The Fire You Touch

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Chapter 5: Magic By Any Other Name

Aeryn felt the television stand slip from her grasp and threw up her hands protectively an instant before it smashed into her skull. With a white face, she rolled from beneath the stand and let it fall gently to the ground.

"I don’t believe it," Harry exclaimed as Aeryn got to her feet, trembling slightly. Harry looked at her, a huge grin spreading across his face. "Why didn’t you tell me you were a witch?"

"When did you get up?" she asked in a low voice.

"I heard you cast a flying spell and you woke me up—first I thought I was still dreaming, but then I came out here and the television was floating in the air." He spotted the wand on the ground and picked it up, twisting it around in his fingers. "This is yours?"

"Harry—"

"I’m a wizard, too—well, not exactly one just yet, I’ve only had one year of training, and we’ve just learned the basic stuff, but—why didn’t you tell me?"

"Harry, listen to me—"

Harry’s face lit up as he sliced her wand through the air. "I have so much that I’ve been dying to talk to you about, and now that you’re a—"

"Harry." She cut through his words more sharply than she had intended. Aeryn put a hand to her head and swallowed, hard. She couldn’t look into his glowing face. "I’m not a witch, Harry."

"What’re you talking about?" He frowned and ran a hand through his mop of jet-black hair. "You have to be. How else would you know the wingardium leviosa spell if you’re not a witch?"

He thinks you can do magic.

The words froze in Aeryn’s throat. She had spent five years hiding her abilities to keep from being feared, but now that someone had discovered her secret…and not just anyone, a wizard, the entire reason she had fled to England in the first place…he thought she was like him, not someone to be shunned!

Harry’s peered warily at her from behind his black-rimmed glasses.

How could she explain to him that she couldn’t perform magic, and that she was only an ordinary mutant? Now that he felt there was a stronger bond than hatred of the Dursleys linking them, Harry was on the verge of finally opening up! If she told him the truth, and he turned against her…

Even though every bone in her body screamed at her to be honest with the boy, Aeryn couldn’t bring herself to break the excitement and admiration she saw streaming from his glass-green eyes. Swallowing a knot in her throat, Aeryn held out a hand for her wand. "Let’s go in the kitchen, Harry," she said quietly.

* * *

Several pots of tea later, Aeryn’s head was spinning. Harry had not stopped talking since they had sat down at the table. His thin hands gesticulated wildly in the air as he described a complex maneuver for a game he called Quidditch. Aeryn hadn’t quite figured out exactly what it entailed, except that it was played on broomsticks and there were three different balls, but she listened hungrily to every word Harry spoke.

Now that the barrier had been broken between them, Harry couldn’t tell Aeryn quickly enough about his wizarding school, Hogwarts. To Aeryn, the place sounded like a fairy tale come to life: amazing students and teachers—"Ron and Hermione, they’re my best friends in the entire world, but you wouldn’t believe how smart Hermione is, and she won’t let you forget it…oh, and Hagrid, he’s the greatest!"—enchanted passageways, doors that only opened by passwords—"you have to make sure you know the password for each week, because otherwise you can’t get past the paintings"—ghosts that wandered the hallways, the owl delivery service—"they swoop in to the Great Hall every morning to deliver packages, you just have to see it!"—food that appeared on plates and was magically whisked away, arcane and fascinating subjects…Harry’s excited voice spun on and on into the afternoon, weaving a multicolored tapestry that flashed and sparkled with all the desires and dreams Aeryn had ever built in her head ever since her father started teaching her magic.

Harry finally stopped talking long enough to bite into a cookie hungrily. Aeryn drew a long, deep breath. "Your school sounds fascinating."

"Oh, it is!" Harry said adamantly between bites. "How ‘bout you, Aeryn? What about your school?"

Her fingers drummed against her teacup. "I…I never went…to a school. Like that."

"What?" Harry took a long swig of tea and stared at her, his brows furrowing in confusion. "I mean—there are wizarding schools in America, aren’t there? They’re all around the world!"

Aeryn shook her head.

"Then how did you learn…"

"My father," Aeryn said. And she proceeded to tell Harry about her father; how he had discovered he was a wizard when he was a young boy, but his parents had forbidden him to learn more about his powers, and how he honed his powers over time and through mail-order books and spells, and how, when she turned eleven, he started teaching her all he knew.

"So your parents weren’t Muggles, then?"

"Pardon?"

Harry took another cookie. "Muggles. That’s what we call non-magical people, like the Dursleys."

Aeryn grinned. "Muggles. I like that. The Dursleys are pretty much as Muggle as you can get, right?"

Harry groaned and made a face. "Are they ever! I’m not allowed to even breathe the words ‘magic’ while they’re around." The sunlight streaming through the kitchen window fell across his forehead and illuminated the lightning-shaped scar half-hidden beneath his bangs. "They don’t want anyone to think they’re anything more than normal."

Aeryn smiled. "Is that why they don’t seem to like you much?"

He nodded. "Aunt Petunia was my mum’s sister, and she doesn’t like to be reminded that she’s related to ‘those kinds of people,’ as she says."

Something in the way Harry said was caused Aeryn to stop and look at him. He was gazing very intently into his teacup. Aeryn bit her lip and slowly traced a slim finger around the lip of her cup. "Harry…" she said quietly. "What happened to your parents?"

His green eyes flickered towards her, then away again. "They died," he murmured.

A lump formed in Aeryn’s throat. "So did mine," she answered.

Harry reached a hand across the table, drumming his fingers absently against the red-and-white checkered tablecloth. "They were killed," he said quietly. "By someone very powerful."

Aeryn clenched her jaw and nodded carefully. "So were mine."

Harry’s eyes lifted and gazed into hers. They didn’t move for a moment. Then Harry gave a small smile. "Guess we’re more alike then we realized, huh?" he asked, and Aeryn felt an answering smile flicker across her lips.

"Guess so," she said gently.

Harry sat back up and took a sip of tea, a normal expression returning to his face. "So, were both your parents wizards?" he asked.

Aeryn swallowed hard. "No, my mom was a…Muggle…but my dad was a wizard. Or he would have been, if he’d gone to that school he’d been invited to."

Harry ran a hand through his mop of untidy hair. "If he was born in England, the invitation must have come from Hogwarts. That’s the only wizard school here."

"I suppose so."

To her surprise, Harry stopped talking and chewed on his cookie, a pensive look spreading across his face. Aeryn refilled her teacup and sipped the steaming liquid, starting to feel a bit better about not giving Harry the entire truth about herself. After all, she only wanted to find out more about ‘our people,’ as her father had called them. It was nice, too, to have Harry finally talk openly to her. She couldn’t deny how much she liked the kid.

Harry put down his cup and got to his feet. "Are you going to the Dursleys’ house this afternoon to clean, Aeryn?"

Aeryn winced. For a few hours, she had completely forgotten about her boring, mundane, non-magical-non-interesting job. She looked at her watch. One-fifteen. "Yeah, I guess I’d better get over there," she said, heaving herself to her feet. She decided to leave the dishes on the table until they got back. "The sooner I start cleaning up the mess over there, the sooner I’ll be done with it."

"I don’t know what’s come over Aunt Petunia," Harry commented, following Aeryn as she walked into the living room and to the coat closet. "Usually she’s so tidy and makes sure everything is spotless."

"Maybe it’s just too much work for her now that darling Duddy’s home," Aeryn said, grabbing her purse. "Do you want to stay here or come with me?"

"No, I’ll stay here," Harry said firmly. The pensive look had begun to creep over his face again. Aeryn opened her mouth to comment, thought better of it, and headed for the door.

"All right then, Harry, I should be home in a few hours. Don’t get too bored, okay?"

"Don’t worry about me!" Harry called cheerfully as she walked out the door.

* * *

Aeryn was in a less-than-satisfactory mood when she returned to her flat, having exhausted herself trying to rearrange the chaos that was number four, Privet Drive. She wasn’t sure exactly how Dudley had managed to thoroughly trash every room in the house, but she had a fairly good idea brewing regarding his enormous bulk and several well-placed bombs. Harry, on the other hand, looked exceedingly pleased with himself. Aeryn raised a questioning eyebrow at his wide grin, but he merely looked away, whistling.

After a much-needed shower and dinner (take-out Chinese this time), Aeryn and Harry spent the remaining daylight out in the backyard of the complex, tossing a Frisbee to each other. When twilight fell, they let Hedwig out for an evening flight and wound up the evening battling each other on Super Mario Kart until neither of them could keep their eyes open.

The weekend passed quickly. Since Aeryn didn’t work on either Saturday or Sunday, she and Harry went to the zoo, the amusement park, and the beach. Whenever they had been somewhat by themselves, the conversation had always turned to Hogwarts and the world of magic. Harry dragged Aeryn into the snake exhibit at the zoo and proceeded to explain to her how he had let a boa constrictor loose on Dudley that previous year. Aeryn was thankful no snakes were turned loose during their visit—she wasn’t very fond of them. At the amusement park, Aeryn had used her mutant abilities to aid her in a few or the more profitable games, and she and Harry both left the park staggering under the weight of their assorted prizes.

By Sunday evening, they were exhausted and sunburnt, but extremely satisfied with themselves. Harry, in particular, couldn’t stop grinning. Aeryn didn’t think he had stopped smiling since he had set foot in her flat.

The next few days were quite enjoyable for both Harry and Aeryn. Aeryn called in sick to all her appointments for Monday, feeling only slightly guilty when her employers urged her to get some rest, since her vacation was coming up that next week. There was no way for her to get out of cleaning up the Dursley house on Tuesday, but Harry didn’t seem to mind tagging along with her. After unlocking the cupboard at the bottom of the stairs for him, he was able to look at his schoolbooks, and he was perfectly content to study downstairs while Aeryn flew around the rest of the house. She even felt comfortable enough to use her telekinetic abilities to aid in her cleaning, which sped up the tasks a great deal.

Harry was perfectly content to stay inside the flat and show Aeryn his schoolbooks, and Aeryn devoured their contents with every fiber of her being. Their titles were fascinating…A History of Magic…Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them…Magical Theory…Aeryn nearly dropped The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk when she opened the book and saw the figures in the pictures waving merrily at her. Neither of them did anything Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon except read Harry’s schoolbooks—Harry scribbled essays on a huge roll of parchment with an eagle-feather quill while Aeryn curled up into a ball on the couch, her eyes flickering over the dates of magical treaties and ingredients to draughts that would allow you to breathe fire. They were interrupted only once, when Hedwig flew into the room and landed on Harry’s shoulder, hooting calmly. Aeryn didn’t remember Harry letting her out of the cage, but she had been so engrossed in the textbooks that she would have overlooked Uric the Oddball’s troupe marching through her kitchen. Harry slipped something from Hedwig’s leg into his pocket, eyeing Aeryn warily as he petted Hedwig’s beak and hurried to put her back in her cage. Aeryn merely raised an eyebrow and burrowed back into her book.

Aeryn took Harry to her karate class that evening. Although he had grown up with the Dursleys for eleven years before going to Hogwarts, Harry had never learned any of the Muggle forms of self-defense.

"I mean, I know how to fight—somewhat," he admitted in the car to the lesson. "Dudley’s group was always beating me up in school. I never really got a chance to punch back, though."

"This should be an experience for you, then," Aeryn commented as they pulled into the parking lot of the gym.

Aeryn’s sensei, Marshall, eyed her curiously as she walked into the lesson, Harry tagging along at her heels with wide eyes.

"Isn’t he a little young for you, Blake?" Marshall murmured as they bowed to each other.

Aeryn considered playfully punching him in the shoulder, but thought better of it and merely stuck her tongue out at him. "He’s my nephew, Marshall," she said as she sat down on the mat. Harry, sitting next to her, heard her comment and shared a brief, warm smile with her before starting the stretches.

An hour later, she and Harry walked back to her car on wobbly legs. Every muscle in Aeryn’s body ached, and she could only imagine how Harry must feel. But he didn’t seem to mind as he crawled into the passenger seat, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and letting his body go limp against the cushions.

"What did you think?" Aeryn asked as they drove back to her flat.

"I’m glad wizards duel with wands," Harry murmured, his eyes closed. "Why d’you put yourself through that?"

Aeryn laughed as they pulled up to her flat. "I guess I just want to feel protected," she said as she turned off the ignition and got out of the car.

Harry crawled out of the seat. "But you’re a witch," he said. "You don’t need to rely on your physical strength to keep you safe."

Aeryn rummaged through her purse to find her keys. "Because…" Because if the anti-mutant laws are ever passed and, God forbid, I’d be forced to wear a collar that blocks me from using my mutant abilities, I’ve got to have some way to protect myself…

"It’s just habit, I guess," she said finally.

Harry seemed convinced with that.

Aeryn got to her door and stuck the key into the lock. The lock had been sticking recently, and as she jiggled the key, she determined that she would call someone about that tomorrow morning. "So, what would you like to do this evening, Harry?" The lock finally turned with a heavy snap, and she opened the door. "I think there’s a community basketball game playing at the local high school tonight, or if you like, we could—"

She swallowed her words with a muffled gasp as she stepped into her flat and into the living room, which had been darkened before they left for class but was now flooded with light. Her eyes snagged over Harry’s books, open and scattered across the coffee table, the steaming pot of tea and plate of cookies…

…and an intruder standing in the middle of the room.