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— Chapter 5 —
The Web of Chastity

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, I HAD MY FIRST MAGIC LESSON.

It was... not fun.

"Reducto!" A vase beside my head burst apart.

"Expelliarmus!" A spewing stream of red light missed my face by inches.

"Fumo!" Thick, black smoke furled around me.

I ran, coughing.

"Thorne!" I cried. "Help!"

My feet pounded down the hallway. Distorted black shapes slunk across pure white walls, a hypnotizing array of geometric sensuality: circles splooging into triangles, triangles bulging into squares, and squares sinking into circles.

I skidded to a stop. A tall, narrow window blocked my path. It was a dead end. Frosted glass, sunny day beyond. I pressed my fingers against it. So close, and yet...

I looked from side to side. No doors line the hallway — nothing. Ruby carpet at my feet, black and white diamonds on the ceiling.

Where should I go? Where could I run?

Footsteps, coming in hot.

I tensed.

Please be Thorne. Please be Thorne.

I let out a sigh of relief.

It was Thorne, and she was sprinting. Her hands waved randomly in all directions, her feet flumped and flomped on the floor beneath her, a look of utter concentration lay across her face, and she wasn't slowing down.

And she wasn't slowing down.

...she wasn't slowing down.

She — wasn't — slowing — down.

Thorne grabbed my waist. Her body curled against my side. Her knees bent as her feet dug into the carpet.

Smash!

The window splintered against our backs, and we were in freefall. A cerulean sky, the crowded storefronts of Knockturn Alley, five men staring from the window we'd just left.

"Arresto Momentum!"

Our descent slowed.

"Bombarda!"

The cobblestone street bulged inward. Each stone bent like an elastic band, shaking with tension. Then, when that tension was too much to bear, the cobblestones fwanged back up and the street smashed apart. A massive shockwave pounded up from the pavement, creating a wave of compressed air that bore us skyward in a miasma of dust and debris. At the height of this ascent, we paused, for the briefest second, suspended.

"So," said Thorne conversationally, "let's have your first magic lesson."

She swung me onto her back as if I weighed no more than a feather, grabbed the underside of my knees, pointed her hand at the window we had just jumped from, and said, "Religo."

Her hand jerked forward, and we zipped toward the window on an invisible line. Her knees came up — I closed my eyes — and as we swung back through the shattered window frame, Thorne smashed her feet into the wizards blocking our path.

Thud. Her feet hit the carpeted ground.

"Sto Manus."

The men cried out as the entire room turned on its axis — red carpet above, black and white diamond below.

Thorne cackled and took off running.

"So," she said, "every spell has three basic components. You have to learn the theory behind it." She ducked as a bolt of green light sailed over her head. "Practice the mechanical performance of it." A jet of fire scorched the wall beside us. "And have the will to see it done. You get all that?"

I was currently trying not to vomit.

"Finite," said Thorne, and the world flipped again — carpet at our feet, diamond above our heads.

We were now on the far side of the hallway. A spiral staircase descended away from us, leading toward the first floor. Next to it was a sign.

Second floor use restricted.
Borgin and Burkes employees only.
Thank you very much.

The wizards were stumbling towards us, dizzy and disorientated. Each of them wore a blue cloak emblazoned with a dazzling yellow star and an expressionless silver mask that conformed to the confines of their face.

Thorne raised her hand. "So, to sum it all up. I move my hand in a 'z,' focus on a feeling of zazziness, and say, Fulmen."

Lightning leapt from her palm, racing up the walls, the floor, the ceiling, a galloping array of gleaming blue light. It struck, sizzling as it skewered the wizards who howled and fell to the carpeted floor.

Thorne made a sound of satisfaction. "See?"

"Let... me... down..." I groaned.

"Oh come on, shortie," said Thorne as I slumped against a wall. "Magic is fun. C'mon, I'll teach you your first spell."

I shook my head and pulled my knees to my chest. "Please... no."

But, this was Thorne, and she would not be deterred. "Repeat after me." She squatted down and pinched my cheeks, moving them as she said, "Win-gar-dee-uhm Leh-vee-owe-sah."

I closed my eyes, trying to make the room stop spinning. "You're... a madwoman."

"You're being lame."

"Choke on dust."

"Go on, say it."

"Winlardigum Lemiosa."

"That's the spirit," laughed Thorne. "To perform the spell, you swish" — she slashed her hand through the air — "and flick" — she jerked it forward — "and say..." she trailed off, watching me expectantly.

"Windargidum Levivulva."

"Owe-sah," she corrected. "Win-gar-dee-uhm Leh-vee-owe-sah. Please, and I can't stress this enough, never say Levivulva, or you'll end up with a bad case of the you-know-whats."

"This woman is crazy," observed Fleur.

"Yeah, no kidding."

A few minutes later, as we were rifling through piles of magical artifacts in the shop downstairs, I discovered why Thorne had dragged me to Borgin and Burkes in the first place.

"Ah! Here it is!" She tossed a rubber chicken at me. "This is going to be your wand."

I looked from the rubber chicken, to Thorne, and back. "This is a rubber chicken."

"It's not just a rubber chicken. It's your rubber chicken. And one day, it'll save your life."

"So, we just went through all that so you could get a rubber chicken?"

"No," said Thorne seriously. "We just went through all that so you could get a rubber chicken."

"But... how did you know it was here?" I asked.

"It's mine," said Thorne as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I lost it in a game of cards years ago. You know what they say: at least it wasn't a dragon egg."

"But... it's a rubber chicken."

"Yes, Harry. It's a rubber chicken."

"But. Why?"

"I wanted you to have something to practice spells with. A stick seemed lame, and rubber ducks are fucking rediculous, so" — Thorne gestured at the chicken — "welcome to wizard school."

"You blew up half the street," I said in consternation.

"Yeah," said Thorne with a laugh, "oops. In my defense, it wasn't like I was expecting to be met with resistance. Speaking of which, we need to figure out who those guys were because I have never seen them before. Luckily, I know a guy who can help. Let me just grab one of their cloaks."

She turned and marched back up the stairs. "Also," she called over her shoulder, "not to freak you out, but we gotta split because the Aurors are seconds away, and to be honest, I really don't wanna fight them today."

Thus, my magical education began.

LIFE SETTLED INTO A COMFORTABLE ROUTINE.

Each morning, I'd wake early to help Ron with his daily fishing. When Blaise joined us, usually around eight, we'd eat breakfast. Ron would complain about his Roast Beef sandwich, Blaise would drink his boil-cure potion, and I'd sit quietly, grateful to have friends who wanted to spend time with me.

Around nine-thirty, Cedric would join us, and we'd hang out until eleven when my lessons with Thorne would start. After lunch, Thorne taught Daphne, and I practiced occlumency with Fleur. Next came dinner, after which Thorne would disappear to her bedroom, and I'd be left alone to read.

I loved reading about magic — tomes full of spells, histories of the wizarding world, complex treatises on magical theory — I consumed it all hungrily. I now knew, for example, that all spells had: a mechanical component that involved how a spell was performed, a theoretical prerequisite which involved learning and understanding the mechanical component of a spell, and a third mysterious entity Thorne referred to as spunk.

One day, I asked her to explain what it was:

"Spunk is the chip on your shoulder. It's the force inside you that stands up against the world. Haven't you ever had a moment where you were like: I want this, and you can't stop me."

"Uh... no."

"Well, that's what you need to find, then. The most active element in magic is the ability to believe you can create. To perform any spell, no matter how small, you need to have the courage to make a change in the world around you."

"But... what if I don't know how to change the world?"

"One day, kiddo, you'll realize it isn't as hard as you think. All it takes is one step, one choice, one spell. That's the beauty of magic — it's our unlimited, ever-expanding capacity for choice."

So, I tried... I tried to be spunky. Yet, despite how hard I was working, after three weeks, the levitation charm still eluded me. By the last week of August, I could recite the incantation, perform the swish-and-flick with my rubber chicken flawlessly, and I even knew how to control the spell's trajectory by focusing on where I wanted the object to go.

Spunk was the key, the crucial element I was missing. I had to want the spell to happen, believe it would work, and overcome the force preventing me from actualizing it. But no matter how hard I waved my rubber chicken, the magic never corporealized in front of me. For the life of me, I didn't know what was missing.

So, one day, I asked Ron about it.

"Remember what I told you 'bout the war on the fishies?" he'd asked.

"Sure."

"Well, what if I don't catch one right away? Second I get all, boo hoo the fishies outsmarted me, they win. Game over, I go home. I jus' keep remindin' myself my lure's in the water too, right? It's never over till I reel 'er up. And I'm never reelin' 'er up till I've won. It's inevitable. Them fishies respect the hell outta me, so they'll always bite."

I knew my difficulties weren't normal. There was a cause for what was happening, a reason that explained my symptoms. But no matter how often I asked, Thorne wouldn't explain it to me — and she knew. I saw it in her eyes when she looked at me, when she watched me struggling to levitate the feather. She knew.

The pity... I hated it.

I hated it because it meant I wasn't improving. It meant that despite the effort Thorne was putting in, despite how devoted she was to making me strong, the block on my magic was too resilient to surpass. The stress of it was all-consuming.

Every day I couldn't perform magic was another day people suffered at the hands of the Dark Lord. Thorne knew it. I knew it. Daphne knew it, and she wasn't shy about sharing her opinions. But what could I do? I had no information. Until Thorne told me what was going on, I had no choice but to remain in the dark, struggling fruitlessly for a light.

Occlumency, by contrast, was going much better than spellwork. The spunk involved in occlumency was something I inherently understood. The principle was simple: when Fleur tugged on the rope, she was trying to get into my mind, and as long as I focused single-mindedly on preventing the rope from moving, she couldn't get in. Or, that's what it was in theory, anyway. In practice, Fleur would yank at odd times of the day, and I would try to keep her out, often with limited success. And trying to get into her mind? Forget about it. I'd have more success trying to run headlong into a brick wall.

"Silly little boy," she'd say whenever I'd try to enter her mind. "I am a flower not so easily picked."

Thorne was... a force of nature — a hurricane in human form. She'd wake me up at three in the morning and we'd break into Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor; she'd apparate us to Antarctica to see the Northern Lights; she'd charm my rubber chicken to sing the hits of Celestina Warbeck; she'd decide she didn't feel like teaching and would ask me tons of questions I had no way of knowing like she was an obedient student paying deference to a much-learned professor. She treated each day, each second, as if it were a precious jewel, a momentous opportunity that couldn't be squandered.

It was infectious, and to be honest, it rubbed off on me. By the time September 1st rolled around, Thorne had infected my life — every single corner of it. And I needed no more proof of this than my new life motto. It was profound but straightforward, and its implementation made a big difference in the quality of my daily life.

Here's what it was:

Sure, why not.

Thorne wanted me to wave a rubber chicken around for three hours every morning: sure, why not. My magic didn't work, and I couldn't cast a simple spell: sure, why not. An evil Dark Lord was trying to kill me because my name came out of the Goblet of Fire: sure, why not. There were floating pink hairballs that lived in my closet called Pygmie Puffs: sure, why not.

On September 3rd, a month after my first magic lesson, I was eating lunch — beef stew, my favorite, yum — when Thorne, who was reading a copy of The Liberator upside down, said, "We're going to the Jumble today to look at doohickeys."

"Sure," I responded with a shrug, "why not."

THE JUMBLE LOOKED LIKE IT SOUNDED — a precarious tower made from an array of twenty-three shipping containers stacked on top of each other at odd angles. It was a building perpetually in motion. Each piece of the tower swung on an invisible axis, never in the same direction or at the same speed as the piece immediately under it. At times, the entire structure leaned to the left, at others, to the right, but more often than not, it was perfectly balanced, as if each piece was exactly where it needed to be to keep the tower standing.

"How does it stay up?" I asked as we walked toward it.

"Magic," said Thorne with a shrug. "The pieces line up at twelve, three, six, and nine o'clock. The rest of the time... it's a jumble." She laughed at her own joke.

"So, why did we come here?"

Thorne always forgot to tell me what we were doing when she dragged me places.

"Ah, yes, I didn't say. Well, I haven't been able to dig up any information on those blue cloak guys who attacked us in Borgin and Burkes." She didn't look happy about it. "Which makes me believe they're not from Britain. Clinky, the guy who owns this place, is the guy to talk to if you need to know what's happening beyond our borders. I'm hoping he'll make it..." she trailed off, watching me expectantly.

"...less of a jumble?"

Thorne applauded. "Right."

"So... why am I here?"

"Absolutely no reason at all. I just figured — hey, why not — the world is vast, and you need to learn more about it. Besides, it's Sunday. You need a break."

"But I'm losing a day of practicing mag — "

Thorne flicked me. "Stop that."

"But every second I don't — "

She flicked me again. "Stop that."

I glowered at her. "Thorne — "

Fleur's warmth flooded me. "Harry. Calm down."

It worked, I did feel calmer. "I honestly don't know what I'd do without you," I told her.

Fleur preened.

As we approached the Jumble, a girl holding a wrench stepped out from the bottom of the tower. I looked her up and down. Slim shoulders, muscular arms, sharp eyes. The outline of a tattoo beneath a tank top stained with grease.

"He's not taking visitors today." She had a no-bullshit kind of voice.

"Hello Cho," said Thorne cheerfully. "He knows I'm coming."

The girl — Cho — raised her eyebrows. "His exact words were: tell that sewed up bint to suck on eggs."

Thorne licked her thumb and wiped a smudge of dirt off Cho's cheek. "I said: he knows I'm coming. I didn't say: he was happy about it. Now, are you going to let me in, or what?"

Cho shrugged. "It's not me he's gonna bitch at." As I passed, she gave me a nod. "Hey."

Inside, the Jumble was round and spacious. Four fixtures of sputtering blue light hung from the ceiling, and tiny winged candles flew along them. The flames on their heads — yellow, green, and red — cast flickering spotlights of hazy color across the copper-plated walls of the tower. Metal stairs protruded from the wall nearest to us, climbing upwards, and at various points, passageways branched away from them that curved into darkness.

"This is Clinky's workshop," explained Thorne as we climbed. "He makes doohickeys."

"Uh... what's a doohickey?"

Cho spoke from behind me. "A doohickey is a magical object constructed from mechanical parts which is charmed to perform a single task. A snitch, basically."

"They have a lot of uses," said Thorne. "Surveillance. Pleasure."

Cho groaned. "Don't remind me."

"Ah, yes. Snidgets may go extinct, but the vibrating ones will never die."

It was a precarious ascent. As we climbed higher, the steps at our feet grew fewer in frequency and narrower in length. By the time we reached the top step, I was sweaty and out of breath. It seemed a joke, then, that instead of a landing or a passageway, all that stood before us was a ladder that led upward at a ninety-degree angle through a canvas-covered square hole in the ceiling.

"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered.

Thorne laughed. "Welcome to the Jumble, kiddo. It's, you know..." she trailed off.

"A jumble?"

"Exactly."

The room we climbed into was small and cramped. A rickety table sat in its center, and a large window shaped like an eye consumed most of the ceiling. Behind the table sat a man I could only assume was Clinky. He had a waspish face, wispy trails of stubble, and large, round glasses that made his eyes bulge outward like a bug.

Stacks of paper sat around him. Some were piled so high they climbed right to the ceiling. This didn't seem like a man who entertained visitors. It didn't escape my notice that there was no fire in the hearth, no chairs to sit on, and only a single entryway that led from the room into an adjacent hallway filled with murky shadow.

"Cho." Clinky had a hilariously high voice. "You have failed me."

"Aw," said Thorne, "don't be like that, Clinky, I know you're happy to see me. It's been, what, months?"

"You are mold."

"I know, that's why you can't get rid of me."

I felt... awkward. Out of place.

I was standing in the corner because... I didn't know where else to go. Clinky still had not looked up from his papers. Thorne looked utterly at ease — but then again, Thorne thrived on chaos. She welcomed trouble, and on days like today, actively encouraged it.

A hand on my shoulder — Cho.

"Follow me."

You don't need to tell me twice.

I tapped Thorne on the shoulder as Cho pulled me into the hallway. "I'm just going to — "

She waved a hand, clearly not listening. "Have fun, shortie."

The farther down the hallway we walked, the darker it became.

"Sorry," said Cho apologetically. "I know it's dark. It's usually only me here, and I know my way around. Hang on a sec. I'll get us some light."

She jumped and the darkness swallowed her whole.

Thud. Her feet connected with metal.

Crunch. A latch was pulled.

Creak. Rusty hinges swung outward.

Ridged copper walls, string lights draped across the ceiling, a wireless radio in the corner, clothes strewn across an unmade mattress. It was Cho's bedroom.

"Don't mind the mess." Cho pointed to the end of the container where afternoon sun flooded in. "Wait over there, will you? I need to change."

There was a small drop between the hallway and Cho's bedroom. I judged the distance carefully, not wanting to eat shit in front of a total stranger, but at the last second, I chickened out, sat on the ledge, and eased myself down.

Cho sounded amused. "Not a jumper, are you?"

"You have no idea."

I sat at the end of the container, my feet dangling in empty air. Sharp peaks splayed below me, the bristling thistles of an eternally green forest. Beyond the green, lay white, a great mountain drenched by snow, and further still, way off in the distance, past the blue horizon, was the sea. The landscape rotated as the shipping container turned. It was peaceful and soothing, a diorama that existed only for me.

A moment later, Cho sat next to me. She wore a collared shirt, unbuttoned half-way. Up close, her tattoo looked alive, a swirling mass of ink that stretched from navel, to stomach, to chest.

"Tits or tattoo?"

My gaze snapped up. Color flooded my cheeks. "Sorry. Tattoo. I've just... never seen one like it before."

Cho gave me a look. "They aren't that uncommon, you know."

"Err — I'm... uh... still new in town."

"Aren't you a little old to be...?" Cho trailed off.

I sighed and pushed back my fringe to show her my scar.

"Ah," said Cho. "Gotcha. It's called a Web of Chastity. Have you heard the story of Chastity and Dumasc?"

I shook my head.

Cho leaned against one of the container doors and propped a leg up. "You know, it's funny. When I was kid, I had little interest in learning how things worked. Wasn't the curious type. Very concerned with what lay above because everything down below just seemed... uninteresting. Too crude, too dirty, too... in the middle. Took a lot at face value."

She sighed, gazing into the distance. "Britain has an interesting history with things that lie beneath. Hard for us to agree on the way things should work. The first spellbook that we know of was published around twelve hundred years ago by a wizard named Dumasc Goshawk. Smart guy, curious guy, maybe too curious. Decided all spells ought to be derived from Latin because Latin was the most elegant of all languages. Or it was to his ears, anyway. What followed was a great purge. Four thousand years of knowledge... gone. Burnt.

"Dumasc was a god, so... who could stop him? Turns out, the only person who could was his betrothed, only she didn't know that. Chastity was her name. Extraordinary in her own right, but not... European — not the way Dumasc was, you understand — and in her... arrogance, she sided against Dumasc in the civil war that broke out."

"A civil war broke out over a book?" I asked.

"Magic is our most fundamental form of expression," said Cho seriously. "Dumasc's purge erased not only knowledge, but... identity. It's a fundamental thing, you know. Imagine being told you had to change whole parts of yourself because it wasn't elegant enough for someone you'd never met. People have a right to their identity."

"So what happened to them?"

"They lost," said Cho dispassionately. "According to the tale I was told, the conflict ended because Chastity grew weary of the violence she had caused. She went to Dumasc and repented. As a… gift, she created Chastity's Web, and cast it on herself. In doing so, she brought peace, and this peace was formalized in the formation of the first Wizard's Council with Dumasc Goshawk at its helm.

"It's symbolic, of course, because it represents putting the needs of the collective above the needs of the individual. The moral of the story is that Chastity was redeemed because she had that realization. She's a symbol of humility. Had she persisted in the struggle against Dumasc, who knows what would have happened?"

Cho's face smoothed over like sand, wiped clean of all expression. "When my parents first told me that story, I didn't give it much thought. It just seemed like one of those stories, you know? Course now I understand it better. Now I see — "

Cho stopped. Her thin eyebrows narrowed and met. She tilted her head to the side, deliberating. After a moment, she gave a little nod, unbuttoned her shirt, and folded it neatly on the ground beside her.

"So... it starts here" — she bent forward, her sleek black hair falling in curtains around her face — "at the base of my neck. Then it moves" — she traced down her shoulder, under her armpit, between her bra — "and flares" — she showed me how the interlocking pattern widened around her stomach — "and then it narrows again when it goes... further south."

"That looks, uh... pretty intense," I said.

Cho pulled her shirt back on and buttoned it all the way up to the collar. "Yeah... that's one word for it. No one knows how to undo the spell because, ironically, it wasn't cast in latin, and we burned all knowledge of what magic was like before we cast spells in latin, so we have no way of undoing it. All we can do is perform it."

"What..." I trailed off. "Sorry — I don't want to be rude."

Cho shook her head slightly. "Chastity's Web is a curse that goes away once you've fulfilled it's requirements which, in this case, is to produce a child with someone the caster of the spell specifies. It's a magical contract, and if the recipient breaks it by being... unchaste, they die. In the wizarding world, when you see someone with a Web of Chastity, it means they're... owned by someone. I can only imagine that when I told my parents I was gay, they decided I needed some... incentive to continue on our bloodline and" — her lips curled — "make the right choice for the success of our family."

I didn't know what to say.

"Uh... that seriously sucks."

Nice one, Harry, I thought. Real articulate.

"I'm not good with... the whole talking thing," I said. "But, uh... I don't care. I mean, it's not the same thing, and I'm not claiming it is, but I have a brand, too. So, we've got that in common."

Before I thought better of it, I turned and raised the back of my shirt to show her my back. It was a mess — a mottled mix of poorly healed scars. Cho whistled.

"I know. It's not pretty," I said as I lowered my shirt back down again. "Got all of them in the muggle world."

"What was... that circle with a line running through it."

"Honestly, I have no idea," I said. "Wish I did, trust me. It's just what, I dunno, what they branded me with. They did it, uh, in the foster home I was in."

Cho was silent for a moment. Then she slugged me on the shoulder.

"What was that for?" I squawked.

"That was a friendship punch."

"It didn't feel friendly."

"That's because you weren't the one doing it."

"Well, it hurt."

"You're such a kid."

"I'm fifteen," I said indignantly.

"I'm twenty-three," responded Cho. "That makes you a kid."

"Well, fine, you're old then."

She slugged me on the shoulder again. The woman could really punch.

"Don't call me old."

"Don't call me a kid."

"But you are a kid."

I wrinkled my face at her, and she flicked me.

"Why," I asked, "does everyone do that?"

Cho shrugged. "I saw Thorne do it earlier. It looked fun."

We continued to talk as the afternoon rolled into evening. Cho was strong and serious with long, dexterous fingers that were always fiddling with something. Perhaps most impressively, she was wicked smart — one of the smartest people I had ever met. When she spoke about doohickeys, she got a real intense look on her face because, according to her, "doohickeys weren't something to mess around with."

"They're meant to perform a single task that isn't complicated," she explained. "If you wanted, you could build a doohickey that scrubbed a pot like a sponge. But what you couldn't do is get it to scrub the pot and wring itself out. If you wanted to do both, you'd build something called a whatchamacallit, which are multiple doohickeys plus a mechanism to trigger them."

"Sounds complicated."

"Complicated," agreed Cho, "but useful. The enchantments on doohickeys are bound to the item's construction, so they have a longer shelf life than normal enchanted objects. Snitches can last for years."

Cho told me about the latest project she was working on: a miniature rooster head that crowed when you stroked its plumage.

"Why in the world would you make something like that?" I asked.

"There's a basilisk somewhere near Paris that's wrecking untold havoc on the unicorn population that lives there. Their Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures hired us because they want to shepherd it into containment." She rolled her eyes. "The French are such conservationists."

"But why would a basilisk be afraid of a rooster?"

"Dummy. You need some basic education on magical creatures. The cry of a rooster is fatal to a basilisk. Of course, the doohickey I'm making won't be fatal to it because it's not the real thing. But... it'll make any basilisk or lesbian run for the hills."

"Why would a lesbian be scared of a rooster?"

Cho stared at me for a long moment, and then she slugged me. "You're such a kid."

Night had fallen when Thorne came to fetch me. More specifically, she screamed to get my attention.

"Shortie! Time to split!"

I looked down. "Why is she all the way down there?"

"She left a while ago," said Cho. "Went to check up on some of the things Clinkey told her."

"Oh, okay. Could you show me the way down?"

"I could," said Cho as she got up, "but I think this way would be faster."

"What — " I began to ask, but I never finished because Cho's foot connected with my back and pushed me off the ledge. Suddenly, the shipping crate was above me, and I was in freefall.

Holy. Fuck.

This is it. I'm going to die.

The ground zoomed up to meet me.

I screwed my eyes shut and curled into a ball, waiting for a crunch followed by blissful nothingness. I had been killed, and I wasn't even expecting it. I was only fifteen! I was going to die without ever casting a single spell. I was —

I opened my eyes and found myself hovering three inches from the ground. "I'm not dead," I mumbled.

"That," said Thorne, "was the funniest shit I've ever seen. Your face."

"I hate wizards," I whispered. "I hate magic, and I hate you most of all."

"Oh, come on, shortie." Thorne ended her spell, and I flopped onto the ground. "Get up. We've gotta split."

I shook my head.

"Cho wouldn't have pushed you if she thought were in any danger."

"That's not comforting," I mumbled.

"Okay, how about this. If you get up right now and come home, I'll make you beef stew for dinner."

I lifted my head suspiciously. "...how much beef stew?"

"Literally. So much."

I pushed myself up, and we started walking back to the apparition point. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Thorne's voice hardened. "Yes. Unfortunately."

"...and?"

"The government in France is Light-Aligned right now, but there's a militant group of Dark wizards who are gaining an alarming amount of influence and support. I can't find much about them other than a letter — R. If they get into power... it's bad news for us."

"How come?" I asked.

Thorne tapped her chin. "It's complicated. Has a lot to do with how Britain rigs the NEWTs to keep Light-Aligned families out of work. A ton of them work in France because their government is sympathetic to our plight. If that were to stop… it could be devastating."

"So... what does that mean?"

"It means that I need to have a meeting with the French Minister of Magic. It means that you need to be extra careful. It means that... you and I will be going to France. Soon."

France, huh?

"Sure, why not."

THE NEXT DAY WAS A MILESTONE. Thirty one days in the wizarding world; thirty one days of practicing magic; thirty one days where I tried, and failed, to make a feather levitate to the ceiling. It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a frustrating day.

"This is hopeless." I threw the rubber chicken down in disgust. "I'm never going to get this right."

From her position atop the kitchen counter, Thorne gave me a wry smile. "Go on, try again. Make the gar nice and long."

"You do it," I said. "It's not even a real wand."

Thorne rolled her eyes, pushed off the counter, and walked over to the kitchen table. "Stop being dramatic," she said. With both hands, she grabbed the rubber chicken, and brandished it like a sword.

Swish and flick!

"Wingardium Leviosa."

The feather rose, gliding gracefully right up to the ceiling. I frowned. In that moment, it feltlike the feather was mocking me.

"Mon poulet," said Thorne in a soft voice. She brought the chicken to her breast and stroked its badly painted plumage. "Mon amour," she whispered.

"Oh, just give it to me," I snapped.

"Let's go over it again."

"I don't needto go over it again," I growled. "It's been amonth and — stop laughing at me!"

Thorne's eyes twinkled and she turned away to hide her smile. "You're right, Harry. A month is a very long time to work on something. Why don't you come with me?"

Behind Thorne's house was a vast swath of plowed land. Neat rows of vegetation led away from a centralized point, branching outward at progressively steeper angles to form a conical curve. Five pumpkins stood at the far end of this formation, large enough for three grown men to fit inside. The vegetation branched into them, inside them, as if each line was a vein and each pumpkin, a heart.

Daphne stood in front of the largest pumpkin, wand outstretched. The hard, barren light of afternoon blasted down, reducing her features to little more than blurred white ice and flyaway blonde hair. Compared to the obelisk of orange that loomed behind her, Daphne seemed small and feeble, a ladybug crawling on the face of a much larger pumpkin.

"Watch," said Thorne as Daphne dug her wand down and jerked it back up.

"Arx Nix."

Thick, grey mist oozed from Daphne's wand, spilling forth to coat the ground in morning dew. The mist coalesced, forming six individual streams that bubbled, rose, and finally… dissipating into nothingness. Daphne kicked a piece of butternut squash. "Fucking — goddamnit!"

Thorne gave me a meaningful look. "See? Other people struggle with spells too. Let's go investigate further, shall we?"

"I don't think — " I began.

"Nonsense," said Thorne grandly. "If there's one thing I know about Daphne, it's that she loves answering questions about her own shortcomings. This way."

As we approached, Daphne's hollow grey eyes narrowed. "What's he doing here?"

"Hello emo queen," said Thorne in a voice bright and chipper. "I must say, you look resplendent in that wrinkled shirt. Not many can make unlaundered clothes work for them, but you my dear, are the exception."

Daphne wore the same thing every day: a collared button-up and grey trousers, both of which were three sizes too big. A worn leather belt adorned her waist, cinching her shirt against her narrow waist. The result looked childish, like Daphne was a mouse in human clothing, with her shirt sleeves rolled up five times and the bottom of her pants frayed from where they continuously dragged across the ground.

Thorne smiled indulgently. "You're probably wondering why we're here."

"I'm not."

"Well, I'll tell you." Thorne clapped me on the back. "Young Harry here is still having trouble with his first spell, and I thought it would do him good to learn he isn't alone in the struggle."

"Yes, because the levitation charm is such a difficult spell."

That was Daphne — cold, uncaring, sarcastic bordering on cruel. Since my arrival, she had not said a single kind word to me. I knew because, in the beginning, I'd searched for reasons to like her. She was indifferent to the world, indifferent to the people around her, indifferent to everyone except… me.

"Come on, emo queen." Thorne had a way of handling Daphne that defied my understanding. "Play nice. How long have you been trying to learn the Ice Fortress spell?"

Daphne's lip curled. "As fun as this is, I think I'm going to go." She turned and slouched back towards the house.

Thorne's hand rose. "Stupefy." The raised stitches on the underside of her forearm glowed crimson and a bolt of red light erupted from her fingertips.

Daphne's wand moved so quickly it was little more than a blur. "Protego,"she said, and the air before her shimmered like light against cellophane. Thorne's spell hit and rebounded.

A rainbow flew between them, and I retreated back a safe distance to watch.

"Expelliarmus!"

"Protego!"

"Reducto!"

"Protego!"

Thorne pointed at the ground. "Mergo."

With a startled yelp, Daphne sunk into the ground as the soil at her feet became soft and wet. Now submerged all the way to her waist, she struggled, trying to break free, but her efforts only succeeded in making the mud climb higher up her chest.

Thorne's eyes twinkled. "Palmis Faciem." Her finger twitched, and Daphne smacked herself in the face. Another twitch, another smack. Thorne looked over her shoulder at me and winked. "I call this one, why are you hitting yourself." Another twitch, another smack.

I started to laugh. It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen. At the sound of my voice, Daphne's head snapped towards me. She went very still, and though she continued to hit herself, her eyes bore into mine. Hungry and cornered, her lips peeled back in an angry snarl.

The spell she cast ripped summer from the air, leaving naught but ravaging winter in its wake. The temperature plummeted. The ground cracked and froze. Ice spread outward from Daphne's hips, ravaging the fertile land in a plague of parasitic ice. My breath whooshed out, oddly visible in the frigid afternoon air. With a single strike, Daphne rent the frozen ground apart and stepped out of the hole Thorne had imprisoned her within. She took a step forward. I took a step back. Her eyes never left mine, and I couldn't look away.

"Glaco Fligis," said Daphne, and a jagged spear of ice erupted from the tip of her wand. With a flick, she sent it sailing towards me. The air whistled. My breath whooshed out. I dived. The spear catapulted above my head, impaled the pumpkin behind me, and with a crack, froze it clean through.

"Daphne, no!" said Thorne.

They started to duel in earnest. Thorne's face was a mask, expressionless except for her eyes, which gleamed. No matter what spell Daphne cast, Thorne did not strike back. Her movements, at once calm and precise, were methodical, and it took me a second to realize she was actively holding herself back. Her face wasn't one of concentration, but of self-control.

A turning point came two minutes into the duel. One of Daphne's spells, a groping hand of jagged ice, grazed Thorne's side, forcing her back for the first time since they started. The dark ridges beneath Daphne's eyes turned so dark they were almost black. "Are you going to attack me now?" she asked. Her breathing, now labored, made her gauntness seem deeper, almost wraith-like.

Thorne sighed. "You, emo girl, are that person no one wants to bring to the party because they get too intoit. You go from zero to a hundred so fast I — "

Daphne raised her wand. "Gla — "

But she never finished her spell because Thorne was faster. A bolt of red light left her fingertips — no incantation, I noted idly — and sped toward Daphne faster than ever before. When it hit, Daphne's wand flew out of her hand, sailed across the garden, and landed in Thorne's outstretched palm.

"You and your ice spells," said Thorne. "I keep telling you, you can't beat the basics. Nine times out of ten, a disarming charm will beat any complicated spell you cast. Until you can cast your spells nonverbally, you'll be too slow."

Daphne stuck her hands in her pockets with a sullen look, and when Thorne walked over to return her wand, she mumbled something that made Thorne laugh. "Now, now," she said, using the same tone of voice she'd used earlier in the kitchen, "no need for that kind of talk. It was impressive spell work — honestly, it was."

Daphne said something else.

"Now you're just being dramatic," said Thorne. She threw an arm around Daphne's shoulders and they started to walk toward me.

I watched them approach with weary trepidation. I didn't like Daphne much — she walked around like she had the market cornered on shitty childhoods, and as someone who had a pretty shit childhood himself, I found her assumption arrogant and more than a little bit presumptive.

"Well," said Thorn, "now that both of you have had a good tantrum, perhaps you can stop being so angsty and start listeningto me. Daphne, tell Harry how long you've been working on the Ice Fortress spell."

Daphne stuffed her hands in her pockets. "I don't — "

"Daphne."

"Fine," growled Daphne. "Seven years.

"And so," said Thorne loudly, reaching the point she'd been trying to get to all along, "you see, Harry, a month really isn't all that long to work on a spell in the first place."

"Great," I said dryly. "Thanks."

Typical Thorne — no impulse control whatsoever. Instead of just explaining the concept to me, she'd chosen to demonstrate it in the grandest way she could think of, almost destroying her garden in the process.

Daphne coughed. "Well, this was fun. Can I go now?"

"Absolutely not," said Thorne. "There is still the matter of my garden. We need to get more pumpkin carriages."

That got my attention.

"Sorry — what's a pumpkin carriage?" I asked.

"Wizards grow all their food inside of pumpkins," said Thorne. "They're organic incubators, you see. They transport magic from the earth to our food and, eventually, to us. Hence, pumpkin carriages."

Daphne's lip curled. "Wow, this lesson is fascinating. "

"I'm glad you think so," said Thorne, "because tomorrow, you and Harry are going to get new seeds."

It was silent for a moment.

"I don't want — "

"I'm not taking — "

"Nope!" said Thorne airily. "I shan't change my mind. This is a reward, kiddos, for all your hard work. A field trip, how exciting for you."

"You can't honestly — "

"He's only going to be — "

"Oh, will you look at the time," said Thorne as she checked her watch-less wrist. "I've got somewhere to be. Aha, how awkward. I'll just — " She turned on her heel, and disapparated with a loud crack.

In the silence that followed, me and Daphne stared at each other.

"Don't give me that look, I'm not happy about this either," I said.

"Speak for yourself," said Daphne. "A day on the town with the Boy-Who-Lived? Oh good golly gosh, whatever shall I wear?"

As one, we turned and started traipsing back to Thorne's house. The remains of a once fertile garden lay around us, shattered past recognition by frozen pieces of splintered ice.

Ending Notes:

[1] Beta'd by Jarizok.

[2] Because there's no Hogwarts, the world of this story is much more open than in canon. Therefore, it makes little sense to maintain a hogwarts-age-range for all the characters because they aren't confined to a setting where their age matters. If a character's age differs from canon, they'll say it explicitly like Cho did.