Ecdysis

Chapter 7 - Third Year: Rage

An illustrated anatomy book, a letter preaching safe sex, and a box of condoms.

Mum was out to get me.

I was studying by the Black Lake when Flo came swooping over my head. She dropped the heavy bundle on the ground beside me, a plume of dirt rising in the air at the impact, before gliding to the edge of the lake and hopping forward for a desperate sip of cold water. After unwrapping each item from its paper packaging, I counted every lucky star beyond the blue sky that I wasn't having breakfast in the Great Hall this morning.

Had my parents forgotten what it was like to be a teenager? In addition to a thorough essay on female ovulation, Mum had penned arrows towards the male and female genitalia with annotations explaining safe sex, where to put the condom, and in parentheses where to store the extra ones (never in your pocket!!), plus a bullet-point list of STDs and their symptoms. Her handwriting was slanted and crammed in the margins, like she couldn't get the words out fast enough. I sensed her panic through the jagged strokes of ink; the punctuation smudged where impatient fingers couldn't move fast enough. A troubled patient had gotten knocked up at sixteen and Mum had it in her head that I was moments away from sending her a congratulatory letter calling her nan. I didn't need to be there to know the conversation she must have had with Dad, scorning my co-ed school, wishing they never sent me here.

Pointing my wand to the offensive bundle I cast "Incendio," and as a spark caught the edge of the thick scientific textbook, I imagined what might have happened had Pansy gotten her hands on it. I envisioned Draco tearing the box of condoms open, the two of them exchanging quips at my expense as they threw the objects back and forth to one another, squealing in disgust about Muggles and their strange paraphernalia. This was the sort of thing everybody in the Great Hall would laugh about, not just the Slytherins. A Longbottom-sized misfortune.

Black smoke rose in the air, tinged with the carcinogenic scent of burning plastic and crisped paper.

How bloody inept of them to broach the subject via owl mail. Only a handful of weeks remained until summer holiday. Why couldn't they wait until I was home?

Rising flames made my eyes water and my throat tight. A tremor whispered awake in my body, so visceral my fingers couldn't sit still as I stewed in my frustration. My fingers curled in the soil. Damp earth caking beneath my fingernails, roots from weeds stringing apart in my grip. Yank, yank, yank.

My parents were supposed to be on my side. How bloody daft could one be to send their fourteen-year-old a safe sex lesson via mail where anybody could have seen it?

I'd had it with their newspapers, their anatomy books, always having to hold my breath waiting for the next mortifying object to arrive in my mail. Condoms! They may as well have shown up at school, taken a seat at the Slytherin table, and beckoned everyone to gather around and listen.

A thundercloud of rage swelled and grew electric within me, raising the hairs on my arms, rousing my magic somewhere deep within my chest. My eyes flickered to the edge of the lake, the lapping of water, the rustle of feathers. Adopting an owl as a familiar was the stupidest idea I ever had. I should have known my parents would do more than send innocent letters asking about my grades and homework. They were over-achievers, even in their postage.

If this was what an open line of communication entailed, I wanted none of it. I would rather hear nothing from them all year than receive crap like this. Condoms! I was a witch. Witches didn't need condoms! And me? Of all people! Did they even know me a little? Who would I sleep with in this school? None of the scumbag boys in my house, that was for certain. Didn't they pay attention to my letters? That I was tired, that I had too much homework, that I was busy trying to pass the year. Why in the bloody hell would I suddenly need condoms?