Practicing for Pain

Welcome to Scotland, magic child, where Hogwarts' turrets long have stood, and wizard children, foul and good, have first lit "Lumos" on their wands;

My child, before you get to that, you'll try me on–the Sorting Hat– who, fishing out a predilection, makes a prophecy of prediction.

For instance, child, say you are sorted into Gryffindor: Despite the nervousness in you, I'd feel that you had courage too;

Or, though your wit might have its flaw, I'd sort you into Ravenclaw, where books and practice could suffice to cleanse your intellect of vice.

A Hufflepuff must sometimes rest too long, must sometimes be too cruel: and yet, child, if I put you there, you're honorable as a rule.

Slytherin cynics, calm and cool, know that you are children too, and that, outside the flawed tradition, there can be beauty in ambition.

Chris Heve's ambition, all his life, had been to feel no pain. Growing up in the acceptable middle class strata of the wizarding world, he had only the typical griefs: falls, disappointed lectures from his parents, the occasional burst of rage and injury that came from a bully and a fistfight. At eleven years of age, going into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he had never heard of a spell as hideous as Crucio, much less felt it; and yet, thanks to the Sorting Hat, he was about to feel it for the first time.

The Sorting Hat had said Slytherin. Ambition was ambition, whether it involved intense research into Muggle mysticism or not. Chris Heve had been depressed, felt on the point of tears or suicide even as a small child. His ambition to be invulnerable was overwhelming, self-centered, precluding any great focus on teamwork, bravery for a cause, or knowledge for its own sake.

He gained no great attention at the Slytherin table when he walked up briskly, brown hair combed acceptably straight, starched shirt tucked into neat, middle class, acceptable black slacks.

"Heve," Draco Malfoy said after the feast had started, smiling slightly. "Fancy seeing you here."

Chris looked up, his face blank, his hand already stretched toward his glass of pumpkin juice–anything for a distraction. "Yeah, I didn't expect it," he said, as if the choosing of a Hogwarts House was a matter for complete indifference. Malfoy looked away, because a fight was starting.

"I already have Nicholas Flamel!" Goyle growled, shoving Crabbe into Chris in his anger, holding up the Chocolate Frog collector's card.

"How was I to know?" Crabbe said, smirking, his mouth full of the chocolate frog he had received in return for the card.

"You said you'd give me a new one." Goyle's face was red with an eleven-year-old's form of rage, overflowing, righteous.

Crabbe shrugged and laughed. "You trusted me," he said with a smirk.

A few seats down the table, Draco Malfoy was laughing too. But then a taller boy drew everyone's attention, way down the table where the seventh years sat, huddled together.

"First years will have a meeting in the common room tonight. There are a few things every Slytherin must know. After all," the tall boy said, glancing contemptuously at Crabbe and Goyle, "we have better things to busy ourselves with than child's play."

Draco stopped laughing abruptly, his lips becoming politely straight. "Certainly, McNair, of course."

"Be there at eight o'clock," the burly McNair said, brushing some dirty blond hair from his eyes in order to better glare at the white-faced Goyle. Then the girl beside him cursed and he turned away, caught up again in the huddled chatter of his year-mates.

Chris Heve was not surprised that the Slytherin dorms were in the dungeons. Where else would they be, when Slytherin was known for consistently producing wizards worthy of Azkaban? As he arranged his trunk, organizing his school books and quills, he looked across the room to where Draco stood admiring a plethora of treasures.

"This," Draco said, holding up a huge silver eye on a stand, "is a gift from my mother. When she was in school, she placed it in the bureau that held her jewelry–mounds of gold rings, diamonds, emeralds, heirlooms. When her roommate opened the bureau one afternoon, something rather unfortunate happened. My mother came back to find the girl writhing on the floor, an emerald ring on her finger."

"Oh," Chris said, uninterested. He had never been attracted to wealth, in particular, and wasn't a kleptomaniac. He felt a mild fear at the confirmation that his roommate was capable of violence, but from a Slytherin and a Malfoy, it wasn't unexpected. Turning back to his chest, he took out his muggle books. Books about people who could walk across hot coals and feel no pain. Books about people who could still their breathing and heart rate just from willing it to happen. He turned, putting them on a small shelf near his bed. His heart pounded.

Chris could feel Draco's stare behind him. He turned, facing the cold inquisitiveness in the grey eyes.

"And what are those supposed to be?" Draco asked, lifting a platinum blonde eyebrow.

"Books to strengthen the mind," Chris replied, but his mind did not feel strong to him now. Beads of sweat were starting to form on his forehead underneath the thick brown hair.

"Oh, do you need them?" Draco asked, but before Chris could reply, he walked calmly out of the room.

It wasn't until an hour later that Chris realized where he must have gone. It was nine-o-clock then, and Chris had missed McNair's meeting.