"Wait, I'll get her," Harper announces, already on the go.
"But for dinner, dear?" her father calls after her, but it's too late anyway. Barely a few moments later, she returns with a tiny corn snake wrapped around her arm.
"The little pet," Tilda giggles.
Yorick, however, is rather unhappy. "How disgusting!" he exclaims, immediately escaping to the sofa.
"Oh, Harper – is that really necessary now?" Polly asks. "Tom's feeling all uncomfortable, see?"
"And what about me?" Yorick shouts, clearly offended, while I just take a deep breath and don't take my eyes off the animal.
The sudden realization that Hogwarts must indeed house a huge serpent between its walls does paralyze me for the moment.
You – I could smell you! You understand me!
I mustn't answer.
What's happened in the bathroom at Hogwarts cannot happen here … Harper's told me I spoke another language – a whisper she called it. The whole table would think I'm insane if something similar escapes my mouth now …
"Do you want to take it?" Harper asks.
Everyone is holding their breath, but I silently hold out my hand to her.
Talk to me!
"Tom, I'd like you to meet Viper. Viper, Tom!"
Viper wraps herself around my hand in a flurry until she is determined to stick her head out at me.
Say something! No one ever talks to me!
"She seems to like you right off!" Polly laughs. "She's usually rather shy …"
Say something! Go on, say something!
"It's an unusual pet, but we got her from the neighbors at the time," William begins to explain. "They were into zoology, and when they moved back to London for a professorship, our daughter had already fallen in love. There wasn't a quiet minute until I agreed to let her keep it."
I always thought it was just on a metaphorical level, but Harper really seems to be fond of snakes …
I just nod apprehensively at William and offer my other hand to Viper. She immediately wriggles to my right, as tightly and hastily as she can, only to show me her tongue again.
Say something, say something, say something!
I hope it's barely noticeable how I shake my head.
You see? You understand me! Speak!
"She's either really in love, or very mad at you." Harper smiles, almost intrigued. "She never hisses that much."
Say something, look at me and say something!
I concentrate on keeping my mouth shut and give Viper back to Harper, even as she refuses to let go of me.
Traitor! Say something!
Harper lovingly forces her friend into her grip, great-uncle Edwin looks at me with odd bewilderment on his face, and I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief myself.
"All right, sweetie," Harper hums as she leaves the living room with Viper, "now you've met Tom, too. What do you think of him? He can frown like no other, can't he?"
Traitor!
"Did you see that?" Tilda asks in a gossipy mood as she glances around the table. "The little pet really liked him!"
"Oh that's for sure," William confirms.
And yet they all misinterpret the signs. On the contrary. The snake would have furiously injected venom if only it had some at its disposal.
When Harper returns, she sighs, "Yorick, come on! You can come back to the table now!"
He does as he's told, however cursing. "I don't like snakes, certainly not near a dinner table, and you know that!"
"We're all done anyway." Harper gives a wave of her hand, already letting his plate and napkin fly across the room. "Or did you want to eat a bit more, dear cousin?"
He just clicks his tongue, but Polly is completely fascinated by the floating dishes.
"Could you let me fly, too?" she asks her daughter as though she was planning a conspiracy. "Just very briefly?"
Edwin grins as Harper places the plate back on the table, clears her throat, and points the wand at her mother.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
Polly's laugh lights up the whole room, it's almost like magic.
As his wife, along with her chair, gently gets back down on the carpet again, William turns to Yorick and me, asking, "Come on, boys, it's your turn! What's up your sleeves for us?"
Yorick pulls out his wand and points it at the small collection of spirits on the chest of drawers.
"Accio Whisky!" he says, promptly holding the bottle in his hand. "Accio glass!" he then continues, filling up the same with some liquor. "Tada! Magic ..."
"Well, bravo," William sighs, "that was very intriguing. I wouldn't for the life of me know how to do that without a wand …"
"After all, it's more impressive if you don't have to get up to do it," Yorick defends himself, sipping smugly from his glass.
"See?" Edwin nods. "That's exactly why you sleep in the garage …" He turns to me and smirks. "Tom, our hopes of being entertained with a little more finesse now inevitably rest on you …"
"On me, sir? That's not a very good idea."
"It's a perfectly excellent idea," Harper claims. "Devote yourself to the art of magic! It's just us …"
"Yes, and it's Christmas, after all," Polly points out. She's looking at me so euphorically that there's basically nothing I can do.
"All right." I take heart and smile wanly at the crowd. "Let me mobilize the last spark of creativity in me, then."
"Do you need your wand?" Harper asks.
"No," I reply. Already focused, I follow up, "Not for this …"
Remaining seated, I let my hand slide past the living room windows, drawing curtain after curtain.
Everyone is watching me intently as I raise my hand a little to the room's main source of light – the ceiling lamp – and let it flicker with a slow twisting motion of my hand until it darkens completely.
Now only the fireplace and the many candles in the room provide light. I take care of the latter first.
"Is anyone sensitive to wind?" I ask and grin when Polly wraps her scarf a little tighter around her neck without any further questions.
"What are you up to?" Harper asks.
"Sowing wind," I reply before letting a deep, controlled breath escape my lungs.
Watched by wide eyes, a storm is brewing in the living room, with gusts just strong enough to extinguish the candles with playful momentum.
The fireplace continues to blaze without concern after wind from all sides, but I have other plans for that.
I look into the flames, take a short but jerky breath, and so suddenly, nothing is left of the last light in the room.
"Did he eat the fire?" William whispers in awe, but before anyone can answer, I carefully breathe flames back into my hand until an initially greenish blazing fireball forms in it. With everyone's eyes on me, I clench a fist for a moment, then, as I extend my fingers flat again, small, round sparks begin to float to the candles, igniting them once more.
I hate feats. But somehow everyone gets so excited about it that it's actually quite amusing for once.
I send the fireball in my hand floating back to the fireplace with one certain movement, and there it once again multiplies into blazing flames, turning from green darkness into reddish light.
The spectacle is already applauded, but I'm yet to look up to the ceiling light until it flickers again, and finally, it illuminates the room once more.
With a last motion of my hand, I also open the curtains, then I tilt my head as if to indicate a small bow.
"That was fantastic, Tom!" Polly says, obviously quite moved. "Absolutely hypnotizing!"
Harper smirks while William showers me with enthusiastic praise as well. Tilda, for her part, seems utterly enraptured, perhaps a little bemused, and Yorick can only roll his eyes in annoyance. That, of course, pleases me the most.
"How long have you been practicing that?" he soon asks, however he tries his best to seem very bored. "Harper," he sighs, giving it up with me surprisingly quickly, "tell me – he's hardly going to answer me himself."
"My dear cousin," she sweetly replies, "I must disappoint you, I merely see Tom practicing complicated magic. I'd guess he's quite the natural."
I want to push any vanity from me, but at these words the corners of my mouth probably twitch.
"I can tell you, though, that he's always immersed in books," she continues. "Pleasure in education is what you could probably call it …"
"You speak from experience there, too," I add, leaning back a bit.
Harper is the only person on earth with whom I can sit silently for hours only to study.
Elliott was never much of a bookworm – for years he's tried to inform me about the school's latest gossip whenever I planned to read in the common room. He was completely immune to the fact that I could not have been more irritated, and even my curt requests for him to finally shut up would hardly bear fruit. Now and then, curses lay dangerously close to my lips from all the inane talk, but I could not raise my wand against Elliott … The result, however, was consequently my complete retreat into the library's solitude. But I'm no longer alone.
Harper and I soon discovered that we were very similar in our scholastic ambition and practical inquisitiveness. Casually, and supposedly without intention, we soon found ourselves reaching for the same books, or ink or parchment, equally undecided as to what the flashes of those fleeting touches might mean.
By now we know a lot about magic, and also what the touches meant …
"Well, Yorick, as they say," William is only too happy to remind him, "reading puts you at an advantage."
"Witch," Yorick mumbles to Harper, rolling his eyes.
She winks. "Tell me about it …"
Edwin, on the other hand, is still shaking his head ever so slightly. Until he finally breaks his silence and murmurs, "Taming fire without a wand, at your age. Tom, that's impressive …" His gaze is resting on me. "I'm curious – tell us about yourself, my boy. Where are you from? Who are you?"
This question is as terse and sweeping as it's unanswerable.
"Edwin," Harper wants to intervene directly, but that would only fuel the fire.
"I grew up in London, sir."
"In London?" William nods. "Yes, but of course, now your posh accent makes sense!"
Harper laughs softly. "You – of all people – talk about accents?"
"Just an observation." William turns to me. "Tom doesn't mind that, does he?"
"No, sir, not at all."
"And your parents?" Yorick asks. "What blood runs through your veins, prodigy?"
Harper looks a bit worried, but I simply reply, "What would you guess?"
"Pure blood, what else? From a filthy rich, long-established family."
"Interesting speculation." I nod wanly. "Maybe you're right. Maybe not."
Yorick grimaces. "Can't you just say yes or no?"
"No, actually, I can't," I clarify. "Believe it or not – I don't know myself."
"You don't know, young man?" now even Tilda asks, raising a brow. "How can you not know?"
I smile wearily. "Ma'am, I was born in an orphanage."
For a moment there, everybody holds their breath. I look into embarrassed faces, as I do time and time again whenever I answer questions like that honestly.
"You were born there?" Yorick asks on. "What happened to your mother?"
"She died the same night."
"Oh, Tom … Harper's never mentioned that," Polly says quietly. "I'm so very sorry to hear that."
And she means it. Not from above, not out of a sense of duty – simply because she truly is sorry. As gray as my soul is, I suppose hers is white …
"And your father?" William asks thoughtfully.
"I don't know anything about him."
"That must be hard for you," he replies.
"No." My expression is blank as are my thoughts. "Honestly, no. I didn't know either of them."
"Polly grew up without a father, too," William tells me. "Right, Polly?"
She nods to her husband. "Some questions just go unanswered."
"It's a shame," Tilda agrees.
"I don't miss what I don't know."
I'm looked at quite confoundedly.
Yorick, however, doesn't even contemplate hiding his hunger for sensation and immediately leans towards me. "But don't you care who they were?"
"No," I plainly answer, "not in the least."
"But how is that possible?" he mumbles. "You're just telling yourself that, aren't you? Everyone wants to know more about their origins."
"Yorick," Polly growls, "pull yourself together or you'll be sent straight to the garage!"
"He can answer for himself, can't he?" he fusses, looking at me again. "Why don't you want to know more about them? Are you scared?"
"Scared?" I give him a tired smile. "Do I seem scared?"
"What keeps you from finding out more, then?"
"It doesn't get me anywhere to know where I come from," I say, sensing how my annoyance begins to blossom into silent anger.
I appear reasonably calm, but the light on the ceiling is already flickering treacherously in the light of this foolish questioning. I take a quick breath before I force myself to concentrate so the light stays on.
Yorick nevertheless stares at me suspiciously while the others around the table seem to be slightly concerned.
"Because it doesn't get you anywhere …" Edwin repeats thoughtfully. "You speak the ambition of a true Slytherin. A commendable attitude, Tom."
"For better or worse, sir."
Silence becomes loud, and I look around the room to say, "It was by no means my intention to –"
"You didn't," Harper immediately cuts me off with a smile. "We're shaped by the people we care about. That's all that matters."
"Very philosophical," Edwin chuckles.
Still, the love and warmth in this room is clearly getting to me.
I want cold. I want darkness.
That's where I belong and what I know, not in this ideal setting of a world …
"If you'd excuse me for a moment," I say dangerously quiet, already crossing the living room.
I need to get out of here.