Chapter 1: The Gryffindor Staircase

“You’re not getting past the staircase,” Asia said while stirring the bubbling potion. She flipped her hair out of her eyes, leaned back, and took a huge bite out of her blueberry scone, making sure none of the crumbs fell into her concoction.

I stopped myself from lunging over the cauldron to protect it. Though with my giant body cramped in this janitor’s closet, lunging would probably do more harm than good. The bubbling black liquid resembled tar and smelled worse, but it was precious to Amit. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t protect it. But nobody interfered with Asia once she got rolling. Honestly, I could whip up a Polyjuice on my own — potions weren't that hard — but nobody was better than Asia. She practically had Snape coming to her for notes half the time.  Amit deserved the absolute best, and that meant Asia.

Not that she looked like a brainiac. I mean, in our Gryffindor uniforms, crammed into a huge janitor’s closet lit by floating candles, and huddled around a cauldron, we all looked perfectly nerdy, but she had a cool emo-punk vibe that made her look edgy and sad more than someone that spent her free time in the library.

Her free time.

“That’s what the potion is for,” Amit said. He grabbed a plate and offered it to Asia for her scone, but she swatted it away.

“I’m saying the potion won’t fool the stairwell. You can’t be the first people to try it.”

I wiped my brow and took slow, deep breaths. I was naturally sweaty by nature but putting someone of my size into this closet — no matter how big it was — with a bubbling cauldron made it feel more like a hellish sauna than a covert potion’s operation in the name of love.

“Right.” Amit tried to tuck the plate under Asia’s scone as he spoke, but she casually moved her hand away. “But that’s why we need you. The others were probably amateurs or something.”

Asia had straight black hair with bangs that covered most of her face, light brown skin she hid with multiple layers of wrinkled and untucked clothes, dark eyes she made darker with copious eyeliner, and lips colored black. Her carefully constructed image of not giving a shit made her a fascinating conundrum.

She was the polar opposite of Amit, my best friend. His skin was darker than Asia’s, though his family was Indian to Asia’s Caribbean. He had a curly mop of hair on his head and a perpetually nervous face. His eyes were the most captivating amber, looking almost gold against his skin. His wealthy parents would kill him if they saw him dressed like Asia, so whether by genetics or behavior modification, he was a perfectly good boy: tucked in and ironed clothes, straight tie, effortlessly posh shoes. He even accessorized better than half the girls I knew: pierced ears with a simple stud, a ring with his family’s crest on it of three lions facing different directions, and diamond cufflinks.

Cufflinks.

“Back loverboy.” Asia pushed lightly on Amit’s chest and stirred counterclockwise lazily.

“You’re stirring too slowly,” I said.

She flicked her hair back so I could see her arched eyebrow. “Did you want to do this, Elliot?”

“No, it’s just that the notes say —”

“What did you get on your Potions O.W.L.?” she asked.

“You know what I —”

“Was it an O? I seem to remember only one student in our class getting an —”

“And that was you, but —”

“You got an E, right?”

“Asia,” I sighed. “I’m just think you should stir a little —”

“How about you let the Os decide that, darling.” She looked around the storage closet with faked curiosity. “Excuse me,” she said to one of the brooms. “Are there any other Os here that can consult me on this incredibly simple but ethically grey Polyjuice potion? No? Really?” She looked back at me with a condescending smirk. “Then let’s leave the experts to it, unless you want to call in Professor Snape to make Amit’s pervy fantasy come true.”

“Hey,” Amit said. “It’s not perverted.”

“Are you trying to sneak into the Girl’s Dormitory?” she asked.

“Well, yes.”

“That’s pervy.” Asia took a huge bite out of her scone and was less careful about moving her face away from the bubbling cauldron. My sweating increased.

“It’s for love,” he said. “I’m not trying to look at anyone’s knickers or anything.”

Asia spit out her mouthful of scone on the floor next to her. My disgust was mostly eclipsed by my relief that she didn’t spit it into the cauldron. “Please,” she said. “Never say knickers in my presence ever again.”

“Right,” Amit said. “Sounded wrong in my mouth.”

“You have to keep stirring,” I said, but my words trailed off as Asia gave me a death stare. I swear there should be a unit in Defense Against the Dark Arts for handling the glares of women.

“I just want to talk to her,” Amit said. His eyes darted back and forth between Asia and me, but he plowed on through the awkwardness. He felt bad paying Asia for the potion instead of going to me, but I didn’t mind. I’d hate for him to rely on me only to screw it up.

“Then go to talk to her.”

“You know it’s not that simple,” he said.

“Yeah,” I add, trying to sound supportive, but mostly thinking that it’s time for her to add the final element of the potion. It’ll take a few minutes for the potion to take effect, and if we get locked out of the dorm, then hiring Asia to make the potion would have been for nothing.

“Sure it is. I mean,” Asia stopped to swallow another huge mouthful of scone. She looked at her hand, surprised to find it empty, and grabbed another scone behind her.

“I made those for everyone,” I said.

Asia stared at me. “I am one of everyone.” She took another huge bite and talked with her mouth full. “Ergo, they are for me.”

“Yeah, I’m not hungry,” Amit said while staring at Asia chewing with her mouth open. “She can have mine.”

“Listen.” Asia finally put the scone down and wiped the crumbs from her hand on her robe. “I’m going to take it as a given that you’re both virginal morons.”

“Well that’s …” Amit cleared his throat. “Hostile but fair.”

“So let’s figure this out. Which is more likely to make a positive impact: walking up to her in the Great Hall and asking if she wants to study some time or spying on her while disguised as someone else. I mean, how do you think she’ll feel when you tell her that you know her favorite color underwear because you’ve been watching her sleep or some creepy shit like that?”

“We’re not going to watch her sleep,” I said. “We’re just going to —”

“Girls have favorite colors of underwear?” Amit asked.

Asia shrugged. “Sure. Teal looks great on me.”

Amit’s mouth dropped. “T-teal?”

Asia rolled her eyes. “If you want to know what she thinks of you, just pay me to go ask her.”

“Would you do that?” I asked.

“No.” Asia opened her notebook and checked over the amendments she’d made to the Polyjuice potion.

Amendments.

Phineas Bourne established this recipe as the premier and fundamental Polyjuice potion. Here Asia was making casual amendments like she was copying Doila Downbog’s homework and trying to make it comprehensible.

“Why not?” I asked.

Asia spoke without lifting her eyes from her notes, “I’m not a messenger.”

“That’s fine,” Amit said. “Because this is going to work. In a few minutes, I’ll be talking to Madeline Snapfire, and one step closer to true love.”

“You’re an idiot,” Asia muttered.

“Hey,” I snapped. They both looked at me, and my nerves rushed through me, robbing me of whatever I was about to say.

“What?”

“I … I … I just don’t think.” I licked my lips, then caught myself doing that and stopped. I can only imagine licking my lips while sweat rolled down my forehead would give a distinct, memorable, and horrifying madman impression.

“I don’t think you should act too uppity about this,” I said. “I mean, you’re taking our money after all.” My eyes darted to Amit. “I mean his money.”

Asia lowered her book but kept her eyes fixed on me. I adjusted my tie, but I couldn’t make it straight without a mirror, so I loosened it like Asia. She didn’t stop looking at me. My eyes darted to the potion that needed to be stirred, but Asia didn’t blink. She was going to kill me. I almost felt the beginnings of some curse, and for a second, I tried to remember where my wand was. I think I left it in my room and —

“Honestly, I don’t care,” Amit said. “You’re definitely too good for me and too good for this. You’re the best, and if this is the best Polyjuice potion I can get, that’s the one I want.” Asia didn’t release me from her glare, and though one eye was covered by her hair, the other cut into me like the basilisk that attacked Hogwarts last year.

“If you think one conversation with Maddie is all you’ll need,” Asia said, “even if you two look like Agnes Chase and Olivia Snarzle, then fine. You’re the boss.”

“Good,” Amit said. He turned and beamed at me. I smiled back weakly. “Is it almost ready?”

“Yeah.”

“When do you want to add —”

“Needs to be a few degrees hotter,” Asia said.

“Bourne doesn’t say anything about —”

“Shhh,” Amit snapped at me. “Just let her work.”

“I —” I licked my lips again, caught myself, and bit down on my bottom lip. I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms, and tried to remind myself that Amit was just excited. He’d been talking about Madeline Snapfire since we got sorted into Gryffindor. Honestly, if talking to her for ten minutes while looking like Agnes Chase can buy me a bit of quiet about what classes Madeline is taking or where she’s sitting during a quidditch match, it’ll be worth it. Even if I have to look like Olivia Snarzle to back Amit up.

But as he watched Asia work in awe, I thought of a dozen reasons why Asia was right, and this was stupid. Amit should just go talk to her. I’ve told him that a thousand times, and we can’t act on anything we learn about Madeline because while Olivia and Agnes may know, Amit and Elliot don’t. But I think in the end — and Amit would never admit this out loud — he could handle it if he was rejected while looking like Agnes, but he could never handle being rejected while wearing his own face.

I understood that.

“I’m going to get dressed,” I said.

“That’s a good idea,” Asia said. “You should both change.”

“You mind stepping out? The brooms don’t offer much privacy,” Amit said with a nervous laugh.

Asia looked up as though realizing she was sitting in a storage closet for the first time. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah. Sure.”

Asia untangled her legs and stood up. She caught me eyeing her notebook and held it tight to her chest, hiding her notes from me. “The notes are for Os.” Her eyes darted around the cramped little room. “Don’t touch anything.”

“Sure,” I said.

She arched an eyebrow at me. “Promise?”

“Yeah.”

“Cause if I come back, and it’s been stirred clockwise and —”
“I get it,” I said. “I promise.”

Asia clearly didn’t believe me, but she stepped around us, cracked the door to make sure the hallway was clear, and stepped out into the corridor.

“Would you cut it out?” Amit hissed at me while he peeled off his shirt.

“Cut what out?” I peeled off my robes and tossed it in the corner with his shirt.

“You were the one who said you’d prefer if she did it.”

“I said that if you wanted the best —”

“And I do.”

“Then you should hire her.”

“And I followed your advice,” Amit said. “Stop making us both miserable.”

“I’m not —” But Amit wasn’t getting undressed. He was holding my gaze with his large and wet eyes. The puppy-dog look. “Come on,” I said as I unbuttoned my shirt. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Elliot,” he said, “I’m freaking out, okay?” Despite what he was saying — and on any other day, Amit would certainly be a jittery mess — he was still. In fact, the stillness was downright unsettling.

“Right,” I said slowly.

“Please just be on my side. Even if you don’t understand.”

“Alright.”

“Just be my wingman or —” His crooked smile came out as he bent down and picked up a skirt that should fit Agnes Chase. “Wing-woman for the night.”

“Sure.” I bent down and grabbed Olivia Snarzle’s skirt. “Is this backwards?” I asked and held it up.

Amit laughed and shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Something — I assume Asia’s foot — slammed against the closet door. “Quiet, morons.”

Amit and I finished changing in silence. Though we’d gotten dressed thousands of times in front of each other over the past six years, I was thankful that only dim candlelight revealed my body. Amit was a bit scrawny, but at least his body was all smooth lines and smoother skin. As for me, it was like I never hit puberty. She hit me. Hard. My Viking heritage or whatever showed in broad shoulders, lots of stubble, “thick bones” I promise had nothing to do with several servings of treacle tart at dinner, and hair. Lots of hair. Shoulder hair and neck hair and hair in a dozen places you’d never think the human body could or would grow it. As I slipped on one of the skirts Asia had gotten us, I found myself wishing she’d got stockings or something to hide my two ape legs.

Not that I minded the skirt. Amit seemed to be fascinated with it as well. He twirled back and forth and laughed. “This is kind of fun,” he said, and Asia kicked the door again to shut us up.

Of course, Amit didn’t have gorilla legs. It felt like the universe had given all the body hair he ought to have grown over to me. Which was, you know, perfect. I tugged down on the skirt, trying to cover my knees. Then I bent down and pulled up my socks a bit, but my calves were too big.

“At least it isn’t so hot in here anymore,” I said as Amit handed me a robe. “Nice and breezy.”

“And if you get hot,” he said, “you can always make your own breeze.” He shimmied his waist again and flared out the skirt. He broke down laughing. “You look traumatized,” he said as he crumpled in on himself, putting his hands on his knees.

The door opened and Asia stormed in, pushing through Amit and almost knocking him into the bubbling cauldron. “That’s enough,” she said. “You idiots are going to get us caught.” Amit caught himself, but his smile was gone. We all knew the recipe for Polyjuice potion was in the restricted section of the library. Asia had it because she’s Asia and practically runs the library, but no professor would buy any excuse for us actually brewing the stuff.

Especially not an excuse about true love.

Asia checked the temperature of the potion again. Seemingly satisfied, she took out two hairs and held one to Amit and one to me. “We ready?”

“Uh, yeah.” The joy had drained out of Amit. He looked at me with the same dread on his face he had when he saw me get my first Howler or the time Hagrid made him pet a hippogriff or the time Professor Sprout had poisoned him for some demonstration we never finished because he fainted shortly after she realized she’d grabbed the wrong venomous plant.

Cause, you know, she had so many to choose from.

I gave him my best comforting smirk — all lips and cheek, no teeth — and then gave my waist a little twirl. The skirt flared out, and though I should have felt stupid, ridiculous, even ugly to have more of my legs and skin showing than absolutely necessary, I laughed a little bit. It did make its own little breeze, and that felt refreshing, actually.

“Are you two done, flirting?” Asia asked, still holding out the two hairs belonging to Agnes Chase and Olivia Snarzle, respectively. “Cause if he’s your true love, Amit, I can go right now.”

Amit rolled his eyes and grabbed the hair from Asia. I did the same.

“Great,” Asia said. She scooped up some potion into two vials and handed one to each of us. “Don’t worry. It’s cool,” she said, and we took the bubbling black liquid from her. “Great. Now add your hair.”

“Are you sure this is Agnes’s?” Amit asked, looking at the hair. He twisted and lowered it, trying to get it into the right light to see if it was Olivia’s rich red or Agnes’s tawny hazelnut.

“Does it matter? You’ll get in.”

“Well all my cue cards are for Agnes.”

“Cue cards?” Asia asked, turning to me.

“I’ve been studying,” Amit said. “Trying to —”

“Don’t ask,” I said. I looked at him. “Come on. We have to go before they lock us out.” I dropped the hair in my vial and watched it puff into smoke. The color of the liquid changed immediately, and a thick cinnamon and vanilla scent billowed from the potion in my hand as it changed to a creamy latte kind of brown. “Way to go, Olivia,” I whispered to myself.

There was a small flash of light out of the corner of my eyes, and I looked to see Amit holding a bright purple potion that reeked of lavender. “Definitely Agnes,” Amit said as he coughed. Across the cauldron, Asia covered her nose and mouth as the stench of ten gallons of perfume filled the closet. I imagine even the brooms reeled back in disgust as we were assaulted with the entire pantheon of floral scents in the span of two milliseconds.

Amit looked at me nervously. “Ready?” he asked, lifting up his potion.

I lifted my vial to him in a slight toast, “Here goes nothing.”

“To true love,” Amit said and downed his potion in one go. I tried to do the same, but it was too hot and burned the back of my throat a bit. Meanwhile, Amit was coughing horrendously as I imagined his potion tasted like a bottle of perfume.

“Drink it fast,” Asia said to me. “You don’t want it to —”

“I know,” I said. I tipped the vial and finished it off. Unfortunately, I learned quickly that Amit wasn’t coughing because of the flower power of his potion. I joined him in a coughing marathon as my throat bubbled and burned. It felt like I’d swallowed the potion down the wrong pipe and the burning hot Polyjuice potion was bubbling around in my lungs. But no amount of coughing and gagging made it come up.

“The coughing is perfectly normal,” Asia said.

“You’ve done this before?” I manage to say between coughs.

“Not exactly,” Asia said. “But I’ve put enough fluxweed in there to make the dead cough. Imagine you’ve just had ten hot chiles, right? You’re going to cough.”

“Ten hot chiles?” Amit squeaked. “This is more like a volcano.”

“That sounds about right,” Asia said. “The accounts I’ve read of this variation say that you have to build up a ridiculous and unhealthy tolerance to this stuff to make the pain stop and —”

“You’ve killed us,” Amit said. He staggered towards her between coughs, but he froze as though struck by lightning. He arched his back and curled his fingers and wrists before doubling over and holding his stomach.

“Amit?” I said, moving towards him. “What’s —”

Then I was struck.

If the coughing was fire, then the pain in my stomach was a blade of ice right through the gut. I felt every muscle lock up as though two giants held each end and tried to make a jump rope out of each sinew in my body. Amit and I both sank to the ground, clutching our stomachs. I wished I could have conjured up some gratitude that the coughing had stopped, but it felt as though my stomach — just my stomach— was being dipped into a bath of ice, ripped in half, and then dipped again, over and over. Coughing would have been much better.

“This is going to take a minute,” Asia said. “You two just sit there and try not to bite your tongues off or choke on some spit or something.”

I glared at her, and for the first time, her steely bad-ass bitch vibe cracked a bit as she watched us with what could have been misconstrued as genuine concern.

“How about a story?” she blurted out.

“Please, no,” Amit said. His face turned a rather disconcerting shade of blue.

“Right, right. Okay. How about Maddie? Want to talk about Maddie?”

Amit groaned.

“So this is all for true love, right?” Asia said. “Golly, true love.” She sighed and the hair covering one half of her face fluttered up. “You still believe in that stuff? I mean, there are still potions that call for a lock of hair from one’s true love and other rubbish like that, but there are potions out there asking for a bit of King Arthur’s bone. That has to be nonsense, right? Like, I bet any bone could do for that potion. Maybe a king’s bone, maybe just royal bone. Or what if I find a bloke who is king of downtown auto sales and his name is Arthur? Could I use his bones? I don’t see why not? You see the problem? There’s this whole line between the literal and metaphorical with magic, and you have to figure out if the potion wants the metaphorical essence of something or the literal chemical makeup. When it comes to true love, it’s got to be metaphor right?”

I rolled on my side and the room started to go dark. Well, not really dark. More like blurry. When I was feeling brave enough to move my hands away from my stomach, I reached up and discovered my hair was blocking my eyes because it was growing thick and long. Jesus, is this what Asia dealt with all the time? Why not move the stuff out of your face?

“I mean, the thing about true love,” Asia continued, “is that I don’t even know what that means. True love? Is there false love? I mean, probably, but why not just call it love? Why make sure it’s true. Most love has to be true, right? Unless you assume that most love is false, in which case true love would be special. Either way, I think it’s something made up by greeting card companies like — Oh what the? Ewww. I stepped on a chewed-up blueberry scone bite. Serves me right for —”

“I think I’m done,” someone said. My mind knew it had to be Amit — unless one of the ghosts had floated into the storage closet — but his voice was nasally and higher in pitch. The accent was different, much more Scottish than Amit’s London. It was Agnes Chase's voice. It even had that bit of a whine and question mark she seemed to add to the end of every sentence.

And like that, the pain was gone. I shifted my weight, and Amit — I mean Agnes — helped me up. I tried to move the hair out of my eyes, but there was too much of it. Eventually Asia handed me a hair tie, but I just stared at her.

“I don’t know how to work that.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “Move.”

There was more shuffling as she stepped behind me to help with my hair, and I was pressed up against Amit/Agnes. The transformation was freakish. Besides looking like her, he even smelled like her. His breath — Agnes was known for some pretty vile halitosis — was perfect Agnes. The only thing that was wrong was her posture. Agnes slouched a bit more, but Amit stood tall with her appearance, and honestly, it made her look striking. Even in the dim light, Amit lifted her chin a bit and pulled his shoulders back to make her look regal rather than the nervous mess she tended to be.

“How do I look?” Amit asked nervously in Agnes’s voice.

“Lumos,” Asia whispered behind me, and the storage closet erupted in light. We’d stuck to candles so far because a Lumos spell would be a dead giveaway to anyone walking by the closet.

Before me, stood the perfect representation of Agnes Chase. No. Not representation. It was Agnes Chase. Amit’s boney frame was replaced with thick curves and long wavy chestnut blonde hair. His eyes were emerald green, and his cheeks were painted with freckles.

“Merlin’s beard,” Asia said. “It worked.”

I looked over to her, half expecting her to be transformed as well. She was in a way; her jaded and judgmental glare was replaced with one of complete awe and something else I couldn’t quite identify. Something that made me uncomfortable.

“Of course it worked,” Amit said. “You’re the best.” He pulled at the edge of his skirt, trying to get it to reach his knees. “Bit cold though.”          

“You’ll get used to it,” Asia said.

“I better not,” Amit said. “How do you feel, Elliot?”

“I dunno,” I said. I looked down at my body. There wasn’t any hair on my knuckles, and my legs were smooth shaved, but honestly, not much changed. As far as I could tell, it was just me in a skirt. Even the bulge on my chest wasn’t overly new or strange: life of a chubby kid.

“How do I look?”

“Fine,” Asia said. “You both look fine.” Her voice was soft and thick like velvet. She didn’t take her eyes off me while she spoke. “Come on, we only have an hour, I think.”

“You think?” Amit asked. “I thought —”

“I tried to make it stronger, but the base recipe lasts an hour. I don’t know how successful I was.”

“Then let’s go,” I said.

“Right.” Asia stepped past the cauldron and extinguished the light from her wand. “Follow me.” She opened the door, and we all rushed out. I felt the cold Agnes had been talking about immediately. We couldn’t find any stockings we thought would fit, and Asia said we wouldn’t need them late in the summer. Maybe it was just the difference between the cramped closet with a cauldron in it and the open stone hallway, but I don’t know how girls did this.

We’d chosen a closet near the Gryffindor Dormitory, but not so close a prefect would be snooping around. The goal was to push the line before we’d be locked out of the dormitory or locked in for the night. Meanwhile — unbeknownst to Madeline Snapfire — Agnes and Olivia were on a surprise date with Oliver Wood and Cedric Diggory. The girls had a weakness for quidditch players, and the date was another financially encouraged move thanks to Amit.

“Still don’t think you’re getting past the staircase,” Asia said as we rounded the corner towards the dormitory. She kept glancing over at me — at Olivia — as we walked through the hallway.

“I’m not worried about it,” Amit said. “The potion will work.”

Asia scoffed, apparently not as confident in her abilities as Amit was. In fact, Amit was worried about the staircase. It was the one thing we couldn’t control, and the one thing the plan hinged on. Godric Gryffindor, in his infinite wisdom and abounding paranoia, put an enchantment on the staircase that led to the girl’s dormitory. Any boy who tried to climb the steps was kicked out when the stairwell would turn into a slide and send the boy back to the common room. Some boys got clever and tried levitation or flying spells. Unfortunately, Godric Gryffindor had thought of everything, as a hurricane would whip up and expel any creepy flying boys wanting to peek at girls in their sleep.

Not that we were creepy boys. This was, after all, for true love.

But in Amit’s mind, he was convinced that the plan had to happen at night, when Madeline was alone with only her most trusted friends and in the privacy of their corner of the room. Apparently, Madeline was boy-mad, and she became an entirely different person if a boy was around, or she thought a boy may be around in the near future. That meant we couldn’t pose as Agnes and Olivia out on the quidditch pitch or in the Great Hall. It had to be in private, where Madeline thought she was safe. Amit figured that there he could learn all he needed to woo her. Her secret self — her true self — would be revealed to him, and he’d have an edge on every other potential suitor.

“Fortuna Major,” Asia said to slip past the portrait of the Lady guarding the dormitory.

Instinctively, Amit and I moved right to head to the boy’s dormitories. Asia grabbed our robes and pulled us to the left. “Chickening out or confused?” she asked.

“Bit of both, I suppose,” Amit said. He looked sick and covered his mouth with his hand as we approached the girls’ staircase. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“Should be over soon, one way or another,” Asia said.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s okay,” I said. I grabbed Amit’s free hand to comfort him. He looked down at it, a bit shocked. I pulled my hand away, not sure why I’d done it, but not sure why it bothered him either. “The potion will work,” I said quickly. “Just remember your cue cards and what you want to say to Madeline.”

“Right.” Asia scoffed. “Remember the cue cards.”

Before we reached the staircase, I spotted a small mirror hanging on the wall of the common room. “Hang on,” I said, moving towards it. “I need to check something.”

“What are you —” Asia asked. “We don’t have time to —” When she saw where I was going, she tugged on my robe. “You look like Olivia. Perfect representation.”

“I just want to see,” I said, yanking on my robe and slipping out of her grip. I staggered towards the mirror and had to stand on my tiptoes to get a good look. I’d forgotten how short Olivia was.

But apparently, I’d forgotten a lot about Olivia Snarzle. She was the twiggy red head that followed Madeline around and ate up whatever she said. Of the trio, she was the stupid and bratty one, and yes, I’d seen her before. But this wasn’t her. It was me. And just as you find every flaw and imperfection in your reflection, I examined my new self with the same scrutiny and couldn’t find the flaws. Instead, I discovered I’d never realized how her blue eyes sparkled. They were cerulean with a beautiful blend of green, making them almost coral against her pale skin. And her hair was a curly and crazy mane, but now that I saw it up close, I loved how each curl was like its own little story rather than one big mass like Agnes’s perfect wave. She was beautiful in a new sense of the word I’d never known before.

I was beautiful.

I held up Olivia’s hand and touched my face. My fingers felt her skin. My skin. It wasn’t scratchy or greasy. It was soft and yielding. My fingers trailed to my nose that was small and a little crooked. When I touched it, I was reminded all over that it was my nose feeling my fingers touching it. It was my pale but plush lips that they trailed over. It wasn’t Olivia. It was me.

I was beautiful.

“Come on.” Asia yanked on my robe again. “We have to go.”

“Yeah,” Amit said. “Come on.”

I stumbled away from the mirror, trying not to make a deal of them pulling me away, trying not to strain against them. But I didn’t want to leave my reflection. I’d never thought that possible. I’ve read myths of people like Narcissus that fell in love with their reflection until they became a flower. I always thought that nonsense. Who would want to stare at themselves all day? That sounded like some kind of twisted curse, and I guess that was the lesson from Narcissus. He was cursed. It was vanity. No one in their right mind should spend all day ogling their own appearance.

Well, Olivia Snarzle should.

We reached the staircase, and Amit froze. His face was approaching definite chartreuse hues. This was it: the moment of truth.

“Hurry,” Asia said. She yanked on Agnes’s robe and led both of us by the sleeve up the staircase.

One step.

In a moment, I forget all about Olivia Snarzle and her eternal and untamed beauty. I forgot about her fingers being my fingers, her skirt — for a moment — being my skirt, her skin being my skin. I forgot about Amit and his silly notions of true love. I forgot about Asia and her rudeness. In a perfect moment, the only thing that existed was the pure dread of anticipation. I waited for the stairs to go slick. I waited for a wailing alarm. I waited for a hurricane. I waited for some curse of pox to punish us for using Polyjuice potion.

Nothing happened.

Two steps.

Nothing happened.

Asia clenched her fists, pulling us closer to her as she gripped our robes. She was waiting too. We were all ready for whatever hatred and paranoia Godric Gryffindor had to come crashing down and obliterate us. Of course, that would only be part one. There would be public humiliation when everyone discovered that Amit and I had tried to sneak up the girl’s staircase. Then there’d be the inevitable punishment from the school. They’d probably contact our parents. Oh, Merlin, why hadn’t I thought of that before agreeing to this?

Three steps.

Nothing happened.

Four steps.

Nothing happened.

On and on we went; up and up we went. Yet nothing happened. We stopped halfway up the staircase and looked at each other, smiling like idiots from the relief.

“It worked,” Agnes said. “I can’t believe it —”

A piercing howl cut through the staircase like the banshee we’d dispelled last year. I braced myself for the shriek to cut our bones, to rip through our nervous system, but then I realized it wasn’t a ghost. It was the alarm. Instinctively, Asia and I grabbed the staircase railing to keep ourselves from sliding down.

But the stairs didn’t turn into a slide.

No whirlwind came to hurl us out of the staircase.

Instead, a simple hole appeared in the floor of the staircase, right beneath Amit’s feet. He screamed, but it couldn’t match the alarm’s wailing. He tried to reach for us or catch himself, but it all happened too quickly. One second, Amit was standing next to us in the stairwell, and the next moment he was gone.

I let go of the railing to try and go after him, but by the time I reached the spot where my best friend had just been, the hole was gone. The staircase was repaired. There was no sign or trace of him.

Only a moment later, we heard a soft splashing sound from below as though coming from within the walls. I turned to rush down the stairs after him, but as I did, we spotted another Agnes Chase and Olivia Snarzle at the bottom of the Staircase. Their clothes were ripped, and they were covered in scratches. Olivia’s immaculate hair was filled with twigs and leaves. She looked like a dryad.

Some stupid part of me didn’t care that Olivia Snarzle was at the bottom of a staircase that had another Olivia Snarzle only a few feet in front of her. I only cared that if Olivia looked like a dryad, I could look like a dryad too. I was caught in some kind of paralytic reverie, completely forgetting about my friend that was now somehow inside the tower and potentially swimming for his life in a skirt and robes.

Thankfully, Asia took action. “Run up,” Asia hissed, pushing me towards the top of the staircase.

“Girls!” She shouted, getting the attention of the real Olivia and Agnes. “What happened?’

I heard something about a giant wolf ruining their date before I reached the top of the staircase and rushed into the girl’s dormitory. I had somehow fooled the staircase, even though Amit hadn’t. We took the same potion, but —

“Olivia?”

I looked across the dark room. Madeline Snapfire was sitting by a candle on her nightstand, brushing her hair and waiting for a report from her best friends about their date. It was time for the private girl talk, the talk that wasn’t for boys’ ears.

Yet here I was.