Fantastic Breasts & Where To Find Them

Cass

Seeing someone else’s Boggart can reveal a lot about a person. I didn’t know how to interpret what I had seen in the seventh floor bathrooms. The visiting scholar had been talking to a lady - a naked and welcoming lady, at that - as if she was a lover who had been horribly disfigured. The white-haired nude had been strikingly beautiful – a bit of a mannish body, for sure, but still gorgeous by anyone’s standards. I hadn’t caught everything Newt had said to her before he realized she was just a Boggart. I had been so surprised to catch him in his absurd frilly nightgown alone with an unclothed woman.

When he saw me, I was afraid he was going to curse me with his wand, but he lowered it. “Miss Hitchens, it’s just you,” he sounded relieved.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “Too much wine at the party – I just needed to use the little girl’s room.”

“It’s fine,” he said, clearly embarrassed. “It appears a long day of traveling has caused me to put my guard down. You won’t go gossiping that the world-trekking Magizoologist was fooled by a common Boggart, will you?”

“My lips are sealed,” I promised, and we exchanged a silent glance.

“Well, then,” he said. “I still do have to go to the loo, and then I really must catch up on some sleep. I trust I’ll be seeing you around campus.”

“Hopefully. I'm considering signing up for your seminar. Goodnight, Mr. Scamander."

“Goodnight, Miss Hitchens.”

I used a stall and then returned to the meeting room, where the Albion Cultural Club was breaking up. I went over to Gabby and Croila. “Are you alright?” Gabby asked. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

I glanced over at the Chesterhome ghosts milling around the snacks table. “Should we be getting back to Hilzegaard House?” I asked.

“Already?” Gabby asked. “The night is young, Cassie! Let’s get some Butterbeers at the Griffon Arms.”

“No, I have thousands of pages to read. You go on ahead if you like.” Gabby was a short and stout witch with a shaved head and striking lilac eyes. She was working on a thesis about Witch Rights in Colonial America, and I had no idea how she still got top marks considering that she went out just about every night. Gabby and Croila and I exited through the portrait of the founder’s daughter and went downstairs. We passed a few Slow-Nimrods, as we called them, reading their Muggle textbooks in the foyer.

“You sure you don’t want another drink?” Croila asked me kindly. Croila was one of the fattest witches I had ever known, the result of her Engorgement research with Professor Rowentree. I was tempted to come out with them, but I was still a little shaken up by what I had seen in the lavatory. I waved goodbye and started walking up the road towards Hilzegaard House, which was about a mile off campus. Apparition wasn’t possible on Slonimb College campus, so I had to tread the whole way by foot.

Of the three witch dormitories at Bronxvitch, the Hilzegaard girls got the worst deal. Whereas Bluenose House was a beautiful old mansion near the center of campus, and Titbird House was built deep underground in a series of abandoned subway tunnels, Hilzegaard was an ugly, modern concrete building. It was dirty white, twenty stories high, and most of the graduate students on fellowships inevitably were sorted into Hilzegaard. It was also the most diverse house, being the most urban, and there were even several dark-skinned witches from Harlem living next door to me. (This was at a time when most colleges in America, even schools of magic, were all-white. Bronxvitch was progressive even from its founding.)

As I walked up the road, my thoughts kept returning again and again to the beautiful woman in the bathroom. Boggarts show us our greatest fears. Newt Scamander was a man who had braved XXXXX-class monsters across five continents, and yet I saw him shaking in his nightgown at the sight of a naked lady. I wondered what sort of sexual issues he might have, and what experiences might have led him to be so scared of an undressed female.