Chapter Text
She thought nothing of the jaunty tune of the Ring doorbell and kept scrolling Tiktok, lounging ungracefully on her bed. It was only when she heard Kate’s exclaim of surprise that she paused the video of a skincare routine, and listened. There was a low, murmuring male voice, and then Paul’s short, dry, laugh of disbelief. She rolled her eyes. They were so noisy, always having random neighbours popping round and chatting, and then they’d try and talk to her too and they were so boring.
But something about the talking, even though she couldn’t make out the words, sounded serious. Strange. There were no bursts of Kate’s annoying laugh or Paul trying to call her down to come and show her off, make everyone see what a kind and charitable man he was.
She crept out of her room and peered round the top of the stairs. Whoever it was had been invited into the sitting room; she could still hear them talking, could hear Kate and Paul’s gasps of shock and low voices in response. She knew, immediately, that it would be about her. She sat on the top step and strained to listen; there was something about school, something about a place… no, she couldn’t hear. She shuffled silently on her bum down to the next step, and then slowly the next, and the next, until she was three quarters of the way down, and finally she could hear.
‘Contact with Mum was supervised but stopped last year, and is no longer allowed,’ Paul was saying. ‘There could be a return to supervised contact eventually but it’s not looking likely any time soon.’
‘Dad?’ said the unknown man.
‘Not permitted any contact. Never will be.’
‘I see. And she’s been with you for…?’
‘A couple of months now - May, wasn’t it, Katie? Start of May?’
‘End of April, I think,’ said Kate.
‘It’s a short term placement,’ said Paul. ‘They’re looking for something more permanent, but pre-teens and teens are hard to place, obviously. We do stints of six months-ish usually with kids but social services are pushing us to take her on longer.’
The unknown man made a noise as though about to speak, and then there was a long pause. ‘But she’s been in the system since… five, you said?’
‘Yeah, various placements,’ said Paul. ‘Longest was a year and a half, I think. These things break down, you know.’
There was a very long pause now, and Billie heard Kate speak rather sheepishly. ‘We’re just not equipped for long term placements - please don’t judge us for-’
‘I’m not-’ the man said swiftly. ‘I just-’
‘Reunification is the goal for a lot of families, and that was originally the case here-’
‘Please,’ said the man, ‘I didn’t mean to upset. I was just surprised. There must have been a lot of placements.’
‘I think so, yes.’
Her heart was thudding. She knew exactly what this meant, what would happen now. She didn’t have a suitcase, so all her things would go in a bin bag and she would carry that. A flare of anger and resentment shot up within her, and she decided that she hated whoever was down there.
‘All right,’ said the man, with a slight sigh. ‘This… it’s all fine, it will just take a bit of careful planning and a chat with… maybe Hugo’s team… maybe someone at the SPMC… I-’ He paused again. ‘I think we have an eavesdropper,’ he said.
‘Billie?’ called Kate.
Billie started; how could he have possibly heard her? She hadn’t moved. That pissed her off even more, and she stomped down the stairs and scowled as she entered the sitting room.
Sat on the sofa was an old man she had never seen before. He had dark grey, rather messy, hair; the kind that must have once been black. His glasses were round, and behind them were very bright green eyes. His tired looking face was friendly. He wore an old fashioned sort of ugly brown suit, the kind that meant he was either a teacher or a social worker. She could see him taking her in; her matching Nike tracksuit set, her straggly blonde hair that she’d dyed herself out of a box, the nose piercing that she had also done herself at her last placement with a needle, an ice cube and a rubber.
‘Where’s Lauren?’ she said immediately. ‘I don’t want another fucking social worker. You can fuck off! And I’m not going anywhere neither! I haven’t done anything!’
‘Billie,’ sighed Kate, but the man didn’t look annoyed or even surprised.
‘I’m not a social worker,’ he said. ‘Please, Billie, take a seat. I have some exciting news for you.’
Her first, embarrassing thought was that she was being adopted, but she pushed that aside and sat, turning her phone over and over in her hand. ‘What?’ she asked him.
‘My name is Professor Potter, and I-’
‘You’re a shrink?’ she burst out, appalled.
He grinned. ‘No, no, don’t worry - I’m a teacher. I teach at a school called Hogwarts. We teach children with extraordinary talents, and we would like to offer you a place.’
‘I don’t have talents,’ she said. ‘I’m crap at school. I hate it. I’m on a table with all the div kids and have a teaching assistant with me.’
‘I’m not talking about traditional talents in reading or writing or maths,’ Professor Potter said. ‘Have you ever found that you can do unusual or strange things? Maybe when angry or scared?’
‘I don’t get scared,’ she said automatically.
‘Never?’ he said, raising his eyebrows and sounding impressed, though she knew he was teasing. ‘You’ll be in my house, then… How about angry? Anything strange ever happened when you’ve been angry?’
‘My weird things, you mean?’ she said.
‘Perhaps. Like what?’
‘Like… I knock people over, sometimes, without touching them. And… can open doors when they’re locked. Or lock them when they’re open. And…’ she felt a bit breathless, thinking about it all. ‘There’s been times when… when things have disappeared. Like… just vanished… But everyone says I lie about all that. That I just stole them things. I’m a liar.’
‘I don’t think you’re a liar,’ he said kindly. ‘You’re not lying about those things, are you?’
‘No.’
‘No,’ he echoed, shaking his head with a small smile. ‘No, Billie, you’re not lying. You’re magical. You’re a witch.’
She stared at him for a moment, and then snorted with derisive laughter. ‘Fuck off.’
‘Language, Billie,’ said Paul, but she ignored him.
‘Like, cackling, pointy hat, green skin-’
‘Well I’m not sure about skin colour, but the pointy hats are sometimes worn for special occasions, and you’re free to cackle if that’s something you’d enjoy.’
‘What are you on about?’ she said, still laughing. ‘You’re mental, mate.’
‘It’s true. The school I teach at is one of witchcraft and wizardry, where we will teach you to control and use your talents to do magic.’
‘Are there cameras in here? You’re playing some messed up trick on me?’
‘No, no cameras. I know it’s a lot to take in.’
‘You’re being really weird. This is a really weird joke.’
‘You want some proof?’ he asked. He pulled out a long, wooden stick and gave it a swish and flick.
The heavy books on Kate’s coffee table lifted up, and hovered in the air.
‘What? How’re you doing that?’ she said. Paul and Kate looked astonished too, staring at the books with open mouths. Billie swiped her hand above and below the books to look for strings, but there was nothing.
‘You’re using magnets or something,’ she accused him.
‘No,’ he said calmly, and he waved his stick again. The three books separated, and landed neatly and individually back on the table. Then he waved his wand again, and Kate’s stupid little tealight candles lit, with real flames, then extinguished with another sweep of his stick.
The three of them stared at him.
‘I must be ill,’ said Paul.
‘Go on, Billie,’ said Professor Potter. ‘Ask me to do something, then you know it’s not a trick.’
‘Turn Paul into a frog,’ she said.
‘Well, I won’t do that,’ he said, though he was still smiling. ‘That wouldn’t be kind. But…’ He picked up one of the tea light candles on the table, and held it in his palm. Frowning slightly, he tapped his wand to it, and right in front of her, it changed into a little green frog, which hopped from his palm and landed with a soft plap on the table. It’s throat pulsed, and the eyes blinked. The wick of the candle stuck out the top of it’s head.
Professor Potter sighed. ‘I’ve never been fantastic at this kind of transfiguration, to be honest, it’s one of the trickiest branches of magic. Something else - something I’m better at. Not animals, too complicated.’
She stared at him, blinking. ‘I can’t… I don’t even…’
‘What’s your favourite flower?’ he asked. ‘I’m good at those.’
‘I haven’t got a favourite flower.’
‘Dahlias,’ suggested Kate. ‘They’re mine.’
Professor Potter nodded, and twirled his stick. A bouquet of red and orange flowers, crowded with petals, blossomed from the end. He grabbed them, and handed them to Kate.
‘Oh my God, they’re real,’ she whispered, brushing the petals.
‘They’ll last a few days if you put them in water,’ he said cheerfully.
‘I can’t do that,’ said Billie, who could smell the flowers' sweet fragrance. ‘I just… knock people over, I can’t-’
‘Well not yet,’ said Professor Potter. ‘That’s what the school is for. There are classes in many kinds of magic, some you’ll be good at, some you won’t, but you’ll find what you enjoy. There is a whole world of magic, secret from your own. You have probably met witches and wizards before without realising it - passed them on the street or in a shop. But we have our own school, our own hospital, shops, government, bank, a village or two… There are many thousands of us. We’ll teach you to be part of that, if you want.’
She stared at him, and then back at the flowers, and the frog. ‘Are you being serious?’ she whispered.
‘I am,’ he said. ‘But Billie, I should tell you - if you do decide to join the school and the wizarding world, you must understand that it is secret and you are not permitted to tell anyone about it. It’s the law and the consequences for breaking it can be very severe. I have known people be expelled from school for it. Your foster parents must know, of course, but no one else. No friends or relatives, no matter how much you think you can trust them.’
‘Why? Why is it all so secret?’
‘Ah, for long, boring and historical political reasons,’ he said. ‘You’ll learn all about it in History of Magic.’
‘How’s this going to work with social services?’ asked Paul. ‘We have to make regular reports, she’s visited by her social worker often, there’s-’
‘We can handle all that,’ said Professor Potter smoothly. ‘We have an entire team at our Ministry that can smooth over the more complicated arrangements. You probably would have to commit to being long term placements for her though, at least for school holidays.’
‘She can stay at the school?’
‘It is a boarding school.’
‘A boarding school?’ Billie exclaimed. ‘I’m not going to some poncy boarding school full of posh kids, isn’t there a normal one?’
‘Just the one, I’m afraid. Posh kids, poor kids, all the kids in between. It is really spectacular, though, and free to attend. Up in Scotland, a castle.’ He hesitated, and when he spoke again it was very gently. ‘I did not grow up in care, but I was raised by people who were not my parents and were not particularly affectionate. Hogwarts very much became my home. I think it might become that for you too.’
‘I’d sleep there? All the time?’
‘Yes.’ He looked at her intently for a few moments. He had very piercing, searching sort of eyes, and she felt bizarrely as though he could see right through her, that he might know all her worries and fears, that he might have an idea of things that had happened to her.
“You will have your own bed in a dormitory with a maximum of four other girls,’ he continued. ‘You will share a small bathroom with them and then there are larger bathrooms elsewhere in the school too. You will eat all your meals in the Great Hall with your friends, as much or as little as you like. There is also a small cold cupboard in the common room for you to access snacks at any time. You must go home during the summer holidays but Christmas and Easter you can stay if you wish. You will have your own trunk to store your belongings. This can be locked. There will be a timetable for your week, but your weekends are your free time.’ He pulled out a thick envelope, upon which she could see her name and address written in emerald green ink. ‘This is your offer letter and list of school supplies. I will escort you to the magical shops where you can get your wand and other specialist things. There is a fund at the school so I will be able to pay for these for you.’
‘I just…’ sighed Paul, rubbing his hand over his big bald head. ‘Sorry, mate, I just… Have you got, like, a DBS or anything?’
‘A…?’
‘DBS,’ said Paul slowly. ‘Disclosure and Barring Service. A DBS certificate.’
‘A criminal record check,’ clarified Kate.
‘Oh! Er, no.’ He saw their alarmed faces, and grimaced. ‘We… we operate on entirely different systems, I’m sorry. I haven’t been in non-magical society for decades now. I can assure you I’ve had background checks and so on.’
‘We can’t just let her go off with a random man, even if he can make frogs out of candles,’ said Paul, in what Billie thought was the strangest sentence she had ever heard.
‘Quite right,’ said Professor Potter. ‘You’re both more than welcome to come with us to these shops, and then on the first of September you will take Billie to Kings Cross train station, where you will see many others on their way to school.’
‘Can’t we come and view the school first?’ asked Kate.
‘I’m sorry, there are enchantments on it so that you wouldn’t be able to see it even if I brought you there.’
They were all silent, staring at him.
‘What do I tell my friends?’
‘You can tell them you’re going to boarding school. You just can’t mention the magic part.’
‘It’s just… mad,’ she said.
‘Look,’ he said kindly, ‘I was once sat where you are now. I know it’s overwhelming. But it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I loved Hogwarts. So much so that I went back to teach eventually. You’ll be all right. You’ll love it.’
***
She would not love it. It was fucking stupid. A week later he returned and drove them to London where she found out just how stupid it was. She had to wear the stupidest uniform she had ever seen, like some kind of Halloween costume. She’d had to be measured for them, and when the little old lady had dressed her in them she’d looked at Professor Potter and told him that she wouldn’t be seen dead in these and to take her back to Kate and Paul’s because magic or not, there was no chance of her ever wearing this shit.
He’d seemed to find this very funny, but assured her that everyone would be wearing these. This had not reassured her, nor had the other embarrassing nerdy things that she’d had to buy, like weighing scales and a telescope, and huge thick textbooks.
One good thing was that Professor Potter had bought her a pet. He’d offered to get her an owl, and explained that they would deliver post for her, and she had replied that no one writes letters anymore, she wasn’t a Victorian. That was when he’d hit her with perhaps the worst part.
‘Phones won’t work at Hogwarts. They won’t work in Diagon Alley either, or in any households where magic is cast regularly.’
‘What?’ she said sharply.
‘Nothing electronic will,’ he said. ‘I bet you’ve had no messages while we’ve been here, have you?’
It was true; her phone was usually buzzing near constantly; she had plenty of friends at school. If it wasn’t Whatsapp messages, it would be notifications on Tiktok or Snapchat or Insta. Kate and Paul kept putting parental controls on her phone and deleting social media apps and blocking websites but she kept using VPNs and tricks to get around them. Everyone did. But in the half an hour they had already been in Diagon Alley her phone had remained silent in her back pocket. She took it out, and looked at it.
The error message read: ow! I don’t like it.
‘My daughter in law has one to keep in touch with her family,’ Professor Potter said, ‘but there are so many magical households in her village that she has to walk right out to the woods every time she wants to get some signal. All the muggles that live there just think it’s a dead zone and regularly complain to the phone companies about it. You’ve got no chance in Hogwarts, you’d have to walk miles out.’
‘It might do you some good, Billie,’ Kate said. ‘It’d be nice to write to us, and if it’s boarding school you’ll have lots of friends around you so-’
‘What about my friends here?’ she said. ‘I’m not writing to them, that’s so weird! And, what, no Tiktok? No YouTube? What am I supposed to do all day?’
‘You could take up knitting,’ said Professor Potter.
‘Are you having a fucking laugh?’
‘Yes,’ he said grinning. ‘You’ll have loads of stuff to entertain you - you’re going to a magic school, Billie. I do have to tell you that we’re not that fun, though - swearing is not permitted.’
He had slightly cheered her up by buying her a cat. She had never had a pet before, though some of the foster homes she’d lived in had. She’d met many cats over the years, and while some of them were friendly, none of them were as instantly bonded to her as this one. She acted more like a dog, uncommonly affectionate. There was no need for a basket; she trotted lovingly along at her heels, her fluffy tortoiseshell fur brushing against her heels.
‘What are you going to call her?’ Professor Potter asked.
‘Doja,’ she replied.
‘Oh, nice,’ he said, clearly not getting the reference at all.
The most interesting purchase was her wand. She came out with one made of holly, with a unicorn hair core.
‘My wand is holly too,’ said Professor Potter, pulling his out and comparing them. ‘It’s lasted me a very long time. Lovely loyal wands.’
After they had finished, Professor Potter drove them home.
‘People kept staring at us,’ said Billie. ‘In the street.’
‘I noticed that,’ said Kate. ‘But I suppose it’s like Professor Potter said, isn’t it? Everyone wears those robes, they were probably interested in your jeans.’
‘Ah, no, sadly I can’t blame muggle fashion there,’ said Professor Potter, glancing at Billie in the rearview mirror. ‘Don’t worry, it was me they were looking at. I’m quite well known in the magical world.’
‘What, like, famous?’ Billie asked.
He hummed, still apparently concentrating on driving. ‘Yeah, fairly.’
‘What for?’ asked Kate, and Billie was glad she had asked because she was dangerously close to pointing out that she had never heard of a famous teacher, and he didn’t look anywhere cool enough to be a celebrity.
‘Er… there was a war, sort of, back in the 90s, and I was… involved quite heavily. All calm now, though.’
‘Involved how? Good side or bad side?’ asked Billie.
Professor Potter gave a bark of laughter. ‘Well, history’s written by the victors, isn’t it? But good, I like to think.’
‘Did you kill anyone?’ asked Billie.
‘Billie!’ gasped Kate, turning in the seat to look at her reproachfully. ‘What kind of question-’
‘It’s all right,’ said Professor Potter. ‘No, I didn’t Billie. Not really. But I’m credited for putting an end to things, more or less.’
‘Ah, politically?’ said Kate knowingly.
‘Sure,’ he said.
‘You look too young to have been a politician in the nineties,’ said Kate.
‘Well thank you,’ he said politely.
When they got home, Billie began taking all her new things up to her room. It was a hot summer day, and Kate must have failed to notice that Billie’s bedroom window was open slightly, overlooking the driveway. On that driveway, Professor Potter stood leaning against his car, and Kate was talking to him.
‘-She’s a lovely girl, really, beneath it all. And clever, too, just hasn’t had a consistent enough education.’
‘I can see that,’ he said. ‘She’s sharp. Funny.’
‘She’s also very difficult. She’s had a lot of suspensions, her school kept telling the council that they couldn’t meet her needs, but there was never any place in any where suitable.’
‘Suspended for what?’
‘Well she just gets so angry. Attacking people, trashing classrooms, stealing things… She can be unkind - she doesn’t mean to be, it’s all-’
‘A defense, yeah,’ he said.
‘To tell you the truth, we’ve really struggled. It’s not her fault, but…’ she sighed heavily. ‘When we signed up for this we agreed to look after babies on a short term basis and we’ve ended up with an eleven year old for months.’
‘Children do have that annoying habit of growing up, don’t they?’ he said. There was something a bit cold about his voice.
‘She’s a good girl, really,’ Kate said. ‘She’s just been through an awful lot. I’d like to do more, we’re just too old really, to deal with her when she’s in a rage. I just… want your school to be prepared for that.’
‘The school can handle trauma,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not sure we will meet again but I will write. Are you set for September? Did you understand my instructions?’
‘Yes - thank you.’
He left, and Billie buried her hands into the thick, soft fur of Doja, wondering how long it would be before Hogwarts asked some kind of magical council where else she could go.
***
On the train, the other children were absolutely staggered that she had met Professor Potter and that he’d taken her shopping. The other first years seemed to think he was the coolest man who ever lived.
‘He was just a nerdy old man,’ she said.
‘Nerdy old man?’ said one boy incredulously. ‘He defeated the Dark Lord You-Know-Who, and the dark wizard Quirnius, and loads of others - and his son defeated Gnaeus the Necromancer!’
‘I don’t know who any of those people are,’ said Billie. ‘Anyway he told me he never killed anyone.’
‘That’s one of the reasons he’s so amazing,’ said another girl. ‘He’s clever at it. And he came back from the dead. I hope we get him as Defence professor this year - that other one, Bosley, apparently she’s all right but you want the Chosen One really, don’t you?’
‘My big brother is in Celeste Lupin’s year,’ said one of the boys, ‘you know, his granddaughter, and he said that she says that-’
‘How do you lot know all this?’ she burst out. ‘No one’s told me shit!’
Some of the nerdy kids looked shocked at her language, but a couple looked gleeful.
‘It’s all right,’ said one girl. ‘My family are muggles too, but my older brother is a wizard so he’s told me a lot. Here’s what you need to know.’
***
She was sorted into Gryffindor, which was Professor Potter’s house, as he had predicted. The whole Sorting process had been weird and embarrassing; she’d had to walk in front of hundreds of kids and put on an ugly, burnt hat that talked. But she couldn’t help but feel thrilled that she was here; in an actual castle, like a princess. She had never been in a castle before, but she was sure that this one was better than all the others. The portraits on the walls talked, ghosts drifted the hallways, food magically appeared in abundance on the table. At the feast she laughed with her new friends, and ate and drank her fill, and slipped some food into her pockets to stash away for later. When she looked up at the high table, Professor Potter was in cheerful looking conversation with the Headmaster, Professor Longbottom.
At the end of the meal, a Prefect called Dora Lupin led them to Gryffindor tower, up twisting stairs and past hundreds of moving portraits, and suits of armour that saluted them as they passed.
The Common Room was beautiful; red and gold and with dreamy views out the arched windows. She didn’t even mind that there was no telly or wifi yet, because it felt a bit like being on some kind of fancy holiday. Her dormmates were nice, though she felt very aware that they already knew so much about everything whereas she knew nothing. She also stuck out with her strong Essex accent. Even so, she felt a glimmer of excitement; having been shopping with Professor Potter gave her gossip to fall back on, something that made her interesting, and others were keen to explain things she didn’t know. She’d always been good at getting other kids to like her, even if it was clear that part of it was that other kids knew that they shouldn’t be friends with her, because their mums disapproved.
She should have known it was too good to last though. Places like this weren’t for the likes of her. It was all posh bullshit, really. She knew she wasn’t paying but other kids probably were and they’d realise and bully her for it. The classrooms were weird, too - the desks were old and she could see they were expected to use feathers instead of pens and dip them into ink, but it was especially stupid because she’d never even got her pen licence at primary school and had only ever used pencils with a special grip.
The very first lesson, Charms, was where it all went wrong.
‘Open your text books to page four,’ said Professor Goldstein, ‘and read through the structure of the incantation carefully. As you read, visualise how the movement of the spell aligns with the incantation, and think carefully about where the emphasis should be. When you think you know how the pronunciation matches the wand movement, raise your hand.’
Everyone else was opening their books and flicking through pages; Billie looked left and right and then copied them. The writing was tiny, in two columns across the page. There was a diagram showing a wand movement. She tried to read the words. Her knees bounced. Sound it out. Sound button the words.
The… ch… ar… mm… charm. The charm for l… e… v… i… t… ah… levihtah… l…
Her knee was bouncing rapidly. Her eyes were stinging. Next to her, Meera already had her hand up, her reading complete. Looking around, loads of other people did too. She raised her hand too.
‘Miss Rowbory,’ said Professor Goldstein, and her heart sank. ‘What are your thoughts?’
She swallowed, and lowered her hand. Everyone was staring at her. ‘I was just stretching,’ she said.
‘Come now, you must have a thought. Give it a go. I never expect perfection.’
She glanced around again, and shook her head at him. ‘Can’t remember,’ she said.
‘Well we’ll work it out together,’ he said kindly. ‘Read it out, and I’ll pause you at the relevant bits.’
She looked down at the book. Her head was swimming. ‘The… ch… charm… for…’
They were sniggering, the other children. She could hear her heart in her ears.
‘She can’t read,’ she heard one of them say.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Professor Goldstein, and his condescending tone sent fire through her veins, ‘someone-’
‘Just fuck off!’ she shouted, and she stood and stormed out. She could hear the shocked gasps and laughter as she left, and slammed the door behind her.
She had no idea where she was going, just that she wanted to be away, far away, from them, and reading, and kind teachers who meant well but just ended up utterly humiliating her all the time. Professor Potter had said this school wasn’t about reading and writing, that it was about stuff she was good at, and she was here and she was still crap at everything.
She found an empty classroom and she went in and turned over a desk. She swept books and piles of parchment off the side, kicked the wastepaper basket across the room.
‘I say!’ exclaimed a portrait of a man with a stupid little moustache.
‘Miss Rowbory,’ came Professor Goldstein’s voice, and he had followed her, and was standing in the doorway with a frown on his face. ‘You need to-’
‘Just fuck off! I told you, fuck off!’
‘OK…’ he said heavily. He muttered something complicated sounding, and a burst of silver shot out of his wand and zoomed away down the corridor. ‘I’m going to leave you here to calm down, someone will join you shortly. But I will return to my students who want to learn.’
‘You’ll be out on your ear, girl,’ said the portrait, as she tried to rip it off the wall. ‘He’ll have called the Headmaster, you know.’
‘Shut up!’ she roared. ‘I don’t give a shit! I hate it here anyway!’
Other portraits were becoming crowded, all the figures inside rushing to have a gawp at the scene, vanishing and returning with friends. When she realised that she could rip none of them off the wall, she threw things at them instead.
‘Whoa, what’s going on in here?’
Professor Longbottom had arrived, with Professor Potter. They entered looking mildly surprised but not particularly bothered, their eyes sweeping over the mess as though it were a funny little blip in their day.
‘Billie’s been redecorating, Professor Longbottom. She thinks we’re too old fashioned here, isn’t that right, Billie?’
‘You can fuck off as well!’ she shouted at Professor Potter. ‘You’re such a liar!’
‘Is he?’ said Professor Longbottom. ‘What’s he lied about?’
‘He said it would be good here, and it’s not, it’s shit - I hate it! It’s all weird and posh!’
‘Something really frustrating must have happened in charms to get you this angry,’ said Professor Potter. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing, it was just really boring! Just like you - you’re boring! Everyone’s banging on about you being famous but you don’t even know who Doja Cat is!’
‘Well that hardly seems fair,’ said Professor Potter. ‘I can’t help being famous any more than I can help being boring. Anyway, I thought she was your cat that Kate and I bought you?’
‘No - fuck - she’s a rapper! You’re so stupid! You don’t know anything!’
‘Ah… well that’s more Neville’s area. Sorry - Professor Longbottom.’
‘I am very hip,’ said Professor Longbottom, over pronouncing the ‘p’.
She couldn’t help it; she laughed and shook her head. ‘You’re both… really lame.’
'Lame?' repeated Professor Potter. 'I haven't heard that one in years. Is it back in?'
‘Oh, I thought we said mid now,’ said Professor Longbottom. ‘That’s how Davey Philips described your lessons to me, Professor Potter.’
‘Typical. Right, Billie - let’s pick all this up. Tell me what happened.’
She did so, allowing them to help her lift the desks back into position, putting crumpled parchment back into the wastepaper basket Professor Longbottom held out, and Professor Potter vanished up some spilled ink.
‘So Billie,’ he said conversationally, ‘when we met, you told me that you sat on a table with a teaching assistant. Was that to help with reading?’
She sniffed and nodded. ‘I had phonics interventions,’ she said. ‘On and off.’
‘Why on and off?’ Professor Longbottom asked.
‘Because then I had to keep leaving school and stuff, didn’t I? And it takes them a while to notice you need them.’
‘Didn’t take long this time,’ said Professor Potter playfully.
‘I wonder if that was the issue today?’ said Professor Longbottom. ‘That you couldn’t read the work?’
‘That lesson was stupid - it was too complicated. I’m not doing it.’
‘Now you really liked it when I made those books levitate. Don’t you want to do that?’
‘Not if I have to do loads of reading.’
‘Listen, we can help you with your work, and make sure all your teachers are aware and do this discretely. But this kind of thing - it can’t happen.’
‘You can be angry,’ said Professor Longbottom, ‘but you’re in secondary school now, even if it’s a magical one. You’re going to need to find another way to express that anger, because we cannot tolerate this sort of response. It’s not fair on the other students, or my staff.’
She nodded, feeling incredibly stupid. ‘Yeah… everyone thinks I’m a weirdo now, don’t they?’
Professor Potter shrugged. ‘Maybe. But they’ll get over it. Honestly this generation of magical children could do with being a bit less sheltered. Let’s just avoid making a habit of it. I would like you to apologise to Professor Goldstein, though. He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t know. He was trying to help.’
From then on, classes were still difficult, but got a little better. Her work was adapted, and there was more emphasis on the practical side of things, and Professor Goldstein accepted her apology warmly.
She endured a bit of teasing from the other first years initially as they goaded for a reaction, and then the cold shoulder as they decided whether or not to be scared of her, but Billie had had many years of practice at this, and had learnt that if she kept being friendly and making people laugh, they forgot how she had embarrassed herself yelling at teachers. Sometimes they were even impressed by it.
Her favourite teacher by far was Professor Potter, and much of this was because he was not afraid to banter with her.
‘When am I ever going to use this in real life, Sir?’ she groaned.
‘Ah, you might not, Billie, but one of the smart kids might,’ said Professor Potter.
‘Shut up, Sir!’ she said, outraged but laughing. She wouldn’t have got away with saying it to any other teacher, she knew it, but then no other teacher would have jokingly insulted her intelligence either. ‘I’m very clever. I bet you don’t even know who Megan Thee Stallion is.’
‘No, and I never will. Come on - you may well actually need to use a duelling stance in real life one day, believe it or not. Arm up.’
He could be stern though, when pushed. In the absence of signal or anywhere to charge it, she couldn’t get her phone out in class, but she found other ways to rebel. He confiscated her chewing gum seemingly the moment she thought about reaching for it, took points for her paper airplanes, or for calling out, or swinging on her chair. Sometimes she tested him too much and was flat out rude and then he’d take points in a very bored sort of way. Despite her agreement not to storm out and trash things, old habits die hard, and when some bratty little shithead tried to make fun of her in potions for being unable to read the instructions, she yanked on her hair, knocked over her cauldron, then left the dungeon in a rage and kicked a suit of armour - repeatedly. While it cowered.
‘Oi,’ said Professor Potter, striding down the corridor. ‘Cut it out - get off.’
She thought for a moment he had pulled her off the armour, but when she looked up he had his wand trained on her and was several feet away.
‘That brat Ally Crepuscolo - I hate her, she’s a bully-’
‘All right,’ he said nodding, but still looking pissed off, ‘and is she in the armour?’
He gestured to the trembling suit of armour picking itself up off the floor.
‘No,’ she said resentfully.
‘And has doing this made the situation better? It’s turned her into the victim now, hasn’t it? So who wins?’
She glared off down the corridor in the direction of the classroom, where she was sure Ally was tearfully recounting to a crowd of supportive friends her brutal attack.
‘Pull yourself together, Billie,’ Professor Potter said. ‘You’ve lost yourself ten house points and earned a detention.’
‘She should lose points, she should get kicked out-’
‘I have a lot of empathy for you, Billie, but that stops when you hurt others,’ he said sharply. ‘I have a duty of care for all the children in the castle, and that includes Miss Crepuscolo.’
When she had her detention with him, he was a lot more sympathetic. They polished the suits of armour together and he listened as she told him how she had spent half of year one and the entire of year two out of the classroom, off timetable.
‘They’d just stick me with some LSA making stuff out of cardboard or doing forest school or something, but they’d get sick of me and all.’
‘So you missed all the early reading lessons,’ he said. ‘And writing.’
‘Yeah. And then some rich kid like Ally just thinks it’s ‘cos I was lazy or something.’
‘Ally’s never going to really understand what she didn’t experience,’ said Professor Potter. ‘She should be kinder but you can’t beat people into having empathy for you.’
‘I didn’t beat her,’ Billie snarled back. ‘She’d know about it if I beat her, I’ve got experience in beatings.’
He looked at her oddly with his piercing eyes, and seemed to be about to say something, but then placed the newly polished visor back on a suit of armour.
‘Would you like an additional tutor?’ he asked. ‘To catch you up in the basics?’
‘I’ve had loads of interventions, they clearly didn’t work-’
‘I meant more dedicated. With the same person each time. Someone who’s really good at it.’
‘Oh, do you know any good teachers?’ she said dryly, and his laugh was genuine.
‘I have someone in mind,’ he said, still chuckling.
***
At the start of October, a Prefect delivered a message that Billie was to go and see Professor Potter in his office at half past five.
She did so, wolfing down her dinner and easily lying to her friends that she had a detention.
‘What for?’ they asked.
‘Ugh, for bloody nothing, all the teachers here hate me,’ she said.
When she arrived, Professor Potter was not alone. With him was a tall, pale, blond man, with pointed features and pale blue eyes. He looked like one of those people that became models because they looked weird in an attractive way.
‘Billie,’ said Professor Potter, ‘this is Scorpius. I’ve asked him to come and help you. He’s going to come after work for an hour on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.’
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Billie,’ said Scorpius. He sounded really posh, so she decided she didn’t like him.
‘What kind of stupid name is Scorpius?’ she said.
‘What kind of girl is called Billie?’ he retorted.
However, when Professor Potter left them to it, she very quickly decided that she actually did like him. ‘Girl,’ he said, leaning forward conspiratorially, ‘give me the gossip. Is Professor Potter making lessons up on the spot? I bet he is, isn’t he?’
‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘When I’m bored I ask him how this was useful in the war and that usually buys me a few minutes of not having to work. He goes off on tangents.’
His eyes widened, and his grin broadened. ‘Merlin, he’s right, you are sharp. Figured him out in a hot second, didn’t you?’
He did an assessment, and they started on recapping phonics sounds. He was patient, and funny, and quick to praise. After twenty minutes of phonics he pulled out lined paper and they started constructing sentences of things they could see around the room.
‘Capital,’ he said. ‘If you’re writing ‘I’ on its own, it has to be a capital.’
‘I prefer it like this, it’s more aesthetic.’
‘Because you’ve put a heart instead of a dot?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Charming, but wrong.’
‘Are you a real teacher?’ she demanded.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I just share in the tutoring rota for my nephew and it turns out I’m really good at it. I’d go and do it full time for the fun of it, but I have an expensive lifestyle and teachers are supposed to survive on a sense of reward and a couple of sickles, I hear.’
‘Are you getting paid for this?’
‘No, not at all - outrageous, isn’t it? I told Professor Potter I don’t come cheap, but he wouldn’t listen.’
And so, every other day, with concentrated effort (for she did find that she wanted to try now, something she had never been bothered about before), her reading began to improve. She liked Scorpius very much, and she liked his sense of humour.
‘What should I tell people? About what I’m doing every other day?’
‘I shouldn’t really encourage this, but that’s an excellent opportunity for a “your mum” joke,’ he drawled.
She clocked, too, that he was gay, and poked and prodded with personal questions until he sighed and said, ‘just ask, Billie.’
‘You gay?’
‘Bi,’ he clarified. ‘Married to a man. Is that a problem?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
‘Makes you more interesting.’
‘Was I boring before?’
‘Yeah,’ she lied.
He looked at her shrewdly. ‘How did you guess? Usually I get away with it because of the posh accent.’
‘You’re really camp,’ she said bluntly.
‘What’re you, like twelve? How do you know what camp is?’
‘Eleven until June,’ she said. ‘And from Tiktok - do you know Tiktok? I miss it so much.’
‘No.’
‘You’d love it,’ she said, and then rambled at him until he raised a hand.
‘As enthralling as this is, we are meant to be looking at alternative spellings for the sound ‘ai’.’
‘Like in gay,’ she said.
He stared at her, clearly trying not to laugh. ‘Yes.’
‘And slay, Queen.’
‘All right.’
‘And heyyyy!’
‘This is bordering on homophobic.’
She liked him, and told him that if she ever heard anyone being homophobic she’d give them a slap. He said he appreciated this but advised against it.
***
The worst thing that happened was just before Christmas. The final Defence Against the Dark Arts class before Christmas had been a fun one, and very practically based. They’d practiced duelling stances and protective manoeuvres by sending sparks at one another, and every now and then Professor Potter had chucked a firecracker near them to make them jump and change position. ‘Constant vigilance!’ he’d shout, if they just squealed and giggled.
As they were packing up, Billie went over to his desk. ‘Sir, are you staying at school for Christmas?’
‘I’m not, I’m afraid, Billie,’ he said. ‘My children are coming round, and the grandchildren too. I’ll be in for most of the Christmas break to keep on top of things, but you’ll just have Professor Longbottom, Madam Abbott, Professor Goldstein, Professor Trelawney… er, who else…? Possibly Professor Sprout, I’m not sure… on the day itself, and Christmas Eve. Should be good fun though, there’ll still be a feast.’
‘Oh,’ she said.
He did up the clasps of his messenger bag, and swung it over his shoulder. As he did, her eyes fixed on a photo on his desk, just visible because of the tilted angle. She could see a bunch of dark haired people waving at the camera, crowded round a big table.
‘Are you heading to the hall for lunch?’ he asked kindly. ‘I’m going that way.’
‘Yeah,’ she said vaguely.
He came round the desk, and they began walking together. He held the door open for her, and then walked alongside her in the corridor.
‘Are any of your friends staying for Christmas?’ he asked.
‘Not really… Luke in my year is, but I don’t know him that well.’
‘Good chance to get to know him,’ said Professor Potter cheerfully. ‘I always enjoyed my Christmases here, I never went home.’
‘Why not?’
‘Similar reasons to you, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Have you heard from Kate and Paul?’
‘No,’ she lied hotly. ‘They don’t give a shit about me anyway-’
‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.
‘Just obvious, isn’t it,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘No one does-’
‘Ah, Billie,’ he said gently, but it was too late, she was seeing red.
It was like she was out of control of her own body; she began attacking him, thumping him with her fists and trying to kick at his shins, limbs flying and body twisting like she was a feral cat. She couldn’t really see anything except the front of his robes and just knew that she wanted to hurt him.
She was distantly aware of him saying something, low and calm and reassuring, but she was yowling and shouting and snarling, and suddenly she found that her elbows were pinned to her sides, Professor Potter on her left, Professor Longbottom on the right, their hands gripping her arms in a way that was both firm but reassuring and made it impossible, no matter how much she tried to flail, for her to hit either of them.
‘Walking to nearest classroom?’ Professor Longbottom was saying.
‘Yes, for beanbag hold,’ said Professor Potter.
She was trying to shake herself from side to side, still screaming and shouting incomprehensibly as they walked. Though her feet were still on the ground - they weren’t lifting her, as such - she found herself moving with them.
‘Removing a hand to cast,’ Professor Potter said.
‘Can you cast left-handed?’ said Professor Longbottom, impressed.
‘Desperate times,’ said Professor Potter cheerfully. A beanbag magically appeared, and they turned her, and somehow made her sit in it, each of them either side.
‘Billie, I’m holding on to you to keep Professor Potter safe,’ said Professor Longbottom. ‘I can’t let you hurt him.’
‘Take some deep breaths, Billie,’ said Professor Potter. ‘It’s all right.’
Eventually, she stopped shouting. Her shoulders slumped. She breathed heavily. She realised that neither Professor was holding onto her anymore, but she wasn’t sure when they had let go. She was sitting on a beanbag in an empty classroom. She could hear chatter and walking feet beyond the classroom door, which was ajar.
‘Sorry,’ she gasped. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Professor Potter.
‘Please don’t expel me,’ she said.
‘You’d have to do better than that before I expelled you,’ said Professor Longbottom. ‘Professor Potter’s had too much experience in being attacked to be bothered by that.’
‘It’s true,’ said Professor Potter. ‘You all right, Billie? Just feeling miserable about Christmas?’
‘Why’s everyone going home?’ she demanded tearfully. ‘Just to be with their - f-families and stupid, embarrassing shit like that. It’d be more fun here. Stupid bastards.’
‘You have a choice here,’ said Professor Potter. ‘You can put your all into having fun with those staying at school, or you can return to Essex with Kate and Paul and catch up with your old school friends. You can’t control what others do, only the decision you make. Here will have a Christmas feast, a small number of people, peace and quiet. Essex will have Kate and Paul, whatever they like to do for Christmas, electronics - that thing you’re always telling me about on your phone, Ticking Tock or whatever-’
‘TikTok,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, amused. ‘I can’t fix rubbish Christmas options for you, Billie. But you can’t attack me for it.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ she said. He was not the first person she had cared about that she had attacked. Indeed, there reached a point where the more she liked someone, the more likely she was to hit them.
Both Professors were casually shuffling away, she realised, so gradually she had hardly realised. She wiped at her eyes and stood. ‘I’m really-’
‘You don’t need to apologise again,’ he said. ‘You’ve got quite an arm on you. Next year you should try out for a Beater position.’
Professor Longbottom tutted. ‘Well let’s not give her a weapon, maybe?’
‘Quidditch discipline’s exactly what she needs,’ said Professor Potter grandly. ‘Come on, Billie, let’s head to lunch. I’ll forgive you if you let me explain the rules of Quidditch to you.’
***
After Christmas, Scorpius opened their first tutoring session together with a beam and an amused glint in his eye. ‘Here she is,’ he said. ‘Managed what so many could not. Very impressive.’
‘What?’ she said, sitting heavily in the chair beside him.
‘A little owl told me that you beat up my father-in-law.’
‘Professor Potter’s your father-in-law?’
‘So it’s true! You did!’
‘I didn’t,’ she muttered. ‘Him and Longbottom restrained me.’
‘Spoilsports,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘He told us over Christmas dinner - said you pack quite a punch. And he’d know, you know, he’s received a fair few.’
‘Can we just get on with it?’ she said irritably. She felt unusually embarrassed about the whole ordeal.
‘How was your Christmas in the end?’ he asked, opening up the folder.
‘It was actually really nice,’ she said, surprising herself. ‘Sometimes I was a bit bored but Luke and me went out on broomsticks a lot. We had a go at some of the Quidditch stuff. And the food was good. And there was snow - I’ve never had a snowy Christmas before.’
‘Nice,’ he said approvingly. ‘Right - split digraphs today.’
And so life continued at Hogwarts, and she found that Professor Potter was right; there were things she was good at. She was good at flying lessons - and she’d always been good at P.E at school, so that was hardly a surprise - and she was good at Herbology. She was good at Defence Against the Dark Arts, but thought that was probably because she tried really hard in it, desperate for Professor Potter’s approval. She hated Charms, hated Transfiguration. History of Magic was all right because she could just sit and listen to Professor Binns drone on, she didn’t have to actually do anything. She ought to have been good at Muggle Studies, and she was fine in the discussions, but so much of it required essay writing and she angrily pointed out that she didn’t need this stupid fucking lesson anyway because she knew it all and it wasn’t her fault that everyone here was too stupid to know what electricity was.
That earned her another detention, this time with Professor Durward, who sat silently at her desk while Billie chipped gum off the undersides of the tables, some of which she had put there herself.
In March, she turned up to her tutoring session with Scorpius to find someone else there. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded before greeting him, even though it was plainly obvious who he was from his appearance.
‘My name’s Al,’ he said. ‘Scorpius isn’t feeling well, so I said I’d cover-’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Nothing serious, just a bad cold. He’s in bed with steam coming out of his ears.’
She looked suspiciously at the man who was clearly Professor Potter’s son, including the green eyes and messy hair, though his was a lot darker. ‘Well you might be a rubbish teacher,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I could well be. Shall we find out?’
He was more serious than Scorpius, so she decided that she didn’t like him. He was boring, just like Professor Potter.
When he tried to get her to write a sentence including a fronted adverbial, she told him this.
He grimaced at her. ‘Do you really think you’re the first to tell me I’m like my dad? I’d like to order a more original insult, please.’
Now she was annoyed at him for suggesting being like Professor Potter was an insult, even though she had intended it that way. ‘Professor Potter’s sound,’ she said sourly. ‘Not like you. You’re still really boring.’
He looked at her, with the same sort of gently amused expression Professor Potter always had, and then said, ‘I know Scorpius is more fun.’
‘Are you his husband?’ she asked. ‘He said Professor Potter was his father in law.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
She stared at him, trying to work him out, her eyes trailing over his robes and the fancy, confusing watch on his wrist, the rings on his fingers, the glint of a silver ear cuff under his messy hair.
‘Here’s a fronted adverbial for you,’ she said at last. ‘Bored out of her mind, she looked at a man too old to still be dressing like a goth.’
He nodded slowly, still with that same gentle amusement. ‘You gonna write it? It doesn’t count unless you write it.’
He’d passed her test, and she decided she quite liked him too.
***
The next day, at the end of Defence Against the Dark Arts, Professor Potter called her over. ‘I’m sorry Scorpius couldn’t come yesterday evening,’ he said, looking at her in a very piercing way. ‘He’s said he should be better for tomorrow.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s all right.’
‘How did you like Al?’
‘He’s your son,’ she said.
‘That’s right.’
‘Is he the one that defeated that… that guy? People have told me about it. I don’t know. I can’t remember. Some dead guy.’
‘I think you’re thinking of Gnaeus the Necromancer,’ said Professor Potter with a slight smile. ‘And, no, that was my other son. Albus is an astronomer.’
‘That’s so nerdy,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.
Professor Potter grinned. ‘I know.’
She shrugged again. ‘He was all right though. I liked his ear cuff thing.’
Professor Potter nodded and looked at her carefully, then took a breath. ‘I’d really like you to start writing essays, Billie.’
‘Ugh, Sirrrr…’
He ignored her rolling her head back, and continued talking. ‘You’ve made so much progress that I think they should be accessible to you. We’ll ease you in though - Al was always pretty good at essay writing, and I’ve spoken to him and he’s happy to come by every week to help you. We’ll just start with Defence ones for now. He was never brilliant at Defence, but that’s not the bit you need help with.’
‘That’s four hours a week of my personal time on extra lessons!’ she said furiously. ‘No one else has to do this bullshit!’
‘Neither do you,’ he said. ‘It’s entirely voluntary. D’you want to stop?’
Other kids were starting to comment. Saying it was detention wasn’t working anymore, because she plainly did not get that many detentions. She had got a detention for throwing an ink bottle at someone who suggested she was getting anger management lessons. She’d defaulted to Scorpius’s suggested joke of ‘your mum’ a few times. But it was getting a bit embarrassing. She’d admitted to a couple of her friends that she was getting extra tuition, but hadn’t told them what for.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I need it, don’t I?’
She found herself thinking about her interventions in the last few years of primary school. Outside the classroom in the corridor, sitting at a desk with a bored looking teaching assistant. Endless flashcards. They’d have stupid little cartoon pictures on them. A picture of a ring for the sound ‘ing’. A queen for ‘qu’. Cherries for ‘ch’. Books called things like ‘It is a Fox’ or ‘Food From the Farm’ or ‘Dragon in the Jam’, all of which were clearly for little babies.
But then there was Scorpius, treating her like a grown up, chatting with her, making your mum jokes, getting normal books and just helping her decode them as they went. And Al too, he hadn’t even bothered with reading anything, they’d just written their own sentences about whatever they wanted.
And she found herself thinking, bizarrely, quite out of nowhere, how they hadn’t looked bored or annoyed at all, not even a little bit, not even when she was rude to them.
I need it, don’t I?.
The amused little smiles, the calm voices, the banter, the not feeling like they were forced into being there. The daring idea that they might actually want to be there. No one was making them do it, it was entirely voluntary, for everyone involved.
I need it, don’t I?
‘Yeah,’ said Professor Potter. ‘I think you probably do.’