Chapter 5: Imperius Mundus

Chapter 5: Imperius Mundus  

            I woke up in hospital with a splitting headache. I sat up and held my head, groaning with pain before feeling a hand on my shoulder.

            “Careful,” Amit said. “You should lie still.” His amber eyes almost shone gold from the light pouring in from the huge windows, but the concern in them kept them from switching to actual gold as they did from time to time.

            I didn’t fight it as he eased me back down. I looked up at the ceiling for a long second, waiting for the voice to start narrating again but nothing happened.

            “Want some water?” Amit asked with a whisper. “Are the lights bright? I can ask Madam Pomfrey to dim them if —”

            “It’s fine,” I said. My voice was ragged and parched. I sat up as I started coughing.

            “Right, water,” Amit said. He handed me a glass with a straw, and I eagerly drank. The refreshing cool eased the burning in my throat and left me with only the throb in my forehead as though a pixie were trying to burrow out of my skull.

            “Thanks,” I said as I handed the water back.

            “Madam Pomfrey said you’d have a bit of a migraine.” He laughed nervously. “Surprised she can’t spell that away.”

            “That’s the first spell working,” said a lilting and soft voice. Madam Pomfrey appeared behind Amit in her white apron and nurse’s cap and scarlet dress. “I’d hate to heal his headache only to doom his mind.”

            “My mind?”

            “Indeed, Mr. Tanner. Tell me, what year is it?”

            “1993?”

            “And where are you?”

            “The Hospital Wing at Hogwarts?”

            “And who is this?” she said pointing to Amit.

            “Amit Singh, my best friend.”

            Madam Pomfrey looked at Amit with a bit of concern on her face.

            “He’s sort of American-ish,” Amit said. “We’re best mates.”

            “I grew up in Bootle,” I said. “We moved to the States when —”

            “Do you remember what happened, Mr. Tanner?” Madam Pomfrey said.

            “No — I —” I looked at Amit. “We were in Divinations together, but then something weird happened.”

            Amit laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, well, I kind of got carried away.” He looked at the Matron, “Have you ever been in love, Madam Pomfrey? Like truly and wildly in love?”

            Madam Pomfrey blinked slowly three times while staring at Amit. Eventually, she turned her eyes to me. “He has to go in five minutes,” she said. “Then I’ll conduct more tests. You need your rest.”

            “Right,” Amit said. “Thank you. And sorry.”

            She said nothing as she floated out of my view as silently as she appeared. I sat up and expected to see her attending Madeline or Asia, but instead she was working with a first year that broke a bone during flying lessons. No one else was in the Hospital Wing. The simple white beds that lined the large room were empty. I had no other visitors but Amit, and the huge double doors at either end were closed.

            When I was sure Madam Pomfrey was out of earshot, I sat up and leaned closer to Amit. “You know that’s not what I was talking about,” I said.

            “Well sure,” he said. “But I figure she knew about you having a hallucination or whatever.”

            “A hallucination?”

            “Yeah, you were shouting something about a voice. You kept asking if anyone else heard it, but no one did. I heard Madam Pomfrey explaining to Professor Trelawney that those are called auditory hallucinations. Though I thought luc leans light, like to see. You can’t exactly hear false light.”

            “It’s Greek, not Latin,” I said.

            “Oh,” he said. “Well, anyway. You were having those.”

            “You proposed to Madeline or something?”

            “Woah woah woah,” Amit said. “Nothing that serious. That’d be a bloody nightmare if I proposed in front of the whole class, and she shot me down like that.”

            “She shot you down?” I asked.

            “Well, yeah. I guess you were hearing things or whatever because almost a second later, you started screaming.” He gave me a sad smile. “For a second, I thought you were upset at her, but then you started talking about a voice.”

            I tried to understand why she’d reject him. The curse — whatever it was — had orchestrated the reading and encouraged Amit to make a romantic gesture — not that he needed that much encouragement. But it also made Madeline pretend she wasn’t with Asia. Everyone knew — everyone but Amit apparently — the two were snogging whenever they got a chance, so she had no reason to lie there. In fact, if she told the truth, she could have gotten out of the cringey romantic comedy moment. Why would it have her reject him?

            “When you were reading the cards for Madeline,” I said. “Did she look funny to you?”

            Amit sighed. “She was beautiful as always.”

            “No, but was there something off about it?”

            “Besides the fact that she was finally paying attention to me?”

            “Right, besides that. Anything with her eyes?”

            He sighed again. “The perfect shade of brown.” He looked up and away from me and sighed with content at whatever fond image of Madeline he was conjuring in his mind.

            “Not green?”

            “What? No.” He looked back at me, confused. “She has brown eyes. I’m sure because I had to rhyme brown in one of the poems I wrote her, and brown is incredibly difficult to rhyme with. I mean, I mostly think of frown, and you don’t want to use the word frown in a love poem when —”

            “I know she has brown eyes, but they didn’t look green? Glow green? Smoke green?”

            “No.” Amit shook his head. “Was that part of the hallucination too?”

            “Uh, I … I guess.” I sank back down into the bed. “You’re sure you didn’t see anything weird?”

            “Just the end of my love life,” Amit said. “Just my brief and tragically lonely love life passing before my eyes.”

            “And you didn’t hear anything, right?”

            “Just the sound of my heart breaking.”

            “What about your voice?”

            “My voice?”

            “Yeah, you started sounding different during the reading. You were doing like a game show voice or something. It’s the same voice you use when making fun of Bollywood plots.”

            He furrowed his dark brows with frustration. “Hey, I do not — Ooooh.” His brow unfurrowed as realization dawned on him. “You mean this voice?” He spoke now again in his stereotypical Indian accent that he saved for jokes.

            “Exactly.”

            “Why would I use that to woo Madeline?”

            “I was wondering the same thing.”

            Amit shook his head. “I think that’s another hallucination thing.”

            “Oh,” I said. I closed my eyes. “Oh.”

            “Yeah. Sorry.”

            “You’re sure they were hallucinations?” I asked.

            “That’s what Madame Pomfrey said. She would know, wouldn’t she?”

            “Yeah, but how can she be sure?”

            “Well, you said you heard a voice, and no one else did. That’s a hallucination, right?”

            I sighed. “I just … it seemed so real.”

            “The best hallucinations do.”

            I smirked and opened my eyes. Amit was smiling back in the painfully effortless way he always does, as though being himself is as simple and as miraculous as breathing. His dark brown skin was complimented by the pearl earrings he chose to wear that day. His mess of black curls — curls like Olivia now that I thought about it — were held back with a headband he wore when he got tired of pulling it out of his eyes. He kept saying he needed to get a haircut, but he never did.

            “Is Asia okay?” I said. “She was acting weird when Madeline said she didn’t have love on her heart.”

            Amit scrunched up his face. “Why would she be bothered about that?”

            “Well because … because … Oh boy.” Even after all this, somehow Amit hadn’t put the pieces together. I didn’t want to go breaking his heart, but I guess Madeline already did that for him.

            “You know Madeline and Asia are together, right?”

            Amit shook his head and stood up a bit straighter. His fight lightened with amusement as though he suspected I was joking but didn’t get it yet. “What? No they’re not.”

            “Yeah,” I said. “Ever since the dormitory.”

            He shook his head again. “That’s impossible.”

            “Why? Ever since Asia “saved” Madeline from the “banshee” they’ve been running to any closet or bathroom that will have them and snogging.

            “But Madeline’s not … she’s not …”

            I nodded. “Why do you think she never dates anyone?”

            “She’s picky?”

            “That’s why she got upset when I asked her what her ideal date with a boy would be. Olivia knows that Madeline would never go on a date with a boy. That’s how I gave myself away.”

            “But …” Amit scrunched, furrowed, and pinched each part of his face in turn, as though that sped up his thought process. “Asia Campbell?”

            “Ask anyone. That’s why they’ve been making faces at each other. That’s why Madeline looked at Asia when you asked her about love on her heart.”

            “Wow.” Amit slumped in his chair. “I guess I really misread the signs on that one.”

            “I thought you knew,” I said. “You haven’t seen them?”

            Amit shook his head. “Wow,” he said again. “Just … wow.”

            “You want the good news?”

            “Sure.”

            “At least it means she didn’t reject you because you know …” I gestured to all of Amit. “Your you-ness.”

            He laughed. “Yes, that’s the tape that will mend my broken heart.”

            “It doesn’t help to know you never had a shot?”

            “It does,” he admitted. “But I have to juxtapose that with the reality that I missed a colossal fact about her.” He shook his head. “I thought I knew her.”

            “Well, to be fair, that’s why you planned the whole thing in the first place: to get to know her.”

            “True.” A smile slowly crept across his face. “To think, had I waited a day, I would have found out and saved myself a lot of money.”

            I shook my head. “If I hadn’t gotten in there and needed Asia to bail me out, I doubt they ever would have got together. It all worked out in the end.”

            “Thanks to Asia Campbell’s potion and quick thinking.”

            “Yeah.”

            A jolted upright in my bed as a sudden realization struck me. “My things!” I said, realizing that a perfectly forbidden Polyjuice potion recipe was on the table when it got flipped over.

            “What?” Amit said.

            I looked around, expecting to find my bag nearby. “My things. My school things. Where are they? Did I leave them at —”

“In your trunk in the dorm,” Amit said. “Trelawney picked them up and —”

“All of them? Are all of them there?”

“Yeah. I made sure.”

“There was one that … one that might have been missed.”

A smirk spread across Amit’s face. “You mean your Polyjuice potion recipe?”

I lunged forward and clamped my hand across Amit’s mouth. As I did, the room spun and the pain in my head spiked as the pixie inside my skull resorted to using a jackhammer. 

            “Shhh,” I hissed.

            “Mmma eye schmmk?” Amit asked.

            I removed my hand. “Quietly,” I said.

            “The recipe is safe and locked away,” he whispered. “Don’t worry.”

            “Good,” I said. With a sigh, I sank back into the bed.

            “Mr. Tanner,” Madam Pomfrey said from the other side of the room. “Is he bothering you?”

            “No, Madam Pomfrey.”

            “Two minutes,” she said. “Lay down and stay still.”

            “Sorry,” I said and turned my attention to Amit. “And sorry for freaking out.”

            Amit shrugged. “Trust me, I would too if I were you. I start detention with McGonagall tonight.”

            “What is she having you do?”

            Amit sighed. “I have to untransfigure every first- and second-year’s failed attempts in class. It’s going to be hours of simple spells over and over.”

            “Yikes.”

            He shrugged. “I think she’s taking it easy on me, though I can’t figure out why.”

            “Or maybe the first years have some truly nasty mistakes.”

            “Fair,” he admitted.

            Across the aisle separating the two rows of beds, Madam Pomfrey was trying to calm the poor first-year while also telling her she was making too big a deal about the Skele-Gro. I needed some during my fourth year when I missed one of the staircases changing and fell a few flights and shattered my shin. Not pleasant stuff.

            “Hey Elliot?” Amit asked. The softness in his voice summoned my defenses.

            “Yeah?”

            “You okay?”

            “Other than the hallucinations?”

            He smirked. “Yeah. Other than those.”

            “Uh … yeah … I guess.” I didn’t consider it lying. It was more that there was no way I could catch Amit up on everything that happened and keeps happening to me. It’s more than hallucinations or the burning desire to get more Polyjuice potion. I mean, I didn’t understand it myself. How could I possibly explain it to him? There were questions ripping me apart, and I didn’t have the words to express them. Some ineffable part of me was knocked loose on the Gryffindor Staircase, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. So were things alright? I mean, I kept going to classes. Life went on. I was getting decent marks. So sure, I guess things were alright. I was okay.

            “Ever since the night we tried the Polyjuice potion,” Amit said, “you’ve been acting weird.”

            “I know. It’s just —”

            “Was it because it didn’t kick you out?” Amit asked.

            “I …” I looked away from him, not sure why I was blushing. “Yeah.”

            “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said. “I think the potion did work, but … I think Godric Gryffindor’s spell works differently than we think.”

            I looked back at him. “What?”

            “Yeah. Like, I was wondering why he would have an enchantment to protect against boys. It can’t be that simple. What if Dumbledore had to battle a Dementor that broke into the girls’ dormitory? Would he stand outside and wait for McGonagall to come help him out? Doesn’t make sense.”

            “That’s … true,” I said. “Wow. Good point.”

            “I mean, sure you can make sure girls do almost everything like repairs and cleaning and tending to minor emergencies, but there has to be some loop in case of an emergency. So if I were Godric, I wouldn’t just have it sense someone’s sex and decide if they could come or not. That’s a stupid spell. I mean, think what we know about Gryffindor. He rewards bravery and nerve. He looks at intentions, not just actions. So, I think his spell does the same thing. I think it kicks out boys that are feeling guilty or up to no good.”

            “Huh,” I said. I sat up in the bed, and though the pain in my head spiked once more, the idea was too delicious not to chew on. Godric Gryffindor would make an especially clever spell, not something that simply detects what’s between your legs. Heck, the Weasley twins could make something like that.

            “And the thing is,” Amit said, “you weren’t up to no good.”

            I arched an eyebrow at him. “You sure?”

            “You were helping a friend. Gryffindor would have loved that stuff. I mean, isn’t that why Neville Longbottom got all those points two years ago when we won the House Cup?”

            “I think that was for standing up to the friend,” I said.

            “Oh. Yeah.” Amit chewed on his bottom lip. I loved when he brainstormed like this. I had to sit up to chew on idea, but Amit needed something to actually chew on.

            “Well, you weren’t feeling guilty, were you?”

            I hesitated. “I was scared, that’s for sure. Nervous.” I smiled. “No offense, but I thought it was a pretty stupid idea.”

            “Fair.” Amit pointed at me as he conceded my point. “Harsh but fair.”

            Was I guilty that night? It’s hard to remember. It was all one big adrenaline high. I felt like I was running and hiding the whole time, trying not to get caught. Was that guilt?

            I shook my head. “I don’t think I felt guilty. I just wanted it to work.”

            Amit snapped his fingers and pointed at me. His forefinger trembled as he got excited. “Exactly,” he said. “You wanted to help a friend. You weren’t trying to peak at girls or get secret information. You were concerned about me, not the sanctity of the girls’ dormitory.”

            “I guess,” I said.

            “And that’s the kind of thing Godric Gryffindor could get behind.”

            I shrugged. “It’s a theory,” I said. “Not a bad one.”

            “Anyways,” Amit said as he looked at his watch. “I gotta go, but I just wanted you to know that I’m worried about you. If the staircase not kicking you was freaking you out, you should know that maybe it’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”

            “Right,” I said.

            “And um …” Amit bounced on his heels. “If you …” He stilled himself and exhaled slowly. “If you ever wanted to talk about stuff like that, talk to me, okay?” He leaned over me and tapped my forehead lightly. I winced as the pixie in my skull was thrilled to find a sign of life on the other side of my head.

            “Sorry,” he said as he pulled back. “My point is that you keep it all up there, you know? You can talk about it. Even if it’s stuff like … like questions about the staircase.”

            “Like what?” My stomach twisted in knots as the pixie must have relatives moving into all the sensitive parts of my body. I knew Amit was hinting at something — and the unconscious part of my mind knew what he was hinting at — but I still didn’t have words. Putting it to words meant touching it, meant taking it out of the shadow and turning it in the light. It was still too hot to touch, too dark and rich to look at, too sharp to handle.

            Amit shrugged. I could tell he was as nervous as I was. In our time, the deepest conversations we’d had were about how much our moms nagged us and how often we felt like we let down our dads. But this, this was something new. It was too real for two sixteen-year-old boys to handle with our clumsy and oversized emotions.

            “I don’t think …” He swallowed. “If the staircase didn’t kick me out, I’d be asking myself questions about what that means.” He shoved his trembling hands deep into his pocket. “What it means about me, you know? Like … am I …”

            “Am I man enough to make the spell detect me?” I asked, my mouth dry.

            Amit nodded.

            “Yeah,” I said. I exhaled slowly. Now that it was out of my mouth, it didn’t sound right. It was one face of the issue, but it wasn’t the whole thing. Whatever it was that was lodged in my heart was three dimensional and layered.

            “So, I just wanted you to know that the spell … it … uh … doesn’t mean anything about that.”

            “Right,” I said.

            Then the rest of the issue came into the light. It all clicked together as I thought about looking at my reflection and seeing Olivia Snarzle, about all the glances I stole at her over these past few days, about the desperation eating me alive as I begged Asia to help me make more Polyjuice potion.

            What if I wanted it to mean exactly that?

            I almost said the words aloud, but instead I said, “Yeah,” and let the silence wash over us. Amit thought I was scared I wasn’t manly enough to trigger’s Godric spell. How would he understand that I was more hopeful than scared that it wasn’t the truth. The scary part wasn’t the answer to the question, it was what you did with the answer once it sat in your chest, looking at you with Olivia Snarzle’s eyes and taunting you with a Polyjuice potion.

            “So I don’t think you should test it again,” Amit said.

            “Test what?”

            “The staircase,” he said. “That’s why you wanted to make more Polyjuice potion, right?”

            “Oh, that … right. Yeah.”

            He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Seriously. You’re plenty manly, no matter what Godric Gryffindor says about you. I mean, just look at you.” He grabbed my shoulder and shook it affectionately.

            “Right,” I said and faked a laugh.

            “Don’t let it eat you up, okay?”

            “I won’t.”

            “Alright.” Amit let go of my shoulder, stood straighter, and stretched. “Alright, I need to get to detention.”

            “Have fun.”

            “I think it’s designed for the exact opposite experience.”

            “What better way to stick it her?”

            Amit laughed. “I’ll come back here when I’m done. I’ll grab some food from the Great Hall.”

            “You’re a saint.”

            “I know.” He gave me his trademark smirk and turned to leave the Hospital Wing. I sank into my bed and was left with the silence mingled with the whimpering of a first year growing back her bones.

            I didn’t realize how much Amit was paying attention. I thought he was spending most of the week in mourning over the loss of Madeline Snapfire. I felt bad I hadn’t explained in exact detail that she was into girls, but I thought Amit would pick up on it. He certainly picked up on some part of what was going on with me. It was flattering in a way, to know that he cared, but at the same time it felt violating. I’d rather be a bit opaque with my emotions. If anyone looking carefully at me could figure out that I was blackmailing Asia for help with a Polyjuice potion, if they knew how badly I wanted it, if they knew why I wanted it —

            No. Even I wasn’t entirely sure why I was doing it. I just knew that I didn’t have enough time the first time. I wanted to walk in Olivia’s shoes for an hour, not sprint in them. I smiled dreamily at the thought of spending the whole hour brushing my hair. Would that be so bad? Maybe I could make enough to have several batches. If I kept myself rich in it, I could be beautiful for a little bit whenever I wanted. My mother took long baths when she wanted to relax, and my father went for runs. Why couldn’t I drink Polyjuice potion and brush my hair. Could anything be better?

            And that wasn’t the end of the world. That didn’t mean that Godric Gryffindor was right about me. It didn’t have to be a forever kind of thing. My parents had plenty of artist friends back in the States that saw things as more complicated than binaries or absolutes. One friend put on dresses and makeup and did drag shows, but he wasn’t a woman. He just dressed up as one to perform. Hell, actors do it all the time. In Shakespearean times, women couldn’t be actors, so men would play the female parts. Would that mean they could go up the staircase? Did it mean they weren’t men? What if they wanted Polyjuice potion to make their costume more convincing? That wouldn’t mean anything about who they were or what they wanted, right?

            Right?

            “Alright,” said Madam Pomfrey’s voice. I opened my eyes to see her looming over me. “I need to examine you now.”

            “Oh, right.” I sat up in my bed. The tip of her wand was glowing with a lumos spell as she brought it up to my eye and examined me. After finding whatever she was looking for in my eyes, she made me track her fingers and answer questions, gave me another eye exam, and then asked me yet more questions.

            “The issue,” she said while writing on a piece of parchment, “is that magic and the mind rarely go well together. Most of it is forbidden or infinitely complex.”

            “But there’s spells of illusion,” I said. “So there must be some precedent for dealing with what is real and what isn’t real?”

            “Clever,” Madam Pomfrey said with an arched eyebrow. “But a sane mind detecting an illusion is not the same as an insane mind detecting reality.”

            “They seem like inverses.”

            “But both use the mind, and in one case, we have a blurry lens.”

            “You think my lens is blurry?”

            “That’s what I’m trying to find out.” She handed me a vial and uncorked the stopper. The stench of pickled radish and licorice filled the air. “But if you were affected by a spell, it could be that it’s powerful.” She tilted her head to one side. “Or you’re inexperienced at detecting these things.”

            She handed me the vial. “Drink this.”

            “What will it do?” I said, holding the dark vial. Despite the smoke billowing out of it, it was freezing to the touch.

            “Remove any enchantments on your mind, assuming there are any.”

            “What if it’s not magic?” I said. “What if I’m schizophrenic? Would it fix that?”

            “No,” she said matter-of-factly. “And one thing at a time. Drink up.”

            I brought the vial to my lips and drank it as quickly as possible. It tasted as horrid as it smelled. There was a pungent orchid flavor to it and the definite taste of a cup of cumin. It was pulpy and oily all while drowning in the false bubblegum flavor some medicines use to unsuccessfully hide their wretched taste.

            “Apologies,” Madam Pomfrey said as she took the vile from me. “But that will take a few minutes to work. Until then, I have to observe you to see if you have another hallucination or fit.”

            “Oh.” I didn’t fancy the idea of her staring at me for the next half an hour until I started thrashing or seeing her glow with green eyes.

            “Would you like to play some wizard’s chess in the meantime?”

            “Uh, no thank you.”

            From across the room, the first year whimpered again, calling out, “Mummy,” as she gripped her sheets and writhed.

            “Cassida Corthburt,” Madam Pomfrey said, “stop making such a fuss or I’ll brew you a much more distressing muting potion, is that understood?” She said it as sweetly as she had offered me to play wizard’s chess, but the steel in her voice was undeniable. Cassida immediately fell silent.

            “Much better,” Madam Pomfrey said. She stood up and smoothed out her apron when a question dawned on me.

            “Madam Pomfrey,” I said.

            “Yes?”

            “You’ve given her Skele-Gro, right?”

            “That’s right.”

            “I was wondering … have you … have you heard of the Immutability Paradox?”

            “Of course.” She sat back down on the side of my bed. I moved my leg to make more room for her, but she didn’t take advantage of it.

            “How does it apply to healing magic?” I asked.

            “How do you mean?”

            “Well,” I nodded towards Cassida, “if we were to undo the magic of the Skele-Gro, would Cassida go back to having a broken bone?”

            “Of course.”

            “But let’s say she broke her bones again and you used Skele-Gro once more.”

            “Then she’d be very clumsy,” Madam Pomfrey said with a sweet smile.

            I smiled back. “Yes, but then we undid this second Skele-Gro. Would it undo all of the Skele-Gro? Or, put it another way, are these her bones and now considered the original? Or if she transformed herself into a newt and transformed back, would the Immutability Paradox mean that she returned to her previous self post Skele-Gro, or would it be her broken bones?”

            “Clever,” Madam Pomfrey said. She looked back at Cassida. “The Immutability Paradox affects far more than transfiguration. You see, it is in the nature of magic to change reality. The question then is if that change is permanent, or if the magic lingers and can be undone?”

            “And healing magic specializes in undoing things, right?”

            “Precisely.”

            “So how does it work?” I asked.

            Madame Pomfrey shrugged. “We don’t always know. Medicine has always been a bit of trial and error. We know what makes you stop sniffling, and most of the time we can guess at why it stopped the sniffles. But getting the whole picture is messy. I’ve never had to know how the words I say and the motion of my wand correlate to the power of a spell. I just accept that it does.”

            “Oh,” I said. I tried to hide my disappointment in the answer, though I guess I should have expected it. If McGonagall accepted the mysteries of magic, why should I expect any other professor to be different? I could even imagine Dumbledore giving some sanctimonious speech about the virtue of the mystery.

            But there was still something about this that bothered me. The best and brightest wizards in the world that dedicated their lives to studying and teaching magic all accepted that some things can’t be explained with a self-satisfied shrug? There were holes in the world, and it didn’t bother them at all?

            Cassida moaned and flailed against the sheets. Madam Pomfrey sighed and stood. “Be right back,” she said. She went to Cassida and chastised her once more about not handling pain well. This went into some strange speech about how all women needed to learn to deal with pain, and this was nothing compared to childbirth.

            Cassida was a plump girl with long blonde hair that was plastered to her head with sweat. And even while she called out for her mother, while she whined at Madam Pomfrey, while she twisted her sheets around her body, there was a sweet beauty to her. I don’t know why, but it made me sad. Maybe it was seeing her in pain or imagining that other boys would say she isn’t pretty because she isn’t a tiny wisp of a girl. I don’t know. I didn’t have words for it.

            It was strange to have no words for all the things sitting inside of my chest. It was like I’d forgotten a language I’d spoken my whole life, as though I had a desire but couldn’t translate it into any language I knew. Like my mind was a foreign country that I was trapped in. And when Asia made that Polyjuice potion for me, I learned one word of that language. One word nestled in the midst of that entire desire I couldn’t utter.

            Madam Pomfrey came back and stood over me. “Any hallucinations?” she asked.

            “How would I know?”

            “Any voice narrating things?”

            I shook my head. “No.”

            “It could be stress induced,'' she said.

            “Does that mean you need to stress me out?”

            She smiled. “I’m not entirely qualified to do thorough testing as a school nurse. I may have to call someone else to come see you.”

            “Oh.”

            “But we will find out what’s wrong with you,” she said. She tried to sound brave, to sound convicted, to sound like a parent. But my mind only heard the end of that sentence.

            Wrong with you.

            What was wrong with me?

            Cassida groaned again. Madam Pomfrey frowned and looked back in the girl’s direction, but she didn’t snap at her.

            “Healing magic changes the body, right?” I asked.

            “I certainly hope so.”

            “So you must know a lot about changing the body.”

            “Restoring is not the same as changing, but in a manner of speaking, yes.”

            “So I know that there are metamorphmagi and animagi. There is Polyjuice potion and spells that change appearance, but are there any spells that change the body?”

            Madam Pomfrey gave me a condescending grin. “Except for all the spells you just listed?”

            “I mean permanently. Like, if I wanted to dye my hair blonde, is there a spell that makes that permanent?”

            She nodded. “You could charm your hair to be blonde.”

            “But not taller,” I said quickly. My heart rammed against my chest as though it was trying to break free and explain itself to me finally.

            “Excuse me?”

            “I couldn’t spell myself taller, could I?”

            “I would ask Professor McGonagall, but I don’t see why not.”

            “But even if I could, it wouldn’t last forever.”

            “No.” Her brow furrowed. “I suppose it wouldn’t.”

            “But if I conjured a flame, the flame could spread forever, and its effects would linger forever.”

            “Absolutely true.”

            “And why is that?” I asked.

            “I …” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

            “Yeah,” I said. “Me neither.”

            A dangerous silence wrapped around us. Madam Pomfrey shook her head again as though trying to shake off a Confundus Charm. We sat with the question before us, its mystery ticking away like a bomb. There was something wrong with our understanding of magic or magic itself, but we couldn’t wrap our brains around it. On one hand, it was so small — neither of us wanted to make ourselves taller — but it didn’t make sense. Our brains were stuck on the question, unable to move on until the world was righted with logic once more. It was as though we woke up to find that heat caused water to freeze at three in the morning every Thursday. Who cares about making ice at that time? But still the question bore through your very understanding of the world.

            It wasn’t until I saw the look of confusion on Madam Pomfrey’s face that I realized I’d stumbled on something larger than I could imagine. At first, I thought this question was simply a matter of ignorance. So something about transfiguration didn’t make sense to me. That wasn’t new. Magic confused me all the time. But she used this kind of magic all day, every day. This was her field, and it didn’t make any sense to her either. More than that, she didn’t give me McGonagall’s answer that this is just an accepted mystery in her area of expertise. She didn’t accept this mystery any more than I did.

            Finally, Madam Pomfrey shrugged. “I’m not a scholar. I’ll leave this to them.” She stood to walk away, but I sat up, almost reaching out for her hand.

            “But you admit that it’s strange,” I said. I couldn’t let this chance slip. I was close, so close.

            “Of course but think of the implications if one could do it,” she said. “You would have people shapeshifting all over the place. You’d never know who to trust.”

            “But I’m not talking about the ethics of using this magic. I’m asking why this magic doesn’t exist in the first place.”

            “Or what if you wanted to darken your skin or change your race. Would that be appropriate?”

            “I agree that it’s problematic, but that’s an application question, not a mechanics —”

            “Or imagine filthy boys turning into girls to watch them in the bathroom.”

            My blood went cold. Madam Pomfrey stepped closer and put a hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and her eyes were glowing a fierce green. The same maternal kindness radiated from her face, but it was twisted under the eldritch glow of her eyes. She looked deranged and wild as her grip tightened on my shoulder.

            “Are you experiencing a hallucination, Elliot?” she asked. Her voice had the same pleasantness, but there was something else lurking behind it. It was off but I couldn’t explain how.

            “Um … no.” I shook my head. “No, Madam Pomfrey.”

            “Good,” she said. “I’ll need you to stay the night for observation, but you can probably go back to normal tomorrow.” Slowly she unclamped her hand from my shoulder. “Best to go back to normal.”

            “Right,” I said. “Absolutely.”

            She smiled, and slowly the green glow faded from her eyes. She turned from me, walking away, leaving me with the whimpers of Cassida. I tried to sleep, but when I closed my eyes, visions of everyone with green eyes kept me awake. I thought of the classroom filled with puppets except for me — and maybe Asia. It was like the staircase all over again. Something was different about me, but I didn’t know what it was. I know everyone thinks they’re special, that all the rules in the world don’t apply to them, but that’s never been me. I always thought my parents were a little disappointed that I didn’t try as hard as they did to be different. I spent half my life trying to be an American and failing, a good time with Muggles while pretending to not be a wizard, and more often than not I felt like a Ravenclaw posing as a Gryffindor. I’m not stupid, I know that special people stand out and get attention, but I know that’s the exception. Most special people get pushed to the sides. They’re cut out of society and ignored. So was there any glory in trying to get good marks and be a perfectly ordinary Gryffindor? No. But in the end, glory sounded stressful. It sounded lonely.

            Thank God I wasn’t some Chosen One.

            The doors to the Hospital Wing opened, and Professor McGonagall stood at one end in her emerald tinted robes. Her severe expression was softened, and she strode up to me like my grandmother after seeing me fall off a bike.

            “Elliot,” she said. “They said that you had a hallucination or attack of some sort.”

            “That’s right, professor.”

            “What happened?”

            “I …” For a moment, I almost told her the whole thing: green eyes, strange voice, the whole thing. Worse, I almost told her about the Polyjuice potion and the staircase. She knew that I was involved, but what would she say if she knew that I fooled the staircase, that some part of my transfiguration might have been enough to fool Godric Gryffindor’s magic if Amit’s theory wasn’t correct.

            But I stopped myself in time. Professor McGonagall was like a doting aunt at times mixed with a drill sergeant. She wanted the best for me, but that didn’t mean she’d condone my methods.

            “I don’t know,” I said. “Madam Pomfrey has me here for observation.”

            “When he came for detention, Mr. Singh told me you wouldn’t be attending tutoring this evening.”

            “I completely forgot. We were supposed to —”

            “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Obviously, we’ll reschedule.”

            “Right. Thanks.”

            Once a month, McGonagall tutored me to be an animagus. I know that other animagi figured things out on their own, but I was never one of those freakishly gifted wizards. I think my only talent was studying for hours on end without getting bored, but it helped if you had a professional guiding you when it came to experimentation.

            “Mr. Singh said something about you hearing voices?” She grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to my bed.

            “Oh, yeah. Right.”

            “Were they magical in nature? A Sonorus spell perhaps?”

            I shook my head. “How would I know?”

            “Mmm,” she said. “Have you been dealing with any additional stress lately?”

            “I have already spoken with my patient, Minerva,” said Madam Pomfrey as she came over. “I have run tests, and as far as I can tell, he will be fine.”

            I didn’t bring up that I’d just had another hallucination or episode or whatever these things were.

            “It was probably some new incense Sybill was using to induce a divining trance,” Madam Pomfrey added.

            “I doubt she’d test that out on students,” McGonagall said. She turned to me. “Were there any unusual smells in the classroom?”

            “Not more than usual.”

            “He could have needed air,” Pomfrey added. “You know how stuffy it gets in there.”

            “That might be it,” I said.

            “I’ll talk to Sybill,” McGonagall said. “Though I imagine she already feels dreadful about the whole affair.”

            “Undoubtedly,” Madam Pomfrey said. “But don’t stay too long, Minerva. This boy needs his rest.”

            “Absolutely. Thank you for looking out for him, Poppy.”

            “Of course.”

            Madam Pomfrey gave me another look, and for a moment I was afraid her eyes would glow green, and she’d order McGonagall to choke me or profess her undying love for my transfiguration professor. But neither happened, and she swept out of the Hospital Wing as quickly as she strode in.

            “Well,” McGonagall said, standing up. “I just wanted to check in on you. We can have our tutoring session next week if that works for you.”

            “Of course, professor.”

            “And don’t let the stress get to you, Elliot. You’re an exceptional wizard, but proving that isn’t worth burning yourself out.”

            “Absolutely,” I said, but I looked away from her. I knew McGonagall liked me — she wouldn’t tutor me if she didn’t —but I never would have expected such kind words from her. I tend to find I’m on her last nerve. She’s a busy woman running her own house, deputy headmistress, and teaching her own courses.

            “I should get back to Mr. Singh, but I’ll be checking in on you in the morning.”

            “Thank you.”

            “Goodnight, Elliot.”

            She turned to walk away, but I called out, “Professor?” She froze and turned back around. “I … uh … had a question for you.”

            “Yes?”

            “Is there a curse that can control a group of people, like puppets?”

            “If you mean the Imperious Curse, yes. But that’s —”

            “Like that, but on a larger scale. Like forcing people to act out a play against their will.”

            “Is that what you hallucinated?” she asked, sitting back down.

            “I …” I swallowed. My throat was sore, but I didn’t know why. I nodded. “I had this strange feeling that everyone was being controlled. That none of this was real, that I was part of some play, but I didn’t know my lines.”

            McGonagall’s severe face cracked into a smile. “That sounds like most of adolescence.”

            “Right, but there was this …” I swallowed again. I grabbed my glass of water and drank it quickly. McGonagall watched me with patience. It was unnerving to know I hadn’t bothered her. If someone told me they thought everyone was being controlled, I’d be calling someone to lock them away.

            “Right,” I said as I put down my glass. “There was this voice. It wasn’t talking to me, but it was talking about me. Talking about everyone. It was narrating everything I was doing, everything that was happening. And no one else could hear it, so I panicked. I started screaming to get their attention, but there all playing out this script I didn’t know and ignoring me, and I felt so —”

            The dam broke. The sobs I was holding back broke through, and hot tears rolled down my face. McGonagall reached over and grabbed a tissue. She handed it to me wordlessly, and I took it as my body finally caught up the fear lurking inside me. Alone. I felt so alone. Alone when I wanted a Polyjuice potion and everyone else thought it was stupid or dangerous or perverted or weird. Alone when I couldn’t explain what I felt and what I needed. Alone when I felt dumb to let one moment in the mirror, one hour as a girl, strike me deeply. It didn’t bother Amit. It didn’t bother anyone else at all. How could they go through their lives and look at girls like Olivia Snarzle and not feel the eternal ache of all they could never be?

            How could they grow hair all over their body and not hate it? The itching. The catching. The pinching. The coarse touch that never stops. When I first started growing it, I tried to shave it. Every day I had to shave it again and again, trying to make it go away. But it always came back. Every time. And it made things worse. The itching and the ingrown hairs and the little cuts when I was clumsy. All of it. It was a Sisyphean task, and why doesn’t Sisyphus let the stupid boulder roll down the hill? So I did. I let it roll down the hill and grew out my hair and learned to accept that mirrors were an enemy as long as I wasn’t Olivia Snarzle.

            And I didn’t know anyone like that. Not in Hogwarts. Sure, there was the awkward pain of puberty, but this was different. This was stepping out of the cocoon and finding yourself a bear when it should have been a butterfly. It was wrong, all wrong. And the worst was that I was the only one who thought it was wrong. Everyone else went along with it, playing out their play, knowing their lines, moving effortlessly through being, filling their role.

            And then there was me.

            I don’t know how long I wept, and I don’t know how many tissues Professor McGonagall handed me. She didn’t say a word, and I didn’t ask her any more questions. I was tired of questions that had no answers. I didn’t want to embrace the mystery of not knowing.

            “Madam Pomfrey is going to take good care of you,” she finally said. “Even if it’s stress, she’s got a fine store of chocolate I’ll make sure she shares with you. Always helps me.”

            I smiled and looked up at her. My vision was blurry, but I saw her smiling warmly back.

            “And as for your question,” she said, “there’s no spell I know of that can do that, and thank heavens for that. There would be no limit to the amount of damage a witch or wizard could do if they could control masses with a spell. They’d rule the world, and if it did exist, I think someone like You-Know-Who would have dedicated himself to finding it.”

            I just nodded. “Do you think Professor Lupin would know about it, if it's dark magic?”

            “That would be clever —” Her face scrunched up with confusion. She shook her head slightly as though to wake herself up. “No,” she said. Her voice was firmer now. “I wouldn’t bother him with anything like that.” She smiled widely, but there was something wrong about it. “It sounds like something from a Muggle’s fantasy story, don’t you think?”

            “Right,” I said.

            “Chocolate, sleep, and take it easy. That’s what I recommend,” she said as she stood. “Get some rest, Elliot. I’ll see you in class.”

            She swept away from me before I could say anything else, leaving me to darkness washing over the Hospital Wing.