iThe Life and Times of Harry Potter,/i the soap opera released solely by Wizflix that chronicled (rather inaccurately) the entire life of the Boy-Who-Lived.