Chapter 5
WHEN WE INVENTED Wizard Club, Voldemort and I, neither of us had ever been in a duel before. If you've never been in a duel, you wonder. About getting hurt, about what you're capable of doing against another wizard. I was the first guy Voldemort ever felt safe enough to ask, and we were both drunk in a tavern where no one would care so Voldemort said, "I want you to do me a favor. I want you to hex me as hard as you can."
I didn't want to, but Voldemort explained it all, about not wanting to die without any scars, about being tired of watching only professionals duel, and wanting to know more about himself.
About self-destruction.
At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.
Standing outside in the alley, the orange-scented tang of house elf piss hanging in the air, I asked if Voldemort wanted it in the face or in the stomach.
Voldemort said, "Surprise me."
I said I had never hit anybody with a spell.
Voldemort said, "So go crazy, man."
I said, close your eyes.
Voldemort said, "No."
Like every guy on his first night in Wizard Club, I breathed in, waved my wand, and shot out a burst of greenish-red energy at Voldemort's jaw like in every story we'd ever heard, and me, my spell connected with the side of Voldemort's neck. Pus-filled buboes erupted along his neck and shoulder, oozing a nasty yellow pus that smelled like something from Herbology class.
Voldemort said, "Motherfucker! Pimple Pox!"
I said, well, Jesus, I'm sorry.
Voldemort said, "Ow, Christ… Why the pox, man?"
I said, guess I fucked it up.
Voldemort said, "Naw, it was perfect," and blasted me, straight on, bam, just like a Weasley Brothers' boxing glove on a spring from their joke shop, right in the middle of my chest and I fell back against a barrel, puking slugs all over myself, and retching like a firstyear taking his first sip of Hogwarts Hooch. We both stood there, Voldemort rubbing the side of his neck, hands slick with pus, and me holding a hand on my chest, both of us knowing we'd gotten somewhere we'd never been and like Ron's living chess set, we were still alive and wanted to see how far we could take this thing and still be alive.
Voldemort said, "Cool."
I said, hex me again.
Voldemort said, "No, you hex me."
So I blasted him, a girl's stunning spell wide to right under his ear, and Voldemort shoved into me and hit me with a contact spell, giving me third-degree sunburns along my wand arm. What happened next and after that didn't happen in words, but the tavern closed and people came out and shouted around us in the alley.
I DON'T KNOW HOW Voldemort found number twelve, Grimmauld Place, but he said he'd been there for a year. It looked like it was waiting to be torn down. Stuffed house elf heads lined the walls, the final rewards for loyal servants. Most of the windows were boarded up. Shrieks came from a picture frame, muffled by several feet of plywood nailed and screwed over it.
There was no lock on the front door from when the Aurors or whoever kicked it in. The stairs were ready to collapse. There was a boggart in the second-floor bedroom. I don't know if Voldemort owned the place, or was squatting. Neither would have surprised me. The entire thaumaturgical field was a mess, fluctuations and random discharges making the simplest spell a risky, difficult chore. Casting a spell in the kitchen made an enchantment in the bedroom fizzle out. Voldemort did a lot of hands-on, Muggle work to keep things up.
We carry around candles. It has pantries bigger on the inside than out, screened sleeping porches that looked out onto beachfronts on the other side of the world, and stained-glass windows with subjects that moved constantly moved with a grating, crackling noise. There are bay windows with window seats in the parlor.
There were no neighbors. Just some warehouses, a machine shop, and a factory, all Muggle, that fart smelling steam, the hamster cage of wood chips. Voldemort didn't bother with enchanting the place to guard it from Muggles. The location and mana field did all the work for him.
At night, Voldemort and I were alone for half a mile in every direction. The Improper Use of Magic Office had long ago learned to ignore anything in the vicinity of Grimmauld Place. We were free to let loose with magic in a way a wizard never could, in either the wizard or Muggle worlds. Hexes and charms and curses and enchantments streaked through the air like little sparklers.
Rain trickled down through the plaster and the light fixtures. The shingles on the roof blister, buckle, curl, and the rain comes through and collects on top of the ceiling plaster and drips down through the candelabras. Everything wooden swelled and shrunk. Everywhere were rusted nails to snag your elbow on, old spell components rotting in dark corners. The previous occupant had been a bit of a shut-in.
Before the dawn of time, there was an owner who collected lifetime stacks of the
Witch Weekly and Quibbler, the mildewed and warped witches and wizards on the covers hiding under title cards, peeking around edges. Big teetering stacks of magazines that get taller every time it rains. Voldemort says the last tenant used to fold the glossy magazine pages for demonweed wrappers. There's nine layers of wallpaper swelling on the dining-room walls, flowers under stripes under flowers under birds under grasscloth, all gently rustling with vague life as the magic slowly fades out of them.
There were an entire series of articles, written by a wizard who had animated the organs donated by a dozen witches and wizards. The brownish glistening livers, thick ropy entrails, and quivering eyeballs given energy to exist and a mind to understand and a voice to speak.
Listen to some of these. I am Seamus' lungs. I am Petunia's nipple. I am Harry's colon. Voldemort laughed.
"I get cancer. I kill Harry."
IT WAS RIGHT IN everyone's face. Voldemort and I just made it visible. It was on the tip of everyone's tongue. Voldemort and I just gave it a name.
Saturday night, Voldemort and I go into the Three Broomsticks. It's time. Lights up. Time to go home. The ones who left, who didn't know, drop their money and shuffle out the front door. Coming in from the back, and filing straight down into the basement through the stairwell behind the kitchen, are the ones who do know.
The basement has a massive pentagram etched in the floor, burned by acid, lined over with chalk to keep the spells in. At the beginning of the night it's barely visible, but by the time morning comes it's crackling with light, spells and curses and jinxes being put into it's field faster than it can dissipate safely. Every week, Voldemort would stand in the center, and give the rules he and I decided.
The first rule of Wizard Club is, you do not talk about Wizard Club.
The second rule of Wizard Club is, you DO NOT TALK about Wizard Club.
Third rule of Wizard Club, someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the duel is over.
Fourth rule, only two guys to a duel.
Fifth rule, one duel at a time, fellas.
Sixth rule, no robe, no shoes, no Unforgiveables.
Seventh rule: Duels will go on as long as they have to.
And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Wizard Club, you have to duel.
And so it was on.
This kid from work, Colin Creevy, couldn't remember if you ordered quills with eagle feathers or ostrich. But he was a god for ten minutes, when he trounced the maitre'd of a local restaurant.
Sometimes all you could hear were the flat, hard packing sounds over the yelling, the sizzle and crackle of jinxes and curses, or the wet choke when someone caught their breath long enough to yell
Stop.
You weren't alive anywhere like you were there. But wizard club only exists in the hours between when wizard club starts and wizard club ends. Even if I could tell someone they had a good duel, I wouldn't be talking to the same wizard. Who you were in wizard club is not who you were in the rest of the world. A guy came to wizard club for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood.
Wizard club wasn't about winning or losing. It wasn't about words. When the duel was over, nothing was solved. But nothing mattered.