Author Games: The City of Gold

Finals: Elspeth Anne Ladds

The way I see it, everything has rules, but that doesn't mean they need to be followed.

Sometimes, it's better to break them, if it means that someone will gain something. When I set off three Dungbombs in one corridor to make sure that Tristan, Yasmeen's crush, would run into her, that was justified in my mind. I've played pranks for selfish reasons, too - to get out of doing Charms homework, to take revenge on someone who'd said something - or was rumoured to have said something - about me, or to simply cause havoc.

Of course, there's always the messes I've made trying to actually help others, try to improve the greater good.

The only one I can think of is the fight with Mr. Weseka - no, I tell myself fiercely, like I do nearly every day, it wasn't him, it was El Dorado controlling him. You saved Mr. Weseka. He wouldn't hurt you.

Someone had hurt Alejandra, though.

I squeeze my hand into a gentle fist, releasing the tension slowly as I let my eyes open. It still scares me to think that it could have been me who never came home.

Perhaps it should have been.

Survivor's guilt, they called it - thinking that you should have died in the place of someone who had. I hadn't known Alejandra, but surely she was a better person than me - me, who'd been disobeying all rules but my own since primary school. Me, who'd done every trick in the book and then some. Me, who'd broken my own rules.

It was for the better, El. You can't live life following those stupid rules all the time. It's not living if you have to stop every few seconds to make sure you're in line with your own brain.

Yes, sometimes it was better to break the rules, especially the ones that were keeping you hostage inside boxes of clean-cut lines and one, two, three.

Most of the time, though, it was much better to follow the proper rules.

This is one of those times.

I wait outside Professor Dannel's office for the first time in months, letting my feet swing freely, the tips of my shoes scraping the stone hallway. The gray walls match the gray stone bench I'm perched on, my hands gripping the sides tightly, as if I'm going to fall.

Lately, it feels like I'm going to fall even when I'm lying down.

Psychological trauma, they called it - at least, that's what the shrinks said. Wizards are quite bad at these sort of things, so Dad took me to a muggle therapist, explaining only the barest details so he wouldn't ask too many questions - it was a school trip, there was an accident, some of El's classmates were badly hurt, she's very shaken up, and could you take a look at her brain to make sure she's not mad?

He didn't say that last part, but he was implying it. Ever since I've got back, they've been treating me like I'm made of glass, fragile enough to shatter at any given moment; though, it's not unwarranted. I did make them get rid of everything gold in my room, including my Nan's earrings.

"Just for a little while," I'd told them, staring at the ground, where I didn't have to look at the sunlight reflecting off the golden hoops and remember the light that shone through Mr. Weseka's eyes. "Just until I'm ready."

"And when will you be ready, sweetie?" my mother had asked, her soft brown eyes sad, her voice trembling only slightly. She was better at hiding it than I was - I couldn't speak without shaking and stammering.

"I- I don't know."

I had told them I was ready to go back to school, for the summer term at least. They'd sent what felt like hundreds of owls to the school after that, figuring out schedules and exams and whether or not I'd have to do anything, but I didn't care. Anything to get out of the house, where I was stuck with my mother, who acted like she could only touch me with white gloves on.