Of Blessings and Curses

Chapter 6: Headaches

It's funny, really, to see how wrong Muggles are. Don't get me wrong, they've got some things right, but they can really be more oblivious than a dead basilisk. When I was still at Hogwarts, I researched the differences between wizards with telekinesis and what Muggles make of TK. I was never able to find much because TK is often overlooked and even frowned upon by the Wizarding World. Most view it as a form of magic that is uncontrollable and dangerous, that all telekinetics should be locked up or even executed. There's a department in the Ministry reserved specifically for finding registered telekinetics and, essentially, torturing their abilities out of them. Oftentimes, this ends in all magic being stripped from the person, a painful and irreversible process. All in all, the Wizarding World is just as wrong as the Muggles. I've only got one decent book, My History With Telekinesis, by a woman named Margaret Yellowmack, who was telekinetic herself. But there's still so much that I don't know...

Why didn't my mother tell me? 

She must have known. The book told me that telekinesis is very rarely passed on through generations. The next page was ripped out, but I assumed that it wasn't an important page that was just talking about the odd pureblood family or something along those lines. I had never dreamed that the pureblood family on that page was my own. Of course, it would make sense that my mother tore it out, if I had gotten the book from the library at home. But I borrowed it from the Restricted Section in the library. But come to think of it, the strange thing is that I've never seen an accurate book on people with TK or my family. I didn't realize that there was anything left about them to know. I guess I was wrong. My mom knows that I'm telekinetic, so why would she bother to hide this information from me? She must have known about Rowena's telekinesis, and she saw  what I did to my dad.

That's the root of all of my problems, when everything came crashing down, when the family and the papers and books holding all of the facts I've ever known cascaded off the shelves, leaving dust and confusion in the aftershock. Putting my hands over my eyes in an attempt to ease the skull-shattering headache that sprouted after I ran to my room, I flop back onto my bed that squeaks and groans like an indignant ghoul. Okay, Heidi: start from the beginning, retrace your steps, figure something out.

I'm telekinetic. I found out in fifth year charms class. I know from My Relationship with TK  that sixteen is the average age for TK to emerge, if there is any. We were in class practicing floating charm on each other, and I was practicing on my friend Abby. I was utterly exhausted that day, and we had Charms first thing in the morning. You'll find that I do not bode well with spell-work before 10am, and the fact that Abby and I were talking away in our corner of the classroom didn't exactly help. Eventually, I got used to morning-magic in sixth and seventh year when I started to study for my NEWTS, yes, a year early. I had to be a Magizoologist, simply because I loved it and no one thought I could do it. 

So, we were attempting our floating charms.

"You go first. I wasn't listening when he explained it all, and I'm sure you've read about Floating Charms somewhere--you're in the library too much for even a Ravenclaw." Abby asks, yawning. 

Abby's thick-accented voice rushes back at me like a demon on roller blades. 

"I barely remember either! I was asleep too, to be honest. But I was bored a few days ago, and you know what I do when I'm bored..." I say, protesting.

"Reread the old textbooks." We say together. Abby rolls her eyes and snickers. 

In all honesty, I was bored a few days before that Charms class, but I wasn't rereading textbooks. I was in the library attempting to find any sort of knowledge on the Ravenclaw family. Just for curiosity's sake. 

There wasn't any--what a coincidence.

"Volitarem!" I say, moving my hand in a jerk jerk upwards. Nothing happens. Abby tries and fails.

We go back and forth a few times, only managing to get each other a few inches off of the ground. I am still hovering slightly from Abby's last charm.

"Volitarem!" I cast one more time, my feet hitting the ground with a thud. I'm so done with this stupid charm. Up. Just move up. Move! Before I know what's happening, Abby rises five feet into the air. The expression on her face is a mixture between terror and excitement. But the terror quickly fades, and is replaced fully by happiness. 

"Yay!" She cheers from above me. I have the sense to keep my wand trained on her, even though it did nothing. 

"Good work as usual, Miss Ravenclaw. You've found a way to sleep in class and successfully cast Charms." Professor Bagnold drawls, paging through piles of books on her desk. 

But I didn't do the charm. The tremors and tendrils and rush of excitement and magic that I get in my hand and wrist and the feeling of power was missing. What I did get was an earsplitting headache that made me genuinely wonder if someone had come up behind me and stuck an axe into my head. 

I ran to Madam Pomfrey, trembling with exhaustion and confusion. The next thing I knew, I was on the train home for the winter holidays instead of at Hogwarts with Abby, who I'd promised I'd stay with. I never even told her why. Merlin, I'm an awful person

I went home and told my parents. They were supportive, as always. At least, that was what I thought. I later realized that they never actually cared. As long as it didn't affect the family name, it didn't matter. Now, my interest in Magizoology, that  was a much bigger problem. Both of my parents worked for the Ministry, both worked fulltime jobs. They had to "keep up the reputation," claiming that they needed to make up for my "mistakes and illicit obsessions." I saw them once or twice that Christmas. Once when I got home and once on Christmas day. The rest of the time, I practically turned the library upside-down looking for any shred of information. Confused and worried, a younger version of myself spent her time reading and wandering aimlessly around a big, empty house. A few days before Christmas, I figured out that I could sneak out into the woods near my house without anyone chastising me for it. So I did, almost everyday, looking for and befriending creatures. 

As I smile at the memory, I realize something. Some tiny kernel of information just exploded behind my eyes. Sitting up abruptly causes my headache to intensify, but I can barely feel it now.

The books Professor Bagnold was reading. They were important. 

Back to the memory, back to the memory...  

I'm so close to figuring something out, something vital that can maybe rebuild the shreds of lost sanity and understanding that have fallen off the shelves in my head. 

I gasp audibly. 

Those books Professor Bagnold was reading. They were the ones that my mother or the school or whoever must have kept away from me. But why?

"Heidi? Are you alright?" Newt asks, voice muffled by the door. I can't bring myself to respond. Newt next words almost bring me to tears, "I didn't mean to upset you."