The Other Potter: Book One

Chapter Twenty: 'I think this line's mostly filler.'

[Chapter Twenty: 'I think this line's mostly filler.' Edited.]

In Charms, we were supposed to be making inanimate objects move. In my case, I made an orange spin like a top and catch fire. Ron's apple sliced itself into eights – he gave up and ate it. Hermione, of course, made everyone jealous, as her apple danced across the table top and took a leap of faith onto Ron's. Harry hadn't even attempted it, and sat there eating Ron's failure.

"Go on then! You try it!" Ron said to Harry, giving me déjà vu of our Halloween charms lesson.

Harry whispered the charm and his orange began to dance around the table.

"Dammit." Ron popped another apple slice into his mouth.

Deciding to experiment, I tried again to make my scorched orange dance. It took all my concentration, but my orange did start to. With my full efforts, it danced with Harry's, mimicking his every move.

"That's amazing!" Hermione exclaimed, drawing everyone's attention. The class had generally been as successful as Ron had been, except Lavender's had disappeared, Neville's had bounced over and hit Professor Flitwick in the face, and Seamus's had exploded.

"Willow, that is so cool!" Parvati whispered.

I was mumbling 'don't catch fire' under my breath, which was fine until Harry heard me. Because that led Harry to laugh. His laugh made him lose concentration, therefore his orange stopped dancing. His orange rolled off the table and hit me making me lose focus. My orange, already covered in charcoal, caught on fire again... with everyone watching.

Professor Flitwick only looked up when my orange was on fire, and promptly put out the flames.

Typical.

I spent my Saturday with a stupid counsellor. Her name was Jennifer Corpse, and she noted something down in her book when I mentioned that she had a depressing last name.

I was lying down on a leather couch, with one arm hanging off, and the other cast dramatically across my eyes. It was my attempt at emulating a character in Hospital Love. Corpse peered over her glasses at me from her perch on an uncomfortable looking stool. "How are you?"

"Alive."

"Emotionally, how are you?"

"Dandy."

"Are you really?"

"Are you going to second guess everything I say?" She made a note in her book.

"Willow, why did you try to kill yourself?"

She sure got straight to the point.

"Lots of reasons."

"Would you like to tell me any of them?"

"No, not really."

Ask me a dumb question, and I'm going to reply a dumb reply.

She noted something down again.

"Tell me, Willow, what is your relationship like with your father?"

"Wonderful." I decided to try and answer everything with one word.

"Please explain."

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"Complicated."

"Are you going to go into any detail, Willow, or are you going to give me one word answers?"

"Maybe?"