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