Of Blessings and Curses

Chapter Three: The Case

Light shines through the window as the sun comes up. I am not in the Ravenclaw dorm, even though the walls are blue, and I am certainly not at home. 

The clock next to my bed looks rather bored. Seriously, 5:07?! How am I, Heidi Ravenclaw, up at this ungodly hour? I feel perfectly fine and alert, partially because of the slight time change of about one hour, so to me it feels like around 6:30r. I'm also pretty sure that most of my current chemical makeup is adrenaline and excitement, if excitement can course through your veins like adrenaline does. Grabbing my trunk that I have not yet bothered to unpack, a sudden realization strikes me. 

This is my life. This is not a vacation or an internship or an excursion. I'm here indefinitely. I'm here for the rest of my life, if all goes well. I've packed as many clothes as I can (my trunk has an undetectable extension charm on it, but it also has a lightening charm on it so that I don't pull a muscle trying to carry it), my Ravenclaw scarf, and a pair of dirty old boots that I've had for forever and a day. They miraculously still fit because I stopped growing when I went to Hogwarts, making me about five feet and seven tenths of an inch tall. Every millimeter counts! For some unfathomable reason, I packed an ugly pair of flats that I'll never wear (I didn't even bother to pack my one, broken pair of heels. I broke them on purpose, but don't tell my mother that! I shoved them under my bed at Hogwarts, hoping that the house elves would find them and use them for kindling.). 

I do not miss home. For the first few years of my life, I was completely normal--nothing off-putting at all. I went to all of the family banquets, learned all of the history, had practically memorized that family tree, even though I could barely talk. But in a large, strictly pureblooded family like mine, Magizoology was not (and never will be) a viable career option. My dad didn't approve, since he wanted me to become a potions master, like he was. My dad was a Slytherin. I'm a Ravenclaw because of my mother. She convinced him to take her last name, which I'm sure she was thankful for after he...

But I can't think about The Incident now. Not now, not ever. I think my parents really knew that I was too far gone when I taught myself to ride one of the Thestrals in the forest (I could see them after my second cousin once removed died when I was three) and decided that it would be a marvelous idea to make a club out of it. Not my best decision. That got me teased through some of first year, so I disbanded the club. There were only two members anyway. One was me. One was the Thestral, whom I named Temmi, short for Mortem, which is 'death' in Latin. Considering that I was five feet tall, nerdy, and the butt of most jokes, you would think I could come up with a less morbid name. But Temmi seemed to like his name, so I stuck with it. I only began to hate my own name, specifically my surname in first year. 

It's difficult to explain how damaging and, frankly, embarrassing it is to walk into a room and have hushed whispers and a-bad-kind-of-curious glances thrown at you from every which was. I was used to hearing accusatory mutterings. But I was not used to handling them alone. No brothers or sisters, no parents, no cousins or uncles or aunts. Completely alone. But, as the year progressed, I began to see that as an opportunity to delve deeper into Magizoology. I spent hours in the library or the Forbidden Forest while everyone else was with their friends. But, surely enough, the name "Ravenclaw" seemed like more of a curse than it did a blessing. Every time I showed an interest in Magizoology in front of other people, the older kids started shifting in their seats and looking worriedly at each other while the teachers would cut me off every time I tried to say something that I found interesting. 

After a particularly horrid day in Charms class that included but was not limited to Janet calling me a know-it-all, Graham's hair catching fire, and Christopher blatantly advising all of his friends to "stay away from that freak, she's probably obsessed with Grindelwald," Professor Bagnold pulled me aside to ask me what my family thought of my "interests." I told him yes, of course they knew, but what does that have to do with anything? Why do people think that I support Grindelwald? And that was when I learned that an interest in Magizoology almost immediately marked a person as suspect, someone who would use "monsters" to wreak havoc. The kind of person who would join Grindelwald as soon as they left school. 

I learned a lot in first year. 

As I unpack, I change into a white button down shirt underneath a navy blue, cable-knit sweater and medium gray pants. I hang my tan overcoat by the door.

I finish unpacking, and head out into the living room, not quite sure what to do with myself. I've no idea where Newt is, but as I walk into the kitchen, I see a plate of food with a ripped piece of paper next to it. Obviously, Newt is also an early riser. At first I was starving, but as soon as I read the note, my stomach starts to churn as if I'm demonstrating the Wrongski Feint in a stadium filled with Quidditch stars. It's just one word.

"Case"

Oh, Merlin. That case has been the object of my imagination for as long as I can remember, and now I'm actually going to see the real case. The real case. Young Heidi would be so proud. I'm sweating bullets, now evaluating my entire life--am I actually ready for this? Have I gotten my hopes up too far?

But where is it? Yet another question. There's a room that I noticed last night past Newt and I's bedrooms, so I can only assume that the case is in there. I was too tired to ask about it or investigate, but now I think I have to. Heart pounding, stomach percolating, breath catching in my chest, I walk up to the door, and it's like every other in the house: brown with a brass doorknob. It opens easily, and inside is something even beyond my wildest dreams.

It's a little bit bigger than the kitchen. It's similar to a greenhouse, bookstore, and apothecary all crammed into one room with plants and vines wrapped around teetering towers of books, potions glinting like jewels in the sunlight streaming in from a large skylight on the ceiling. Some plants have grown tall enough to brush the ceiling, and one particularly determined vine has covered a small portion of the skylight, casting a shadow. There's a faint smell of something rotting, but it is overpowered by the smell of plants. Daisies and dandelions create bright patches in a sea of leafy green, but I recognize some more magical (and possibly illegal) plants as well, many of which have grown to the point that they seem to have taken over the room. The walls and floor are barely visible. Newt must have placed an enchantment on the door to keep the vegetation from reaching the rest of the house. Shelves line the back wall, half of them filled with what seems to be hundreds of books, so many that the shelves sag sadly in the middle. The other half is cluttered with magical oddities. Dark Detectors, multiple Remembralls, packages of Spellotape, and glass bottles of all shapes and sizes, some of them irreparably broken. My chest feels like it's been inflated with helium, like I might float away. 

And right in the middle of the room, amidst all of the chaos on a dilapidated table, sits the case.