When Worlds Collide

That Dirk friend of yours is no Muggle. . . he's as much a wizard as I am.

Draco's words rang in my head continuously as I walked down Main Street the next evening, the strap to my violin case slung over one shoulder. I was ten minutes early to Dirk's and my arranged meeting place, so I allowed myself the luxury of walking slowly--and tried to make sense of the magic-related chaos that surrounded me, Dirk's case being the acme of it.

Dirk Vandimar was what one would define a best friend, I suppose. We had known each other since elementary school, when we were the only members of our class to be promoted to the advanced level of fifth grade math. But while I was simply good in mathematics, Dirk was nothing short of brilliant. He was, throughout middle and high school, the captain of the Math Team. I was on Math Team, too, but always in the lower ranks--I never performed too well on Math Meets.

Another interest we shared was music. As soon as I discovered that Dirk was a pianist, I asked him if he wouldn't mind playing with me, a passable violinist. I always loved chamber music, but there weren't many kids my age who shared my passion. Dirk did, however, and we began meeting weekly at the recital room in the Women's Club downtown to play sonatas together (and work on homework, if time allowed).

Dirk's mother was an emigrated Brit, just like my parents, but she had come to the States a few years earlier than they had. Ellen Vandimar and my parents had known each other through shared acquaintances and such back in the Isles, but they never were on warm relations with each other. Dirk's father--no one else knew who he was, and Dirk certainly didn't. According to the rumors passed between the housewives of Cedar Mills, even Ms. Vandimar herself had no idea who was the father of her child; the reason she had left Britain, they said with the authority gained from many repetitions, was because of a string of failed love affairs with various married men, one of which resulted in a certain boy who made the front page in the local paper for winning first prize in the state math tournament. Several unmannered colleagues of mine had dared to tease Dirk about his mysterious parentage, but they never made the same mistake again; Dirk was a second-degree black belt in karate by the time he was in the ninth grade, and he wasn't one to hesitate with his fists once school was out of session.

I myself found it difficult to believe the tales those housewives shared over Sunday church teas, I thought as my feet brought me to the front steps of the Women's Club of Cedar Mills, a grand old building in the style of 19^th-century Victorian England. Ms. Vandimar worked two jobs--bank clerk by day and grocery cashier by night--to support herself, Dirk, and her drunk of a redneck husband, Jim Ewell, who worked at the local General Motors plant during his rare moments of sobriety. Ms. Vandimar was a subdued, hard-working woman who never failed to offer a friendly smile in the few times I met her; it was hard to imagine that she could have been a play-girl in her earlier years.

Piano music floated down the grand staircase of the Women's Club as I entered. Dirk always came a half-hour early to warm up by himself; since his mother couldn't afford to keep a piano at home, the Women's Club acted as both our rendezvous point and his daily practice room. As I climbed the stairs, I let my hand slowly drift into the pocket of my violin case, reassured only when I felt the smooth wood brush against my fingers. This, I hoped, would be the key to my questions of Dirk's magical abilities. And I hoped it was worth the trouble it took to get it--it took a full hour of cajoling for me to convince Draco to let me borrow it for the afternoon.

The door to the recital room was ajar, and I was able to squeeze myself through the opening without moving the door on its rusty hinges. There was Dirk, seated before the baby grand on the recital stage and swaying with the music that poured out from his fingers. His backpack leaned against the legs of the piano, trembling slightly whenever Dirk played a deep bass chord. I watched him play the piece through to the end before wending my way through the aisles of concert seating to the stage.

Dirk rose to meet me, a warm smile on his face. He was tall, as I mentioned before; at six foot three, he towered over me like a friendly giant. His chestnut brown hair fairly gleamed under the stage lights, shimmering into different hues as he moved. And his eyes. . . until I had met Draco, I thought Dirk's eyes were spellbinding. While Draco's were as grey as the stormy sky over the Atlantic, Dirk's were as blue as the Atlantic itself: deep, unfathomable, and carrying an eerie light of their own.

"Estella. . ." Dirk and I leaned across the piano to give each other a quick hug. When we pulled away, I know I wasn't the only one with damp eyes. He sniffed a little before gesturing to the keyboard. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as ever," I replied as I set my violin case on the ground.

Our sonata practices were just that: sonata practices. We would each bring a sonata of our choosing, play paper-scissors-rock to decide whose sonata to use that day, and spend the rest of the hour sight-reading together. If the sonata was particularly long or difficult, we'd take it home to practice over the week and try it again during the next session. It was fun, relaxing, and good practice for the real world, where most of our pieces would have to be learned within days.

I won the paper-scissors-rock game for the first time in a long while, meaning that we would be playing Schubert's Second Sonatina--not quite as light as the First Sonatina, say, but not nearly as dark as the Third. I'd been wanting to play the piece for months, even before my parents had died; but, seeing as Dirk kept up a four-month winning streak in paper-scissors-rock, I'd never had the opportunity.

As we played, stopping for the occasional wrong note or other mishap, I couldn't help but notice what a great guy Dirk was. He always had a smile ready for a friend; whenever there was a problem, he would laugh it off if it was someone else's fault or take the responsibility of fixing it if it was his; he was kind to all living things, and he couldn't stand it if an animal or a plant was being mistreated; he was intelligent, in more ways than the standard textbook intelligent; and he was unerringly loyal, ready to defend any friend's honor to the death. All in all, I was lucky to have him for a friend. I know all the girls who wanted to date him would say so.

The hour flew by before we knew it, but we plodded on through the sonata until we finished--a full hour after our scheduled finishing time. No time for homework today, I thought ruefully as I knelt before my violin case, ready to pack away my instrument.

"Estella?"

I turned. Dirk was leaning on the piano, his head resting on the palms of his hands. He was looking at me with a trace of sadness in his eyes. "Is everything all right? You know. . ."

I nodded, then continued to pack my things away while I spoke. "Yes. It's getting better. I mean, I still miss my parents a lot, but I think I can live with it."

"I'm sorry, Estella." Dirk's voice cracked. "I'm sorry about what happened. And I'm sorry for not coming around more often. Your parents. . . your parents were like my own. They treated me like their own son. . . and I've been avoiding you like this. I should've been around more over break. . . it wasn't right to let you stay there alone all that time."

I didn't turn around; I didn't want to betray the tears that were slowly rolling down my cheeks. I wiped them away and sniffled a little before replying. "Really, Dirk, I'm all right. It was worse initially, but I'm over most of the pain now. Devon's arrival over holiday break helped a lot. He's been helping me cope."

"I'd like to talk to you about Devon, actually." I had just closed my case, and I faced Dirk at the tone he used. It was sharp and suspicious, not at all like Dirk normally was. "Your cousin is very spooky, to say the least. I don't like him at all. Now, I don't normally say this, but that boy has some very freaky tendencies. It gives me the heebie-jeebies just being around him."

"Come on, Dirk, you know he's from another country. . ."

"That's not what I meant. You see, I was in the bathroom with him yesterday--"

"Dirk, stop! Bad image, right there!"

"Just hear me out, will you? Anyway, I was in there, and your cousin had no clue whatsoever as to how the stepping lever worked for the sink. He kept on circling the sink, muttering about 'stupid contraptions' and 'bloody mess of metalwork' and I don't know what all. I had to show him that you step on the lever for the faucet to work, and he nearly jumped a mile when the water came out. You'd have thought he'd grown up a hermit, from the way he was acting."

I blushed. Curse Draco and his incompetence with Muggle machinery. . . "Is that all? Probably because his boarding school is a bit backwoods--"

"But that doesn't explain the tattoo on his arm."

"His--his what?"

"His tattoo. You must've seen it already--you know, on his left forearm. Well, he pushed up his sleeves to wash his hands, and I saw this big, black, God-forsaken tattoo of a skull with a weird tongue hanging out. I think the tongue was supposed to resemble a snake or something. . . anyway, it had a head of it's own, too. And I swear to God, the tongue, snake, whatever it was. . . it moved. I'm not sure if it was a trick of the light, or the muscle in his arm twitching, but it sure as hell moved." Dirk raised an eyebrow at me. "Is he in some strange motorcycle gang on the Isles?"

I couldn't feel any blood in my face. Dirk had seen the Dark Mark. . . "Well--no, no, not that I know of," I stammered. "I mean, I don't know Devon all that well--but I never saw that tattoo before. . ."

"You didn't? That's strange." Dirk frowned. "Although, your cousin didn't seem overly fond of showing it off--he saw me looking at it, and he yanked his sleeve down again. Gave me the nastiest glare I've ever seen." Dirk sighed and moved to pick up his bag. "Well, must be going. . . chores are waiting, and Jim hates it when I'm back late. . ."

"Wait."

Dirk stopped and watched me as I rummaged through the pocket of my violin case. When I held out Draco's wand, he quirked an eyebrow at me. "What, in the name of Heaven and Hell, is that?"

"I--I just found this branch on the side of the road as I was coming here, and I didn't recognize the wood. It certainly didn't come from the tree it was under. I thought maybe you'd recognize it." I had come up with the story earlier, and I hoped it didn't sound too lame.

"And you're asking me to tell you. . . why?" Dirk was eyeing the wand suspiciously, as if it would wake up any moment and attack him.

"Because you've always liked plants and that sort of thing." I held the wand out a little farther. "Here, take it."

I watched Dirk's face carefully as he lifted the wand out of my hand. When his face registered sudden shock, I knew that my suspicions were confirmed. He had felt the same tingling and warmth as I had when I first touched a wand. . . which meant that the same magical power ran through our veins.

Dirk was a wizard. Definitely.

"This is strange." Dirk's puzzlement broke through my realization. He was holding up the wand to the light, trying to examine it better. "I would guess that it's hawthorn, but it's so polished. . . and it's not like it just broke off from a tree. Besides, there are no hawthorn trees in this area. Hmmmm. . . very strange." Dirk sent me a questioning look. "Where did you say you found this?"

I shrugged, then plucked the wand out of Dirk's hands. "On the roadside near my house." I took a deep breath before meeting his gaze. He'd have to find out the news, preferably straight from Draco's (or my) mouth. But most preferably in private.

"Can you come by my house for lunch tomorrow?" I asked him now. "I think we need to talk."

"Talk? About what?"

"Just. . . something important." I grinned. "Besides, you should get to know my cousin better. He's going to be here for a while, I think."

Dirk shuddered. "Well, like I said, he does give me the creeps. . . but if you want. . ." He shouldered his bag and walked past me, away from the piano. "Tomorrow at noon, your house?" He called over his shoulder.

"Tomorrow at noon!" I answered, all the time wondering what Dirk's reaction would be to finding out the true identity of my weird "cousin."