21

The next day, Monday, Al was up at six in the morning and picking with a marked lack of interest at a scrambled egg he had fixed for himself when his father came down, wearing the monogrammed bathrobe his wife had gotten him for Christmas last year.

"Mmf," he said to Al, heading over to the fridge.

Al grunted back without looking up from the book he was reading: an old African adventure story called The Diamond Hunters.

Al had been lucky enough to find a job working for a gardening outfit operating out of Bristol. His father insisted that they learn to make their own way in the world, especially after James's problems. After his initial excitement about learning to Apparate, Al had quickly gotten tired of it; the squeezing sensation always left him feeling sick and ready to hurl now.

Unfortunately his job was a little bit off the bus route and was a bit far to bike. So he had to be driven there (his father wasn't willing to let him use the Jaguar over the summer.) Al hated the arrangement, especially riding to work with him in the morning. It was in the morning when he felt the most naked, when the wall between what he was and what he wished to be was thinnest. The summer sun lanced at his eyeballs like needles and seemed to burn away at his perceptions.

It was especially bad after a night of bad dreams. But even when no dreams came, it was still bad. One morning not long ago, Al realised with a spurt of terror so sudden it was almost agony that he had been seriously considering reaching over his father's briefcase, grabbing the wheel of the Jag and sending it careening into the two express lanes, cutting a swathe of destruction through the morning commuters.

"You want another egg, Al?" his father asked from the fridge.

"No thanks," Dad.

Harry ate them fried. In the pan for two minutes and then over easy. How the hell could anyone eat them like that? What you got on your plate at the end was a sick yellow eye that would bleed orange when you cut it with your fork.

Al pushed his scrambled egg aside, having barely touched it. It was a congealed mass now, anyway, about as appetising as snot.

"Not hungry this morning, Al?"

"Not much appetite, I guess." The paper flopped onto the top step.

Harry finished cooking and brought his plate to the table. "Maggy Thomas stole your appetite, that's my guess. He grinned with affection at his son; there was still a spot of shaving cream on the boy's right ear.

"Maybe that's it," Al said, offering a wan smile which vanished as soon as Harry went down the stairs to get the paper.

Would it wake you up if I told you what a cunt she is, Dad? How about if I said "Oh, by the way, did you know that your good mate Dean Thomas's daughter Magnolia is one of the biggest sluts around? She'd kiss her own twat if she was double-jointed, that's what I think. Nothing but a stupid little slut. Two vials of ECP and she's yours for the night. And even if you can't get any E, she's still yours for the night. She'd shag a damn dog if she couldn't get a man. Think that'd wake you up, Dad? Get you a flying start to the day?

Ecstasy/Cocaine Potion (ECP) was an invention that had come out about fifteen years ago. It was a distilled mixture of LSD and cocaine that had come rolling out of South America and had made a huge splash in the wizarding world. It was cheaper than regular cocaine because all they had to do was skim a little off the regular harvest and run a duplication charm on it, and you got a huge bale of leaves with little effort—all the high without the side-effects. Except overuse could make your brain develop pinprick haemorrhages all over it, turning it into grey Swiss cheese and then before you knew it you'd have a stroke and end up with all the intelligence and self-awareness of a rotten head of cabbage.

Al pushed the thoughts away viciously, but he was aware that they wouldn't stay gone.

Harry came back to the table, carrying a cup of tea and the paper. He sat down and addressed his breakfast.

"Maggy reminds me a bit of your mother when I first met her."

"Is that so?"

"Young &… pretty &… fresh&…" Harry's eyes had gone a little vague with memory. Then they came back into focus and he looked at his son again, his gaze now almost anxious. "Not that your mother isn't sill a very fine looking woman. It's just that at that age a girl has a certain&… glow, I guess. It's there for a while and then it's gone." He shrugged and opened the paper with a rustle. "Such is life, I reckon."

She's a bitch in heat. Maybe that's what makes her glow.

"You're treating her right, aren't you, Al?" Harry asked, skimming in his usual rapid perusal toward the sports section. "Not getting too fresh?"

"Everything's cool, Dad."

"Dean thinks you're a fine boy," Harry said, now speaking in an absent manner as he arrived at the sports. He became absorbed. Blessed silence descended over the breakfast table.

Magnolia "Maggy" Thomas had been all over him the very first time he had taken her out, a few weeks before school ended. She flooed over to his house, and He had borrowed the Jag and taken her to Bristol, where there was a roller skating rink. Then he had taken her to the local lovers' lane—it was after all expected of them—where they could swap spit for a half hour or so and have all the right things to say to their respective friends the next day. She could roll her eyes and regale them with stories about how she had fought off his advances—boys were so tiresome, weren't they, and she wasn't that kind of girl. Then they would all nod, giggle and troop into the girls' loo and do whatever the fuck it was they did in there—put on makeup, smoke tampons, give each other enemas ... Whatever.

As for a guy &… well, you had to at least snog. You had to make it to second base and try for third. Because there were reputations and reputations. Al didn't give a fuck about having a stud reputation. All he wanted was to be normal. And if you didn't at least try, word started to get around; people started to wonder if you were all right.

So he'd take them up to the hill above town, or above Hogsmeade if they wanted a date there, feel them up, kiss them, maybe go a little further if she allowed it. Then she would stop him, he would put up a little good-natured argument and that would be that. No worries about what might be gossiped about in the girls' loo. No worries that anyone was going to think Al Potter was anything but normal. Except—

Except Maggy Thomas was "that kind of girl." She fucked on the first date. On every date. And between dates.

The first time had been about a month before the god damn Death Eater's heart attack, and it hadn't been too bad. Mostly because there hadn't been a huge build up to it, thus allowing him time to get nervous or afraid.

Always before, Al had been able to sense when a girl would allow herself to get "carried away" on the next date, and had been able to break it off. He was aware that both his looks and his prospects were good—hell, he was the son of a damned hero, the kind of boy their bitchy mothers thought of as a "good catch." So when he sensed that she was going to allow him to go "all the way" he would start dating somebody else. Al was able to admit to himself that, should he ever run across a truly frigid girl, he would probably be happy to date her for years to come; perhaps even marry her.

But the first time had really gone well. He had needed her help to get his cock into her, but she had seemed to take that as a matter of course. And halfway through their coupling, she had burbled up from the blanket they were lying on: "I just love to fuck!" It was the same tone a girl might use to express her love for chocolate, or ice cream, or pretty ponies.

Later encounters, five of them (five and a half, if you wanted to count last night), had gotten exponentially worse. Al didn't believe that Maggy had been aware of that, at least not at first. In fact, she probably thought she had found the battering ram of her dreams.

Al had not felt any of the things you were supposed to feel at a time like that. Kissing her lips was like snogging two rolls of warm but uncooked liver. Having her tongue in his mouth made him wonder what kind of diseases she might be carrying, from the other guys she undoubtedly saw between her dates with him. Sometimes he thought he could smell her fillings—a high, unpleasant metallic aroma, like hot car bonnets. Her breasts were bags of fat and no more.

They had gotten together twice before Snape's heart attack, and Al had increasing problems getting erect. Both times, he had needed the help of a little mental fantasy. She was stripped naked in front of all his friends, sobbing. He had forced her to march up and down in front of them all, crying out: Show us your tits! Bend over and show us your twat! That's it, bend over and spread your cheeks!

Maggy's appreciation was not at all surprising. Al was a good lover, not in spite of his problems, but because of them. Once you got hard, you had to have an orgasm. The fourth time they had done it—this was three days after Snape's heart attack—he had pounded away at her for nearly ten minutes. Maggy had had three orgasms and was trying for a fourth. Meanwhile, Al, almost insane with a desire to get this horror over with, called up the memory of a fantasy—what was, in fact, the first fantasy. The stainless steel autopsy table. The girl, clamped and helpless. The huge dildo. The rubber squeeze bulb. And in a final, sweaty and desperate bid to end things, he replaced the girl's face with Maggy's. That brought on a rubbery, joyless spasm that was—at least technically—an orgasm, and he had rolled off her, almost crazy with relief.

Maggy had rolled over and whispered in his ear, her breath redolent with strawberry bubble gum: "Lover, you can do me any time. Just call and I'll be ready." Al had nearly groaned aloud.

The crux of his dilemma was this: Wouldn't his reputation suffer if he broke it off with a girl so willing to put out for him? Wouldn't people wonder why?

Part of him thought they would not. He remembered being in third year and walking behind two seventh year boys down the hallway. One of them told the other that he had just broken it off with his girlfriend. The other wanted to know why. "Fucked 'er out," this boy had proclaimed, and they both bellowed goatish laughter.

If someone asks me why I broke it off with her, I'll just say I shagged her out. But what if she says we only did it five times? Is that enough? What? &… How much? &… How many? &… Who'll talk? &… What'll they say?

So his mind ran on, as restless as a rat in a locked maze. He was aware that he was turning a minor problem into a large one, and that this very inability to solve it was the clearest indicator of how far out he had gotten. But awareness did not bring on an ability to change his behaviour, and he sank into a black depression.

University. University would bring on a reason to break it off with Maggy that no one would dispute. But September was so far away.

The fifth time it had taken him almost twenty minutes to achieve an erection, but Maggy had proclaimed the experience worth the wait. And the last time—jus the night before—he hadn't been able to get it up at all.

"What are you, anyway?" Maggy had asked, her voice petulant and pouty after almost ten minutes of manipulating his lax penis. "Are you one of those AC/DC guys?"

He very nearly beat her face bloody. And if he'd had his wand with him—

"Well, I'll be a boiled Pygmy Puff! Congratulations, son!"

"Huh?" Al looked up, dragged out of his black study.

"You've been selected by the Sussex County Cricket Club!" His father was grinning with pride and pleasure.

"Is that so?" At first Al didn't have a clue what he was talking about; he had to dig for the meaning of the words. "Oh yeah &… Coach Hendrickson mentioned something to me about that. Said he was putting me and a kid named Roger Devons up, but I never thought anything would come of it."

"Well geez, you sure don't seem too excited about it."

"I guess I

(Who gives a flying fuck?)

just need to get used to the idea." With a heroic effort, he offered a wide grin. "Can I see the paper?"

Harry offered Al the paper and got to his feet. "I got to wake Ginny up. She's got to see this before we leave."

Oh sweet Merlin—I can't take both of them this morning.

"Naw, don't do that. You know she won't be able to get back to sleep if you wake her up. We'll leave it for her on the table."

"Yeah, I suppose we could do that. You're a damn thoughtful boy, Al."

He clapped Al on the back and Al squeezed his eyes closed. At the same time he shrugged in an aw-shucks gesture that made his father laugh.

Al opened his eyes again and looked at the paper.

4 BOYS SELECTED BY SUSSEX COUNTY CRICKET CLUB, the headline read. Beneath were four photos—Al on the far right, and Roger Devons, from Bristol Secondary, on the far left. He was half-black, just like Maggy Thomas. That was probably why he hadn't been able to get it up last night. Sure.

He looked up, and there was his father, hand stuck out and a foolish grin on his face.

Your buddy Dean Thomas is a nigger and a Mudblood! He heard himself screaming into his father's face. That's why I was impotent with his slutty bitch of a daughter last night! That's the reason! And then, on the heels of that, the cold voice that rose in him at moments like this, shutting off the rising flood of crazy irrationality, as if

(GET HOLD OF YOURSELF RIGHT NOW)

Behind warded steel gates.

He took his father's hand and shook it. Smiled a guileless smile into his father's own grinning face. Said: "Geez, thanks, Dad."

They left that page of the newspaper on the table with a note for Ginny, which Harry insisted Al sign: From Your Cricketer Son, Al.