Flash Fiction Anthology

The Familiar

When I discovered that I was a wizard, upon receiving a letter from a School of Witchcraft and Wizardy, I was thrilled.

I was twelve then, and I had just reread the Harry Potter books for the third time. There was no happier person in the whole wide world than me, when my parents admitted that there were rumours, which they hadn't believed of course, about wizarding ancestry on both sides of our family. They even admitted that they had been noticing strange things about me for a while, weird things happening while I slept.

Deciding that it would be better to have me learn whatever magic I might have, than let it run wild and unrestrained inside of me, they let me go to the mysterious school. Interestingly, the transport to the academy, the building, and its location were so similar to the places mentioned in the Rowlings' books that it made me wonder whether the writer was one of us.

However, most similarities ended there. The teachers were different, and the subjects, apart from several purely wizarding things, were closer to normal human studies because we were supposed to blend in the normal world smoothly after school.

What was also different was the perception of a wizard and witch's familiar. We were not supposed to choose our animals and bring them to school like the students in the Harry Potter series. The familiars, just like the magic wands, were to choose their wizard when the wizard or witch were ready to receive them.

It was exciting when the first familiars started to appear for us, and the kids of my year started to walk around the common room, hallways, and classrooms followed by untrained magical beasts. Ravens, making both things and people disappear temporarily with one look of their black, beady eyes perched on people's shoulders, tiny, fire-breathing dragons and wyverns fluttered through the air dangerously close to our heads, toads changing the appearance of those who kissed them, an effect that could last for several days, amused us, my girlfriend's talking cat ready to offer her opinion which no one wanted to hear trailed her like a shadow everywhere, driving me crazy in the moments when I wanted to be alone with her.

It was only me when we reached the last year of our studies, who was still without a familiar. But, as the teachers kept telling me encouragingly, it would appear when I would be ready to receive it.

And it did. Two weeks before the final exams, when I had no time to waste on training a familiar, a human appeared at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night, scaring the living daylights out of me, scowling, prodding me with the tip of her wet umbrella.

"What am I doing here? And where exactly am I?" she asked while I searched my bedside table for my glasses, spilling a glass of water over a book I read before falling asleep.

Luckily, I kept my phone under my pillow, and now I switched on its torch, turning the beam of bright light on my visitor.

She shielded her eyes with one arm while the tip of her umbrella dug deeper under my ribs, the cold raindrops soaking through my blanket, making me shiver.

"Stop... that!" I complained, panting with pain.

"Not before you reply!" She countered.

"Sit." I ordered, pointing to an armchair standing in the distant corner, and she obliged, dragging herself to the armchair as if against her will.

Good. Our liaison had already been established to some degree. It meant that she had some power over me as well, but, having gotten my initial glimpse of her character, I wasn't in a rush to tell her that.

I exhaled deeply as I watched her across the room. Why, oh, why was I graced by this human as my familiar? Sure, legends said that they made very powerful familiars once trained and accepting their role willingly, but they were so much harder to train than toads or dragons and had much stronger wills than cats... In two weeks, the school would end, and I'd have to take her home with me, untrained, unwilling and... strange.

As she kept staring at me, a whirlwind of thoughts moving like storm clouds within her bright eyes, I noticed her attire for the first time. She wore a lacy, floor-length black dress belonging to different times. No one dressed like her in 2023. Goodness, she was going to be a hard work. And what would my parents say when I brought her home and what would Lara, my girlfriend, think? Our relationship was troubled enough as it was; we didn't need a new reason to argue.

"What's your name?" I asked, "When do you come fr..."

"Silence," she said, and I found myself unable to produce a sound. This wasn't supposed to work this way; she was supposed to listen to me...

"Your name? she asked, a smile now playing on her lips.

I frowned. "Kevin. You..."

She only shook her head this time, not bothering to tell me not to speak, and it was enough. Yet again, I was mute.

"I'm Anya. A witch. And you, dear boy, must be my familiar."

"Boy?! I bet I'm older than you, girl, and you are my familiar, I'm a wizard!" I called, fighting against her order of silence.

"What?" she exclaimed, looking genuinely surprised. "I don't know what you did, but you are my familiar, and you were supposed to find me when I was ready to receive you. Why am I here and when we are?"

She gasped when I told her the year. "And you are here, dear Anya, only because you are my familiar and I've been waiting for you for years. I'll be eighteen in a few days, for goodness sake!"

She laughed. "Than you can't be a very good wizard if it took you so long to connect with me. I'm only fifteen."

"When are you from?"

"1891."

I laughed then, too, applauding her. "Well done, Anya, great performance. You can stop acting now. I got it, this is a prank, a stupid prank set up by my 'friends'." Because they all got their familiars a long time ago.

"What's a prank?" she asked as if she really didn't know the word.

"You are good, you know? But really, this is enough. Let me sleep, I've been studying the whole evening. Leave, and tell anyone who sent you that they'll pay me for this."

"I will leave, but not without you, Kevin. You're my familiar, and you are coming with me. Dress in something more... just more," she said, giggling, as her order pulled me out of my bed, revealing my nudity.

I only managed to grab my dressing gown when I felt a force which I could not resist dragging me towards her, before the room around us dissolved into blackness.