Gideon Drake and the Fire Within (Harry Potter Sequel/Spinoff)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Seeing Red

Gideon continued to stare into the mirror, moving it around to catch the light in different ways, to the point where Madam Longbottom began to give him a questioning look. He couldn't understand it. His perception might still be off but there was no mistaking it. Both eyes were the same shade of blue, somehow neither light nor dark, but deep like the ocean.

Gideon had always preferred his green eye with its hazel corona. However, so long as both eyes matched, he supposed it was an improvement. The odd contrast of his heterochromia with his dark hair and fair complexion had always been the real problem.

His newly matching eyes and parted hair gave him a symmetry he had never possessed. It was a small change really, but to Gideon the difference was striking. He was seeing himself in a new light. A better light. The boy in the mirror was still pale, short, and skinny, but he didn't look odd.

'Is everything okay?' asked the matron with concern in her voice.

'Did you do something?' he asked quietly, finally returning the hand mirror.

The matron looked confused. 'How do you mean?' she asked.

'My eye...' he replied as if no further explanation was required, but the matron showed no sign of recognition. 'It used to be a different colour.'

'You mean the bruising?'

'No. My left eye. It was green! I had heterochromia.'

'The eye I have been treating has always been blue, Gideon,' she said sceptically, 'and your treatment information from St Mungo's didn't mention anything about heterochromia.'

Gideon's mind began to race. If what the matron said was accurate, his eye hadn't changed recently. It would have been so since his hospitalisation. Since the Dementor attack.

Grimsby had confirmed that the attack had triggered the release of his magic. Could that be connected to his eye changing colour? If so, was it possible that his heterochromia, like the seizures, was another symptom of his magic trying to escape? Or perhaps it was something more? What if it was the cause?

'I can look into it for you if you like?' the matron offered.

'No. It's fine.' Gideon assured her. 'Thank you for everything, Madam Longbottom.'

Gideon slowly made his way back to the Common Room deep in thought. It was late and the corridors were mostly clear of other students. He was sure that Madam Longbottom could uncover proof of his eye condition. However, he suspected her search would end there, with a simple medical explanation.

Gideon now believed there was more to it, something that wasn't going to be uncovered so easily. It kept coming back to him that his magic had to be released. That implied that it wasn't simply dormant, but that it might have been sealed. Sealed by someone or something. He couldn't help but wonder, what if his left eye had been evidence of that? What if it was a curse mark?

Maybe he was jumping to conclusions, but it seemed to fit, just as all the other pieces of the puzzle had. Gideon didn't know much about the subject, but he, like most children in the wizarding world, had grown up hearing about the most famous curse mark of all. The lightning bolt-shaped scar of The Chosen One—The Boy Who Lived.

Harry Potter's scar was supposedly the result of surviving the Killing Curse as a baby. He had been attacked by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Did that mean Gideon had been cursed by someone? Did someone try to kill him as a baby too? Was that what Grimsby was hiding? Was it some kind of Ministry security issue that he couldn't discuss? Gideon shook his head. That didn't seem to fit.

What he did know, was that he was born magical and that something had happened to take away his magic. His eyes had been mismatched for as long as he could remember. If there was a connection and his eyes changed because of the release of his magic, then something must have been done to him when he was very young. Maybe it was something to do with his birth mother?