The Monster

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Part One

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They say knowledge is power. Well, it's true. You can't drive a nail if you don't know how to hold a hammer. Also, you can't be a wooden plank if you don't know how to lay very stiff. It just doesn't work..

The phrase holds especial truth in the wizarding world. For twenty-something years I knew how to be one thing: Harry Potter. I knew how to have green eyes and messy hair, to have loose Muggle clothes, spectacles, and an informal oh-hello! type of smile. It was easy. I walked at an unhurried pace, except when I was being pursued by something particularly intent to kill me, and sometimes I looked at girls. Except when I was looking at boys. When Professor Dumbledore invited me to Hogwarts I had no idea all that would change.

I was excited to feel the familiar bumpy ride of the carriage taking me to the front steps, the towers, the squid, the trees, and the corridors that echoed my steps. I had gone off and grown accustomed to my lifestyle in wizarding London, but Hogwarts was what I knew best and had put me at ease since age eleven; it was a privilege to return no matter how happy I was in my new home. I set my face straight and polite as I trod on the vibrant carpets of Dumbledore's office.

Tea was warm and biscuits fresh. I don't think I'm one for small talk, so I was impatient once we'd sat having just that for a while, long enough for our spectacles to go white in the steam and a good supply of crumbs to introduce themselves to the fronts of our robes.

Dumbledore smiled at me. "Do you like stories, Mister Potter?"

"Um. Not from you, Professor, but I don't mean to be rude."

"Of course not. I have a story for you, just the same, and I will oblige you to listen."

"Yes, sir."

"How is Mister Weasley?"

"He's the same---freckles and things."

"Yes. As I expected."

"We have a flat together."

"I know. That's why I asked you how he was."

"I see."

These were of the last bits of conversation I would have for a long time that would not involve ugliness or frustration, and if I knew that then I probably would have walked straight out that office and gone for an ice cream cone, because ice cream cones are very nice things, unlike what was to come.

"Well," said Dumbledore, and placed aside his cup and saucer, "that's enough of that. I am going to tell you the story now."

"All right."

"Congratulations on your newly published book, by the way."

"Thank you, sir."

"An exciting work, if I do say so." He patted something on his desk, and for the first time I noticed my book sitting there, spine staring me in the face: To Live Life around the Controlling Tendencies of Magic. I was flattered at the proof that he'd actually come into contact with it. "It reminds me of something I read many years ago. I believe that's where I'll begin.

"The name of the book was---oh, I don't recall. The premise was the opposite of yours. The author believed instead of magic being the center of all things, the controller of wizards and witches and the lives they lead, that we are the ones shaping it. Is that mockery in your eyes, Mister Potter? Yes, I know you have some extraordinary examples to oppose that in your book, such as---ah---"

I knew very well, though he was an old man, that he didn't need to be reminded of anything. "The fight," I said. "The fight between Voldemort and me was my major example that magic controls us."

"Yes, you're right! You wrote that, because magic is such a profound influence in our lives, we have become dependent on it and it has taken us over without our notice, correct? And when you faced Voldemort, you realized he was too powerful for your magic alone; he was too advanced and you had only the education of a Hogwarts seventh-year, so you broke away from the thought of magic altogether and defended yourself by Muggle means."

An embarrassment came over me as I was reminded of that situation, for I recalled it hadn't worked according to plan, even though we defeated Voldemort. "And in the end he stunned me, and if the Order hadn't shown up I would have been dead now, anyway," I said.

"Hmm, yes, precisely. The point you were making in your book was that you were unprepared to fight with anything besides magic. Magic made you forget that you were human and capable of other things."

"What does this have to do with the other book you read?"

"It doesn't, my boy, I'm just laying some things out for you." I raised my eyebrows, but he was unaffected. "It was 1979 when I read the book. I remember because it was a very important event in my life and even in the lives of others. The book---oh, yes, it was written by a Miss Gladys Tinkerton---fascinated me. It seemed to me that the subject was obvious: wizards can control magic. But, no! Miss Tinkerton was referring to an obscure type of magic, not that which comes from our wands; she was referring to fate."

"All right."

"Apparently, Tinkerton had a relative who was a competent Seer. I've told you before that I am not the most trustful of that sort of thing, fortune telling. Tinkerton agrees with me there. But when the source is reliable, when the source truly has the ability of telling a person's fate, then we must pay full attention to him."

"Yes, clearly, but I don't---"

"Sibyll Trelawny's prophecy---do you recall it?"

I was taken aback. "I do."

"It is important here. Keep that in mind. Tinkerton wrote that fate, a monstrously complex and magical thing, can be controlled if one knows the circumstances that will happen---ahead of time."

Naturally! Did he hold this book in higher regard than mine?

"And this is not done exactly by changing fate's original intentions," he said, "but by performing a deed that will override what is destined---in a sense, by sidetracking fate."

"But that isn't magical. A Muggle could do a deed like that."

"A Muggle is incapable of predicting the future."

"Ah." I decided to put aside my skepticism and hurry this along; I was becoming itchy and didn't think it was because of the material of Dumbledore's chairs. "So basically she wrote a book telling the reader that if he happened to know the future he didn't have to succumb to it. He could change fate if he put his mind to it."

"Yes. A basic concept, really. It wasn't the concept that impressed me, however; it was the way she laid out her words. An impressive young writer---and she had many a plot and spell on how to conquer fate once you know its design." He spared a glance to the heavens in reminiscence, and then back to me. "But that's not the point. The point is that her book was lingering in my mind at just the time to make use of it.

"I knew a young couple who were working hard to conceive a child, and they eventually came to the point that they went to mediwizards for help. They were conflicted at the thought of having a baby during the chaos of war, they often thought of how unsafe it would be, but concluded they couldn't let anything impede their plans for a family. It was what the couple wanted most. When the mediwizards couldn't help them, they came to me.

"Now, I am no doctor, so I didn't consider myself an ideal choice, but I agreed to keep an eye and an ear and a nostril open for possibilities that might help them. It was around this time that a catastrophe happened."

By now I was leaning on my hand in entrancement of Dumbledore's speech, for perhaps this meeting would be one that did not bring about the worst for me, as they sometimes did. It seemed like a reasonable story.

"Do you recall, in your fifth year, when Lord Voldemort took control of the dementors at Azkaban? It happened during his first rising too. He sent them prowling in innocent villages, sometimes wiping out very small towns. One terrible day, a horde of dementors were tracked lurking around the outskirts of an extensive and ancient city. It was the only all-veela city the wizarding world knew, and the dementors were drawn to it with such force---as dementors are to beautiful, corruptible things---that the entire place was gone the next day."

"What? I don't understand."

"No one does. It had simply vanished. The buildings, the veela, the dementors---gone! Of course...it was known that dementors revel in the thoughts of veela for longer than they do ordinary beings, and, in some cases, dementors revel in the bodies of veela as well. There was a general concern that the dementors had taken the veela to breed with. Forgive me, Mister Potter, there are few verbs to use for describing such acts."

I nodded. I was then caught in wonderment of the mechanics of those acts, but I didn't dwell on them.

"The Order of the Phoenix was interested in the whereabouts of the dementors," said Dumbledore, "and searched the area of the ancient city for anything to do with the event. Eventually, by mysterious circumstances, a young woman was found in a nearby forest. She was a veela, and as we suspected she had come into sexual contact with a dementor."

"That unit in Defense Against the Dark Arts," I said, "I remember studying it. Something about the dementor being so drawn to the veela's Light, foreign magic that it can't help but---er---"

"Yes. A very vague and interesting subject. You're correct. The young veela produced an offspring with the dementor. But none of this means the dementor was capable of caring for her. It had feasted on the veela's thoughts. The woman was mad when she was found, and by similar mysterious circumstances, which have no bearing on our story, her child fell into my hands."

The story began to come together for me: a couple was having trouble conceiving, Dumbledore would keep an eye out for anything that would help them obtain a child, and then Dumbledore came into possession of a child---a dementor's, though it might have been.

"You gave the couple a darkling!" I said.

He noticed the disgust in my accusation. "Mister Potter, really---"

"Was the child dangerous? What happened afterward?"

"I didn't tell them the child was a darkling" ---I leaned forward, wide-eyed--- "and by this I hoped their magical influence would spark change in the child. I was right; in only a couple months, the child began to take on its adopted parents' physical traits." He smiled wistfully. "They had so wanted to conceive one of their own, instead, but they were such good parents...."

The shaking of my head did not compare to the pounding of my heart. I was sure it was wrong to impose strange creatures on unknowing people, although as I thought on it I recalled Dumbledore allowing Lupin to enroll in Hogwarts many years ago and, well, Hagrid. I leaned back in my seat to catch my breath.

"They didn't notice what the child was?" I asked.

"No, no. Combined with the beauty of a veela and the ugliness of a dementor, the child looked as human as can be." While Dumbledore paused to sip his tea, I wondered where he was going with all this. We hadn't met each other in a long time, so I didn't believe this talk was for pleasure. "Just before all this happened was when the first prophecy I ever encountered fell into my lap."

"Trelawny's?"

"Very good."

Something else hit me. If we were going into that prophecy, perhaps this did have to do with me after all. I found my teeth clenching and Dumbledore's eyes boring into mine.

"Harry," he murmured, and stopped. He pulled a golden pocket watch from his robes, one with twelve hands and with planets revolving around the edges. It ticked like any clock, but he grasped it as one would a rosary, and then stashed it away. He took a breath. "Because of the prophecy, I began holding meetings with the parents of the two children to whom I suspected the prophecy was referring."

I nodded. Neville Longbottom and me.

"I held the meetings months before either you or Mister Longbottom was born, and I was able to because your parents and Alice and Frank Longbottom fit an important aspect of the prophecy: three escapes from Voldemort. When Mister Longbottom was born, the first of either of you, he was not displaying any sign of magic. Most infants born to magical parents can summon trinkets from across the room, knock their bottles away when they are not hungry, and so forth. He was exhibiting none of this. I began to worry. What if this boy was not the one? What if I had set my faith in something entirely false? He was born in late July; all I needed to confirm was one last part of the prophecy: a mark of equality by the Dark Lord. How though, I asked myself, could I trust that this boy, who had not even the skill of an average wizarding infant, would turn out to be a superior wizard?"

"Is that why my parents went into hiding later? You suspected that I was the right boy, not Neville?"

"No, Harry. I didn't suspect you were the right boy; I suspected that Neville was not the right boy, so I made sure to find who was." He was stiff in his chair, looking seriously into my eyes. "You see...your parents fit the first part of Professor Trelawny's prophecy. But they had no child. And they were not going to have a child. So, purposely, just after the Thirty-first of July that year, I presented them with one---a very magical one---and though they didn't know where I obtained the child, they did know the consequences of my act."

I thought hard on his words.

"I am sorry to say, Harry, that the child I gave Lily and James was the darkling. A wizard can always control fate, I told myself. I had wanted the prophecy to be true desperately. It was a troubling and tiring time and I wanted an end to come.. Thus I built my own ending."

But, and I am sure you are very smart and have already noticed this, Dumbledore had said something so peculiar that I missed his last few statements. Nervousness was igniting inside me, and fear. "Sir," I said, "you mentioned that you gave the child, the---er---darkling to my parents?"

"Harry---"

Do you know that dramatic pause before something terrible or amazing occurs? Your breathing stops and you wait for pain when you realize you have put your hand into some very hot water; a glass vase is falling to the ground, you see it clearly, but you know there is no chance you will catch it in time. This was one of those pauses.

"---they are not your parents."

The fear in my gut spread throughout me, and I shook my head, moving my lips unbelievingly because this was not the truth. A clown would stomp in any second with a sack of animal balloons and face paints slung over his shoulder, and partygoers would flood the place, and Dumbledore would cry, "Did you like your birthday prank?" Except it was October, and my birthday is in July. And all that was just as absurd as Dumbledore's news.

My voice was thin between my teeth: "Why have you told me this?"

Dumbledore showed a flicker of sympathy in his eyes, which once held everything comforting in the world. "Because everyone deserves the truth no matter how painful it may be," he said, and that was all I wanted to hear from him.

My flat was less inviting than ever as I looked up at it from the street. It occurred to me that it had been fooling me out of my trust for months with its thick upthrusting walls and security charms in the warm corridors. I had felt safe in this pleasant residence, where no one cared who I was as long as I washed and paid rent. But truly my flat had no influence on my past, present, or much of anything.

For once, I did not jingle my keys to warn Ron in the event he had a lady friend on her back, and was pleased to be alone when I entered. I was dizzy. I shuffled into the kitchen and fell asleep at the table.

Three sharp knocks awoke me. After another six knocks, I realized they were coming from the front door. I dragged myself there, the circles around my eyes weighing me down, to be greeted by a familiar voice; it was a sweet return to normalcy, but like my flat it offered little comfort.

"Hi," Malfoy drawled, and barged past me. "Got anything to drink?"

I slammed the door. By the time I returned to the kitchen he had a glass of cranberry juice, a loaf of bread on the table, and was gesturing with a butter knife.

"You know, Potter, Siberians might be the dimmest wizards I've ever heard of. When has it not been cold there? You'd think they would know it's an international agreement---no slaying wooly mammoths---and would have found some other animal to make their robes out of by now. Did you read about it in the Prophet? Where's your copy? I'll show you."

"Thought they were extinct."

"Siberians?"

"Mammoths."

"Common misconception. Don't you have any butter? What kind of a slob are you?"

"One without butter."

I fell onto the sofa as he clanked things around in my refrigerator. My head felt sticky. The room shifted suddenly but righted itself in the same way. Malfoy's flouncing boomed in my ears tenfold the amount it usually did. Perhaps, I thought, if I lay down I will fall asleep only to wake up and it will be last week instead of today and I can choose never to arrive at Dumbledore's office and I won't feel so miserable.

"God, you're so fat," Malfoy was saying. "If you're not eating gobs of butter, what are you eating?"

"You think everyone is fat."

"Mmm."

When Malfoy was quiet it usually meant his mouth was full of something besides words, whether it was food or other edible things.

I turned over, closed my eyes, and listened without much choice in the matter to the smacking sound of partially chewed bread being turned into mostly chewed bread. Malfoy slurped his juice---my juice---and hummed something unmusical, and that was the lullaby to which I fell asleep.

I woke up later with a neck ache and Malfoy squinting at me.

"You're looking---ah---pasty, Potter. Are you ill?"

"Leave him alone." Ron had come home. "He actually has a job."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, Malfoy. It means he's been working and he's tired."

"No, that's not what it means! You meant to imply that Potter makes money while I---while I make less than desirable wages at the theater, didn't you?"

"You're uptight." I heard the mockery in Ron's voice and searched for my pillow so to sandwich my head, only to remember I was not in my bedroom. "Can I help it if Harry's successful and you're not?"

"You can help rubbing it in my face."

"I didn't say a word about you. You brought it up."

The window was open. With any luck, the thick breeze would wash their argument far from my ears. I'd heard it a hundred times. Any distraction was a good one, especially this rushing coldness on my face, easing the anger, hurt, and bewilderment that had emerged when I awoke; the first thing I had thought of was my meeting with Dumbledore.

"Go away," I whispered. They didn't hear.

"---shouldn't bring up the state of anyone's family, Malfoy, when yours is burning in Hell---"

I thought of the calmness of the Headmaster's office, how he had looked at me in sympathy but offered none in words. It was his duty, he had said afterward, to inform me of the matter. It would be better for me this way. For the life of me, I didn't see what was better. I was in my own home and shaking with nervousness---physically I couldn't keep my hands from moving. Ron and Malfoy's shouting gnawed into me. Go away, go away, go away, I thought.

"---didn't know any better, I'd think you were jealous of us, Weasley---"

"Fuck off!" I shouted. The silent air thrummed in my ears. I felt them watching me. "Please, fuck off, both of you."

"You woke him up!" said Malfoy.

"He was already awake, weren't you, mate?"

I stormed away without acknowledging them. However annoyed their faces were, both Ron and Malfoy melted into the background. Everything looked the same, nothing more or less significant than anything else. I don't ever remember being in a mood like that, so exhausted and distorted that I didn't mind the thought of my heart stopping right then, even though logically I knew I didn't wish for it. The bolt on my bedroom door seemed unusually loud as I made use of it.

The next evening I hadn't yet come out of my room. Ron banged a couple times, confused at me and peeved I hadn't met him for lunch like we'd planned. I remained at my desk with a quill in my hand and my eyes wide open. I'd been jotting empty words all day; I couldn't work out what I was feeling. Ron went away.

I wrote a rude letter to Lupin, demanding whether he had known anything of the matter. He had been in The Order hadn't he? I didn't stop to think that he couldn't have known of my parentage if even Lily and James hadn't. After realizing that sending the letter would require a trip to the post office, I set it in flames and fell asleep clutching my wand. I dreamed horrific dreams: women were ravaged by gray, human-like forms without muscle or eyes; black cloaks lay between pale, nude legs, surrounded in blood; and creatures stared without emotion as I slid bloodily from the womb.

When my door burst open a day later, I couldn't be bothered to see who it was. I was stifled in blankets and grief, and not even Malfoy's voice was inspiration to try to pull out.

"Good Lord, you're pale," he said. He leaned over the edge of the bed and compared his pallor to mine. "Or perhaps I'm just tanned. Perhaps I've been sleepwalking to a tropical paradise and no one's kind enough to tell me. That's got to be it."

I shielded my eyes as he opened the curtains. He was saying something about sunscreen and palm trees, but I was paying attention to my groaning stomach.

"Don't think you're going to kiss me until you've brushed your teeth," he said, and threw a fresh shirt onto my face. "Up, up! I won't have you ruining my day with all this moping. I don't care how many people wanted your autograph or were staring at your scar."

"None of that happened."

"Then what? Does no one like your new book?"

"I haven't even written it."

"What, are you considering a career change again? How many times will this be---?"

"No! Nothing is wrong," I snapped. I pulled the covers over my head. "Piss off."

"You're driving me to my audition."

"Changed my mind."

"I never asked you in the first place. Get up!" The delicate clinking of potions bottles was in my ears. He smacked a bottle onto my bedside table. Probably a Pepperup. "I flooed here the other night and Weasley said you were being a prick and wouldn't leave your room, so I left you to yourself. But two days is enough leeway. You're not fifteen years old."

"Piss off."

I heard a sigh, and then a very warm hand pulled down the covers and was on my face. "You're cold, Harry. Perhaps you've been sleepwalking to the arctic. That would put anyone in a bad mood."

"Rub my head, please."

He did so for a long while, and afterward he kissed me. I supposed if he could stand my morning breath, then I owed him a simple drive to a Muggle theater.

*

A few hours later, I slumped against my front door, kneading my eyes with frozen, red palms. I didn't know how Malfoy had done in the audition, as I had been dozing in a corner for its duration, although I made sure to compliment him so extensively afterward that he invited me back to his flat for tea and shocking sex over the railing of his balcony. I declined.

Startled at hearing female giggles, I went to my sitting room, where Ron was wrapped about the scarce form of a girl. He noticed me leaning against the doorframe.

"Oh," he said into her neck. "I thought you'd still be in your room."

"Malfoy dragged me out."

"Let's go to my room, Samantha."

"Don't bother," I said. "I'm tired anyway."

He called out his thanks as I disappeared to the bathroom.

My eyes had hurt something awful for most of the day. I made an effort of splashing them with water and eye drops. I blinked and saw myself come into focus in the mirror; Malfoy was right---not even at Hogwarts, often cooped up in a classroom, had I been this pale. It hit me that, yes, I had locked myself in my room for two days, neglected any arrangements I might have made, not showered, and not written anything beneficial to my bank account. Most important, I was hungry, and fixed that by passing through the exhibition still occurring in my sitting room to have a muffin.

As I listened to Ron enjoy Samantha, I wished I would have taken up Malfoy on his offer. He was probably out grinding against another man on a dance floor while I counted the water stains on my kitchen table. I didn't know whether the loneliness I felt was momentary or whether I had come to a point in my life in which I simply wanted more. I was disappointed that I hadn't settled down just after Hogwarts, as many people thought I should do. Well, I had in a way, I supposed; Malfoy came by regularly and I had finally relaxed into a job. But there was no one to come home to. Ron was here, but he had a job, a life, and a libido.

You see, I wished for a family---an official one. Since my visit to Dumbledore, that wish had swelled so robustly that I felt on the verge of explosion if it were not granted. I hadn't forgotten my parents, Lily and James, just as one does not forget Santa Claus once one is old enough to realize how bizarre the concept of him is. I still romanticized the notion that two sets of kind eyes were watching me everyday and that Lily and James were wishing for my good fortune.

But the truth was there, nonetheless. It was a shadowy, vague, unpleasant truth: The only official family I had was an unknown veela and dementor, and it disgusted me so much that I pleaded for something more to come about---that I would make a real, live, good family and be rid of this dissatisfaction.

My hair slipped, limp and oily, through my fingers. My breathing was slow. I kept adjusting my glasses.

*

Ron's nose was scrunched up. It did that when he was annoyed. "Why don't you just go and marry what's-his-name and be done with it?" he demanded.

Hermione tried to reply, but Malfoy cut her off. "Oh, I know what's going on. Weasley is jealous because he can't compare to a wealthy man."

"That is not why I am seeing Alberto!" Hermione said piercingly.

"Oh, Alberto," Malfoy mocked, "take me on a trip to Spain, buy me expensive books, buy me designer robes!"

Hermione put her hand to her heart, shocked at his words, and then tightened the purple silk around her body as if she were cold. "They were a gift," she said.

I was glaring at the fine cracks in the ceiling and fingering the stuffing that bulged out the arm of my sofa. I was only trying to relax and continue working on my next book, but today the world seemed to be against me. I didn't even notice Hermione was speaking to me until she tapped me on the arm.

"Harry, are you listening to me at all?"

"Yeah, Hermione."

"Well, who do you agree with?"

"I don't know---Malfoy."

"Malfoy is not part of this argument," said Ron.

"Neither am I," I said.

"Well, your opinion matters, Harry."

"Potter doesn't know the first thing about relationships," said Malfoy, leaning over the script in his lap (it appeared he'd done well at the audition, and so he'd begun reciting his lines at my flat).

Hermione turned back to Ron. "You think I'm promiscuous for sleeping with Alberto after a week?"

"Of course!" he cried. "If you were a decent witch, you'd---"

"If I were a what?"

Meanwhile, Malfoy dashed toward me with mischief smeared on his face. "I think your idiot friends are already shagging!" he breathed. "This bickering is an elaborate setup to make everyone think they're not, while Granger continues to date that wealthy fellow and Weasley sleeps with anything that will hike up its robes and they both hide away all of Alberto's fortune. Oh, we could write a screenplay about this!"

I slapped down my handful of parchment and ducked through the gap between my friends' flailing arms. After I had gone, I found that even through the closed bedroom door their shouts were a nuisance.

Hermione had popped over like she tended to on Sundays and was telling us about an enormous bookshop she had visited in Spain, and Ron had inquired as to why she was in Spain in the first place, to which she replied that she'd met a charming, though much older, man at the library several days previous. No matter how many times I was dragged into the argument that had sprung up, I was adamant that I didn't care in the least whom either of them saw, and continued to sit on the sofa and try to write.

I hadn't seen Ron in anything near a good mood for a couple weeks, and Hermione was grumpy herself since she'd come over. Malfoy was the only one enjoying himself.

He hurried into the bedroom and leaned over my shoulder as I sat at the desk.

"Potter, get back in there---you're missing the best part. Granger's insulted Weasley's mother!"

"Get out."

"You're right. I should go and watch. I'll tell you everything when it's finished."

I had written a few dull sentences, crossed them out, and rephrased them when Malfoy moped in again; Ron and Hermione had suddenly made up and were discussing international wizarding politics. He transfigured a pillow into a soft-looking chair and watched me continue to write.

...magically related to...

...related in terms of dark magic...

...dark creatures---veela...

"Veela?"

"What?" I said sharply.

"I thought you were writing about magic's effects on our egos or some nonsense."

"Mm."

His crinkled brow drew my attention for a long moment, during which I thought of kissing it so he'd run along someplace else, and then I looked back to the words I had put down. I gripped my temples in my thumb and forefinger. Malfoy nudged me.

"Something the matter, or do you just like boring me?" he asked.

"Mm."

"Is that the answer of the week?"

"Hmm?"

"Speak to me in something besides grunts, Potter. Why are you being such a beast?"

If I were to respond, surely my words would be impolite, and though the idea of silence was appealing I didn't want to be left alone anymore, didn't want him gone completely. Were Malfoy to cradle me to him and never speak another word, I thought I would be content for the rest of my days. My melodrama seemed rational at the time, especially considering the repetitive thump inside my head making me think in circles. With hope, some miraculous circumstance would arise that would be a relief to this...this feeling of...

"Eyes hurt."

"What was that?" Malfoy drawled.

"My eyes hurt. Everything's blurry." I strode into the bathroom and fumbled with some bottles. When I found something that resembled eye drops, Malfoy came in and stole them from my hand.

"Everything's blurry, you say? You don't need medicine; you need rest." Malfoy guided me to the bed, and I laid my head down.

"I've been resting for days. It's not getting better."

"Sleep. You're grumpy."

"I'm not grumpy."

"Then don't glare at me. I'm far too delicate for that sort of behavior."

"I'm going to get new glasses."

"Good for you. Go to sleep."

"You think I should get contacts?"

"No. In fact, I find glasses exceedingly debonair."

"Don't believe you."

"You shouldn't. In second year, I told Pansy Parkinson I was raised by gypsies and vampires."

"Probably true."

"What? The story or the fact that I told her?"

I turned over and stared at my wardrobe. When he lay down beside me I scooted to the edge of the bed, jamming my face into the mattress.

"We could fuck," he said behind me. "That would wake you up."

"I'm too tired."

He felt welcome to put his hands in my face and yank my chin toward him. I thought he would scold me for ignoring him, but he was just gazing into my eyes as far as I could tell. He removed his hand from my chin, and I heard the scratch of my stubble on his fingers. He touched my eyelashes. It tickled.

"Your eyes are paler," he whispered.

"I doubt it."

"It's not an opinion. Your eyes are literally paler."

"I doubt---"

"Shut up. I know you better than you do, and I refuse to argue over something I'm right about."

The next week, I was nauseated and itching and had a fever. Malfoy looked haughtily at me as I wrapped myself in my clammy sheets. He commented that the whole situation was karma, and if I learned to buy him more expensive presents this would never happen again.

Hermione stopped by after she heard the news from Ron, more worried than she ought to be, but that was frequently the case. Malfoy chattered next to my bed about his play: someone should have warned him which stairs were real stairs and which stairs he would fall straight through when he leapt onto them, and someone also needed to offer compensation for his extensive wounds. I didn't glance at him as he presented the cut on his elbow.

"Move aside, Malfoy," said Hermione. "I don't think you're helping him."

"Absolutely not. They say that music heals, and I'm often told I have a voice like bells."

She settled on the other side of me; the perfume on her clothes and in her long hair reminded me of cream and tiny pink flowers. I couldn't muster a smile.

"What's different about his hair?" she asked.

"It's straighter," said Malfoy, putting his hand on my head. "I was looking at it the other day. I bet he switched his conditioner."

"It feels thinner, too."

"Since when are you keeping track the texture of my hair?" I murmured.

"Since you started looking sick," said Hermione. "It's not just today, either, Malfoy. I noticed something different about him last week."

"Oh, Potter's been acting like a bastard for a couple weeks, actually," he said. "It's not just his appearance."

I didn't scowl for fear that Malfoy would remove his fingers from my hair. As he combed through it, I watched Ron's rigid pace at the end of my bed.

"Maybe he's taking drugs," Hermione whispered.

"Maybe he needs them," Malfoy replied.

"What if he's depressed?"

"What if he needs a swift kick in the arse?"

"Why don't you see a Healer, Harry?"

"He's too stubborn, Granger. I've already asked him."

Ron left and reentered with a bowl of soup. He set it aside when I put my hand over my face, and shooed Hermione and Malfoy out. I heard him say that he'd offered me a Pepper Up a few times but I'd refused.

Nowadays I'm sure I didn't want to waste any potions on my incurable state---because, although I didn't admit it then, I knew why I was ill. I was sick with grief, and until then I never knew the phrase could be taken literally. The nights had been cursed with visions, ones that were as clear as what I had seen as a thirteen-year-old at Hogwarts when a dementor was much too close. But it was not Lily Potter I saw. I saw the firm white feet of a woman running aimlessly in a forest, her thin robes billowing into my face as she swung me along like a bag; it was cold but not night, and sometimes there were wizards who Stupefied the woman and took me into their impersonal care. I felt like an animal.

When I woke up, bile clogged my throat. I made toward the bathroom, thinking it was pointless to will any of this away.

*

"I bet this is Malfoy's fault. He's good for nothing, Hermione. Certainly not good enough for Harry."

"Harry's not been with anyone but Malfoy since we were in school."

"And look where it's gotten him! I'm telling you, Malfoy's made him depressed or something. He's always around. Can't do anything without Malfoy, can't go anyplace without taking him along---"

My ear was pressed against the door. I heard Hermione and Ron's voices. She had been coming to our flat more and more lately, and I was not entirely certain it was because of my illness; she had never mentioned Alberto again and I hadn't seen a pretty girl on Ron's arm in days.

"Harry loves him," Hermione insisted.

"Ha! Harry's confused. Malfoy's brainwashed him. I've always said so."

"You're unreasonable, Ron. You just don't like Malfoy."

"Of course not. What's to like? He's arrogant, irritating, poncey---he has a Dark Mark!"

"Now you're making things up!"

"Have you ever seen his arms? He always wears long sleeves."

"Well," said Hermione. My hand longed for the doorknob; I wanted to burst in and tell them to mind their own business. "If there is a Dark Mark under there, then Harry surely knows about it.. And we trust his judgment---don't we?"

I relaxed, but just as soon there was a creak, a slam, and their discussion was interrupted.

"I've got it," Malfoy announced. I pressed closer to the door. "Harry has leprosy."

"Don't be ridiculous!" said Hermione.

"No, no, I've been reading all about it---"

"Malfoy," she said, "will you check on Harry? I haven't been in his room today."

By the time Malfoy arrived, I was under my covers. He looked insulted.

"I've informed your friends that you have leprosy, but they don't believe me."

"That's a Muggle disease."

"So, you're part Muggle, aren't you?"

I shut my eyes as a weight settled in my stomach. Malfoy smoothed his palm on my bare chest, his hand rasping over ugly gray blotches that had appeared the other day. Could I tell Malfoy a lie when the truth was right against his skin? The blotches were widespread, some moist and some dry, most smelling foul as decaying bodies.

"I do wish you would see a Healer," he said softly. "I can only worry for so long, you know."

"I'll be fine in a couple days."

"Don't say that. You're not handsome when you lie."

"When was the last time I was handsome?"

"Three weeks ago. It was the last time we had sex."

"You've counted the days?"

"You haven't?"

Somehow during our exchange his lips came to rest on my nose, which is a very good place for them to rest while I am in good health, but while I was unwell I wanted no part in such nonsense. I would have pushed him away if he were not being so nice. It was a rare treat. He kissed me and said, "I'll make you feel better, you pitiful wreck."

"I really don't---"

"Shut it." His hands were soft and they tickled moving under the covers, toward my groin. Interest stirred down there. He pushed the covers back and then straddled my hips. "I'll do all the work."

That was the only time I ever heard him say those words.

In the morning, Malfoy was gone. I rolled out of bed and dumped myself into the shower. A half hour later, I smelled of aftershave and my sausage breakfast, and was headed to lurk around outside the center at which Malfoy was rehearsing. It was a ten-minute drive and then a small walk. Mist came from my mouth and settled around me in a lazy cloud. I wondered if I had come at the wrong time as two small boys in Quidditch shirts barreled out the center's doorway.

"Jenkins is going to massacre Norway's new Beaters, he'll---" They saw me frowning, turned, and began to scuttle off. "Maybe he could train a few extra weeks, though..."

Before I could leave, I heard Malfoy call my name. He descended the steps looking confused. "You get out of bed only to scare my director's kids?"

"I didn't scare them. I didn't know they were your director's kids."

"They were horrified. You're a dreadful person."

We drove slowly up the street, peering into the windows of boring, gray office buildings. Malfoy commented that he was glad he'd never gone into these sorts of businesses and his work was exciting.

Once I brought Malfoy home, he decided to take me for a walk. There was a park near his flat. We moved over the dew and soft fallen tree bark, throats stretched out as we gazed at birds twittering overhead; they nestled together in vivid, different colors, and might have been magical, for their cheerfulness lifted me up. I didn't mind when Malfoy took my arm.

Some newspapers littered our chosen bench. I pointed my wand at them and Malfoy pointed his nose at them just as they disappeared with a pop. We sat.

"The paper said they found another Death Eater," he said.

"Yes," I sighed. "I can read."

"Hopefully it was no one I knew."

"You would try to do something about it?"

"No, but I'd be unhappy." He leaned on my shoulder. His crossed legs looked so uncaring that if I had not come from his theater a few minutes ago I would have forgotten he was an actor and astonishment would have come over me that he could be so idle when an old schoolmate might be facing the Dementor's Kiss in a matter of days. He drummed his fingers on my wrist as he said, "It could be me, you know."

"Well, it isn't. You never did a thing."

"But I have the Mark."

"Pointless to think about." I scratched a gray blotch on the back of my hand.

"Well, when you killed the Dark L---"

"It's pointless, Malfoy."

"What's with you? You never used to be touchy about the subject."

"I'm not touchy," I said, looking at the grass instead of him. "It doesn't make any difference what happened. We're here now and we're happy and that's that."

"Does it make a difference that your friends might be dead right now, the world might be run by a madman, that I might be somewhere---somewhere---?"

"It shouldn't make a difference to you. Daddy would have taken care of you."

"If you hadn't killed the Dark Lord," he snapped, "I would have lost everything worth having. I wouldn't have you. I wouldn't have the theater. I wouldn't have any annoying Weasley to hate. I'd probably be...in one of those stuffy Ministry offices."

"You'd have inherited a fortune."

His head shook with sudden laughter, soft and empty. "I don't need my father's money when I can have yours. Also, I'd probably be married, and we both know I'm no good at sticking to one person for long."

"Would it kill you to stick with one person?"

He took a long, arrogant look at me. "Is that what this is about?"

"What what's about?"

"You've been such a depressed little boy lately. Are you doing it because you don't like seeing me with other men?"

"Don't be stupid. You haven't been with anyone else for weeks."

"Well, I know that. I haven't had any reason. But if you continue like this, I'll be on the verge of dropping you completely and never returning---"

"Bull."

"You don't think I'd do it?"

"You haven't the guts. Besides, if you left me then who would you complain to?"

"Potter---"

His mouth was scrunched into a puckered, irritated shape, so much that I didn't understand if were going to shout at me or kiss me, until he stood, ran his hands through his hair, and marched away without looking back.

I'd forgotten that he valued pride over happiness.

*

"Is it true that you and Malfoy broke it off?" Hermione asked me over sandwiches and milk.

"Don't know. He'll do whatever suits him at the moment."

"It isn't the first time he's taken a break from your relationship, but it's always been to see someone else. He's not seeing anyone at all right now."

"What, you two talk about these things?"

"We bumped into each other the other day. He mentioned it over coffee."

"And he said we broke it off?"

"He said you were being a prat."

We hadn't met in a fortnight, Malfoy and me; I wasn't worried, but I thought about him a great deal.

Another four days went by. My state was the same. I could move around if I wanted, even though I felt shitty. Mostly I wrote Malfoy's name on dozens of parchment scraps. I think that was the only thing I wrote because I was afraid of stumbling upon something profound and being inclined to make some effort in life besides mourning and vomiting; the curtains were clamped shut to keep away sunlight, which had taken to chafing and burning any exposed skin that was not already drooping off me.

But soon I'd had it with my career as a hermit. I liked eating, drinking, and socializing, and I had partaken of those things very little lately. I bound from my bedroom.

The windows of Malfoy's flat were alight with orange and red. He liked his fireplace. I bet it had something to do with the temperature of Hogwarts' dungeons. A silhouette of lovemaking stumbled into the picture, and I felt pathetic standing on the street corner; another person was backing him around the room, a sensual dance of sorts that needed doing before their noses finally touched and then their lips, and I bound away again.

Somewhere deep inside I knew he would come back to me; however, at the nadir of my rationality, everything unpleasant in the world was a direct insult to me. I felt betrayed that he was not at my bedside at this moment, that Ron and Hermione were getting closer than they had ever been, and that the one letter Dumbledore had written me after the war was an invitation to be told the very thing that was driving me mad.

I stumbled around in the few miles between Malfoy's flat and mine, people avoiding me with relish and one woman clutching her daughter's hand; and, as though a cloaked figure were swallowing me whole, unconsciousness came in a swish.

*

Malfoy truly was a dazzling creature. He mesmerized me with his fingertips on his chin, which stuck disdainfully in the air even as I shivered like a rat under the covers. He stroked an invisible beard, wondering, it seemed, why he bothered with me.

I thought in that moment that I loved him, but I had just woken up.

Ron and Hermione were there sympathizing for me in shifts. They told the story to me in broken up pieces. Only Malfoy knew the whole thing because he had been there from start to finish; though, right now he was eating salad at the foot of my bed and did not speak.

Nowadays, long after the full story was revealed to me, I can tell you the condensed version.

I guess when you care for someone you will go to grueling means to protect that someone: Ron went to Malfoy's flat to find me. Apparently I had left several hours ago and, as I was still sick, he was worried. It was the night I saw Malfoy with another man through his window. That man had already departed. So with the knowledge that Malfoy had no clue as to my whereabouts, they searched for me outside.

Malfoy found me facedown on the sidewalk. The remainder of my skin was oozing, festering gray, my hands curling inward and skeletal. I had thin hair and bald patches and my eyes were rolled back into my head. At some point in time, my cheeks had sunken into my face, leaving the bone jutting dangerously outward under my thin skin. I had convulsions, with raw magic filtering through my skin in painful shocks, but he and Ron managed to bring me home; the entire way I drooled out nonsense, things like "My mother has green eyes! They are green, Dumbledore, you must know!"

"Tell me why we aren't taking him to Saint Mungo's," Ron had barked, as I withered away on the bed. "If we don't have a solution in two minutes, I'm taking him there by myself!"

"He doesn't want that! He's said so," Malfoy insisted.

"Why?"

"How should I know? Potter's a nutter!"

"I don't care. I'm going to the hospital."

"But---"

"Malfoy," Hermione said firmly, "we don't have a choice. Are we going to let him lay there and get worse?"

"No," he said, and then paused. "But---he's---"

"That's it, Hermione," said Ron, "we'll go without Malfoy. I'll levitate Harry."

"Wait, trust me for a second!" Ron and Hermione set down their wands and looked at Malfoy because they realized he had never spoken to them with such seriousness. "He's been saying Dumbledore's name in his sleep even before now, have you noticed? He has. Just---let's just bring him to Hogwarts. He'd know what to do."

"Dumbledore saved your neck once. It doesn't mean he's got the answer to everything," said Ron.

"I don't care what he did for me. I know Potter and I know he'd rather not be taken to a public hospital to be gawked at and to have his private business put into the papers---"

"Malfoy---"

"Ron," said Hermione. "Go to Dumbledore. Bring him back here."

"What? Hermione!"

"Go! I'll be here with Harry. You're quicker than I am."

"I can't believe you're trusting that son of a---"

And he Apparated to the Hogwarts gates.

Malfoy turned away from my shaking body. "Why don't you go with him?" he asked Hermione.

"So that I can be here to take Harry to St. Mungo's if I need to."

"I would have taken him if he got worse."

"I don't trust you that much."

It was Hermione, afterward, who told me that knowledge is power. She once read that what a wizard knows effects his whole being.

"It was all in my head?" I asked much later.

"No," she said. "But what was in your head affected everything about you."

Dumbledore knew precisely what had happened when Ron hurried to Hogwarts and told him my situation: I had dwelled on the parentage I'd just learned about in such a way that I forgot who I'd previously considered my parents, Lily and James, thereby changing my physical form, my magic, my reactions---everything about me. Not only that, but I was discontent with other aspects of my life, and the dementor in me had fed on that. There were two ways to repair it: erase my memory or perform a complicated spell. They chose the latter. The details are too excruciating to bear, and I'm sure you don't want to hear them, but the group was successful. I was no longer turning into a dementor.

I looked like me again.

I felt like me again.

Dumbledore told my friends that I could control the dementor. I simply had to avoid depressing thoughts. He left my flat as soon as the business was over. A day later I woke up, and here I was with Malfoy eating his salad, Ron and Hermione fussing over my comfort, and admiration for everything they had done for me.