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9 November 1992
Delia Creevey woke up that day with an uneasy feeling in her gut, though she couldn’t put her finger on why. It was a Monday quite like any other. Samuel slept like a baby through the obnoxious ringing of their alarm clock at one o’clock in the morning, and she had to prod his ribcage several times to force him out of bed. By the time he was dressed and ready for the day, he was a half-hour late for his first round of milk deliveries, as usual; Delia heard him swearing under his breath as he barrelled down the staircase to their front door.
Delia busied herself with breakfast and other chores as she waited for her husband to come home. At seven o’clock, she went back upstairs to wake Dennis for school. Her nine-year-old groaned and grumbled as he dragged himself to the loo; Delia rolled her eyes at him, reminded strongly of her husband.
“I don’t understand why I still have to go to school,” Dennis mumbled a few minutes later, as he sat down at the kitchen table. “I’ll go to Hogwarts like Colin, won’t I?”
“Well, we won’t know that until you’re eleven, will we?” Delia tutted. She set a bowl of porridge in front of him. “Besides, magic school or not, you’ve got to keep exercising your brain. I’m sure even wizards have to learn something before Hogwarts.”
“But Mum, what’s the point? On Friday, Miss Adams told us that we can’t make objects fly, ’cause of gravity. But Colin learned how to do that last week—he wrote about it in his letter, remember?”
Delia had no response to this, so she settled for tapping her watch and looking pointedly at her son. Dennis let out a huffy sigh and shoved a spoonful of porridge in his mouth.
All things considered, Delia felt it was a miracle that she managed to see her son off to school and get all of her morning errands done before her husband came home from work that afternoon. She was putting away the groceries from the market when she remembered the anxious feeling she had woken up with that morning. She frowned, pausing with her hand over a sack of potatoes. Had she had a bad dream? She couldn’t remember, she’d always been rubbish at remembering her dreams…
Shaking her head, Delia reached into a nearby cupboard and pulled out a saucepan to begin making lunch. She had just turned on the stove when she heard the jingle of the front door. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Sam stump into the kitchen from the foyer; he pulled off his coat, looking frustrated and tired. Her heart sank.
“Not another one?” she asked quietly.
“Two,” Sam said in a bitter voice, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table and sinking into it. He buried his face in his hands for a moment, then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. “The Grants and the Turners.”
“Oh, no,” Delia murmured, turning the stove down and coming to stand next to him. Gently, she reached out and prised his hands away from his face. He met her gaze, swallowing heavily. She brushed a lock of his mousy brown hair off his forehead, and he closed his eyes to her touch.
“Sorry,” he whispered gruffly.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she told him firmly. “I was just at the market, I saw how cheap it was there. You can’t be expected to compete with that.”
“How can we continue like this?” asked Sam. “Jack is thinking about quitting—maybe I should, too.”
“Give it another year or two,” she advised him, walking back to the stove. “Who knows how things will look then? This plastic could be a passing fancy. Your milk bottles are tried and true—it takes time to see what’s a fad and what isn’t.”
Sam was quiet for several moments. When Delia glanced over her shoulder again, she saw that he was smiling at her.
“What’s that look for?” she asked him, eyebrows raised.
“You sound just like Dennis when you talk like that,” he said fondly. “D’you know, he cornered me after dinner last night and asked if he could stop going to school? Went on and on about how everything he’s learning is useless, that gravity can’t be real—not if Colin can make things fly, now.”
“He tried the same thing with me this morning,” Delia sighed. “That boy won’t rest.”
“Wonder if they’ve got magic lawyers,” Sam said, grinning. “Dennis could get paid for arguing all day and night.”
“Well, I suppose Colin needs someone to keep his head out of the clouds—not that I think Dennis will be any better about it all if he gets into that school, too, mind you,” Delia huffed. “Speaking of which,” she turned and shot her husband a sharp look, “we’ve got to stop talking to Dennis like he’ll be going to Hogwarts like Colin. You heard what that professor woman said in June—it’s not a sure thing with brothers and sisters. We won’t know about Dennis until—”
“Oh, come off it, Dee,” Sam scoffed, leaning back in his chair. “There’s no question—our boys are both magic. It all makes sense now, doesn’t it? All those odd things the two of them got up to when they were little.”
“Yes, but still—” she broke off abruptly, looking around. There was a soft tapping sound at the kitchen window. An enormous, handsome-looking owl was perched on the windowsill.
“And speak of the devil,” Sam said happily, jumping to his feet and hurrying to the window. “About time he sent another letter, innit? God, Dee, look at the bird he’s sent this time—it’s so posh.”
Delia smiled in spite of herself at the ringing note of excitement in her husband’s voice. If she had been a little suspicious and wary when that professor had dropped in unexpectedly over the summer to invite Colin to Hogwarts…well, she supposed Samuel had more than made up for her initial lack of enthusiasm. He had been exactly the opposite—utterly astonished and delighted. If Delia hadn’t known otherwise, she might have thought her husband was the one who had been accepted into magic school.
“I hope he’s finally stopped following that Harry boy around with his camera,” Delia called to her husband, without turning away from the stove. “Poor lad looked absolutely mortified in that last photo Colin sent—”
“Delia.”
Delia whirled around. Her husband was gazing down at the letter he had disentangled from the owl with an expression of undisguised horror. Delia dropped the ladle she was holding; the knot of anxiety returned to her stomach in full force.
The Creeveys jumped up from their ratty old sectional in unison as a knock sounded at their front door. White-faced and grim, Sam stalked into the foyer and pulled open the door; Delia followed at his heels.
Professor McGonagall looked exactly the same as she had the first time Delia had seen her, just five months ago—tall and draped in emerald-green robes, her black hair pulled back in an immaculate bun. The only difference was her expression: Though it was as stern-looking as the last time Delia had seen it, there was a heaviness in it today that had not been there before.
“Mr. and Mrs. Creevey, I’m so very sorry,” the professor said.
And just like that, the painful knot in Delia’s stomach seemed to lodge itself in her throat, and her eyes burned with tears. “How did this happen?” she demanded, her voice tight. “How—how could you allow this to happen?”
“I promise, Mrs. Creevey, I’ll explain everything to you inside,” said Professor McGonagall. “For the sake of everyone’s safety, I don’t want to risk us being overheard.”
Delia opened her mouth to argue, but Sam reached out and squeezed her shoulder. She looked at him; there were tears in his eyes, too, but he was looking at her imploringly.
Delia swiped impatiently at her eyes, then gave the professor a stiff nod, stepping aside. The three of them trooped back into the sitting room, taking seats along the sectional.
Professor McGonagall glanced around the sitting room for a moment, then looked at Delia. “Your younger son?”
“He’s at school down the lane,” Delia said sharply, “where the worst thing that’s ever happened to him is a few scrapes on his knees.”
“Dee,” Sam said quietly, but Delia silenced him with a glare.
The professor closed her eyes for a moment. When she faced the two of them again, her jaw was clenched. “As I mentioned in my letter, your son was found petrified on a staircase, near the castle’s second floor. I want to assure you, Mr. and Mrs. Creevey, as I did in my letter, that Colin is still alive—”
“Still alive?” Delia gasped. “But that makes it sound like…” She trailed off, unable to say the words out loud. Sam’s hand tightened around hers.
“What d’you mean, he was found…petrified?” Sam asked hoarsely. “What does…how did—?”
“He’s still alive,” Professor McGonagall said again, and Delia was seized by a sudden urge to scream at the woman. She felt her hand tremble in her husband’s. “But he has been rendered immobile and unresponsive—”
“For the love of God, say it plainly, please,” Delia snapped.
“It’s as though he’s been turned to stone,” the professor said, sounding pained. “He can’t move, can’t speak. He’s been completely paralyzed.”
Delia barely heard Sam’s low groan over the ringing in her ears. She felt hot, angry tears rise to her eyes once more. “How did this happen?” she asked again.
The professor was quiet for a long moment. “I’m afraid we don’t yet know.”
“Who at your school is capable of doing something like this?” Delia demanded. “Who would hurt a child? ”
“We don’t know,” said Professor McGonagall, and for the first time, Delia heard her voice falter. Delia let out an angry sob, standing up from the sofa.
“Let us see him,” she said shakily. “Let us bring him home, he’s only just eleven—oh, Sam, he must have been so scared…”
“I…am so sorry,” the professor said, “but I’m afraid I can’t let you bring him back home. Madam Pomfrey, our school matron, has insisted that Colin remain in the Hospital Wing for observation until we can give him a restorative draught—no non-magical hospital would be capable of properly treating his condition—”
“When will this draught be given to him?” Sam interrupted hopefully.
“Our potions master believes he can have it brewed within six to seven months, once the necessary ingredients have matured—”
“Six months? ” Delia’s voice cracked. “Our son will be paralyzed for six months? How can he—how will he ever be the same?”
“I assure you, Mrs. Creevey, that our potions master is very capable. I am confident that his restorative draught will have Colin completely back to normal.”
“Well, then, you must let us see him,” Delia insisted. “Until he’s back to normal, you must take us to visit him. How can you expect us to sit around for six months, knowing what’s happened to him, knowing that he’s…he’s all alone?”
The corner of Professor McGonagall’s mouth trembled for a moment, then thinned again. “I will speak to the headmaster about arranging some way for you to visit your son.”
“Why must it be arranged?” Delia snapped. “Surely, with all your magic, it can’t be so hard to take us both back with you to Scotland—”
“Hogwarts exists under hundreds of thousands of security measures, to prevent it from being accessed by non-magical folk,” the professor explained heavily. “Believe me, Mrs. Creevey, I am not being intentionally difficult. When I myself was a teenager at Hogwarts, my father, who wasn’t magical, was told he could not visit me in the hospital after I suffered a serious sports injury. But things have changed since I was teenager—I am confident our current headmaster will make it his foremost priority to find a way for you to see Colin. I will write to you once he has a plan in place.”
Delia lowered herself back onto the sofa next to her husband, covering her face with tremulous hands. A long silence unfolded over the sitting room.
“Why…why Colin?” Sam croaked. “Why was it him? Why did they hurt him, whoever it was?”
“Once again, we can’t say for sure,” Professor McGonagall said quietly. “But we have reason to believe that he was targeted because he is Muggle-born—it’s a term we use for students who come from non-magical parents. Historically, in our world, biases have existed against such students, but as a school, we stand firmly against instances of any such prejudice.”
“Let me be sure I understand you,” Delia said, her voice shaking. “You’re telling us that Colin was targeted at school because we’re not magic—and yet, the reason we can’t bring him home is because we’re not magic?”
For the first time that day, Professor McGonagall did not seem to have a response. Delia buried her face in her husband’s shoulder and sobbed.
Delia was curled up under her covers rereading Colin’s most recent letter from school when Sam came back to their bedroom from seeing Dennis to bed.
She immediately set the letter aside, sitting up straight. “How did he—?”
“Took it surprisingly well. Asked if Colin would be all right, of course,” Sam said tiredly, sitting down next to her on the bed. “Then, he made me promise I’d bring Colin his favorite quilt when we visit him at the school—the one your mum made for him, remember? With the red lorries.”
Delia’s chin trembled. “Oh.”
Sam gazed at her. “He also asked if he and Colin would still be allowed to go to Hogwarts.”
Delia closed her eyes. “Sam—”
“Come on, Dee, how can we ask them to give up who they are? How can we ever expect them to be happy if we don’t let them be magic?”
“How can you still be so obsessed with all this magic nonsense?” she demanded. “After everything that woman told us, after our son was hurt? ”
Sam’s eyes filled with tears, and Delia felt her fight leave her in an instant. All the anxiety she'd felt in the last twenty-four hours washed over her again, and she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder before he could see her own tears.
“I thought he’d finally be able to get away from it all, in his magic world,” Sam said hoarsely, his voice muffled against her neck. “How stupid am I, Dee? Here, he’s the milkman’s odd son, and there, he’s the magic boy from non-magic parents. How could I have thought—?”
“Oh, Sam, don’t,” she begged, squeezing her arms more tightly around him. “No matter where he is, he’s still our boy, still our sweet Colin…”
Sam let out an agonized sound that sounded as though it had been wrenched from his chest.
Just then, there was a knock at their bedroom door. Delia startled, drawing back from her husband. She looked at him, and he nodded, already turning away from the door to wipe his eyes. Delia hurriedly wiped away her own tears, then called out, “Come in, sweetheart. It’s unlocked.”
Dennis poked his head into the room, taking in the scene; his eyes landed finally on Sam, who was still turned away from the door. “Dad?”
“What’s the matter, son? Did we wake you?” Sam asked, turning around finally to face the room. His voice was too bright to be believable; Delia was sure that Dennis noticed. His young, wide eyes flitted between the two of them a few times.
Then, he closed the door and slunk into the room, toward the bed. “Can I…could I sleep in here tonight?”
Delia looked at her husband, who shrugged back at her. She turned back to Dennis, smiling for the first time in what felt like years. Her cheek muscles ached from it. “Your choice, sweetheart. You know how early your father’s awful alarm will go off.”
But Dennis was already scooting up the bed, into the narrow space between his parents’ pillows. Sam caught her gaze and gave her a small smile. At nine years old, Dennis, though easily the smallest boy in his class, was too big to comfortably fit in their bed; the boys hadn’t crawled in next to their parents at night in ages. But Delia knew neither she nor Sam would be sending Dennis back to his room tonight. She had resigned herself to a sleepless night the moment that letter had arrived at the kitchen window.
“Budge up,” Sam joked, giving Dennis a little poke in the ribs as he climbed under the covers. Dennis laughed, trying to poke his father in return but, chuckling, Sam caught Dennis’s fingers and pulled him into a hug instead. Laughing softly, Delia flicked off her bedside lamp and slipped under the blankets next to her son and husband.
She closed her eyes, trying not to think about the empty space on the bed between Dennis and herself—forcing herself not to imagine her boy, his expression frozen in fear as he lay in a hospital bed, hundreds of miles away.
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and thought instead of the last few sentences from Colin’s latest letter home.
I love it here, Mum! I can’t wait till Den’s here too. I was scared I would fall behind since I didn’t know anything about magic before Hogwarts, but I think I’m doing all right. I made a feather fly with my wand last week! I was the second one in my whole class to do it.
I love you, Mum. Tell Dennis and Dad I miss them. I can’t wait to see you all at Christmas!
Colin xx