A Prohibition Against Sodomy and Sapphism

“Accio wand,” Hermione intones, wearily, half-heartedly outstretched hand wilting.

Silence—not that she’d expected any different. It has become more and more difficult to chant the words as the days have slurred by. It pains her to speak them now, emotionally and physically. She’s wrung-dry with it. And each recitation is yet another reminder of her recently-discovered inadequacy. She can memorize, but she can’t think. Accio—one of many spells in her rolodex of covetously-acquired facts. She can remember it, recite it, but she can’t feel it—not enough to summon without a wand—not when she’s already lost so much confidence in her innate abilities.

It’s just like in Divination—of course it seemed like a fraudulent subject at the time, that was before Hermione understood that magic is as much intuitive as it is intellectual. That magic isn’t just a fact to be memorized out of books, but it’s a feeling to be experienced inside herself. But there’s nothing in there. And if there is, it’s all stark, shivering shortcomings buried under a mountain of nominal achievements. And the reason she can’t summon her wand and the reason she can’t get a handle on her world is because outside of the clear-cut path of academics, she’s lost.

Now she realizes why she’ll always be the Thomas (doubting Thomas) to Harry’s Christ—she’s intelligent, but she’s not smart. She’s a fraud in the one arena in which she dared take pride. She can memorize and she can regurgitate, but what more is that than intellectual bulimia?—It’s worthless! She’ll never be smart. Intelligence is filling your head with facts, smart is being intuitive enough to apply them. Smart is having the inner resources to respond to life. Smart is openness to the external world and to her internal landscape. But she’s not—she’s closed. Hard as cinderblock and just as thick. Not a hint of intellectual porosity. As a result, magic has become a mechanical process, like so many cogs and wheels, prosaic as flipping on a light-switch—but now that her wand’s gone, her formula has sunk down the plug-hole, and she simply doesn’t have the talent to plumb herself out. And every time she repeats accio wand to reverberating silence she’s reminded of this deficiency.

And she’d performed wandless magic before—but her wand had always been there. Right beside her. Reassuring her that it would always be there to keep her safe. But what sane person would trust her life to an oversized pencil? And now it’s gone and she’s left with nothing but a cold, belated comprehension. She’d invested that stick with everything, but it’s a weak crutch for her bloated inadequacies.

--And those are just her intellectual limitations—staggering as they may be.

Physically, it seems, this reluctance has manifested itself somatically. So great is Hermione’s emotional aversion to the words that they’ve quite literally become increasingly difficult to say. Often, they are accompanied by painful spasms in her jaw that force her to grit her teeth to keep from screaming out. She hasn’t slept either. Not really. Perhaps she’s nodded-off, but when she does, it’s the troubled sleep that she wakes up from shortly after wondering if she’d slept at all.

Her leg’s gotten worse. Much worse. Her skin’s distended from the swelling, and underneath the ache has intensified to molten roiling. Hermione’s afraid to leave her room for fear that her parents will find out, which of course has led her to neglect her hygiene and to only dare steal scraps from the fridge in the haunted hours of the early morning—but she hasn’t had much of an appetite anyway. And they don’t bother her. For once their infuriating tip-toeing is working in her favor. All Hermione had to say was, “Your intrusions are impeding my grieving process.” Her mum hasn’t knocked since. But she hears them whispering in the hall. The harsh, crackling whispers that demand her surreptitious attention.

“...if she hasn’t killed herself yet…”

“…just grieving…”

“…going in there!”

“No!—not just yet.”

But she still worries—without her wand, she can’t heal herself, but that’s an insufficient excuse to have her wand returned. No, if her parents see, they’ll insist that she see a muggle doctor, but then the doctor will see whatever magical malady is affecting her, and she’ll be discovered and with the unscrupulous people in power, she’s afraid that she’ll end up in a cage, being meticulously taken apart molecule-by-molecule under an electron microscope. No, she can’t let them know. Besides, she’s dealt with much worse. After a cruel string of crucios from Bellatrix Lestrange, a few muscle spasms are barely noticeable.

War has prepared her for physical pain, even when it would beat any lesser person to the floor. No, it’s the emotional anguish that she’s been unprepared for. It’s the jumping out of her skin every time the phone rings, and the dark depression that replaces it when it’s not Becks. It’s the twitching distraction. The questions that swerve inward, bludgeoning as they hammer home. The shame. The doubt. The anger. The anger for being angry.

Becks hasn’t called back. She calls Becks’s mobile almost as often as she tries to summon her wand. But she won’t answer. Hermione’s become furious at the message. “—don’t just hang up.” She hasn’t once, even though she’s sure that her messages are ignored—that those painfully-weighed words are erased from existence the moment they’re recorded. And she can’t say the words that must be said, the true explanation that cringes from the world--How could you make me want you and leave me to sort it out myself!?

It’s not girls. She’s never liked girls. She’s sat up for hours, methodically scrolling through the faces of every girl she’s ever known and not a one kindles the barest spark of warmth inside of her. Disturbingly however, when she summoned the images of boys they all failed to produce any physiological reaction. Her body’s inert. Enlivened for a moment, like the withering paroxysm of electricity jerking a corpse to momentary life, but all illusory. Even the memory of Becks’ hands on her back (on her breasts) has become too worn to give her that stimulant jolt of pleasure that has been her only consolation these past five days.

But it only takes one exception to ruin a perfectly good scientific principle and that’s what’s been driving her mad. Well, many things have been driving her mad lately, but the idea that she could be a…like that—but she’s not, so that’s right out.

Of course she’s never been interested in Ron, but Ron’s an oaf. A good friend, but an oaf. What mature woman could want him? And now that she’s got a handle on what she needs, rather than what’s convenient, she could never want him. Storybook romances and first loves are all fine ideals, until you realize that the people you attach yourself to as a child are people that you would happily avoid as a grown-up. It doesn’t matter. In her bare room in Hucknall, all of that seems like a dream. Something she invented to make herself feel special, and now that she’s awake she can never feel that way again. Just the barest flickers of remembered joy that just as quickly smolder to bitterness. They make existing in this prosaic world all the more unbearable.

Hermione’s arms stabs out, “Accio wa—“ but a violent tremor seizes her arm, making it curl grotesquely inward and suddenly her body convulses in response. Her legs seize-up and she’s on the ground, racked with spasms, arching up as if her nerves had been torn out, gathered into a bundle and violently twisted and she won’t scream can’t scream—FUCKCUNTWANKSHIT!

When the convulsions release her, she falls limp, limbs akimbo on the floor—for a moment she’s sure a fire’s burnt out and she’s sizzling—and she’s hot—maddeningly hot—and she’ll breathe fresh air if she has to crawl to it.

[+]

The breeze momentarily cools the fire blossoming on her cheeks, but the heat runs bone-deep. The breeze falls, the air is so still she can scarcely believe she’s breathing it. That’s the trouble with air—it’s so unpalpable that you can never be sure that it’s actually entering your lungs or if you’re just sucking in a vacuum.

She could go in, turn on the air conditioning, but the enclosure of her house itself seems so stifling. All she wants is the freedom of no walls. Of being able to strike out in any direction. She’s never done much of that, and now’s an apt time to start. And isn’t that what they value in the muggle world? Innovation? Who says she can’t think for herself—she’ll start this very minute!

Left-facing, she strikes out across her lawn. Satisfied with the soft sinking of the nutrient-enriched grass beneath her feet, she decides to march across every lawn from her house to the end of the street. Yes, green green grass with darker green foot-tramples. There’s a field there, bare except sporadic patches of brittle, trampled weeds. Past the field is the school, and in the yard there’s a stark white looping trail painted on the concrete. Struck by a sudden fancy, she follows it to its end, which is unfortunately blocked by a plastic lunch-table.

Unsteadily, she climbs on—she feels light and shaky, as if she hasn’t eaten in days. She’s so hollow—if someone shook her she might rattle. But she feels a sense of conquest—as Hannibal must have felt when he’d crossed the alps. But Hannibal never saw Rome, and she can only see as far as the Tesco. She believes that the world’s round, but she knows that it’s flat. You can only know what you see—oh, she’s no better than fundamentalist Christians—How much of this world has she taken on credit!?—

Starting today she will know—she will be Descartes—no, bollocks Descartes—there is no God to guarantee the veracity of this life—only her, an animal with a faulty apparatus for taking it all in—

—She’s on the sidewalk again, tripping on the cracks where the tree-roots have broken through. Her feet are hopeless, dragging and stumbling clumsy as rubber.

There’s the Marks and Spencer. She’ll probably get a job there selling pop novels to functional illiterates. And The Herrick. An admirable, over-priced pub where she’ll drink Pimms and commiserate with all of the other good old working walking dead. The bus shelter, where she’ll catch the bus home, which ironically is too bare to shelter her from rain. It only shelters her from the sun that never shines, and when it does the last thing she wants it shelter from it, except now, now she wants snow, hail, sleet, anything to staunch the fever fire in her blood--

In the desert of her imagination, she sees a fluid mirage her parched lips would so love to kiss. A green gasp of fertility!—

Hermione’s arms fly out, thin flaxen stems grasping for God—

“—Becks!” she shouts with the abandon of a self-aware dreamer.

BAM! She crashes to earth with scorching inertia. Lucidity sharpens the scene, quick as a taurine shot in a sleepless body. Becks is real. Hermione is real. How did she get here? How long has she been dreaming?

“Hermione?...” Becks says apparently caught off-guard—Hermione can hardly blame her. She’d be caught off-guard if confronted by a crazy person. But Becks quickly gathers her composure. “How are you?” Her tone is so flat and disinterested that Hermione’s words rot in her mouth. Despite the heat, she’s begun to shiver, and she’s weak, so weak.

“I’m—fine. And you?”

“Fine.” There’s no vitriol behind them, just unacquainted blandness. Like strangers who’ve struck up on a conversation, but find that they’ve nothing to talk about. How could Becks touch her like she did and talk to her so distantly?

“Bus,” says Becks, indicating the bus rapidly gaining on the stop. There’s a scant hint of apology in her voice, but it’s barred from any further elaboration when she quickly looks away.

“Oh…I love you.” The words dribble out without her permission, but the relief Hermione feels almost compensates.

Becks says nothing, just stares intently at the approaching bus.

“I love you!” she cries, alarmed by her own desperation.

Becks turns away, squinting into the distance, as if impatient for the bus to convey her away from the awkwardness.

Frustrated, Hermione recklessly grabs Becks’s arm. “Why are you ignoring me?”

“Shut up, you’re acting stupid,” Becks whispers harshly, looking around nervously, even though they’re the sole inhabitants of this dingy old bus shelter—and to Hermione, they’re alone in the world—but to Becks everyone must be there, always watching watching…

“Acting stupid? I’m acting stupid!? You called me, you touched me, and you ran away and you at least owe me an explanation.”

“Just forget about it, ok?”

“No, I can’t just forget about it! I love you—and you’re a girl…” and saying it out loud all of a sudden makes it chest-real rather than head-real.

“No shit.”

“Tell me why!”

“You don’t want to hear it.”

“BLOODY TELL ME WHY!”

“FINE, IF YOU WANT YOUR CUNTING EXPLANATION SO BAD, YOU CAN HAVE IT! I WAS TRYING TO BE NICE! THE TRUTH IS, I DIDN’T EVEN MEAN TO CALL YOU—WHY THE HELL WOULD I CALL YOU!? I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOU! I DIALED THE WRONG CONTACT WHEN I WAS TRYING TO CALL MY MATE HELEN, AND I DIDN’T WANT TO BE RUDE WHEN YOU PICKED UP! AS FOR THE OTHER…THING, MY BOYFRIEND AND I JUST BROKE UP AND YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME! BUT WE’RE BACK TOGETHER! I’M NORMAL! I LIKE BLOKES! YOU WERE JUST THERE! SORRY YOU DECIDED TO GO OFF AND BE A LEZZY—JUST QUIT CALLING ME, YOU FUCKING DYKE!”

Her arm flies out, drawing the bus to an incongruously quiet stop.

Hermione watches as Becks boards, pays her fifty pence, and takes a seat at the front. The bus gently rolls off. She wishes that Becks would shoot up two fingers in her direction, but she’s not even accorded that small measure of acknowledgement.

Dazed, she stumbles home through the noxious fog of her reeling mind.

Once she’s staggered to the kitchen, she shakily tears through the drawers until she comes upon a book of matches and a set of tapered dinner candles.

She’d read about ancient magical cults. They performed magic without wands for centuries—it was never direct magic with a mechanical purpose, just general spells for a bountiful harvest, the birth of a boy, a curse on a neighbor--

The latter is all she wants. A curse. A curse more devilish than anything she could imagine. She sets the candles on the floor and shakily sits cross-legged before them. Quietly, she chants the old Celtic incantations:

“Plá ar do theach. Dóite agus loisceadh ort.
Plá ar do theach. Dóite agus loisceadh ort.”

And like breathing, if only she could feel the magic brushing against the walls inside her—

Shouting now, she rocks her body back and forward in time with the chant, creating a cadence that rapidly crescendos—

There it is!—Magic seizing her—her whole body cramps and crumbles to the floor, arms and legs spasming uncontrollably, knocking over the candles, banging into the cupboards with ripe-fruit thumps but no pain and no panic when the tablecloth catches fire like an unfolding flower—before the darkness clenches its fist over her eyes and DARK!