He’d never been fond of social events in general and dancing in particular, and his biggest pet peeve of all was that his prized Quidditch team was never very eager to practice when they were distracted by the imminent dance. Emails to Giorgi were in order.
Jordan opened up his inbox to see a brand new message from his Muggle pen pal.
To: sgtjpepper@magicworks.co.uk
From: rainbowbrite04@interweb.co.uk
Subj: Sports and Random Stuff
Hey, Jordan!!!
Well, I actually listened to you for once (CRAZY, right?!?!)and stuck with football this year. I think I said this before, but since my school’s really small, there’s only one team (girls and guys mixed) so it’s mostly blokes. We had our first match yesterday, and our school won!!!!! I didn’t get any goals for the team, but I did get three assists.
The other people on my team are still mostly annoying, but that’s why people come with fingers, right? To stick in our ears and go LALALALALALALALALA!
SoooOOOoOOOOOoo, speakin’ (typin’?) of sports, how’s the Quidditch thing doing? You know, that looks super-weird written like that. I still can’t get over the fact that you like to fly around on a broomstick like the Wicked Witch of the West in your spare time. It really looks like it would hurt your bum, but you seem to like it. (Then again, you’re a mutant.)
Oh yeah, your birthday’s next week, isn’t it? Seventeenth, too… ooh, our little Jor-jums is growing up!!! I’m going to have to get you something awesome. Or really embarrassing. Whatever it is, I’ll give it to your mum, and she can send it over with an owl or whatever.
School is boring and I still hate Trigonometry. When do you actually use all those stupid triangles in real life???
Never, unless you’re some whackjob who lives in his mum’s basement and recites pi all day, that’s when.
At least my Trig teacher’s loads nicer than my EVILLL maths teacher that I had last year! This guy’s really young… and kind of cute, though you didn’t hear it from me.
The important thing is that unlike Mr. Soggy Toupee from last year, he doesn’t make fun of my hair, possibly because his is green and spiky and JUST EXTREMELY AWESOME!!!!!!
Still, your school sounds waaaay cooler than mine. I might have to stab you with an isosceles triangle out of jealousy. I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE DOING SELF-TRANSFIGURATION!!!! If I could do that, I wouldn’t have to keep fixing up my roots every couple weeks when I dye my hair a new colour.
Well, I’ve rambled like a maniac long enough. SEE YAAA!!!!
Cheers,
GIORGI!!
Jordan smiled. If anything, Giorgi only got more and more crazy with each passing email. He typed up a reply.
To: rainbowbrite04@interweb.co.uk
From: sgtjpepper@magicworks.co.uk
Subj: RE: Sports and Random Stuff
Hello, Giorgi!
Quidditch is not going especially well, seeing as everyone on the team is being ridiculous. They’re all too busy thinking about the idiotic ball that my school always holds on my birthday. They can’t even concentrate on flying, especially Ophelia Wood.
And Tyrone Thomas and Emma are acting rather strangely as well. They’re always going flying in the Forbidden Forest at night, presumably to brush up on their skills… but don’t they realize that if they’re caught, they could be expelled from the team and lose hundreds of points for Gryffindor?
I’m sorry, you didn’t ask for a furious rant. Thank you for asking, though. It’s excellent about the football team, by the way.
Yes, I’m turning seventeen next week, although my birthday is always somewhat spoiled by the fact that it’s Valentine’s Day (far from my favourite holiday) and that I have to share it with Haley.
Still, I’ll going to legally come of age, which is exciting. I can’t believe that I’m almost an adult. Actually, I can. What I can’t believe is that Haley is almost an adult.
Trigonometry actually does have quite a few practical uses, but I won’t annoy you with that now. There is one thing you should know, though, and I can’t believe I put two and two together before. If you’re taking Trig at Cresthill High, your Trigonometry teacher, believe it or not, is Ted’s older brother, Nathanael!
He works in Muggle Liaison, which basically means that he makes reports back to the Ministry about Muggles. I’m not surprised that you like him, though, seeing as he’s a Metamorphmagus. You two should get along.
Write back when you can.
Sincerely,
Jordan.
There. One perfectly normal email, done. This should effectively stop Giorgi from worrying about the strange behaviour that he’d displayed over winter holiday. No one could say that Jordan Potter was not crafty when he wanted to be.
He was sitting in the Room of Requirement, his preferred hangout lately. For the last few months, he’d found it pleasant to spend his time there, rather than the dormitory. When he had unusual dreams, he didn’t like to be surrounded by other people, and there was always the chance that one of his roommates would walk into the dorm while he was raving like a madman. It was better to be safe than sorry.
The Room of Requirement was peaceful and isolated, and Jordan liked it that way. He’d never really craved the presence of others, choosing instead to make his own company. Unlike Merlin, he had no problem with the fact that he couldn’t convey his thoughts and experiences to others because he didn’t want to. He didn’t care that nobody really understood him, not even those who thought they did, because he didn’t want anyone else nosing into his personal affairs anyway.
Likewise, he didn’t feel Merlin’s need to share his talents with others. True, he was nothing if not liberal with sharing the information he knew (a more polite way of calling him a know-it-all). But when it came to the possibility that he might be a Seer, he kept it to himself.
And the same went for music.
He picked up his beloved red guitar, ingeniously engineered to run on magical power instead of electricity, and strummed a few chords. Other than Haley’s horrible and humiliating April Fools’ Day prank in their fourth year, he’d never performed in front of anyone, but he was surprisingly good. He played by ear, and he began to sing in a dusky, resonant voice that was a far cry from the flat monotone in which he so often spoke.
“Oh, crystal ball, crystal ball, save us all
Tell me life is beautiful
Mirror, mirror on the wall.
Lines ever more unclear
Not sure I’m even here
The more I look
The more I think that I’m
Starting to disappear.
Oh crystal ball, crystal ball, hear our song
Fading out
Everything I know is wrong
Take me back where I belong…”
“But Duckling, music is awesome!” Haley exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Why don’t you want to sing? Don’t you like music?”
Anatoly groaned. “I love music,” he told her. “I have the deepest respect for it. That’s why I don’t sing. My singing makes John Lennon roll over in his grave.”
They were on their way to Potions class and using the opportunity to discuss and fine-tune the specifics of their project, now that they finally had gotten it started.
“Your singing can’t be half as bad as Ted’s,” chirped Haley, letting her shiny dark hair bounce across her shoulders as she scampered along. “His singing makes babies cry. Well, can you dance, then, if you can’t sing?”
Anatoly shrugged vaguely and said, “I personally am quite fond of dancing, but alas, most sane people are not so fond of watching. I’m somewhat awful.”
“But you do like to dance?” prompted Haley, poking him in the chest with a sparkly pink fingernail.
“Sure, as much as the next bloke,” Anatoly replied breezily.
Just then, Jordan stomped by, muttering under his breath, “I hate dances.”
Anatoly chuckled to himself. “I take that back. If the next bloke is Jordan, I like to dance more than the next bloke.”
“Great!” exclaimed Haley. “Then how about coming with me to the Haley’s Birthday Day Ball?”
The boy stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her. “Har,” he said, his tone as dry as the Sahara Desert. “You’re so funny. Ho-ho-larious.” He had one eyebrow raised, but Haley didn’t even bother smacking him in the face. She simply folded her arms.
“No, I’m not kidding, you loony! I think you should come with me to the ball,” she said brightly. “So! Want to?”
Anatoly looked rather like someone had just smacked him in the head with a blunt axe, but his voice was as calm and indifferent as always. “Well, why not?” he replied. “It’s your funeral.”
“Really? Then I want pink flowers for my grave,” Haley said. It was a bit sad, really, that Anatoly was so skeptical about going to a dance with a friend. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember seeing him at any of the previous dances, either. She’d never paid attention to that type of thing before.
Anatoly gave her a smile in return. “Do you think we can get extra credit on our Inter-House Unity project for this?” he asked with every indication of seriousness.
They arrived at Professor Zabini’s classroom and, with an elaborate little bow from Anatoly, headed for their desks.
“Haley, why didn’t I see you in the corridor?” Emma asked as Haley slid into her seat just in time for the bell. “I had to listen to Nelson Blenkinsopp go on and on about how much he hates slug repellant.”
“Sorry,” Haley replied easily, “but I was talking to Duckling.”
“Who?”
“You know? Anatoly? It’s my special nickname for him. Anyway, we’re going to the ball together.”
If Emma had been drinking anything, she would have surely spat it all over the desk. “Wait, say that again, because it almost sounded like you just said you’re going to the ball with that Slytherin creep.” She looked horrified. “I know Capshaw got you out of trouble when McGonagall thought we pulled that prank on him a few weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean you have to tell him you’ll go with him! You don’t owe anything. I just can’t believe he had the nerve to ask you!”
“Oh, he didn’t ask me,” Haley told her, her voice bright. “I asked him, actually.”
Her friend laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. “Oh, Godric, what is it with you and asking people on pity dates? Last year Vladislav Poliokoff, and now him?”
It was odd how often people dismissed Haley as a joke, she thought to herself. She knew that she could be silly, and that she was small and cute and slightly hyperactive, but there were times when she really would have liked to be taken seriously. Especially by people who should know better.
“Look,” she said, “Ani’s not like Charybdis Nott. Haven’t you noticed? He’s a nice guy. Maybe kind of sarcastic, but he’s not bad at all.”
She’d never really taken the chance to talk about Anatoly to anyone but Anatoly himself. Maybe the opportunity had never come up, maybe she hadn’t wanted to give away her Inter-House Unity project, but most likely, she’d been worried about what people would think. For someone like Haley to befriend an ugly, spotty weirdo who talked funny and had more rapid mood swings than she’d had hot meals, would be unacceptable enough in the eyes of the school, but add into the equation that this boy was a Slytherin, and things would really go out of control.
And it was hard to tell Emma that she’d been wrong about something or someone”she was not one to take kindly to disagreements. But Haley could hardly just sit idly by and let Emma insult Anatoly for the rest of their lives.
“You’re so trusting, you’re crazy,” spat Emma. “You can’t just go around thinking everyone’s your friend. If he acts nice to you, it’s because he wants something. That’s how Slytherins are. They don’t give a pile of Porlock poo about anything but themselves, and they’re proud of it.”
Too trusting? Haley had always prided herself on her excellent intuition, and she liked to think that she was a good judge of character. She hadn’t been wrong about Ivy, Tyrone, Vladislav, or Lee, and she knew she wasn’t wrong about Anatoly.
“You know who you sound like?” Haley asked softly. “You sound just like Pansy Malfoy talking about Ted.”
Emma’s jaw dropped in offended shock. “What? How can you””
But before she could start a full-scale argument, Zabini emerged from his storeroom, adjusting the cuffs on the sleeves of his trailing black robes. “Today,” he enunciated, “You will take your written tests for the unit. Be prepared to spend the entire period writing. I expect a three-foot parchment on the importance of an ingredient of your choice in potion-making. These will be graded according to N.E.W.T. standard, so I naturally expect your best work.” He folded his arms. “You may begin. Absolutely no talking is allowed.”
Emma glanced over at her cousin with an expression that clearly meant, “I’m not finished with you.”
Deliberately looking away from one another, the girls each pulled out scrolls of parchment, quills, and ink and began scratching at their essays. Haley knew hers was definitely substandard, and that she was giving her nemesis the pleasure of giving her a bad grade, but she was too preoccupied to care.
She didn’t want to get in an argument with Emma. Such things were always painful, and she remembered all too well when the two of them hadn’t spoken for weeks when Emma refused to ‘let’ Haley make friends with Draco Malfoy’s daughter. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of that.
In the meantime, though, Jordan was completely unaware of any disagreement that may have been going on between his twin and his cousin. Never the one to simply dive into writing out an essay, he was a meticulous planner and outliner who was now brainstorming a list of possible topics. What could he write about that was obviously important but sufficiently little-known to make an impression?
Having ruled out dragon’s blood as too mainstream and hawthorn as too obscure, he dipped his quill in his pot of ink and wrote across the top of his paper, “Modern Usage Of Mimosa Leaves In Potionmakinng: Sensitivity Draughts, Sympathy Solutions, and Amortentia.” He underlined the title with a swift stroke. Not the most masculine of topics, but it was definitely the fast lane to a high grade on the essay test.
As he wrote, though, he felt his eyelids getting heavy, his wrist muscles becoming limp and relaxed, and his heartbeat slowing. He knew what this mean, and hurriedly laid down his quill and leaned his head against the back of his chair.
He was about to have yet another one of his stupid dreams, and from the tingling sensation in the base of his skull, he could tell that it would overwhelm him right there in Zabini’s classroom. There was no time to excuse himself to the wizards’ room where he could relax in private.
And just then, his body stiffened and his mind filled with an image of an old Greek woman crouching on a rickety stool, surrounded by smoke. Her frizzy grey hair was damp with sweat as it hung loosely around her face, and her right eye was milky and blind. She was nearly toothless, and her hands were frail and gnarled, but when she began to speak, her voice was low, calm, and surprisingly clear.
“And the lion and the falcon will leave the earth when their time occurs, and the world will be without them for the passing of a thousand years while the serpent reins. And then, the new lion and falcon will emerge and succeed where those before them could not… succeed where those before them could not… where those before them could not…”
A high-pitched female scream pierced the air, and jarred by the sudden sound, Jordan’s eyes snapped open. He gazed around him at his classmates, almost all of whom stared back at him.
Haley, clearly the girl who had screamed, was slack-jawed, and another girl had actually inched her chair away from his. Only one person in the entire room looked collected and cool as always”Professor Zabini.
His expression cold and different and his eyes gleaming vindictively, he was standing over Jordan in a truly ominous fashion. “Mr. Potter,” he hissed, “I specifically instructed that there was to be no talking during the essay test, and this includes the ravings of a lunatic.”
The ravings of a… oh no… Jordan slid down in his seat. He had hoped that this day would never come. He wasn’t even seventeen yet, and already, he’d publicly humiliated himself? What had he been doing?
Zabini leaned over the boy’s desk and snatched away his partly-finished essay paper. “For breaking my rules and disturbing the other students, you will receive a zero on your essay test,” he spat. He scanned the heading of the parchment and suddenly gave out a small gasp, his complexion draining to the colour of old gum. Then, his eyes frantic, he reread it and his features relaxed back into their usual sneer.
Zabini crumpled the essay into a ball. “You may sit”silently”while the rest of the class finishes their work.”
Jordan opened his mouth to protest, but realized that it would get him nowhere except possibly the land of negative house points. He was totally speechless. A zero? On a test? It was inconceivable. A zero was enough to bring his GPA down from an O! It could wreck his prospects and ruin his high school career, and he wouldn’t get to be class valedictorian!
He remembered how the previous year, he’d worried about a paltry ninety-three percent on a homework assignment, but now he had a zero on a major test. It was absolutely unthinkable.
His horror turned to anger at Zabini, and he stewed in silent fury as he listened to the gentle scratching of quills on parchment. How could Zabini fail him for talking during a test when he clearly couldn’t help it? If he had spoken aloud the words of his dream, there was nothing that he could have done to prevent it.
And yet… Zabini had no idea what strange circumstances might have prompted Jordan’s outburst. No one did, save for Professors Lupin, McGonagall, and the board of governors. As far as the Potions teacher knew, Jordan had simply been foolish enough to fall asleep (and then speak nonsense in his sleep) during class when he should have been focusing on his work.
He knotted his hands in frustration. As much as he had been trying to deny it, as pragmatic as he tried to be, Jordan was starting to think that maybe he really was a Seer. Why did these sorts of things keep happening to him of all people? Merlin had been dead wrong when he talked about how being a Seer helped him understand everything. If this was Seeing, all it did was complicate things even more than ever.
When the class was finally over and all essays except Jordan’s turned in, he was all too glad to escape to the Room of Requirement. But before he could make his getaway, he was stopped by none other than Ted.
“Hey,” he said pleasantly, standing directly in front of the door in a most unhelpful sort of way.
“Jordan looked none too pleased, but replied with a grudging, “Hello.”
“Listen, are you feeling okay? Because that was kind of weird during the test today”no offense”and you’ve been acting like you’re sick for awhile,” his friend said, his eyebrows raised with concern.
Jordan groaned. Two qualities that made Ted so likeable were his observance and his empathy. At the moment, though, both were a nuisance. He was like an eager, slobbering puppy sometimes. “I’m fine,” he responded irritably. “I told you before, I’m having trouble sleeping at night, and I fell asleep during the test and started talking in my sleep.”
“What were you dreaming about?” asked Ted. “I understand if it’s personal or whatever, but it must have been a really weird dream. Your voice sounded really creaky and high-pitched. You sounded a lot like me in fourth year, actually, only sounded kind of like you were speaking in Italian or something.”
“Greek,” Jordan corrected automatically, then froze. The old Greek woman in his vision… he’d spoken in her voice in front of the whole class. What’s more, he hadn’t even been babbling in English.
He hadn’t noticed that the old woman in his vision hadn’t been speaking English, but obviously, people in ancient Athens did not on a regular basis talk like Londoners. Now that he thought about it, it wouldn’t make sense for a Seer to only be able to understand the visions that he had in the native language.
And all of his dreams about Merlin… no wonder his speech sounded so modern and easily comprehensible. Without even realizing it, Jordan’s mind had translated the visions from Merlin’s native Old English. Just another freaky ability to add to his already generous supply.
Ted shrugged. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me anything,” he said. “It’s just, if you don’t feel good, you should go to the Hospital Wing. Because I was crazy enough not to go until it was too late, and if you’re sick, I don’t want you to have to pass out in the Great Hall in front of everybody like I did.
“Might as well,” snarled Jordan, slinging his back over his shoulder. “After all of the other moronic things I’ve done in front of everyone.”
And with that, he slouched off down the hallway, in search of some well-deserved privacy.
The hallway outside Professor Zabini’s classroom had cleared of students who wanted to be on time to lunch. But one Gryffindor girl dawdled. Emma Weasley stuffed her hands in her pockets as she walked, moving about as quickly as a snail with a prosthetic foot. She did not want to go to lunch and have to sit with Haley”not that Haley wanted to sit with her, either, she reminded herself.
She didn’t need Emma now that she had that disgusting Slytherin. What was to like about a Slytherin? They were cruel, manipulative, bigoted snobs who only looked out for themselves, and Capshaw didn’t even have good looks to balance it out like… well, quite a few of the Slytherin boys did. Hadn’t Haley noticed his disgusting pimples? His nerdy glasses and stupid Muggle braces across his teeth? His trying-so-hard-to-be-cool-and-failing-miserably haircut?
She was so buried in her thoughts, she didn’t even notice the figure walking toward her until they had slammed into one another.
“Oh, sorry,” both parties said at once, and Emma looked up to see against whom exactly she had just smashed. It was Tyrone Thomas. She should have known. Who else had a torso like a tree trunk in a t-shirt?
Neither of them said anything for a moment, and tangible silence rang through the hallway. Thoughts that had been constantly pushed back struggled to the surface of Emma’s mind and forced their way to her mouth.
Tyrone’s voice blended with hers in flawless unison.
“Um… hi… er…want to go to the ball with me?”
They both blinked wide-eyed at one another. “Sure, I mean, of course,” they said at the same time, then both demanded, “Why do we keep talking at the same time?” Both of them burst into peals of laughter. The difficult question was over with, all awkwardness was gone, and they could just be Tyrone and Emma again.
“This is great,” Tyrone stated. “And it’s insane. I basically gave up on going to the ball with you after the last three years. Leave it to you to spring a ‘yes’ on me when I least expect it.”
The corner of Emma’s mouth turned up. “It can’t have been too unexpected, or you wouldn’t have just spent ten minutes in the bathroom gelling your hair.”
Tyrone went deep purple. “That’s not the point!” he proclaimed, then slid his arm through the crook of Emma’s. “Lunchward?” he inquired politely.
“Oh, yeah,” agreed Emma with a smile, leaving her arm linked in his.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with going to a dance with a boy, she told herself firmly, as long as she kept her head and didn’t do anything but dance. She wasn’t giving in to Tyrone, not at all. She knew what she was doing.
“If the Hogwarts Express goes over fifty miles an hour,” proclaimed Emma, brandishing a ticking device in her hand, “it will explode!”
“Cool. Can you put down my alarm clock?” Haley replied rather impatiently. She dug through her jewelry box for the perfect earrings. “I just don’t want you messing around with the clock unless you accidentally make it go off at the wrong time. I’m going to be legal in thirty-nine minutes and forty-two seconds… forty-one seconds…”
It was Valentine’s Day, and Haley and Emma had come to a truce, mainly because it was Haley’s birthday but also because Emma had to break their refusal to speak to one another when she’d found herself incapable of keeping quiet that she was going to the ball with Tyrone Thomas (not that it was a big deal or anything, of course). Still, however, they were just a tad bit brisker and cooler with one another than usual and both of them were careful to never mention the ‘A’ name.
“So!” exclaimed Ivy, clapping her hands together. “We’ve all hidden our robes from each other all year. How about we do a sort of fashion show”one by one?”
Haley smiled. “Inspired,” she chirped. “I can tell you’ve been spending too much time with me.”
Emma stood up, pulling up a garment bag along with her. “Okay then, I’ll go first,” she agreed. “Prepare yourselves, ladies.”
“Wait,” Ivy said quickly, “before you get dressed, I just want to say, you know how you sort of gave me a makeover for last year’s ball?”
Haley nodded enthusiastically. “Yepperdiddies!”
“Well… can you please not do that this year? I mean, it was really nice of you, and I know I looked nice, but it just… it wasn’t my style.” Ivy thought silently of Pansy Malfoy, her insistence that she wear more stylish clothing and makeup. Pansy had dressed her up like a china doll until she had been old enough to make her own decisions, and even then Pansy couldn’t seem to accept the fact that Ivy’s tastes were more conservative than her own. Now Ivy just wanted a chance to be herself without anyone else trying to tell her what to wear.
Haley looked rather put-out. “Oh, okay,” she pouted. “I’ll just keep all my makeup tricks to myself and make you jealous of my gorgeousness all night long.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said, closing the bathroom door behind her to change into her ball finery. While she was getting ready, the Potter sisters reminisced over the events of the previous few balls (most notably perhaps Draco Malfoy’s entrance onto the grounds in fourth year… though Jordan magically dumping a punch bowl over Ophidias and Charybdis in third yearwas a close second) until…
“Ta-daaa!” Emma burst forth from the bathroom dressed in a Muggle-style red halter dress with a swingy skirt and shiny black strappy shoes. A red rose was tucked behind her ear.
“Cute!” Haley said appreciatively. “I thought you might be going Muggle-style this year!
Tancred Apple was totally wrong about a lot of things, but he did have good fashion sense.”
Ivy smiled. “I like it. I mean, I’d never wear it, but you look great.” She stood up. “Speaking of which, should I get ready now, too?’
“Yeah!” Haley told her, bouncing up and down on her bed. “Save the best for last.”
Her sister shook her head as she gathered her things for the ball. “And can’t believe you’re going to be seventeen in just a few minutes,” she said under her breath.
Haley stuck out her tongue. “Well, I’ll be the one with the last laugh when you’re old and wrinkly. I’ll be like, ‘bet you wish you were immature like me now, huh?’”
“You’ll be a skydiving grandma, huh?” laughed Ivy, stepping into the bathroom.
“Maybe not that!” called Haley, who was terrified of heights. “But definitely a cool one… while you’re sitting in a rocker drinking prune juice.”
A few moments later, Ivy emerged from the bathroom, looking confident and calm and… quite nice-looking, Haley had to admit. Her soft cotton dress robes were a pale tea blue, with a square neck and they were accentuated by a square neck and short puffed sleeves. White elbow-length gloves graced her arms, and her long blonde hair was swept out of her eyes with a blue ribbon. She wore simple pearl earrings and had added the slightest touch of pale pink gloss to her lips.
“You look like Cinderella!” exclaimed Haley. She had to admit that although her sister didn’t look fashionable and head-turning like she had the previous year thanks to Haley’s makeover, she was quite pretty in an old-fashioned sort of way, and infinitely more comfortable-looking than in the trendy dress.
Maybe Ivy wasn’t quite the fashion disaster that Haley often scoped her out to be”at least she knew her own style, even if it wasn’t necessarily one Haley would choose herself.
“Here I go!” she announced, skipping toward the restroom to the restroom to get ready for the ball.
She took her sweet time getting ready, which caused Emma to get somewhat irritated. “It didn’t take this long to build the bathroom!” she shouted, pounding on the door. Blast. She sounded exactly like her dad. Since when had she been so corny? And was it hereditary?
“Don’t worry,” Ivy said serenely, “she’ll be out in time for the ball.”
“Darn right she is,” agreed Haley, suddenly standing in the doorway.
Her friends looked stunned, and not merely because of her sudden and silent appearance. Haley was beaming radiantly, clad in brilliantly green silk kimono-style robes with dramatic sleeves and elabourate embroidered details. Her hair was swept to the top of her head, her dangly earrings glittered like fireworks, she seemed to suddenly have cheekbones, and her delicate high-heeled shoes added dramatically to her petite stature. She looked much older than usual.
The green robes brought out the vivid light green of her eyes, and it was more apparent than ever what a light, almost chartreuse green they were. For the first time, she looked like the glamorous actress she aspired to be, not just a cute little girl playing dress-up.
“So!” said Haley, grinning, “Told you I’m good with makeup!”
“It must be the robes,” Emma said finally, squinting. “That’s what’s doing it. I’ve never seen you wear anything but pink dress robes before, but you look really good… I’d tell you to wear more green, but that would be stupid, people would think you were a Slytherin or something.”
Haley had something to say in return to that, but she didn’t have time. At that exact minute, her alarm clock sounded. Harriet-Lily Potter was seventeen years old. By all standards (except for possibly her twin’s), she was an adult.
There was something so strange, almost surreal about the situation. She didn’t feel seventeen. She felt like it had been just a few days since she’d first arrived at Hogwarts at age eleven, and to suddenly become a ‘grown-up’ like that was mind-boggling. And yet, she knew that she was a lot more grown-up than she’d been when she came to Hogwarts”even two years before she’d been physically incapable of taking anything seriously.
“Happy birthday!” shouted Emma, flicking her wand and showering her cousin with glittery confetti. “Make a wish!”
Ivy smiled ruefully, adjusting her gloves. “I feel so left out,” she remarked. “I still won’t come of age for two more months. Do you feel any different?”
“Er, no, not really,” her sister admitted. “Happier. Better-dressed. More entitled to birthday cake.” She wrinkled her nose in a devilish smile. “Mostly, I’m just excited that for the next two minutes, I’m legally grown-up and my baby brother’s still a little boy.”
Despite the fact that she was less than three minutes older than Jordan, she’d always been extremely proud of being the elder of the pair and delighted in calling her twin ‘baby brother’ whenever possible. Oddly, he did not share this delight.
“You know,” said Ivy, “I never thought about that before. It’s weird if you think about it. I wonder what he’s doing right now.”
Copious amounts of gel purloined from Tyrone Thomas had been slathered into Jordan’s hair in attempts to tame it, and his deep-plum-coloured robes offset his dark hair nicely. But although his appearance was debonair and collected”or at least, as debonair and collected as it was possible to be when one was Jordan Potter”inside, he was agitated and jumpy.
In just a few minutes, he would come of age. And he was worried about what that may mean for him.
For the last several months, he’d had numerous tiny glimpses of what it might be like to be a Seer, and if he really was one, he knew that these occasions paled in comparison to what he would soon be. He’d seen enough of Merlin’s life to know that it would be frustrating, confusing, all-consuming… and totally and completely life-altering. If the Inner Eye could turn a normal Muggle-born farm boy into the most brilliant mind in history, there was no telling what it would do to Jordan. If he was a Seer, of course. Which was only a theory anyway, he reminded himself.
He glanced nervously at his watch, his eyes blurry without his contact lenses in. 10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… Blackness.
It wasn’t like his other dreams. This one didn’t have words or images or vivid scenes or anything else that normally happened in dreams. It was just plain, silent blackness. His mind didn’t seem to be entirely there”he felt like his brain was a computer with the monitor turned off.
And then, after what could have been three seconds or three hours, it was all over.
Slowly and cautiously, his eyelids fluttered open… and stayed open, widened in surprise. Even without his contacts in, everything seemed exceptionally crisp and defined. But it wasn’t that his vision was any better”when he thought about it, the world was still just as vague and smeary as it was when he had his contacts in”but it was just the way things were that was clearer. He stared back and forth at everything, greedily drinking in his surroundings. It was strange to think that he had ever been able to spend the first seventeen years of his life with such a dim, vague view of the world around him.
He scrambled to a sitting position, feeling his heart pound in his chest. Something unfamiliar pulsed and tingled through his brain. His whole body seemed warm and powerful, radiating a strange sort of heat that filled him from head to toe. It was a bit like the flu, actually. Maybe he did just have the flu… No, it couldn’t be the flu, because he’d had the flu before, and when he had the flu, he tended to throw up a lot, have a sudden desire to listen to Elvis Presley, and randomly burst into tears when nobody was looking.
All Jordan knew was that he had to be a Seer”he had followed the scientific method and after all of his hypothesizing and experimentation, this had to be the conclusion. He had no choice but to share what he had. Unless it was the flu, of course.
It was truly strange. He felt so different that he had to look in the mirror to see if he looked any different from before. Jordan brushed the dust bunnies from his robes and walked into the bathroom.
He stopped in his tracks and stared when he saw his reflection.
In essence, he looked exactly the same as he had ten minutes before. He had the same slight but wiry frame, the same mop of totally unmanageable black hair, the same finely-carved Weasley features and matching freckles, the same heart-shaped face and slight upturn to the end of his nose.
But surrounding his image was a massive, dazzling sunburst, full of streaks and blotches and rays of every colour, ever changing and moving. He gazed at the light emanating from his own body, totally mesmerized. Yet the longer he looked, he realized that the sunburst wasn’t anything new”it was like the first time he’d noticed his own shadow at the age of four. He didn’t look any different. He just saw differently.
Instinctively, he knew that he was looking at his aura, and almost laughed. Professor Trelawney always went on about people’s auras, and he’d always thought it was complete nonsense. Looked like Professor Trelawney had at least one thing right, though he doubted that she could really see them. He wondered what her aura would look like”probably like moldy cheese with big holes in it.
It was like the day when he was seven years old and was first given a pair of glasses. The world, which until then had been a blurry and murky place, opened up and he’d been able to see things as they were, differentiate the leaves on a tree or the letters in the alphabet. For the first time, he’d been able to see what he really looked like, not just a vague smear of colour in the mirror.
And now… well… he suspected that Professor Trelawney would equate what had just happened to him with spectacles for the Inner Eye.
“Oh, God, this is all so ridiculous,” he said aloud. His voice didn’t sound as convincing as he had hoped it would.
Jordan sat down on the floor, his legs trembling. He felt electrified, the air itself buzzing with life around him. And as he relaxed on the floor, a voice resounded through his mind: “And the lion and the falcon will leave the earth when their time occurs, and the world will be without them for the passing of a thousand years while the serpent reins. And then, the new lion and falcon will emerge and succeed where those before them could not… succeed where those before them could not… where those before them could not…”
It was like a stick of dynamite had just been set off inside Jordan’s brain. Suddenly, he understood. He understood everything… and all of a sudden, he couldn’t bring himself to be cynical anymore. There were only two things to do”swear loudly, and find Haley as soon as possible.
Haley was delighted to discover that the DJ at the dance shared her unique penchant for cheesy ‘80’s techno music. While this was no cause for celebration for nearly anyone else, it was admittedly quite fun to dance to.
The girls had met up with Ted and Tyrone, who’d been waiting for them in the Common Room, and were now standing outside the Great Hall as the crowds of students filed in.
“So,” Emma said to Tyrone, sounding quite like a drill sergeant, “if anyone asks”or even looks at you funny”you tell them””
“That we’re not going out, yeah, I know,” sighed Tyrone, rolling his eyes. “You’ve only told me like a million times on the way down here. Lighten up, okay?” He patted her arm.
Emma did not look particularly soothed. “Look, I just don’t want people to get ideas.”
“Why? What’s wrong with ideas?” Tyrone asked brightly.
Haley smiled to herself. Emma and Tyrone may not have been going out, but they still could bicker like an old married couple. And Emma’s insistence aside, it was a remarkable feat on its own that she’d agreed to take a boy”and Tyrone, no less”to a ball. Things were really beginning to go in a direction that Haley quite liked.
Speaking of directions, someone was strolling in hers. “Well, here I am!” announced Anatoly, flashing a quick smile. An all-white smile…
“Hey, handsome! You got your braces off!” Haley exclaimed, noticing the difference at once.
The boy tapped his teeth. “Yep, and just in time for your birthday, too. That’s my present to you, no more having to look at chunks of food caught in my teeth whenever I talk to you. Aren’t you just thrilled?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Anatoly did look a bit different than usual, and it wasn’t just the braces. He’d gathered his curly shoulder-length hair into a neat ponytail, and his robes were a spectacularly bright red with gold buttons and accents that would satisfy any marching band leader. On top of his head was a fancy top hat that would make even Giorgi stare. The overall effect was alarming, but surprisingly, it worked for him. He did ‘alarming’ well.
Emma broke off from her discussion with Tyrone to crane her neck unfavourably toward the newcomer. “Your robes are red and gold,” she remarked, raising an eyebrow and then wincing at the stiletto heel that Haley brought down atop her foot.
“Yes,” Anatoly said simply, “yes, they are. Or at least, that’s what the sales clerk told me.” He folded his arms. “Me, I wouldn’t know personally”I’m red-green colourblind. Can’t see the difference between the two to save my life.”
Red-green colourblind… Haley gave out a little involuntary snort. She wished that everyone were red-green colourblind. Then maybe there wouldn’t be so much friction between Hogwarts’s houses.
“Well, I think it’s kind of weird,” stated Emma crossly. “You wearing red and her in green… shouldn’t you just wear your own house’s colours?”
Things were getting uncomfortable, and it was plainly evident that it was a bad idea to allow Emma and Anatoly to be within such close proximity to one another without a fence between them.
Sensing a storm brewing, Ted, who had been silent until then, cleared his throat. “Er, guys, we’re holding up traffic here. Shouldn’t we be going into the Great Hall now? I mean, I’d kind of rather dance than stand around and talk.”
Anatoly nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, now would in fact be an excellent time for one to be getting one’s groove on.” He glanced over to his partner. “And what say you?”
“I say YES, PLEASE!” Haley declared, and they led the way into the techno-pulsating Great Hall, which had become significantly funkier than usual.
It was difficult to gauge which had received a more astonished reception, date-hater Emma and infamous ladies-man Tyrone finally attending a ball together, or the Gryffindor and Slytherin dressed in the colours of the opposite house. For their point, Haley and Anatoly rather enjoyed being the centre of attention and waved and smiled cheerfully at the occasional slack-jawed gaper.
Everyone was soon absorbed, though, by the music and companionship and soon forgot about improbable set of ball dates. Ted was attempting a very bad rendition of the robot, much to Ivy’s amusement, while Haley and Anatoly appeared to be competing for who could dance the most flamboyantly, and Tyrone and Emma attempted to be starting a new dance craze that was a strange mixture of the bunny hop, the conga line, and leap frog. The dance was in full swing, all chaos, noise, and movement, and so wild that no one even noticed that Jordan Potter was nowhere around.
Until suddenly, the oak double doors were flung open and a figure burst through, running like a maniac. His sweat-dampened hair flew back from his forehead and his limbs were wild as he raced into the room.
Haley froze in the middle of her disco version of German folk dancing and stared at her twin brother. He was sweaty and red-faced, his hair even more of a disaster than usual, and he beamed madly, his eyes glowing with excitement. He seemed to radiate a bizarre and uncharacteristic happiness, and Haley felt herself feeling deeply uneasy. It was not like her brother to be happy.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
Jordan was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling beneath his dark violet robes. Dark violet? He would never be caught dead wearing purple. His idea of wild was forest green or navy blue, and even then he rarely even wore anything but black. He had to be ill.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he panted, spreading his arms. “Everything’s brilliant. It all makes sense now!”
This was a statement deeply at odds with how Haley felt. Absolutely nothing made sense. “Huh?” she said eloquently.
“Don’t you feel different?” Jordan demanded, his expression at once restlessly energized and serenely peaceful. Neither of those expressions were Jordan at all… and he looked strangely and unsettlingly beautiful. There was something about him that made everyone else fade into the background… no, that wasn’t quite it. The background faded into Jordan.
By now, nearly everyone in the room was staring, transfixed, fascinated, and slightly disturbed. Only Haley had the courage to attempt conversation with the lunatic who had hijacked her twin’s body. She wasn’t used to being the sensible one.
“Listen, slow down. What’s going on? You’re not making any sense at all.”
Jordan’s eyes danced with giddy amazement. They were so dark, almost black… Haley was quite sure they’d been lighter less than a year before, and that simple change added to the picture of patent weirdness. “Haley, wizards reach their full magical potential on their seventeenth birthdays. And I…” He took a deep breath. “I’m a Seer. A Seer, all three kinds. And I don’t even believe in Divination…” He let out a shaky laugh. “It’s ridiculous, I know. But it’s true. And I would say I wish it wasn’t, but actually, I’m glad.”
Haley had the distinct sensation that someone had dropped a bag of wet sand on her head. Her eyes widened to the size of cantaloupes. She wanted to believe that her brother was only joking, but those odd dark eyes of his were solemn and serious beyond the scope of acting.
A Seer? Practical, cynical Jordan, a Seer? It couldn’t be! And yet… the pieces seemed to fit together. He’d begun Divination classes. He’d been acting weird, weirder than usual. He’d fallen asleep in class and muttered some high-pitched gobbledegook. What if he really was a Seer? The possibility blew her mind, but what if he was telling the truth?
“I had a vision,” Jordan continued breathlessly. Haley wished he could be less… enthusiastic. It was scary. “It said, ‘And the lion and the falcon will leave the earth when their time occurs, and the world will be without them for the passing of a thousand years while the serpent reins. And then, the new lion and falcon will emerge and succeed where those before them could not… succeed where those before them could not… It’s the same one I had in Zabini’s class the other day. Only now I understand what it means!”
“Ermm… I don’t,” Haley said weakly.
“Yes, that’s why I’m telling you!” His voice brimmed with impatient anticipation. “Haley, you’re the young lion. I’m the young falcon. Don’t you see?”
Haley was now seriously beginning to worry, especially since it was pretty obvious that she was not a lion and he was not a falcon. It was completely bizarre for him to be so manic and unintelligible, and he looked feverish to say the least. Either he was very sick or, more frighteningly, there was actually something to what he was saying.
“I’m… I’m really confused,” she said in a small voice.”
Jordan shook his head, evidently amazed at how ignorant she could be. “Do I have to spell it out? You’re the heir of Gryffindor! I’m the heir of Merlin! And one day quite soon, we each have to accomplish something that Gryffindor and Merlin wanted to but couldn’t. At least, I thought it was fairly obvious.”
She squinted. “That’s nice… I think…”
Jordan exhaled and closed his eyes, clearly trying to compose himself. “I know I sound crazy,” he said in a low voice. “If I were you right now, I wouldn’t believe me. I’ve never had any faith in Divination before, either. But when it’s me, and everything seems so clear…”
He broke off and raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s so hard to explain. I can see why Merlin wanted to invent Telemency… but I know it’s true.”
“What do you mean?” asked Haley, almost frightened by how earnest her brother was, how completely ardent. He could only be telling the truth, and when the truth was so unbelievable, it was a bit difficult to stomach.
“Mum’s a direct female-line descendent of Godric Gryffindor’s eldest daughter,” Jordan stated, sounding much more Jordan-y than before. His voice was low and flat as usual, and sounded as though he was reciting from a textbook, and there was something comforting about the familiarity, irritating though this trait usually was. “And Dad’s a direct male-line descendent of Merlin’s son. There’s absolutely no question about it.”
Haley stared back into her brother’s eyes, so deep and unlike her own, and his face, so confident and sure. There was a maturity there, a wisdom that was far beyond his seventeen years, and far beyond anything Haley knew she could ever achieve.
I barely know him, she realized suddenly. He’s my twin brother, and I barely even know who he is. She did know, though, that Jordan would never make up something like that, and she could see in his steady gaze that he was completely sane.
She scratched her head, dislodging a few locks of hair from her stylish updo. The heir of Gryffindor… what did it mean? Why didn’t she get any cool, wacky talents? She remembered from a Divination class several months before, Jordan’s first one that he had talked about magical heirs. Why hadn’t she paid attention? Well, because he was boring and she’d been busy doing her nails at the time, but that wasn’t the point.
Anyway, there was something about wizards passing on their special abilities to one heir a certain amount of time after their deaths. She thought back to her History of Magic classes. What did she know about Godric Gryffindor?
Not much, actually”why hadn’t she paid attention to that, either? All that came to her mind was that he was known for being exceptionally brave and bold, that he’d been best friend with Salazar Slytherin, that he liked lions and the colour red, and that he’d had a famously strange sense of humour and was responsible for the name of the school, as well as the Sorting Hat and some of the school’s more irritating trick staircases and passageways and the like.
But what did this have to do with her? She was brave of course, or else why would she be in Gryffindor, but surely she couldn’t match Gryffindor himself. What would it meant to be Heir of Gryffindor? She couldn’t wrap her brain around it.
Frankly, she was infinitely more intrigued by Jordan’s half of the deal. A Seer… Divination had always been her favourite subject, and she’d always wanted to meet a real live Seer… other than Professor Trelawney, of course, as she hardly counted. She’d never even dreamed of having one under the same roof, let alone the same family tree. Jordan would be subject to a barrage of questions before the night was over, that was sure enough.
It suddenly dawned on her that all heads were still turned toward her, the room silent except for the sound of Paula Abdul shrieking in the background. “Well,” Haley managed to say, “What’s everyone standing around for? Let’s DANCE!”