S-Project

My latest for the S-Project. This month's assignment was Harry Potter mania. I'm not huge on fan-fiction in general (though I did recently enter a contest at The Leaky Cauldron) so I decided to use this story instead, which merely visits the world instead of fully inhabiting it. And if you liked this, check out Seduced by the Muse's story based on the same general idea, namely, what if the toy wand actually worked? Comments are welcome.

Garth Hoburn liked to walk to school even though he had a bus pass. It wasn’t out of any desire to be physically fit. It was more of a desire to live. If he got on the bus, Bill Andrew and his meat-headed buddies would be there waiting to beat the snot out of him again. Garth shook his head. Stupid Bill Andrew with his crappy two first names.

In elementary school Bill and Garth had been friends, united by their mutual love of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Harry Potter. By the time junior high had rolled around Bill had stretched lengthwise and widthwise, and developed a fascination for girls and football, not necessarily in that order. Garth was a late bloomer. He’d eventually decided girls were okay, but he never had come round to football. Bill had found a group of friends with like-minded interests, and Garth, when he wasn’t defending himself from Bill’s fists, found himself rather on the edge of things.

He didn’t mind this so much. Garth thought of himself as a loner—a deep thinker. He preferred reading to sports and he spent the remainder of his spare time writing stories.

He always enjoyed his walks to and from school and today was no exception. He would stand up a little straighter and imagine the most wonderful things. He’d won the Pulitzer Prize for his debut novel…“Really?” he imagined himself saying to the New York Times critic. “I’m the youngest Pulitzer Prize winner ever? Well, that’s nice, I suppose. Though I don’t focus on awards, you know. I’m just interested in telling stories. Everything else is gravy.” Or perhaps he was at a Hollywood premiere of a movie he’d written. “Oh, Angelina, thank you for complimenting my writing—but you were amazing in the film. Just the Cassandra I’d imagined…nobody better really. Oh, you’d like to have dinner? What about Brad?”

Today, he was something even better. He was a wizard. Last night when he’d gone home, he’d found his mother sitting on the sofa holding a long skinny box wrapped up with a bow of vivid green.

“What’s that?” he’d asked his mother.

“A surprise for you,” she said, her smile creasing the lines of her face.

“But, we don’t have any money for surprises,” he reminded her. They didn’t either. That was one of the many things Bill Andrew made fun of him for, along with his unfashionable clothes and bottle-lens glasses.

A shadow crossed her face momentarily, but as she looked down at the package she brightened up again. “We do for this,” she said firmly, handing him the box.

He hesitated a moment and then tore the bow off, opened the lid, and pulled out a wand, richly carved, and polished to such a perfect sheen that Garth thought he could see his face in the wood. He’d wanted a wand ever since he’d read the first Harry Potter book, but he’d never expected to actually get one.

“Mom, this is amazing, but we can’t afford this!”

“We can,” she insisted. “I got a bonus at work and you know you’ve always wanted one.”

“I’m too old for toys,” he said haltingly, suddenly imagining Bill’s derisive expression at seeing him holding a wand.

“It’s not a toy,” his mother replied. “It’s a collector’s item. I bet it will be worth something some day. And anyway,” she continued, “you’ll always be my baby no matter how old you are.”

Garth rolled his eyes at this, but she was so clearly pleased with her gift that he put all thoughts of Bill away and hugged his mother. “Thanks, Mom,” he said.

She placed the wand on his desk in its stand, and the next morning, some irresistible urge made him throw it in his backpack along with his homework.

Now, walking to school, he had the same irresistible urge to pull the wand out. It would make the game of imagining he was a wizard a bit more life-like, he thought. He sat down on the curb, opened his backpack and pulled out the wand. It was made of oak and the certificate that accompanied the wand indicated a core of dragon heartstring. Gripping the wand, he had a curious sensation that some of the dragon’s strength was coursing into him. He stood up and quite easily slung his heavy backpack over his shoulder.

Holding the wand at his side, he walked to school, losing himself in his daydreams. He was Garth still, but this Garth was a wizard—not a British wizard, an American one. Bill Andrew, he reflected in satisfaction, was nothing but a dirty squib, and all of Bill Andrew’s meathead jock buddies were even stupider versions of Crabbe and Goyle. He had just pulled off a stunning bit of defensive magic, when reality veered its head. Garth hadn’t paid attention to what he was doing and the end result was that he found himself standing of the front lawn of his school holding a wand and wearing a slightly glazed expression that made him look mentally deficient. And to cap it off, Bill Andrew and his cadre were holding court at the front steps.

“Dude!” yelled Bill loudly, so that everyone in the immediate vicinity could overhear. “Is that a wand? Are you Harry Potter today?” Bill’s friends laughed appreciatively as Bill leaned casually against the railing. “Gonna do a spell, freak? Gonna turn me into a toad?”

Garth reddened and tried to sneak the wand into his pocket.

“Don’t hide your wand, dude,” said Bill nastily. “Bet the girls’ll be real impressed with that little bitty wand.” Bill laughed at his own joke and then leaned menacingly toward Garth as the pack closed in around him. “You know what I’m about to do?” He stared down at Garth, who did not reply. “I’m about to stuff your skinny ass into a locker, and then I think I’m gonna leave you there. But if your magic wand can help you, go ahead,” said Bill, smirking, “show us a spell.”

Garth barely had time for thought before Bill and his buddies picked him up and carried him, struggling and still clutching the wand, toward the nearest open locker.

“Move,” snarled Bill to a kid even scrawnier than Garth. The boy, apparently grateful that Bill wasn’t stuffing him into a locker, moved aside and took off quickly down the hallway, leaving his locker door wide open.

Bill shoved Garth into the locker, forcibly tucked his head down, and slammed the door shut. Garth heard Bill spin the dial of the lock twice and then bang on the door.

“I’ll let you out after school,” whispered Bill through the slats. “If you’re still alive. Better hope you’re dead, boy.” He pounded the door again and took off for his first period class, laughing the whole way. The bell rang and Garth could hear students rushing to get to their classes and then silence. He was alone.

A surge of hatred filled his being. He wished he was a wizard. Harry Potter might be too noble, but he wouldn’t mind using an unforgivable on Bill Andrew.

“Stupid useless wand,” said Garth bitterly. “I wish you worked.”

On a whim, he shifted as much as possible in the cramped locker, touched the lock with the tip of the wand, and said, “Alohamora.”

To his astonishment the lock clicked and the door opened of its own accord. Garth came tumbling out of the locker along with a pile of books and papers and a pair of dirty sweat socks. A glass paperweight that had been perched on the top shelf fell down and shattered on the tile floor. He sat for a moment, a bemused expression on his face. Then he pointed the wand at the shards of glass, and said, “Reparo.” The glass shards flew back into place and mended themselves together.

Garth laughed out loud in delight. It worked. His wand really worked.

“Bill Andrew,” said Garth as he rose to his feet, “I wonder where you are right now. Gotta say, I feel a little unforgiving.”