July 7, 2005

"I WAS FULLY CONSCIOUS" - DRAGONESS RECOUNTS PETRIFICATION by BASILISK

A Les Voix exclusive, by Solange Dumont

Harry James Potter, prophesied hero of the so-called Mud War, has credited Hermione Ijeoma Granger with discovering the information that enabled his victory over the basilisk that terrorized Hogwarts School from 1992 to 1993, but the woman herself has remained reticent concerning her part in the ordeal— until now.

To many readers, the idea of the Scourge of Britannia helping defeat a deadly beast may hardly seem remarkable— but before she was the bane of bigots across western Europe, Lady Granger was a 13-year-old girl afraid for her life, subject to the cruel whims of children raised by known terrorists, the failing authority of educators too busy holding the line against bigotry to protect her, and the lurking threat of an unknown, deadly monster.

Then, less than 48 hours after reacting aggressively to weeks worth of threatening harassment, Miss Granger was found petrified.

This past Tuesday I met her at the gates of Hogwarts to hear about that experience.

"Sensory deprivation is a curious thing," she said casually as we walked the grounds together. Her aura was a bulwark against the biting cold, melting snowflakes long before they could reach us. "I knew that the other victims were still alive, and I knew why— but I could not see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. I could not feel my heart beating. I may not have needed to breathe, but my instincts didn't know that. How was I to know the difference between petrification and death? I panicked— which, I think, was the catalyst."

SD: "'For what?"

HIG: "What do you know of blood wards, Miss Dumont?"

SD: "Very little."

HIG: "Hematurgy is fundamentally sacrificial; liquid life offered to Magic in exchange for the desired effect. Nowadays most civilized nations consider even a pint of blood to be a very high price— but Britain has rarely been a civilized place, and the tenth century was rather brutal even by our standards. What is one pint of blood spilled, to conserve ten? What is a single life cut short, to safeguard hundreds?"

SD: "You're… suggesting the wards here were laid via human sacrifice?"

HIG: " Willing human sacrifice. Important distinction, that. Standard practice at the time, and not just for potency; voluntarily giving one's life and magic to a sufficiently powerful or complex enchantment has been shown to imbue the enchantment with a will of its own— shaped and constrained by that enchantment, of course, but a will nonetheless. Priorities. Emotions, even."

SD: "And being petrified… made you aware of that element of the wards?"

HIG: "My theory —which I have not tested for reasons both practical and ethical— is that as far as the wards were concerned, I was stone. Stone inside the castle. A part of the school, possessed of magic that was flailing in terror. All the wards did was try to reabsorb an apparent snag."

SD: "And… when you say 'absorb'…"

HIG: "Tried, Miss Dumont. Whether I was still technically an individual soul or if my petrified body simply acted like some sort of ward-anchor is, frankly, semantic. For twenty-five days I was Hogwarts, and Hogwarts was me."

SD: "What was that like?"

HIG: "What is it like to die? What is it like to be born? What would the soul of an ant feel, transplanted into a human body?

The harder I try to remember it now, the more dreamlike it seems— which is, I believe, my mind protecting itself. It took some time for me to remember anything coherent, and longer to even begin finding the words to describe it. I could tell you I was one note in a symphony or one thread in a tapestry, neither separate nor indistinguishable from the whole— but as with symphonies and tapestries, words are woefully inadequate."

This from the hexalingual author of four bestselling books.

SD: "What about returning to your body afterwards? Can you describe that?"

HIG: "Yes. It was simultaneously the most profound relief and the most jarring, horrifyingly claustrophobic experience of my life. I could see and hear and touch and move again, yet I had never felt so blind. So trapped . I'm told I screamed rather loudly, and my magic… well. Madam Pomfrey had to regrow her eyebrows in between fetching calming draughts. It took me nearly until the end of the term to get my bearings."

SD: "That's…"

HIG: "Quite."

SD: "Did you experience any lingering effects? Psychological or magical?"

HIG: "Ah yes… the rumors of my insanity. The dark origins of the Mad Mudblood."

She says the slur as if fondly reminiscing on an old joke.

HIG: "I suppose this will hardly quell them."

SD: "Well, you do have a record of being uncommonly forthcoming about magical secrets."

HIG: "Britain's love of hoarding was part of what made me necessary."

For further reading on post-war redistribution of wealth, knowledge, & other resources, Lady Granger recommends Pure Blood & Bloody Gold by Ruth Pereira.

SD: "Do you have any insight into why the other petrification victims have never come forward?"

HIG: "Yes. I advised them not to."

SD: "Why? You've always been very vocal about the victimization of first-gen magi, and encouraged others to speak up as well."

HIG: "Do you know who the 1942 victims were? Do you know where they are now, what they did with the rest of their lives? If they ever talked about it? "

SD: "…No."

HIG: "Neither do I… and not for lack of research."