by Kim Zarins
“You do?” They were eating Chinese takeout from the boxes, there in the backyard, the whole garden in bloom. It was almost a perfect evening.
“You’re worried I won’t hang out with you if I’m seeing Gus. But you’re my friend. I would never just drop you.”
“Okay.”
She smiled ruefully. “You don’t sound convinced, but it will be great. You’re just a worrier. You’ll see.”
They opened their fortune cookies.
Her fortune: Love has finally found you.
His fortune: You will never find love without first loving yourself.
What a perverse thing to conceal in a cookie. He was convinced a Gryffindor had prepared these. He didn’t eat the cookie. It would be like going along with it.
He didn’t see much of Dori. Not alone. Seeing her arm in arm with Gus was too much, even when they weren’t making out.
Which they did. All the time.
And he learned something about Dori that the letters had never revealed. She had friends. Millions of them. It made him worry that she would have been Sorted in Gryffindor.
But in the fall Gus went to Hogwarts. Finally.
Aurelius took Dori hiking that afternoon. The late summer leaves were just a lovely backdrop to her beauty as she walked between the trees, her face tilted up, then turning to him with a smile.
And then it was time to attend their own Muggle school. It was a lovely, crisp morning, and autumn had come early. They rode their bikes together through the fall leaves, and he had her all to himself. They arrived at school, and her millions of friends surrounded her with hugs and tore her away from him.
He later found himself in a dining hall, eating alone. He had a panicked feeling he’d never see much of her again.
But she rescued him and brought him to her table. It was a Gryffindor kind of table. The popular kids let him stay, though he often didn’t get a seat next to her. But just to be near her was enough. And on weekends they’d take to the hills, finding growing things, or on her living room floor he’d pretend to do his homework while she practiced her music.
He’d get hopeful she’d somehow begin to fancy him until she’d say, “An owl came last night!”
“You’re so quiet,” she added one time, after she announced an owl from Gus. They were alone under bare November branches.
He should tell her once and for all. But he said, “I wrote you so much more. He should write you every day.”
She kicked wet leaves at him. “You’re always there to defend me, but I can take care of myself.”
He should tell her. Now.
She turned down the path.
“Wait . . . Dori. I love you.” He shook, forcing the beautiful words out as if from a cramped impossible space.
She had this patient, sad look. “I have a boyfriend. He’s coming home in a few weeks.”
He could feel the words rising up stronger. “Still. I love you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please. I’d do anything. I loved you all this time.” He’d said the word “love” three times. Now that he’d finally told her, he couldn’t stop telling her. It was like a self-inflicted Babbling Curse.
She sighed. “I can’t have two boyfriends. I can’t even speak about this,” she said. She turned away and let a long pause smother the moment. Then she said, “I hate this weather. Bleak. I miss spring, don’t you?”
He didn’t say anything except, again, that he loved her, and “please,” over and over.
“Will you hush?”
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop pleading.
“Look, if you make me a flower garden in the December snow, I’ll go on a romantic date with you, all right?” She laughed, like that was all very silly. “But honestly, I have a boyfriend. I’m sorry, Aurie.”
Without more words, he hiked through snow that crunched like breakfast cereal. His mind churned with the problem. His so-called Babbling Curse had switched off so suddenly that she looked at him with a worried expression.
“Aurie. Say something.”
He said, quite determined, “I’ll try.”
“Besides,” she laughed, “Dori and Aurie—that sounds a bit rhymey.”
His deficiencies always came back to poetry, no matter what world he was in.
It was madness, but he tried. Transformation wouldn’t work. The amount of magic needed would alert the Ministry of Magic. Potions were more subtle, though. And magical plants could be brought in. His backyard was suitably private, and his father and stepmother weren’t living there. There are some advantages to being despised by one’s father.
December arrived, and Aurelius took his exams, no closer to his goal. He needed to make a garden by the end of the month. If he took Dori on that date, she’d realize how much he loved her and what real love feels like. Her heart would change. It would. He tried to imagine Gus and Dori hiking together, watching birds through their binoculars and watching the trees give way to winter. Impossible. Gus couldn’t do anything without an admiring crowd. She’d have to see the limitations of that. Once she got to know both of them better, she’d see who really loved her.
But time was running out.
As eager young witches and wizards rushed home from Hogwarts, Aurelius arrived.
He knocked on his professor’s door, terrified but still determined.
Snape opened the door. He was clearly surprised and, for a moment, pleased, though his face immediately turned cool and distant. “To what do I owe this honor?”
Aurelius followed him in, and the place smelled like home—like spells and secrecy and something brewing. He wanted to tidy the place just to touch the contents, just once more. He couldn’t stop looking.
“I knew you’d miss magic,” Snape said, a smile twisting across his face.
“Sometimes.” To hide his guilty face, Aurelius breathed in all the magic brewing in a cauldron. And there on the small shelf with Snape’s thinner volumes Aurelius saw it. “My library book!”
“Take it. I certainly don’t want it.” Snape covered the cauldron and glared at the book in Aurelius’s hands. “I assume you still waste your time on poetic fancy.”
“Every day,” he said defiantly. His voice dropped. “My literature teacher, Mr. Hartman . . . I showed him some of my writing, and he thinks I have talent.”
“Ah, so I’ve been replaced with a new mentor, have I? And yet, here you are.”
Beating around the topic no longer, Aurelius asked for his help with the winter garden. Of course, Snape wanted to know why such a ridiculous waste of magic was desired. Aurelius had planned to lie, but he knew the time for lies was over.
“She said if I made her a garden in December, she’d . . . she’d . . . she’d go on a date with me.”
Snape’s eyes flashed, and the grim silence in the room was palpable. “Are you asking me for a love potion?”
Aurelius jumped from his seat. “No, Professor! I’d never . . . All I need is a winter garden. It’s all she wanted. She promised.”
Snape’s lip curled with distaste. “A most unusual promise. Wouldn’t she simply go on a date with you if she really wanted to? Maybe this is her way of saying she doesn’t want to go on a date with you. Perhaps you were pestering her? Groveling and pleading, perhaps?”
“No—not much,” the boy said, flinching.
Snape’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “If you don’t like discussing your love life, then why write about it? Anyhow, it’s clear to me, she was trying to shut you up. She means none of it. This isn’t an Unbreakable Vow, Aurelius. She was putting you down gently. She’ll have forgotten the whole conversation—you’ll never have her love. To act on this promise is a grave mistake. Is this not perfectly clear?”
“Professor, she promised. Please let me try this one hope. I’ll pay any price.”
The professor waved a dismissive hand. “It would be costly, what with obtaining materials, dealing with the Ministry of Ma
gic, taking time away from my duties. You could not afford my services, not without robbing your father, and I will not abet such schemes.”
Aurelius shook his head. “I have my mother’s inheritance. It’s yours. The house, too, if you want it. My life. Anything.”
“Anything,” Snape repeated testily, like the word offended him. “You haven’t got much of a plan. Would this garden be in your Muggle backyard? I doubt your father would let all this happen under his nose.”
“My father and stepmother don’t live there. I haven’t seen them since last spring.” Aurelius opened the tattered book, as if to read and avoid this topic, but something was different about Immortal Sonnets. The pages that had fallen out were all securely bound.
“Surely at Christmastime they’ll want to see you and—”
“I’m in disgrace and not needed presently.”
He turned another page of the book. All mended. Why had Snape done it?
“Aurelius, if I may ask a sensitive question about your father . . . From what I’ve heard, he hexes you, yes? Do you really want to risk—”
“He’s not around enough to do much of that, now that I’m older. I have him to thank for what I am. He spelled me with a Compulsion to study when I was little: I had to read or my head would burst. Finding poetry, I discovered to my delight it didn’t really matter to the Compulsion what I read.”
Snape scowled. Whether because he disapproved of hexing children or reading poetry, it was hard to say.
“Look, forget my father and stepmother. Lost cause. Will you help me? Please, Professor? I’ll give you my life.”
“Your life? Preposterous. Would you die if I demanded it? Hop in a cauldron if I needed a boy for a potion? I can’t even get you to give up poems and return to Hogwarts . . . Would you even do that much, I wonder?”
Aurelius clutched the book to his chest. “I would, sir. Any of it. Well, I’d rather not die in a cauldron, but anything else. Please.”
Sharp lines deepened between Snape’s eyes. “Fine. Bring me your mother’s fortune, the deed to your house, all of it. I’ll decide what you’ll do with your very naive life. At the very least you’ll return to Hogwarts, if I can convince the headmaster to take you. You will not bring any Muggle books or any Muggle-headed fancies for poetry—is that perfectly clear? You might even help our House—there is a most annoying first-year in Gryffindor who needs to know that some people spend more time in the library than she does. Or, maybe I’ll keep you on as a human house elf. Or maybe I can use bits of you for potions. Speaking of which, we have some work to do. . . .”
“Where are we going? Gus is picking me up at eight. . . .”
Aurelius dragged Dori by the hand to the backyard.
He opened the door for her and studied her face as she took in the wonder of the garden.
It was a winter garden, and an evening garden. The short December days only showed off the nocturnal glow of the moon-phase flowers that climbed the walls and tangled with purple lunart and variegated luceme. Petals glistened with a Patronus-like light. The place smelled heavenly.
They were holding hands, taking their first steps on the path, crunching with snow, when she stooped and touched a flower blooming at her feet, silver on white.
She gushed praise, fell silent, gushed again, silent again, like a tidal flow. They both walked in their own enchantments, she in the garden, he in her.
She clutched his arm, and he could hardly bear his happiness. “I’ve never seen such magic. Never.”
Feeling daring, Aurelius squeezed her hand. She let him do it, and he forgot what he was going to say. He even held a flower for her to smell. Finally he said, “Remember what you said on that hike in November? About a garden in December? It’s all for you.”
Her eyes questioned him, and then they changed. She froze, her face as white as the snow. “You mean . . . God, you mean going on a date? I was only joking. Aurie, this is . . . sick.”
The flower in his hand trembled. “I didn’t mean you had to go all the—look, I just wanted to take you out. You know, dinner, a concert. I just thought we . . .”
“I can’t believe you tricked me. I trusted you. I—I have to go.” Tearing up, she rushed out of the yard and down the street. He ran partway and stopped, because she was running from him. Because she hated him now.
Gus’s owl came later.
A scrawl in Gus’s hand: This is how you get a date? Trap a girl in a false promise? You’re a sick boggart.
Then two hours later: I can’t get her to stop crying. Why don’t you look in the mirror and practice the Killing Curse on yourself? Maybe we’ll all get lucky.
He thought about Gus’s suggestion very seriously, as well as the Muggle alternatives.
And then, days later, the phone rang.
He heard her voice. Flat. Very tired. “I’m coming over.”
He let her in. Her dull eyes were rimmed with black and red. He was about to show her the garden, but she shuddered. “No, thanks. I don’t much care for gardens anymore.”
She flopped onto the sofa. “I’m here for my ‘promise.’ Gus and I talked it over. We’re not sure if you built a hex in it or not, but we both realized the quickest thing to do was to get the date over with. Right now. Gus will still be my boyfriend, no matter how ‘romantic’ our date is. So. Here I am. As promised. Carry on with whatever you want from me.”
She wasn’t weeping. She was shaking, with misery and anger.
Aurelius trembled. “I didn’t hex anything,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean for you to feel forced. You must be so angry—”
Her eyes flashed. “Are you saying I need to act happy? To make you feel better?” She put on a mock-sultry face, moved her shoulders so that he noticed her breasts. “How’s this? Ready for our date?”
His knees gave way. He sank to the floor. “I never meant our date would be like this. I never . . . I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’m so sorry. Just—please go.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Shouldn’t I stay awhile to satisfy the terms? Or what were you expecting from a ‘romantic date’? I don’t want to fudge the contract and hear from your lawyer after.”
Something in his throat made it nearly impossible to speak. It took a few efforts before he managed it. “Please go. Please.”
He heard the couch groan as she got up. He felt her looking down on him. “You were my friend. I trusted you. I never dreamed you’d . . . Oh, forget it. Look, you might want to go back to your old school or, if you stay, find some new friends to hang out with, all right? Because I’m never speaking to you again.”
He nodded, eyes on the floor, on her feet walking to the front door.
“Good-bye, Aurelius.”
He whispered “Sorry” before she slammed the door.
Then he lost it. He tried very hard not to hug himself as he sobbed, because he didn’t deserve love from anyone, least of all himself. He cried himself out, lay there numb for a long time. Then he packed his things.
He arrived at Hogwarts on Christmas Day. He avoided the feast and waited for Snape at his dungeon door.
“How was it?” Snape asked, eyebrow raised. He unlocked the door and let them both in.
“Fine.” Aurelius pretended to take a great interest in the jars filled with solutions and bits of dead animals.
“Oh, come now, she must have appreciated my work. I assume you took all the credit, all your great powers lying at her worshipful feet.”
Snape studied the boy’s averted face. “Something is wrong. Why are you not—what is the phrase—glowing with happiness?”
He shrugged. “I’m not feeling well, that’s all.”
Snape looked grimly satisfied. “She gave you a piece of her mind, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Aurelius croaked.
“And then?”
“Then I called it off.”
Snape’s dark eyes revealed nothing in the silent gloom.
Neither of them moved for a moment, and Aurelius brooded on Dori’
s reaction. Her rejection.
He tapped his suitcase with his foot, impatient to do whatever needed to be done. “Anyhow, Professor, I have the deed to the house, and I went to Gringotts to transfer the gold, but they need my father’s signature because I’m underage. But I can take out the money in portions, over time.” He took out a bag of Galleons, which clinked on the table.
He blinked hard and looked furiously at the cauldron and not the man standing right there. “And, Professor, just so you know, your work was brilliant. She liked it a lot before I reminded her . . . Anyhow, I have my suitcase and can stay wherever you need me. I can be a servant and work off my debt, or whatever else you may want from me.”
The professor’s eyes still revealed nothing. “I see. No smuggled books, this time?”
“None. I keep my promises, Professor.”
“As I do mine,” he snapped, eyeing the gold with distaste, then pinning Aurelius with a look. “And you’re not writing ridiculous poems any longer?”
Aurelius paused. “Only one, on the train here. I’ll destroy it gladly. It’s just miserable garbage.”
“I will spare you the effort and take it now.”
With no choice, he gave him the poem from his book bag. It was a letter to Dori that he wrote as a poem. Snape glanced at the thing with dislike, but then to Aurelius’s embarrassment, read it silently.
And after that, he—
“Hold on!” says Mari. “What’s the poem?”
Franklin scratches his head. “The story never came with—er, I don’t have a poem.”
With a loud “A-HA!” Reeve waves his pen and clipboard above his head. “You confess the poem didn’t come with the story—the story you’ve been reading on your phone! Your guilt couldn’t be any clearer. Case closed.”
“Shut. Up,” Bryce grunts.
But Mari frowns. “But if it’s not Franklin’s story, who wrote it?”
“I did,” Franklin says, showing all his lower teeth.
“Still guilty!” Reeve sings. “If you wrote it, it’s not a new story. Case closed again.”
Mari plays Sherlock. “It could come from online. Or from someone at Southwark.”
“It doesn’t matter who wrote it,” Reeve says testily, “all that matters is that Franklin did not compose a new story and hence no longer qualifies.”