3.

The grades situation didn't improve. Once a teacher made fun of Iolanthe for getting an answer wrong in front of the entire class, and Iolanthe had to bring home a terrifying school note saying her teacher's toupee had somehow turned blue directly in front of her with no outside assistance. That had gotten her another cupboard punishment from a violent Uncle Vernon - in spite of the fact that she still hadn't meant to do anything.

Iolanthe was finally sent to a school counselor over her worsening grades. Her aunt and uncle had scheduled the appointment for her without her knowledge, and it was a nasty shock getting the yellow slip of parchment one day in class. Students snickered behind her as she left.

She sat down, humiliated, in the school counselor's office. The walls were covered in cheesy motivational posters and nature photographs. The counselor was an older woman who wore a massive and extremely ugly sweater. She seemed kind, but also condescending.

"Not doing so well in school, are we?" the counselor asked. "Now why do you think that would be?"

"I don't know," Iolanthe muttered, looking down and swinging her feet above the unforgiving color speckled rug floor.

"Oh, I think you do. Why haven't you been paying attention in lessons?" the counselor pushed.

"It's all boring and pointless. None of it means anything," Iolanthe complained.

"You want practicality. You want things you can actually use for something," the counselor realized.

"Well, yeah," said Iolanthe, as if this should be obvious. "I'm not just interested in information for the fun of it."

"Then I think what we need here is a way to view learning in a new light," said the counselor. "Try to pick from each lesson something concrete you could use it for in the future. Concentrate on learning an actual technique, not on memorizing the information surrounding it.

"I gather from you that you would also like a little more creative input?" she added.

Iolanthe nodded curiously.

"Then make each school assignment a creative project. When you have to memorize information, write things down in a physical movement with a tool, or create diagrams and flowcharts - People who prefer practical information typically do best when they treat learning either physically, called kinesthetically, or creatively. And remember: focus on actual technique, not on the minutiae surrounding it. See all schoolwork as a learning of useful technique. Ask yourself: how could this be useful?"

Iolanthe didn't see how this would work at first. She didn't find anything about learning different shapes incredibly useful. Finally, she revealed what the counselor had said to her aunt.

"Well this is a perfect!" said Aunt Petunia, delighted. "I knew I could believe in you! You just want practical uses for information! So let's look at shapes. Pretend you're an architect, or an engineer. These would be useful then, right?

"Pretend you're a lawyer or scholarly essay writer. Wouldn't that make learning history incredibly important?

"And as for treating school projects more creatively and focusing on more kinesthetic methods of memorization… well, we can work on those too."

Iolanthe was torn. She was still upset a counselor had been called, and increasingly resentful of Aunt Petunia's constant interference. But she let her aunt help her, and slowly, as she learned what she had to do in order to improve, her academic grades began increasing.

And then they shot straight through the stratosphere. Iolanthe Potter, reserved and snooty and perfectly dressed though she appeared, became a thorough bookworm and an A student with an eye toward creativity and practical, concrete uses for information. Slowly, her self confidence in her own intelligence and analytical abilities increased. She regained her solid belief that she was better than everyone, distanced from having friends.

She was still the property of Dudley Dursley - horrible bully in training.

As Iolanthe got older, she began going through ballet and figure skating recitals. She could still remember her first.

In ballet outfit on the night of, after countless rehearsals, she stood nervous but elated, flittering in the dark backstage with the other girls, watching the audience through the curtains.

"Everyone will be staring at us," one girl whispered. "My parents are out there."

But Iolanthe was used to such pressure. Her aunt watched her like a hawk at every rehearsal. The only difference was that here, the stakes were higher. If she messed up here, there would be far worse hell to pay back at home.

So she toed out onstage in the line of her other female classmates - the ones who still remained - the audience were faceless black shadows behind the bright stage lights. And Iolanthe concentrated hard on getting everything totally perfect. She never once looked into the audience. She couldn't afford to.

This had to be flawless, and she knew it.

But as usual, when the music played and she began dancing, she forgot herself. She lost herself in the silent, wordless expression of movement, only aware enough to know what the people on either side of her were doing. She felt a strange tingling within her body, and began to feel lighter than air - floating and leaping almost supernaturally with grace as she continued to move, as if some strange power was supporting her and lifting her into the air.

When she finally came back to herself, everyone was applauding.

The dancers smiled, and bowed. Aunt Petunia raved about her performance on the way home, and Iolanthe knew she had done well.

The figure skating recital was similar. The children didn't do much, but Iolanthe wore a beautiful pure white figure skating uniform sparkling with silver snowflakes. They watched the older students go up onto the rink in turns, music playing from loudspeakers, and then they skated out onto the ice to do a few brief moves in tandem at the end. There was one long final parade, all the figure skaters getting into a great line and zooming across the ice, and the audience in the surrounding stands stood and thundered with applause.

Iolanthe continued doing well and increasingly threw herself into the sports as years passed. Her classes did increasingly complex moves at recitals, students increasingly falling by the wayside. She started getting the chance to do solo performances, sometimes with a male dancer or skater and sometimes alone, and she always took them. She began moving from recitals and into actual children's performances put on by the rink or the ballet company, playing parts and leaping across the stage or zooming across the ice, being caught and twirled, landing perfectly.

She still felt that strange power in her movements every time she performed, that tingling followed by an odd, floating support.

She worked hard, ate well, bled and sweated her time, and it paid off. She gained a slim, lithe, muscular form, a great deal of grace, and enormous skill in both sports - as well as countless trophies and photographs, a lot of envy and semi-secret imitation from other students, and a reputation for being a strict hardass. She made no more friends here than she did in school - was never allowed to.

And increasingly, she hated it, despised her aunt and uncle and every single one of their stupid rules. Anger stormed, repressed, within her.

She did, however, begin to form an interest in music. She began looking into what was played over the loudspeakers at the rink or what the pianist Susan played during ballet classes. And she began asking for music listening recommendations, places she could go around the city to find music.

Nothing was done about it yet. She was still in the assessment period - exploring her options.

Some things hadn't changed. Dinner parties with Uncle Vernon's clients still had their scripted lines. But now, Iolanthe was bragged about.

One night, they were all sitting around the long table with an older wealthy couple.

"She made this meal herself - French cuisine, roasted duck," said Aunt Petunia proudly. "She helped cultivate the English garden you see outside. She's a grade A student, she reads a great deal of sensible literature, and she has several trophies from both ballet and figure skating competitions."

"Wow." They seemed genuinely impressed. Iolanthe smiled shyly, dressed in a perfect icy pink dress, her hair freshly cut around her face. "That's incredible. And I'm sure you make lots of friends with all those impressive hobbies too -"

"Oh, I'm not allowed frie -" said Iolanthe casually, but Aunt Petunia kicked her hard in the leg.

"Yes, she does," Aunt Petunia simpered, as Iolanthe's eyes watered in pain. The older couple looked uncertain.

Iolanthe did not miss this. All families were not like hers. Her aunt and uncle were hiding their ridiculous rules from others.

Dudley confirmed it for her later. "Man, for such a smart girl, you're pretty stupid, shortstop," he said, as they paused on the landing to part ways in their respective upstairs bedrooms. "No one else has rules like yours. I figured it out from my friends years ago. What, do you think other people our age still have bedrooms decorated like a five year old's, or aren't allowed to read fairy tales, or still have their Mummies dress them every morning? That's why I never envy you. In spite of what you have, I wouldn't want to be you - not for anything."

He left Iolanthe standing in front of her bedroom doorway, feeling very small and confused. Not angry, not yet.

That would come.