The Package

Dear Diary,

I’m seven years old. My father reads aloud to me. The Horse Whisperer, by Nicholas Evans:

Wayne smashed his fist and forearm against the windshield and when it shattered he saw the horse was still there on the hood. Its right foreleg was stuck in the V-shaped struts of the wing mirror and the animal was screaming at him, covered in fragments of glass, its mouth foaming and bloody. Beyond it, Wayne could see the other horse at the side of the road, trying to limp away, its rider still hanging by her leg from the stirrup.

I lean over the side of the bed and vomit. As my father reaches over to hold my hair, his sleeve slips down, revealing a tattoo of a skull and a serpent on his forearm. I sit up and wipe my mouth.

“What’s that, Daddy?” I ask.

“It’s the Grateful Dead crest,” he replies.

“Why is it on your arm?”

“Sometimes, when someone really likes a certain band, they’ll show their support by getting a tattoo of the band’s crest.”

“Can I touch it?”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea. It still kind of stings.”

My mom enters. She gasps when she sees my father’s tattoo. “Donald! Where did you get that.”

“Pain & Pleasure. On the corner of Milan and Bogart.”

“Why?”

“All the Deadheads have them.”

My mother is shocked, then a look of understanding crosses her face. “Don, may I see you for a minute. Over here.”

My dad pats my arm and assures me he’ll be right back, then follows my mom across the room.

“Don,” my mother whispers loudly. “That is not the mark of the Deadheads – that’s the Dark Mark.”

“The what-Mark?”

“Death Eaters! He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s supporters.”

“But I thought-”

“I know what you thought. But now your obsession with the Grateful Dead has made you a servant of Voldemort.”

“Voldemort’s dead!”

“He disappeared, but a wizard that powerful doesn’t die. He’ll be back, and when he does…”

“Oh god.” My father runs a hand over his comb-over. “What have I done?”

My father died today. Rather, he died three weeks ago, but the owl carrying the message got eaten by a falcon. The falcon gave the message to his mate for their nest. When the babies hatched, one of them ate the scroll of paper, shit it out, and a dog ate the falcon droppings. The dog brought the message to my dorm, transformed into a human, and apologized for the soggy paper.

“You look strangely familiar,” I said to the dog-man. “Who are you?”

“No one you know,” he said gruffly. “I’d best be getting back to the clink.”

I assumed he meant Clink, the S&M club just outside Glasgow.

“Why were you a dog?”

He gave me a small smile. “Something I do every now and then, just to enjoy a bit of freedom. While the Dementors are sleeping. One day, I’ll be free for good.”

I didn’t know what he meant, so I invited him into my bed, and when he declined, I said I wished him a good time at Clink and reminded him to always use a safeword.

I suppose I should be sad, but the truth is, Diary, I don’t know how to feel. I loved my father, but he was distant. At least, that’s what my mother always said.

My mother said in her message that my father had left me something. She said she’d send it along as a Christmas present.

On Christmas Eve, when everyone else was in bed, Chris and I snuck up to the seventh floor to see if we could get the Room of Requirement to turn into a poker den. Imagine my thrill, Diary, when I saw an owl fly through a corridor window, carrying a parcel wrapped in Shindig paper. Only one person on Earth has wrapped so few gifts that she still has a roll of wrapping paper from 1965, and that’s my mother. I raced toward the owl, waving my arms.

“Here, right here! Me, me, me! That’s my present.”

The owl’s yellow eyes widened, and it took off through the corridor. Chris and I followed. I hurtled down the moving staircase. As I reached terra firma, the owl disappeared around a corner. Behind me, Chris ralphed. He never does well with the moving staircases.

I didn’t even see Snape until I crashed into him. “What on earth—” he began.

“Fuck off, mate,” I said, continuing after the owl.

The owl flew to the entrance of Gryffindor tower. At the portrait of the Fat Lady, it screeched, and the portrait swung open. As I approached, the portrait shut in my face. I couldn’t remember the password. Where’s the Beard when you need her?

“I’m a member of DOPES,” I told the fat lady. “I can get you anything you want. Evanesca, belladonna, habeas corpus…You name it.”

“Horsestra,” she said.

“Done,” I promised. I was halfway up the stairs when I realized that Horsestra is made from the saliva of the Norwegian Ridgeback dragon. Fuck. Where was I going to find one of those? I’ve heard what happens to students who don’t pay the Fat Lady.

I dove through the portrait hall just in time to see the owl glide up the stairs toward the boys dormitory. What the…I followed. It lit on Hairy Twatter’s bed, and placed the package among his other presents.

“What are you doing?” I shouted. I leapt onto HP’s bed. The owl tried to claw my face. “That’s mine!” I screamed. “Mine! My father left it to me.” I slapped the owl across the face and its head spun completely around. It flew out the window. I was just about to grab the package when The Boy Wizard stirred. I froze. This would all go a lot better if he remained asleep and I quietly took what’s mine.

“Shhh,” I whispered tenderly. “Go back to sleep.”

“Quirrell,” he murmured. My eyes widened. “Not strong enough…to resist…”

Not strong enough to resist what?

“Wear him down…” HP continued.

I gasped. Was Harry Potter after my Squirrel? Did he believe that his charms were impossible for our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor to resist?

I raised my fist to punch him, then slowly lowered it. This wouldn’t do. I needed to find out more. I waited for him to speak again, but all he said after that was, “Mum…no! Don’t kill her! Please!” What a douche.

I slipped off the bed, and hurried back down the stairs to the common room. My insides were like glass--breathe too hard and the whole system would shatter. Harry Potter was trying to claim Quirrell’s heart. And, given how famous he was, he would probably succeed. What did I have to offer my Squirrel, besides the fact that I’m on birth control?

I had to find Chris. I hurried out the portrait hole and—

--crashed into Snape. “Detention,” he said, looking at me with glittering black eyes.

“I have to find my—”

“Fuck off, mate,” he said. It was the first time I'd seen him grin.

An hour later, Chris and I sat in the common room. I relayed what I'd heard Harry Potter sleepbitch.

“I thought I was the token gay of Gryffindor,” Chris said.

“You were. He’s stolen everything from us. Your identity, my present.”

Shit, my package was still on HP’s bed. The sole item left for me by my dead father, and it was in the possession of my least favorite person of all time. 

“From now on,” I said, staring into the fire. “I’m not letting him out of my sight. Everywhere Harry Potter goes, I go. From the highest cliff, to the darkest dungeon. I won’t let him take what’s mine. Again,” I amended.

Chris sighed. “I can’t believe we have detention next term.”

I rolled my eyes. Detention in the Forbidden Forest was the least of my problems. Really, though, I thought. What could my dad have bequeathed to me that I would really want? His Peabo Bryson collection?

An idea dawned on me. There was a way to connect with my dead father that would be more permanent than wearing his bathrobe or listening to his music. I could get his tattoo on my arm. The Deadheads mark or whatever. I’m no Grateful Dead fan, but I’ll do it for Dad. Of course, in the U.K. you can’t get a tattoo without parental permission until you’re fourteen. But I swear on my love for Professor Squirrel that as soon as I’m a fourth year, I’ll go to Hogsmeade and get that skull and serpent tattooed on my arm. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.

“Did you hear what I just said?” Chris asked.

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

“Merry Christmas.”

I looked at the clock. It was midnight. “Merry Christmas, Chris.”

Love,

Jill

Green and Gold: The First Quidditch Match

Dear Diary,

Yesterday was the big Quidditch match and the debut of Harry Potter as Gryffindor seeker and boy, oh boy, was that stadium packed. The celebration began early in the common room, students enchanting signs to glow and display messages of support and enthusiasm. Girls swarmed in packs, primping each other and assuring their fellow vixens that their matching gloves, hat, and scarf combo was totally hott. The guys wagered over the breakfast table - 'Five Galleons that Slytherin loses!' 'Seven Sickles that Harry catches the Snitch before they score!' - as they shoveled bacon and black pudding. I, however, sat nervously at the edge of my four-poster, wondering where in the hell Jill and Neville were.

After the failed first meeting of DOPES, I had given up on teaching my fellow students to appreciate the natural beauty of the scientific world and had instead focused on selling them herbal delights in exchange for some serious bank. The problem was that I had no idea where to acquire such things at this school for the deaf, dumb, and magical. Had I been on my home lot, in the back of the Y, I could have sat on the broken down wooden bench with white knee socks, and an old Seville with a driver wearing sunglasses would fix me up with whatever I needed for a wad of twenties. But now I was on different turf, and I had to play by its rules. Who would know the psychedelic properties of this realm's flora and fauna?

Neville Longbottom.

I approached him one night after dinner, catching him on the second floor and pulled him behind a statue of Sir Germantoly, Slayer of Wereponies and Dodo Birds. 'I need a favor,' I said to his blank, freckled face. He looked at me with the indifference of a grazing cow. 'Aren't you that kid that drugged Oliver Wood?' 'Yes,' I conceited, 'and if you don't help me I'll do much, much worse to you.' What Neville needed to understand was that I was brought up not to feel shame. My mother would drag me with her, bi-monthly, to the local Sam's Club where I would perform a series of monologues from soap operas, Christmas carols and dramatic reenactments of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, wearing a sign that said 'Not allowed home til the groceries are paid for' and a empty coffee can at my feet. She would stand nearby, yelling notes that I was expected to incorporate into the act immediately, until enough shoppers would feel sorry for me and drop enough money into the can to pay for the cart full of Lucky Charms, frozen chicken wings and Baileys. 'Fine,' he said begrudgingly, 'what do you need?'

I explained the operation to Neville and Jill over a table in the Restricted Section. Neville was in charge of the research, Jill the acquisition, and I would take control of moving the product. An hour later, Neville handed us a small scrap of parchment with plant names and their ideal habitats. Soon enough, Jill was off to the Forbidden Forest and returned with an armful of Arbuscula Evanesca, a plant whose stalk is filled with a hallucinogenic liquid and whose leaves can be smoked, causing the user to feel a state of mental and physical euphoria. The next morning, we would head off to the Quidditch stadium to sell small bags for Ten Galleons under the Slytherin bleachers. Jill and Neville would work the crowd, informing others of my location and I would be in charge of distribution.

It was thirty minutes before the game started before Jill burst into my dormitory, breathlessly. 'Sorry!' she apologized. 'I was at breakfast and Squirrel was eating a croissant. He takes such little bites! It's so adorable.' I asked where Neville was and Jill informed me he had already taken off for the game and would meet us there.

When we arrived at the stadium, it was already packed. We could see the Gryffindor team take the field. 'I'll be suprised if Harry can still ride his broom today,' Jill snickered. If all had gone according to plan, Harry had found himself at Hagrid's disposal the night before and the salty sea captain had given him the biznazz after knocking him out with some Arbuscula Evanesca. I took my place under the bleachers and soon enough, students from all houses were in line to snag some shwag.

'Oy! You lot! What's going on here?' It was Percy Weasley, the Gryffindor prefect. Everyone scattered, the way we used to do in prison when Big Jamal starting looking for participants for the Christmas pageant. I took advantage of the chaos and ducked under the heavy tapestry behind me, climbed my way into a section of Ravenclaw students and immediately swallowed the two remaining bags I had on me. For a brief moment, I felt the wind on my face, my eyes squinted to stare at a parcel of sunlight tearing through cloud. Upwards, fourteen dazzling players soared and swerved on broomsticks. It truly was an amazing sight, something I would have never seen had I not been accepted into Hogwarts. I thought about my parents. Had they ever seen a Quidditch game before the Carnival cruise disaster? I did not pursue the sentimentality long, the liquid core of the plants was beginning to kick in. Sky met earth in trippy folds, and the crowd began to scream. Harry Potter was spinning erratically, jerking uncontrollably, a chaotic dance with the ever-changing scenery. It may have been the drugs, but in my mind, his movement was perfectly choreographed to Jamal's rendition of 'Good King Wenceslas'.

My instinct told me to get the hell out of a public setting and I set off discretely for the castle. It was empty inside, save for the Headless Hunt, who barreled through the wall of the Great Hall, sending me on a tear up the nearest flight of stairs. Pursuing me at a steady canter, I raced up flight after flight, pleading with every portrait I could see to open and reveal a safe passage. Without knowing why, I barricaded myself into a room I had never visited before. My ear to the door, I determined the Hunt had passed as was ready to leave when I saw a mirror out of the corner of my eye. I determined I should check to see if my eyes were red in case I ran into Filch. And that's when, Diary, I peered into the mirror and saw myself, not standing as I was, but sitting on a posh stool in front of a well-stocked bar. There was bottle after bottle of Patron, Bombay, Seagrams, and fifty different beers on tap! O, what a splendid heaven! I reached for the glass, thinking that perhaps I could reach in and make myself a whiskey sour. The mirror did not give way, however. My dream still unattainable, I left in a huff. 'Piece of garbage,' I thought to myself, kicking the door open.

I'm going to show the mirror to Jill and hope that maybe she can figure out how to unlock the liquor within. And in the meantime, there's a stash of coins in my pocket that I can't wait to spend.

xoxo

Chris.

Punking Potter

Dear Diary,

Chris could not be more right about the assbackwardness of the magical world.

My mom owled last night to tell me that All the Right Moves was on TBS. That’s when I made the horrible discovery that there are no TVs at Hogwarts. Now I understand why Chris complains about not being able to watch Designing Women. I thought he meant he couldn’t watch it because Jean Smart left.

No television. No video games. There isn’t even a Meijer in the U.K. I wanted to finish out public school in the U.S. and then go to Alabama University of Magic, or even Lorain Community Necromancy College, but oh no, my dad had to get himself transferred to Tallyhoville, and I got an owl inviting me to join the cast of Brideshead Revisited. I’ve never been to an American institute of magic, but I’d bet my future left tit there are vending machines and a forgiving attendance policy.

Halloween was kind of a bust, but I had fun. Chris and I looked completely bomb-ass, even if we did get made fun of. Aaaaaaaaaaaaand I had my mouth on Squirrely’s! Although, I think I might have breathed into him a little too hard, because he burped right on my tongue and it tasted like daal. McGonners gave me a glare that would wither Devil’s Snare. I think she has a problem with me loving a brown man.

Also, Chris doesn’t know this yet, but HP is about to get served. How, you ask? Well, not half an hour ago, I was heading back from the Forbidden Forest with some stuff Chris asked me to pick for DOPES. As I passed the gamekeeper's cottage, I heard Hagrid yell, “Ahoy! Where ye be goin’, matie?”

“Oh, just out for a walk,” I replied pleasantly.

Then the oaf wanted to know why I was covered in dog hair. Not, “What are you doing with all those hallucinogenic plants in your arms?” but, “Why are you covered in dog hair?” I didn’t want to tell him that I’d been playing on the third floor and come across a three-headed Rottie mix that was throwing coat like crazy.

“Transfiguration,” I replied.

He beckoned me to sit beside him on the stoop.

That’s when he started spilling his guts like a thirteen-year-old girl at a sleepover. He told me all about his love for HP. “Aaaarg, I know he be young, but this is the real thing, the stuff the Greeks spoke of.” I tried not to vom, and patted his shoulder. “I jus’ don’t know how ter tell ‘im. Wha’ would a hero like ‘im want with a shaggy ‘alf giant like meself? Why, I got ‘airs thick enough ter strangle a leopard on me—”

“Don’t worry,” I cut him off. “There are ways to get what you want.”

“Like ‘ow?”

“Why don’t you start by inviting him over some evening for dinner?”

“I never thought of that.”

“Then, you’re going to want to gain his confidence. Share a secret with him. Something you know you probably shouldn’t tell him.”

“Like what?”

“It has to be something that will really rock his world. When my dad told me he didn’t love my mom anymore, I was like, oh, hold on while I put on my ‘surprised’ face. But when he told me he sort of liked Jewel, we grew closer than ever.”

“Maybe I could tell ‘im about the Sorcerer’s Stone I got out of the vault at Gringott’s when I took ‘im therrrre to pick up ‘is gold.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“An’ how it’s guarded by a three-headed dog!”

“That’s just getting—wait a minute. That dog’s guarding the Sorcerer’s Stone?”

“Ye know about the dog?”

I was too surprised to tell anything but the truth. “I found it this afternoon. I named it Edelweiss, because it sleeps like my mother after two Flexoril when I sing selections from The Sound of Music.”

“’is name’s Fluffy,” said Hagrid. “And ye shouldn’t be playin’ with him. But go on.”

“Okay, once Harry trusts you, try slipping a couple crushed leaves of this into his pumpkin juice.” I handed Hagrid one of the plants I carried.

“Will it make ‘im love me?”

“No, it will make him pass out.”

“And then I—?”

“Then he’s yours. And if you dab a little of this around his nostrils before he wakes up—” I snapped a stalk off another plant and showed Hagrid the clear liquid inside. “—he should have no memory of the event whatsoever.”

“Shiver me timbers! Jill, ye’ve saved me sanity.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “But good luck.”

I hurried back to the common room to tell Chris, but Chris was passed out next to an empty bottle of gin wrapped in an unconvincing SmartWater label. I’m just waiting for him to wake up so I can tell him about playing the prank of the century on HP.

Quidditch match tomorrow. Ooha-ooha!

Love,

Jill

Laugh it up, Fuzzball

Dear Diary,

Can this place get any crazier? I'm adapting to the talking portraits, moving stairwells, and Scottish accents but the medieval mindsets of these people is infuriating. I consider myself a Renaissance man and the education here is fantastically lacking. First of all, why is Astrology the only real subject these kids study? Of all the branches of science to offer, stargazing is clearly the least important. Want to know why there's no cure for AIDS? Because the people in this world who are fucking magical have decided that virology is no match for Divination. I wrote Dumbledore a letter asking him to consider stopping global warming with a no-melting spell. He wrote back saying I should stop troubling the house elves for gin and tonics.

Therefore, in an effort to preserve the works of Darwin, Einstein, Avogadro, and Tesla in the world of Merlin, Morgana, Agrippa, and Wendelin the Weird, I have created the Demanding of Practical Educations Society. I posted fliers asking my colleagues to try out DOPES one Saturday afternoon outside Greenhouse 5. Several Slytherins showed up, asking where they could buy a dime bag, and left angrily after I explained the meaning of an acronym. I've suspended all further activity until new members can be found.

Halloween has come and gone. Jill and I decided to go as Princess Leia and Han Solo. I had to wake up at 4 in the morning to braid Jill's hair into buns and sure enough, we were the only ones dressed up. "Don't feel too bad," a snide Harry Potter whispered to us at the breakfast table. "I almost dressed up as the Pope but Ron warned me last night. I like your blaster." And then that pompous prick sauntered away, slapping fives with Lee Jordan and Katie Bell.

You can imagine how crushed I was, Diary, when later that evening Harry Potter escaped from the clutches of a mountain troll in the second floor girls' bathoom. Professor Quirrel burst into the Great Hall, shouted it was in the dungeon, and collapsed. Jill leapt to her feet and started mouth-to-mouth until McGonagall pulled her off of him and sent us to our Common Room. I sat by the fire for what seemed like hours, rocking back and forth on the couch, imagining that any moment Professor Dumbledore would enter the common room, carrying his limp body. We would burn him on a pyre. I would watch his glasses smolder and melt, smoke rising, scar disappearing into scar tissue. His soul would rise to heaven where God himself would deny it and send it to Satan himself. The Boy Who Lived... ETERNALLY IN HELL!

The portrait swung open and in he walked, ginger and beard alongside him. Not only had they survived, they had conquered the troll and earned five points a piece. The common room swelled with cheers and applause. My stomach turned violently. One day, I promised myself, he would not be so lucky.

Anyway, Diary, I'm off to the library to help Jill in the Restricted Section. After she took up her job, I decided I could use some cash on the side. DOPES may have failed but now that I know there's a market for shwag, these dolts have given me a seven-year plan.

xo

Chris

P.S. Why does the third floor corridor always smell like dog shit?

But then my homework was never quite like this...

Dear Diary,

Ow! Got it bad,

Got it bad,

Got it bad,

I'm hot for teacher!

Dean Thomas, take your scarf and your eyes the color of butterbeer and go wank in the Room of Requirement (Did I tell you about this, Diary? It's a room on the third floor that you can only get into if you're in dire need, or really bored. The room transforms into the perfect setting for whatever mission you hope to accomplish. I use it to scratch hard-to-reach itches.)

There's a new man in my life. A man whose stutter is like the clumsy legs of a Great Dane puppy racing for the food bowl. Whose turban is always securely wrapped, unlike my post-shower terry cloth that falls off when I bend down to drink from the sinks. I'm talking about Professor Quirrell, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Or as I like to call him, Professor Squirrel, because he refuses to get out of the road of my heart, and because he continues to hide his nuts from me.

I love his weak-tea skin, his trembling hands, his inability to get anything more out than a simple greeting to the class before the period ends. I don't care that he's a terrorist. Or that he does wandless magic. I've hinted to him that I'd like to see more of his wand, but he doesn't seem to get the double meaning. I am only eleven - maybe I just need a couple years to fine tune my delivery. The other day he wrote the following on the board: NVLN RATS BITED YOUR MOM, a mnemonic device to help wizards and witches remember the 20 simple steps to defending oneself against a Dark Art. I realized you could rearrange the letters to spell VOLDEMORTS IN MY TURBAN, which I thought was hilarious. I'm really good at word jumbles.

In other exciting news, my mom filled out my FAFSA wrong, so I'm not eligible for financial aid. To afford my magical education, I've been forced to take on a work-study job in the Library, shelving books in the Restricted section. At least it's not the cafeteria.

Harry Potter is enjoying his status as a vat of twat cream. Sorry, did I say "vat of twat cream?" I meant "member of the Gryfindor Quidditch Team." Yes, he was accepted on sight, no tryout necessary, all because I was on a magnetizing spell kick the day we learned to fly (I'd magnetized a grasshopper, an eagle, Chris's shoes, and a low-flying commercial jet that may or may not have gone down as a direct result of my efforts), and saw Neville's Remembrall go into the air. I didn't think, I just magnetized. And shit if HP didn't take off on his broom, and if that Remembrall didn't make straight for his glasses frames. Down he came, like Glinda in her bubble, and alighted with the Remembrall in his hand. McGonners took him away - I hoped to a remote dungeon, but actually it was to meet up with Chris's ex-flame O. Wood and be heralded as Gryffindor's new seeker. Seeker of what? A less repulsive personality?

If Harry Potter was half the magician I am, he'd've gotten 25% on that Transfig exam.

I'm off to the lib, and then to walk by Professor Squirrely's office several times and wave.

Looooooove,

Jill

A Young Wizard in Love (Potion)

Dear Diary,

You may or may not have heard, but I banged O. Wood. Yes, before I was the one that pitched a tent in the common room literally minutes after the Sorting Ceremony and now, now! I am the most fabulous thing to hit Gryffindor since McGonagall in her coke days. (Rumor has it she did blow at Studio 54 3/4.)

My high profile, Quidditch captain boyfriend has made it easier to adjust to living here. Sometimes, between snogs (that's what we call it when you give someone's balls a raspberry), he'll listen to me complain about my professors. I mean, Professor Binns is the least entertaining ghost ever. Haven't these people seen Casper? That's what ghosts are like! And I'm miserable in Charms. If it wasn't for Seamus Finnigan's wand exploding every other second, I'm sure I would be the worst in the class.

The only thing that makes any sense to me is Potions. From the first day, I knew that Professor Snape and I would see eye to eye. For one thing, we both hated Harry Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived. I don't see what's so great about him. He's supposedly full of great power, but Snape told us he could teach us to bottle fame, brew glory! If I could make potions that gave me the popularity I so desperately needed, maybe I could stop being the outcast gay of Gryffindor house.

So I hit the library. And sure enough, there was a book that explained how to make every potion you could imagine. The list looked complicated but I knew that if I could make a Rob Roy in prison with a bar of soap and toilet water, a love potion would be no problem. Three days later, it was finished, bottled, and in my pocket as I crept out to the Quidditch pitch one night after dinner. Oliver was just heading in from working on the team's playbook and I poured the love potion into his water bottle. One lazy drink later and it was the beginning of our beautiful life together.

Man! Sometimes I think these other wizards don't understand how much better they have it than normal people. A few insect bits and root shavings and they turn roofies into Mike and Ikes. Forget me now, love me forever! A lasting, passionate relationship brewed in a kettle. If you ask me, that's worse than the death penalty.

But even a flower fed by artificial sunlight can wither, Diary. Yesterday, I ran out of love potion and mid-snog, Wood snapped out of the amorous coma and told me off for good. I cried all night until Neville Longbottom told me to 'nut up' and I silently whimpered until the sun came up.

So I'm back to where I started, Diary: A newly-found wizard struggling to understand his powers, without an ally in a world stacked against him. It's time for me to focus on what's important and that's making things right with my best friend, Jill. It's time to apologize and hope that she'll forgive me once I spill the juicy details about riding Wood's broomstick.

xoxo

Chris.

Friends Who Ignore You So They Can Have Sex All the Time and Think That This is an Acceptable Way to Treat Any Human Being, Let Alone One You Call Your Best Friend

So apparently "aloha" is the Hawaiin word for hello and not the spell for opening locks. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for pointing that out - AFTER I'd been trying to get out of the handcuffs for half an hour.

With Chris Allover Wood, that leaves me exactly zero attractive boys to hit on. Although Dean Thomas is looking kind of yummy. The furrows of his brow give him a thoughtful roguishness, while the vaguely gay school-issue scarf softens the edges, and, I imagine, keeps his neck warm.

I'm really not that great at magic. Yesterday Professor McGonagall called me, "worse than that fucking gamekeeper Dumbledore still seems to think will play a significant part in the fate of the wizarding world." Is it my fault this school doesn't offer anything that I excel at, like drinking and couched racism? Isn't there a spelling bee or something?

I know a spell that heals the blues. It's called cake. Maybe if Chris wasn't relentlessly stroking Morning Wood, he and I could sneak into the kitchen and order the house elves to make us some. *Sigh.*

I peed in a cup to see if I could turn it into wine, or at least give it to Harry Potter, but then I tried it and I'd turned it into green tea Crystal Light. Actually it might have still been urine, I don't know how you'd tell the difference.

So in History of Magic class, we have to do this big research report at the end of the semester. I'm probably gonna do mine on Nicholas Flammel, the guy who discovered the philosopher's stone. I know about him from my dad, who was a Death Eater for a hot second back in the 80s, but only because he had them confused with Deadheads.

Gaaaaawwwwd, I'm so bored. Where's Chris? Chris? Uhhhh. I can't wait til we learn a spell for silencing bedsprings. I think I have a gum infection, but I refuse to go to the hospital ward because they'll give me all kinds of holistic shit. I'm not gonna accept bat ears in place of Percocet, no way no how.

Can I just say something about the food here? The vegetarian option is always blackbean burgers.

I'm gonna slip a note under the door letting Chris know that I'm off to find a fucking Meijer so I can get a Betty Crocker mix and shoplift some Biolage.

Later, Diary.

Jill

The First Magical Days

Dear Diary,

It finally happened. I must admit, I was skeptical at first. When an owl delivers a letter to the local YMCA that you're staying at, inviting you to a seven year education at a wizarding academy, it helps to have a family to explain to you that you are in fact a wizard. But I have no family. Instead, I found the answer at the bottom of a bottle of Jack. And it was never more clear to me. Anyone who can down a bottle of Jack and still think clearly must be fucking magical. So off I went.

Thankfully, my friend Jill was also accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Murdery. She helped me get onto Platform 9 3/4 but sadly, only after I had misread the letter and threw myself face-first into a brick pillar between tracks 8 and 9. Some of the other kids saw my brick-scraped face and made fun of it. Others asked me if I was Harry Potter. 'Who the fuck is Harry Potter?' I would reply. 'Who the fuck is Harry Potter? He's a god in the wizarding world! He beat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! He has a scar on his face from surviving the killing curse!' None of that made much sense to me save this: I already hated Harry Potter.

Jill and I sat on the Hogwarts Express, trying to imagine what the school would be like. Would our teachers cast spells on us if we misbehaved? Would our homework include slaying beasts and bottling their blood? Is there a bar on campus?

Finally we had arrived. You could feel the excitement of one hundred prepubescent witches and wizards in the air, each one wondering what the future had in store for them at this ancient and respected Goliath of an institution. 'This must be what a Jonas Brothers concert feels like,' I thought. They ushered us to the boats, and that's when I lost it. I hate water. My family died after a Carribean Cruise ship capsized and I was the only one who survived because I had been flirting with a lifeguard at the time and he tread water with me on his back for an hour after the disaster. Jill, however, being a true friend calmed me down with my favorite song and I was able to cross the sea and enter Hogwarts.

The sorting ceremony was all a blur. I'll be frank: Jill is a fine singer but nothing calms me down more than a fist full of Ambien. I can remember the hat perched on my head, muttering 'Oh for fuck's sake, it's the first day...' I think the hat knew that I would need the help of my friend Jill and so I was placed in Gryffindor. So was that prick Harry Potter, his ginger boyfriend, and their beard.

After making my way out of the Great Hall and ralphing over a moving staircase (whose genius idea was that?), we made our way into Gryffindor tower. And that's when I saw him. Oliver Wood. Sculpted from the clay of the gods, Oliver Wood is one fine piece of wizard ass. My world stopped spinning and I could focus on nothing but his incredible bone structure. His eyes were as deep as a bottomless bread basket and when he smiled, it was as if the angels had descended and raised me higher than I had ever been before.

'Is that a wand in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?' he asked.

I smiled, obliviously. 'What?'

'That,' he said, pointing at my erection.

I felt the blood rush to my face, pulled my cloak over the wood I got from Wood, and went running upstairs. Jill tried to convince me that nobody would remember what happened but the next morning at breakfast, the Weasley twins pretended to jerk off their wands into my face and everyone laughed, including that fuckhead Harry Potter.

They say first impressions are important but for some reason, I feel like at the end of this saga, I will emerge victorious. And that's what keeps me going. That and the fact that I got no where else to go, so here's pretty okay for now.

XO

Chris.

Hogwarts, Day 1: Jill

Dear Diary,

Today I boarded the Hogwarts Express, bound for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

My family came with me to platform 9 ¾, as did my best friend Chris, who’s also going to Hogwarts. Chris is an orphan, so his family didn’t come.

The train ride lasted forever and I had to pee like a bitch. The snack cart was all out of chocolate frogs when it came round to our compartment, so I had to settle for Craisins. 

Everyone was having a St. Elmo’s barbecue over the fact that Harry Potter was on the train. Staring at his lightning scar. I have a scar-shaped scar on my forehead from when I charged the pram at age four, but nobody gave a crap. I was lonely and bored, so I swiped some kid’s toad and kissed it to see if it would turn into a hot boy. It didn’t, and my lips burned for the rest of the ride.

When we got off the train, they made us line up and get into boats. Chris is afraid of water, so I distracted him by singing his favorite song, “One Year of Love.”

We assembled in the Great Hall. The second-through-seventh years were already there, and you could tell they took pleasure in our disorientation. One of them said to me, ‘Your hair looks of gillyweed,’ and I didn’t know what she meant, so I tried to kick her in the shins but wound up kicking a boy with MS. I guess if ever he had a hope of cure, this would be the place to go.

We had to figure out what house we were in by putting on a talking hat. When it was placed on my head it snored for about twenty minutes before Professor McGonagall gave it a poke and it yelled “Er-uh-Gryffindor!” as though that were the first thing that came to its mind. That’s okay. Gryffindors are known for their bravery, and I’ve already decided I'm going to make a name for myself while I’m at Hogwarts through acts of derring-do.

Chris got into Gryffindor as well. So did Harry Potter. I honestly think the hat may have been tanked. 

We went to our dormitories. Gryffindor is in a tower, which is sweet, and our house colors are apparently red and gold, but I can only see the gold because I’m red-green colorblind. When I opened my trunk to get ready for bed, I found a picture of a dead cat from my sister and a note from my mom with my name spelled wrong. It's two L's, mom. It's always been two.

All the magic in the world can’t give me a family who loves me or a life worth the pain and sweat I put into it. But I am looking forward to classes tomorrow.

XXOOXX,

Jill