Happy Birthday, Franzi!

[ursula]

franzeska asked for this. I swear she asked for it.

And yes, I am going to finish it.


Of Squibs and Squid

Your name is Argus Filch. You have an awful job, cleaning up after packs of oblivious students at a wizarding school. You hate them. You'd do anything to be a wizard. Anything at all.

You've been sneaking into the library at night, after the miles of floor are swept, searching for a charm, a ritual, anything that will give you magic. Finally you notice an old book, bound with leather. It had fallen underneath one of the bookcases, but it twitched as you walked by, and you had to look inside. You find a message scrawled in a spiky hand:

He who spends seven nights in speech with the squid
will discover his heart's desire.

The squid? you think. Where can I find a squid? And then you realize that something lurks in the darkest corners of the moat. You’ve walked by, sweeping pathways or collecting fallen candy wrappers, and seen a pale flash underneath the water. You must go there tomorrow, find the monster, speak with it. This is your chance to own magic, to be truly alive. You’ve never found anything so promising, something that didn’t require you to work spells already. This may be your last chance.

You spend the next day in a fever of anticipation, scrubbing frantically at toilets, throwing gallons of water at the stone floors. You barely hear the mocking voices of the ghosts, or the screaming children. They don’t matter any more. You’re going to be a wizard. You’re going to show them all.

Finally evening comes. You finish your last chores and hurry outside to the moat. At first you don’t see anything but the still, dark waters, filmed with pale green algae. “Hello?” you say. “Is anyone at home? I’m looking for the squid . . .”

For a long time nothing happens. You stand looking at the green-black lake, wondering if this is yet another trick, another of life’s attempts to humiliate you. At last you see a bubble or a ripple, some sort of fold in the water. Something white lies just below the surface, quivering back and forth. The bubbles grow larger. The water swirls, filling with yellowy-white froth. Suddenly pale pink flesh breaks from the water. For a moment you think it’s the curve of a human shoulder, but as it flexes and twists you realize it’s a tentacle. Then the huge black eyes of the squid rise out of the moat, and you stand transfixed.

“Who are you?” asks a voice. It echoes and throbs, pulsing like the end of the monster’s tentacles. “And what do you want with me?”

You take a deep breath and try to answer. “I wanted to talk to you,” you say. “Just talk.”

“And why on earth would you want to do a thing like that?” the voice asks, sultry, amused. “I’m a monster, you know. I could eat you.”

“Because . . .” you say desperately. Can you admit that this is all about a pitiful attempt to make yourself a wizard? Will it eat you if you tell the truth?

“Because?” asks the squid. “I’m waiting.”

“Because no-one ever talks to me,” you blurt out. “Because I’m alone in a giant castle with nothing to listen but a cat. Because I thought you might understand.”

You wait for tentacles to rise out of the moat and suck you in, for being helpless and worthless and rude. You wait for the huge voice to laugh and destroy you.

“Interesting,” says the monster. “Tell me more.”

So you do. You tell it about the miles of hallway, true stains and ghostly stains, and the children who follow after you destroying everything you’ve done. You tell it about the supercilious elves, who whisper after you pass and steal your supplies. You discuss Mrs. Norris, whom you found as a starved kitten, so angry that she bit everyone, even Hagrid. You even mention your own childhood—you tell her about your excitement the morning of your eleventh birthday, and the tea your mother spilled on the rug the day the letter didn’t come. You talk for hours and hours, and the monster murmurs and hums and barely says anything at all.

“But what about you?” you ask, finally. “What do you do in the moat?”

“Hide, mostly. It’s late. Go home and sleep.”

You obey. It’s a reasonable command, as these things go. You don’t dream, that night, and as always you wake just before dawn.

The next evening you’re at the moat early. You’ve brought a broom, so you can pretend to sweep the walk. You wonder what will happen next.

The monster is slow to arrive. You sweep the same spot again and again until the stones are shining. By the time the squid heaves itself out of the water you’re convinced that it will never come, that it’s mocking you the way everyone mocks you. Everyone and everything. But you are wrong.

“So how was your day?” the monster asks.

You nearly can’t answer, because nobody has asked you such a normal question in years, you might even say centuries. Maybe only a monster could talk to you. Maybe that’s it. But you answer anyway. Somehow it seems that you can’t stop yourself from talking. You talk about details, today, endless details: shades of a cat’s tabby fur, layers of dust, the glinting of stones. Eventually you catch yourself, or maybe you just start to wonder what the monster is thinking, as it rests so quietly in the water and turns its black eyes toward you.

“And you?” you ask. “How are you?”

“Ah, well, it’s . . .” As the monster’s voice trails off it leaves an empty space, darkness.

“It’s what?”

“I caught a fish today, I suppose.” Now the voice is lighter, more controlled, even laughing.

“No, really,” you say. “I want to hear about you, as well. I don’t even know your name.”

“Heledone,” it answers.

“Heledone. That’s a lovely name.” And it is lovely. As you speak the syllables roll off your tongue—hel- eh- do- nay—the way water falls. You think of your own name, and cringe, hating the stony, muddy world you live in.

The monster murmurs in response. You can’t tell what it’s saying, but you’re almost sure it’s not laughing at you.

You sit in silence for a minute, squid and squib together, and then the monster speaks again. It tells you about the underwater world, dark and green and close, and its longing for brightness, somewhere, anywhere. If you were a wizard, you think, you would offer it a torch, or even a star. But you’re not, and so all you can do is light a match and look embarrassed.

Heledone does laugh, then. But somehow you don’t mind.

It’s nearly dawn before you leave the side of the moat, and the sun is rising as you wake for work, so that the whole day passes in a sort of haze. You almost feel that you’re underwater yourself, pushing your heavy limbs forward.

Finally night comes, and this time the squid rises from the water as you approach the moat. You greet each other confidently now, as if you’ve known each other forever, and for a while you chat about inconsequential things: the best word for the dark blue sky, and whether it will rain. Suddenly, though, the monster’s voice catches and stops.

“What is it?” you ask.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me? Please?”

“I was just laughing at myself, thinking how lonely I must be, to care this much whether it rains tomorrow.”

She’s right, of course. Beneath the surface of the moat there is no rain. Drops hit the water and are forgotten. “I’m sorry,” you say. You’re sorry. How inadequate that sounds.

“Thank you,” says Heledone. She shakes herself all over, and glinting water falls from her pale flesh.

You wonder when you began to think of the monster as female.

The rest of the night and even the next day go by like a dream. Soon you’re beside the moat once more, leaning forward, talking quickly. You even laugh once or twice. You’re astonished to hear such a sound from yourself. It’s rough and gravelly, and nearly impossible.

As you laugh Heledone lifts a tentacle from the water, as if she can hear you better with her body in the open air. The tentacle is creamy and pale. When the moon comes out you see a hint of red, as if the tentacle blushes from within.

It’s companionable, really, having Heledone’s tentacle resting nearby. You feel like you’re sitting in a comfortable chair, with a cat perched on the bookcase beside you.

The next night your sense that the squid’s tentacle is catlike grows stronger. You find yourself reaching out to pet it, gently, and draw your hand back in embarrassment.

“I don’t bite, you know,” says Heledone.

You let your hand brush the tentacle. You’re shocked to discover that it’s warm. Heat rises from inside it, and the flesh is far softer than your calloused palm.