FIC: Hogwarts Letters; Rated G, Genfic
Title: Hogwarts Letters
Rating: G
Summary: Colin Creevey is petrified by the basilisk just after Halloween and lies in the Hogwarts infirmary until the spring; this is the story of how his Muggle parents deal with the news, and how they are dealt with
Word Count: 5035
Dear Mr. And Mrs. Creevey,
It is with great regret that I pen this note to you. We were very pleased to offer your son Colin a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this academic year, and he has made excellent progress thus far. However, Colin has been involved in an accident at the school and I fear that he will be unable to return home over the Christmas holidays.
Please do not worry yourselves too much. We have the best care available here at the Hogwarts infirmary. He will be attended to around the clock and we are currently growing a fine crop of mandrakes in our own greenhouses. When they are available, our Potions Master, Professor Severus Snape, will brew a restorative draught that will heal your son completely. In the meantime the school nurse, Madam Poppy Pomfrey, will send you regular reports on Colin’s status.
Yours,
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Mrs. Creevey stares at the parchment she is grasping. It vibrates violently because she cannot stop her hands from shaking. She cannot imagine receiving worse news, and certainly not in such a cryptic manner. She knew she was right to be worried when her son’s weekly letters stopped coming.
She looks about her kitchen, her eyes wild and teary. Holly hangs in clichéd but comforting boughs from her ceiling, and her house smells of burned gingerbread, which her younger son Dennis brought home from school not an hour ago. Dennis has been buzzing through the house, hyper from the icing he consumed while he and his classmates assembled their gingerbread houses. He comes careening by her, waving a broken branch in one hand.
“Mum, mum, look at me, Mum! It’s a magic wand just like Colin’s got! Is he going to be here today? Can we go pick him up at that special platform? Is he coming back in that red train?”
“Go outside, Colin,” Mrs. Creevey says absently, trying not to sound worried.
“I’m Dennis,” the boy says, sounding exasperated but not really meaning it. He and his brother are alike in so many ways, he isn’t unused to being called the wrong name. “Did you see my gingerbread house, Mum?”
She tears here eyes away from the parchment- growing a fine crop of mandrakes?- and focuses on her son, shivering with excitement and sugar and Christmas cheer in front of her. “It’s lovely, dear,” she manages. “Now why don’t you go outside and play?”
And Dennis is off, waving his tree branch like a wand and squealing, “Hocus Pocus! Open Sesame! Alakazam!”
Mrs. Creevey sits down heavily and a sob wracks her body. Her son is off learning magic, real magic, and now... now she doesn’t even know what’s wrong with him, but it’s serious enough to warrant attention “around the clock”. She puts her head down over her folded arms and weeps out her fear and worry and frustration.
Mr. Creevey arrives home a few minutes later, carrying a large and robust Christmas tree in his arms. He is a small man with thick-rimmed spectacles and a balding, shiny head. He drags the tree into the parlour and is about to call for help setting it up when he hears his wife crying. He drops the tree with a crash and dashes into the kitchen.
“Sheila, what’s wrong?” he asks, wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders.
She looks up at him, her face red and tear-stained, and she hands him the letter. He reads it, then reads it again more slowly.
“What does this mean?” he finally says.
She shakes her head. “It means something terrible’s happened and our baby’s lying in some... some cold infirmary somewhere and he doesn’t have his mum with him and it must have been something dreadful if he can’t even come home. My God, Brian, what’s happened to our son in that awful place?”
Mr. Creevey reads the letter through again and red splotches of anger appear on his pale face. “What does this mean, they have the best care? Why haven’t they told us what’s wrong with him?”
“I didn’t want to send him to that school!” she sobs. “I knew something terrible would happen there. Imagine, magic being real and God knows what going on in that place and our son caught up in the middle of it. We have to get him home!”
“We all agreed it would be for the best in the summer,” Mr. Creevey says gently. “It’s no one’s fault that he has that kind of ability, Sheila. It’s not your fault that he went to Hogwarts.”
“But we have to find out what’s happened to him!”
Mr. Creevey nodded. “How do we get in contact with them?”
His wife nods toward the window and he follows her gaze. Perched on their windowsill is an irked looking owl who ruffles his feathers as though annoyed that he’s only just been noticed.
“I suppose it’s waiting for a reply. I wanted you to be here before I sent anything back.”
Mr. Creevey finds some notepaper and a pen and together they write a response.
Headmaster Dumbledore,
We are more than distressed by the letter you’ve just sent us. What has happened to Colin? When? How? Why can’t he come home?
We are coming to Hogwarts to see him, but we haven’t any idea how to get there. Please advise us on the best form of transportation. In the meantime, we need details. Should we transfer him to our local hospital? There are excellent doctors here, and then he would be near us.
Please respond as quickly as possible. We are attaching our phone number and e-mail address below, as it will be a much easier way to communicate than through an owl.
Brian and Sheila Creevey
A day passes. And then another. The phone doesn’t ring. No message comes via e-mail. Mrs. Creevey forbids Dennis from “playing wizard”. She can’t bear the sight of her small son brandishing a wand and pretending to vanquish dragons and evil spirits.
She curls up in her favourite armchair, the pile of Colin’s letters and the photographs he’s taken since the start of term resting on her knee. They are filled with his rapturous chatter. She reads through them all, smiling through her tears as he talks about the Hogwarts Express and all of the other children “just like me”. He tells her about the Chocolate Frogs that really jump and the pepper imps that make your ears steam. He describes the sight of the huge castle rising up from a cliff face and arriving there by boarding tiny boats at night- not even wearing a life preserver as he’s always been taught!- across a lake where, merciful heavens, a giant squid lives. A giant squid! He tells her about the way they put a talking hat on his small head and how a voice in his ear whispered to him that he is brave and loyal, that if properly trained he will be capable of great things. She bites back a sob- he has been called energetic and friendly and bright by teachers in the past, but never that he is capable of great things.
She reads about the amazing Harry Potter, who stopped an evil wizard when he was just a baby and is now Colin’s housemate. What kind of world has she sent her son to where there are such evil people as this Dark Lord, she wonders. She looks at the accompanying photo of Harry Potter. The picture moves, something she is still not used to. He is a small boy with striking green eyes and round glasses, and in every picture he seems to be ducking out of the way, behind the freckle-faced boy and bushy-haired girl who always accompany him. In another photo, over a dozen people on broomsticks zoom about high in the air. She reads Colin’s six-page missive on this sport called “Quidditch”, about how bludgers can knock people off their brooms and golden itches must be caught and how games can take three minutes or three weeks to complete.
Colin writes about his classes, about learning to transfigure a needle into a match and memorizing the theory behind actually changing living, breathing animals into teacups or tennis racquets. He’s learning how to fly a broom himself- her son who doesn’t like going on the top deck of a double-decker bus because it’s too high off the ground can now jump on a broom- a broom- and fly as high as he wants. No seatbelts, no net to catch him if he falls.
Maybe that’s what happened, she muses as she watches the photos of the Quidditch match again. Maybe he’s fallen off a broomstick and cracked his skull open. Maybe her sweet, helpful, energetic little Colin will lay comatose in a castle she’s never been to for the rest of his life, with this Pomfrey woman watching over him when his own mother should be.
She reads about Potions class, where the teacher hates them all and took house points from him when his Shrinking Solution blew up his cauldron. Her son is in a place where you can make a liquid that will shrink something, that will defy the laws of physics and actually modify molecular structures in such a way as to shrink an object or a living being. Her son is in a class where his cauldron can explode and the Potions Master punishes him for it.
And the Potions Master who hates the students? Surely this Professor Snape Colin writes about is not the same man who will brew a so-called “restorative draught” to revive her son?
She reads about owls delivering the mail, which she is familiar with as this is the method Colin now employs to contact her. She reads about sumptuous feasts that magically appear on empty tables, floating candles and bewitched ceilings and moving staircases and a poltergeist who always tries to get them in trouble. Colin writes excitedly about the Forbidden Forest, where they say werewolves and centaurs and unicorns live. He repeats a conversation he’s had with a ghost named Nearly Headless Nick who comforted him when he felt homesick.
If anyone else read her son’s letters, they would think his imagination to be distressingly overactive, or they would assume that he was downright insane, living in a fantasy world populated by mythical creatures and fanciful powers and wizards both pure good and pure evil. And, she supposes, he does live in a fantasy world, but the fantasies have all come to life. He lives now in a land of fairy tales- and he’s assured her that fairies are real because he’s seen them. He’s being taught how to channel a power she’d never have believed existed, let alone existed in such abundance, and he’s being taught how to use a magic wand to bring about whatever he wants. He won’t work with his father at the family antique store as she always imagined he would. He won’t become a teacher like she is. He will be a fully trained wizard, working with goblins or dragons, or covering up the existence of his new world from non-magical people. People like her. Colin has already begun to refer to his parents as “Muggles”; though it doesn’t seem to be a derogatory term, it definitely sets them apart from who he is now and what he will become over the next seven years.
She wonders again how it is that they agreed to send Colin away all year to a school they’d never heard of before to learn this preposterous nonsense. When they’d read the explanatory letters, it had all seemed so simple. There had barely been any debate. They’d all read the letter out loud to each other eagerly. It all seemed so simple: Colin- and Dennis too- had always been capable of doing unaccountable things because he had magic latent within him. Therefore he should go learn how to master that magic. Looking back, she wondered if they’d all somehow been bewitched by those letters. How else could she explain agreeing to send him away?
She finds the collectible card of Albus Dumbledore that Colin sent her and she fingers it lightly, looking at the old man portrayed. He is supposed to be one of the good wizards, and one of the most powerful, from the way Colin and the card describe him. He appears to be a kindly-looking old man wearing tasteless pajamas- robes, she supposes- of bright purple and gold, and he smiles reassuringly up at her over his half-moon spectacles.
“What’s happened to my son?” she asks him, but he only shrugs and looks a bit troubled.
She is interrupted from her reverie by a tapping at the window: the owl has returned. She jumps up, letters and photographs scattering at her feet in her haste to let the owl in. She retrieves the paper from its leg and it flies off immediately, not waiting so that she can send a response.
Mrs. Creevey unfurls the letter and a lump forms in her throat. She reads the letter to herself, mumbling the words as her vision blurs with tears.
Dear Mr. And Mrs. Creevey,
We at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry wish to express our sympathy for your family once more. We realize that you must be worried, and we want you to know that Colin’s accident was unfortunate but in no way life-threatening. However, as it was magical in nature, Muggle medicine will be unable to help him and it would be unwise to move him from our infirmary.
Do not worry. All will be well when the restorative draught can be administered. At the rate the mandrakes are growing, that should be no later than springtime. The best thing you can do is send your loving thoughts to him. He will recover in no time, and we will ensure that he is caught up in his lessons so that he doesn’t have to repeat the year.
I will be in contact soon.
Sincerely,
Madam Poppy Pomfrey, Hogwarts School Mediwitch
She nods absently. Well. That’s settled then- Colin will recover and she will send him her thoughts and all will be well.
Mr. Creevey comes in from running his Saturday errands with Dennis soon after, and Mrs. Creevey reads them both the letter. They all agree that it’s best to follow Madam Pomfrey’s advice. They won’t worry, but they will think often about their son. When their friends and family ask where Colin is, they answer politely that he is heavily involved with school life and simply couldn’t get away for Christmas this year.
It isn’t until after the New Year that something in Mrs. Creevey’s mind turns over and a wave of panic sets in. “Mandrakes in the spring?” she shrieks at Mr. Creevey over the phone when they’re both on lunch break. “He’s lying in some magic hospital bed and he hasn’t heard from us since Halloween and he won’t be well again until the spring?”
“We have to get to him,” Mr. Creevey agrees as though awakening from a winter’s hibernation. “We’ll try to send an owl asking for the school’s location.”
So decided, they meet after work while Dennis is at a friend’s house and they try to find an owl in the wood outside their village. When they do see one, they chase it through the trees. It squawks indignantly and outmaneuvers them with ease.
“That won’t work,” Mrs. Creevey sighs. “We’ll have to find a wizard and ask them what to do.”
“And where shall we find a wizard?” Mr. Creevey asks hopelessly.
“We’ll go to London. We’ll go to that pub- the Whistling Cauldron?”
“Leaking.”
“Fine, the Leaking Cauldron. They congregate there, don’t they?”
Mr. Creevey nods sharply, and Mrs. Creevey calls Dennis’ friend’s mother, asking if he can stay over. That settled, they depart for London. They arrive early in the evening but they cannot find the pub. It isn’t listed in the telephone directory. They go to the spot where they both remember it being, but it isn’t there.
Mrs. Creevey’s eyes slide from the rundown bookstore to the second-hand record store with dismay. “I was so sure it was right here!”
“Could they have closed up and moved?” Mr. Creevey asks, sounding rattled.
“And moved that entire hidden community behind its brick wall, too?” Mrs. Creevey shoots back.
“They’re all magic. It’s possible.”
She shakes her head. “It’s here, I know it is. I just don’t understand-“
Twin cracking sounds interrupt her, and before she can react, a middle-aged couple is standing in front of them, arguing.
“You know Flourish and Blotts’ll be closed by now, I told you we should have come earlier!”
“Oi, Muggles,” the man says, startled.
The woman looks at the Creeveys with surprise. “Don’t usually see them lurking about here. Best we obliviate them?”
“Best,” the man agrees.
Mrs. Creevey doesn’t know what “obliviate” means, but it sends a chill through her and she says, “Wait! Please, our son is attending Hogwarts and something’s happened to him. We don’t know how to contact him and they won’t tell us anything!”
The woman’s face softens. “They say something’s going on up there. I knew old Dumbledore was hushing it all up!”
“Come with us, then,” the man says, and he holds a door open- a door that simply hadn’t been there before.
“Where-? How-?” Mr. Creevey gasps.
“You can only see it when you’re with a witch or wizard,” the man explains. “You were with your son last time you were here? That’s why you found it, then.”
They follow the couple into the pub. It is a dingy, dim place, though it is much fuller than the last time they were here. Its tables are occupied by strangely dressed men and women of every age. The snatches of conversation Mrs. Creevey can overhear frighten her, with words like “Slytherin” and “sickles”, along with fragments of bad Latin, bandied about the room. She bites her lip and tries not to break down, thinking about their trip through Diagon Alley months ago. Colin had been bursting with excitement as he’d tried wands until one had shot periwinkle sparks from its tip and the strange, silver-eyed old man serving them had nodded sagely and said, “nine inch, maple with a unicorn hair core. Excellent choice.” They’d passed shop windows filled with animals she didn’t recognize, restaurants featuring dishes she’d never heard of before, stalls selling plants she couldn’t even pronounce. It had overwhelmed her and she’d blocked much of it out, though Colin had almost seemed to be in his element, and she’d believed that she was doing the right thing, letting him loose in this bizarre, here to for unheard of world.
“We need to get to Hogwarts,” Mr. Creevey says desperately, and the woman who brought them into the pub nods toward the fireplace.
“You can floo into Hogsmeade and then walk up to the castle,” she says. At their confused looks, she giggles. “Muggles really have no idea, do they? Come here. Take a pinch of this, toss it into the fire, say ‘Hogsmeade Station’, and step in.”
“Into the fire?” Mr. Creevey gulps.
“It’s perfectly safe,” the witch says with a wave of her hand. “Just say your destination clearly and keep your elbows tucked in while you go.”
Mrs. Creevey nods smartly. She isn’t about to back down now. Her baby needs her, and she hasn’t gone to him. All these months, and she’s been content with regular reports from Madam Pomfrey that she and Mr. Creevey have taken turns reading to each other. She doesn’t understand why she’s been so complacent. It isn’t like her. She is an overprotective mother and she’s proud of that fact. She should have been with her son- ill? Injured? She doesn’t even know!- from the moment she received the first letter.
She takes some of the glittery powder and tosses it into the fire, which immediately flares and becomes a deep emerald green. “Hogsmeade Station!” she shouts, and several patrons turn with interest to watch. She steps into the fire and gasps as it licks at her face and hands without burning her. She feels like she is on the champagne ride at an amusement park as she spins around and around. She is sure that the high-pitched noise surrounding her is actually her own scream but she can’t stop, not until she tumbles out of a cold grate and into a snowy street, landing hard on her hands and knees and coughing up soot. She is joined a moment later by Mr. Creevey, who manages to stay upright.
They look around, wide-eyed. They are in a village lit by lanterns. People in brightly coloured robes stroll by them, not even sparing them a glance as they chat about the firewhiskey at Madam Rosmerta’s and the troll sighting that was reported only hours from here. Mrs. Creevey sneaks her hand into her husband’s and together they set off for the dark silhouette of a medieval castle, its hundreds of windows flickering invitingly against the sable sky.
It takes them twenty minutes to hike up the gravel path, through the lofty, gothic gates, and up to the colossal wooden doors of the castle.
“Should we knock?” asks Mrs. Creevey, but the doors seem to sense their presence and swing open by themselves.
Once inside, they find that dinner has just finished and they are enveloped by students, all wearing black robes like the ones they bought for Colin, chatting about Quidditch and homework and-
“Did you hear that?” Mr. Creevey hisses. A blond boy with a sour face strolls passed them flanked by two hulking youths that make Mrs. Creevey think of bookends shaped like gargoyles.
The blond is speaking in a mocking tone. “’Course I don’t know what the monster is, Crabbe, only that it’s striking out against Mudblood filth. About time, too, I say. Petrifies its victims, just like Filch’s cat. It’ll kill soon, mark my words.”
And then the boy catches sight of Mr. and Mrs. Creevey and he smirks. “And now they’re letting Muggles in,” he drawls. “That’s really going too far, isn’t it? Staining these halls with that kind of dirt.”
Mrs. Creevey gapes at the boy as he sweeps away imperiously. She splutters, “What did he just say?”
Mr. Creevey gripps her arm. “Come on, we’ve got to find the infirmary.”
A girl with blond pigtails overhears and smiles at them. “The infirmary? I can take you there.” She stares for a moment at Mr. Creevey. “You must be that first year’s parents. Colin?”
The Creeveys nod in unison and she motions her arm sharply. “I’m Hannah. Mind you stay close- it’s easy to get lost if you don’t know the way.”
They pass portraits that not only move but also speak, suits of armour that wolf-whistle at them, and a ghost with wide, staring eyes covered in silver blood stains. Five minutes and several moving staircases later, they arrive in a room filled with high, narrow windows and rows of beds against the walls. Several of the beds are hidden with white curtains. Mrs. Creevey whimpers.
“Is he in one of those?” she asks, but before Hannah can answer, a witch in a white wimple bustles over to them.
“This is an out of bounds area!” she scolds them.
“We’re looking for our son!” Mr. Creevey says helplessly.
“Colin,” Hannah adds helpfully.
The witch’s eyes widen and she turns to Hannah. “Thank you, Miss Abbott. Could you please summon Professor Dumbledore for me?”
The girl nods and disappears, and the witch turns back to them. “Mr. and Mrs. Creevey, I presume? I’m Madam Pomfrey. We didn’t expect you to come here.”
“We have every right to see our son!” Mrs. Creevey cries.
The door bangs open, and an ancient wizard with the longest beard Mrs. Creevey has ever seen appears. His nose looks like it has been broken once or twice in his lengthy life, and his blue eyes reflect both curiousiosity and solemnity. She recognizes him from the Chocolate Frog card, and she takes a step toward him.
“Headmaster Dumbledore? We’ve come such a long way. Can’t we see our own son?”
Dumbledore smiles at her, and the smile is so warm, so genuine, that she can’t help but feel relieved. “Of course. This way, this way.”
They follow him to one of the cloistered beds and he pulls the curtain aside. Lying frozen upon the mattress is Colin Creevey.
He looks like a wax mannequin from Madam Tussaud’s. His skin is sallow and taught, his eyes wide and staring, his fingers curled strangely in front of him, almost as though gripping an invisible camera.
“What’s happened?” Mrs. Creevey whispers, leaning down to sweep her son into her arms. He is so stiff, so utterly inhuman that she has to fight not to recoil. She puts her head on his chest and listens. His heart is beating, his chest rising and lowering almost imperceptibly. He is alive, but barely.
“What’s happened?” she repeats, rounding on Dumbledore and Pomfrey, fury in her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell us how serious this was? Why did you keep us from coming to him? We asked you! We told you we needed to see him! We asked you point blank what was wrong! How dare you keep this from us?”
“My dear woman,” Dumbledore says, placing a hand on her shoulder and looking deep into her eyes. “He has been petrified. It is not a common occurrence here, and rest assured that the students at Hogwarts are perfectly safe. As we told you, we’ll revive him just the moment the mandrakes have grown.”
“And no one else in the world has mandrakes that you can use now?” Mr. Creevey asks. He hasn’t been able to take his eyes off the immobile form of his son. “No one else has this ‘restorative draught’ to help him?”
“Alas,” says Dumbledore. “All mandrakes grow at the same rate. Everyone’s crop will be ready at the same time. And the draught we need for Colin does not keep well. It must be ingested fresh or it will not be effective. Stick of chewing gum?”
He pops a green piece of gum into his mouth and then proffers the pack to the Creeveys, who both accept numbly. Mrs. Creevey’s is blue. So is her husband’s.
Dumbledore stands with them as they hold their son’s hand and stroke his forehead and whisper meaningless words to him, working their own kind of magic, soothing themselves more than the petrified boy in the bed.
“Colin, Colin,” Mrs. Creevey cries. “I’m sorry I sent you to this horrible place! When you’re well, we’ll take you home and you’ll never have to come here again.”
Mr. Creevey wraps an arm around her shoulders and says, “You and Dennis, we’ll send you both to Hastings next year, son. It’ll all be all right.” His voice is rough with suppressed emotion, but Mrs. Creevey can feel the tremor in his arm.
Dumbledore watches over them for half an hour or more before clearing his throat. He looks at them both intently and speaks very gently. “You have to believe me, Mr. and Mrs. Creevey, that your son is safe with us. There is no reason to deprive either of your children from the magical education they deserve. No reason whatsoever. We will cure your son. You do not have to worry. You do not have to come back here to check on him. We will see that he gets the best care. Understood?”
His words are so soothing, so warm and full of hope, and Mrs. Creevey nods. She feels drowsy but at peace, knowing her son is in the hands of such a wise and capable man.
“Thank you, Headmaster Dumbledore,” Mr. Creevey murmurs at her side, and she grips his hand.
“We didn’t realize how safe he is here,” she adds, and Dumbledore smiles again.
“We can’t afford to lose students,” he says softly. “Not now, not when the world is as it is. We must have as many trained wizards as we can. Your sons both have places here. This is where they belong.”
“Keep us apprised of his condition,” Mrs. Creevey says and she bends to place a kiss on her son’s chilled forehead.
Dumbledore kindly helps the Creeveys return home- Mrs. Creevey can’t quite remember how they arrive so quickly, but she is grateful for Dumbledore’s assistance.
Winter gives way to spring and one warm afternoon an owl arrives, delivering the joyous news that Colin has awakened.
“Always knew he would!” says Mr. Creevey.
“That Professor Dumbledore is just wonderful,” Mrs. Creevey agrees, hugging her husband with delight. “He’ll be home next month, when term ends!”
Colin’s letters start showing up every week once more, describing his private tutorials that are catching him up to the rest of his class. He talks about his friends and his housemates and how Harry Potter saved them all and how he wants to try out for the Quidditch team next year, and Mrs. Creevey smiles fondly. She is happy that her son is doing so well at his special school.
They pick Colin up at King’s Cross Station and bring him home. His trunk is full of his spell books and he spends the summer doing homework and telling Dennis about the wonders that await them both next year. When they both receive letters from Hogwarts later that summer, they take turns reading them out loud to their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Creevey couldn’t be prouder, and they don’t have a second thought about sending their sons back to Hogwarts. Dumbledore is watching over Dennis and Colin, and nothing can go wrong. By the time both boys are back at the school, Colin’s mysterious malady has all but disappeared from the Creeveys’ minds. All they can remember is the twinkle of Dumbledore’s eyes and the words of those Hogwarts letters. Nothing else matters.
Fin
Rating: G
Summary: Colin Creevey is petrified by the basilisk just after Halloween and lies in the Hogwarts infirmary until the spring; this is the story of how his Muggle parents deal with the news, and how they are dealt with
Word Count: 5035
Dear Mr. And Mrs. Creevey,
It is with great regret that I pen this note to you. We were very pleased to offer your son Colin a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this academic year, and he has made excellent progress thus far. However, Colin has been involved in an accident at the school and I fear that he will be unable to return home over the Christmas holidays.
Please do not worry yourselves too much. We have the best care available here at the Hogwarts infirmary. He will be attended to around the clock and we are currently growing a fine crop of mandrakes in our own greenhouses. When they are available, our Potions Master, Professor Severus Snape, will brew a restorative draught that will heal your son completely. In the meantime the school nurse, Madam Poppy Pomfrey, will send you regular reports on Colin’s status.
Yours,
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Mrs. Creevey stares at the parchment she is grasping. It vibrates violently because she cannot stop her hands from shaking. She cannot imagine receiving worse news, and certainly not in such a cryptic manner. She knew she was right to be worried when her son’s weekly letters stopped coming.
She looks about her kitchen, her eyes wild and teary. Holly hangs in clichéd but comforting boughs from her ceiling, and her house smells of burned gingerbread, which her younger son Dennis brought home from school not an hour ago. Dennis has been buzzing through the house, hyper from the icing he consumed while he and his classmates assembled their gingerbread houses. He comes careening by her, waving a broken branch in one hand.
“Mum, mum, look at me, Mum! It’s a magic wand just like Colin’s got! Is he going to be here today? Can we go pick him up at that special platform? Is he coming back in that red train?”
“Go outside, Colin,” Mrs. Creevey says absently, trying not to sound worried.
“I’m Dennis,” the boy says, sounding exasperated but not really meaning it. He and his brother are alike in so many ways, he isn’t unused to being called the wrong name. “Did you see my gingerbread house, Mum?”
She tears here eyes away from the parchment- growing a fine crop of mandrakes?- and focuses on her son, shivering with excitement and sugar and Christmas cheer in front of her. “It’s lovely, dear,” she manages. “Now why don’t you go outside and play?”
And Dennis is off, waving his tree branch like a wand and squealing, “Hocus Pocus! Open Sesame! Alakazam!”
Mrs. Creevey sits down heavily and a sob wracks her body. Her son is off learning magic, real magic, and now... now she doesn’t even know what’s wrong with him, but it’s serious enough to warrant attention “around the clock”. She puts her head down over her folded arms and weeps out her fear and worry and frustration.
Mr. Creevey arrives home a few minutes later, carrying a large and robust Christmas tree in his arms. He is a small man with thick-rimmed spectacles and a balding, shiny head. He drags the tree into the parlour and is about to call for help setting it up when he hears his wife crying. He drops the tree with a crash and dashes into the kitchen.
“Sheila, what’s wrong?” he asks, wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders.
She looks up at him, her face red and tear-stained, and she hands him the letter. He reads it, then reads it again more slowly.
“What does this mean?” he finally says.
She shakes her head. “It means something terrible’s happened and our baby’s lying in some... some cold infirmary somewhere and he doesn’t have his mum with him and it must have been something dreadful if he can’t even come home. My God, Brian, what’s happened to our son in that awful place?”
Mr. Creevey reads the letter through again and red splotches of anger appear on his pale face. “What does this mean, they have the best care? Why haven’t they told us what’s wrong with him?”
“I didn’t want to send him to that school!” she sobs. “I knew something terrible would happen there. Imagine, magic being real and God knows what going on in that place and our son caught up in the middle of it. We have to get him home!”
“We all agreed it would be for the best in the summer,” Mr. Creevey says gently. “It’s no one’s fault that he has that kind of ability, Sheila. It’s not your fault that he went to Hogwarts.”
“But we have to find out what’s happened to him!”
Mr. Creevey nodded. “How do we get in contact with them?”
His wife nods toward the window and he follows her gaze. Perched on their windowsill is an irked looking owl who ruffles his feathers as though annoyed that he’s only just been noticed.
“I suppose it’s waiting for a reply. I wanted you to be here before I sent anything back.”
Mr. Creevey finds some notepaper and a pen and together they write a response.
Headmaster Dumbledore,
We are more than distressed by the letter you’ve just sent us. What has happened to Colin? When? How? Why can’t he come home?
We are coming to Hogwarts to see him, but we haven’t any idea how to get there. Please advise us on the best form of transportation. In the meantime, we need details. Should we transfer him to our local hospital? There are excellent doctors here, and then he would be near us.
Please respond as quickly as possible. We are attaching our phone number and e-mail address below, as it will be a much easier way to communicate than through an owl.
Brian and Sheila Creevey
A day passes. And then another. The phone doesn’t ring. No message comes via e-mail. Mrs. Creevey forbids Dennis from “playing wizard”. She can’t bear the sight of her small son brandishing a wand and pretending to vanquish dragons and evil spirits.
She curls up in her favourite armchair, the pile of Colin’s letters and the photographs he’s taken since the start of term resting on her knee. They are filled with his rapturous chatter. She reads through them all, smiling through her tears as he talks about the Hogwarts Express and all of the other children “just like me”. He tells her about the Chocolate Frogs that really jump and the pepper imps that make your ears steam. He describes the sight of the huge castle rising up from a cliff face and arriving there by boarding tiny boats at night- not even wearing a life preserver as he’s always been taught!- across a lake where, merciful heavens, a giant squid lives. A giant squid! He tells her about the way they put a talking hat on his small head and how a voice in his ear whispered to him that he is brave and loyal, that if properly trained he will be capable of great things. She bites back a sob- he has been called energetic and friendly and bright by teachers in the past, but never that he is capable of great things.
She reads about the amazing Harry Potter, who stopped an evil wizard when he was just a baby and is now Colin’s housemate. What kind of world has she sent her son to where there are such evil people as this Dark Lord, she wonders. She looks at the accompanying photo of Harry Potter. The picture moves, something she is still not used to. He is a small boy with striking green eyes and round glasses, and in every picture he seems to be ducking out of the way, behind the freckle-faced boy and bushy-haired girl who always accompany him. In another photo, over a dozen people on broomsticks zoom about high in the air. She reads Colin’s six-page missive on this sport called “Quidditch”, about how bludgers can knock people off their brooms and golden itches must be caught and how games can take three minutes or three weeks to complete.
Colin writes about his classes, about learning to transfigure a needle into a match and memorizing the theory behind actually changing living, breathing animals into teacups or tennis racquets. He’s learning how to fly a broom himself- her son who doesn’t like going on the top deck of a double-decker bus because it’s too high off the ground can now jump on a broom- a broom- and fly as high as he wants. No seatbelts, no net to catch him if he falls.
Maybe that’s what happened, she muses as she watches the photos of the Quidditch match again. Maybe he’s fallen off a broomstick and cracked his skull open. Maybe her sweet, helpful, energetic little Colin will lay comatose in a castle she’s never been to for the rest of his life, with this Pomfrey woman watching over him when his own mother should be.
She reads about Potions class, where the teacher hates them all and took house points from him when his Shrinking Solution blew up his cauldron. Her son is in a place where you can make a liquid that will shrink something, that will defy the laws of physics and actually modify molecular structures in such a way as to shrink an object or a living being. Her son is in a class where his cauldron can explode and the Potions Master punishes him for it.
And the Potions Master who hates the students? Surely this Professor Snape Colin writes about is not the same man who will brew a so-called “restorative draught” to revive her son?
She reads about owls delivering the mail, which she is familiar with as this is the method Colin now employs to contact her. She reads about sumptuous feasts that magically appear on empty tables, floating candles and bewitched ceilings and moving staircases and a poltergeist who always tries to get them in trouble. Colin writes excitedly about the Forbidden Forest, where they say werewolves and centaurs and unicorns live. He repeats a conversation he’s had with a ghost named Nearly Headless Nick who comforted him when he felt homesick.
If anyone else read her son’s letters, they would think his imagination to be distressingly overactive, or they would assume that he was downright insane, living in a fantasy world populated by mythical creatures and fanciful powers and wizards both pure good and pure evil. And, she supposes, he does live in a fantasy world, but the fantasies have all come to life. He lives now in a land of fairy tales- and he’s assured her that fairies are real because he’s seen them. He’s being taught how to channel a power she’d never have believed existed, let alone existed in such abundance, and he’s being taught how to use a magic wand to bring about whatever he wants. He won’t work with his father at the family antique store as she always imagined he would. He won’t become a teacher like she is. He will be a fully trained wizard, working with goblins or dragons, or covering up the existence of his new world from non-magical people. People like her. Colin has already begun to refer to his parents as “Muggles”; though it doesn’t seem to be a derogatory term, it definitely sets them apart from who he is now and what he will become over the next seven years.
She wonders again how it is that they agreed to send Colin away all year to a school they’d never heard of before to learn this preposterous nonsense. When they’d read the explanatory letters, it had all seemed so simple. There had barely been any debate. They’d all read the letter out loud to each other eagerly. It all seemed so simple: Colin- and Dennis too- had always been capable of doing unaccountable things because he had magic latent within him. Therefore he should go learn how to master that magic. Looking back, she wondered if they’d all somehow been bewitched by those letters. How else could she explain agreeing to send him away?
She finds the collectible card of Albus Dumbledore that Colin sent her and she fingers it lightly, looking at the old man portrayed. He is supposed to be one of the good wizards, and one of the most powerful, from the way Colin and the card describe him. He appears to be a kindly-looking old man wearing tasteless pajamas- robes, she supposes- of bright purple and gold, and he smiles reassuringly up at her over his half-moon spectacles.
“What’s happened to my son?” she asks him, but he only shrugs and looks a bit troubled.
She is interrupted from her reverie by a tapping at the window: the owl has returned. She jumps up, letters and photographs scattering at her feet in her haste to let the owl in. She retrieves the paper from its leg and it flies off immediately, not waiting so that she can send a response.
Mrs. Creevey unfurls the letter and a lump forms in her throat. She reads the letter to herself, mumbling the words as her vision blurs with tears.
Dear Mr. And Mrs. Creevey,
We at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry wish to express our sympathy for your family once more. We realize that you must be worried, and we want you to know that Colin’s accident was unfortunate but in no way life-threatening. However, as it was magical in nature, Muggle medicine will be unable to help him and it would be unwise to move him from our infirmary.
Do not worry. All will be well when the restorative draught can be administered. At the rate the mandrakes are growing, that should be no later than springtime. The best thing you can do is send your loving thoughts to him. He will recover in no time, and we will ensure that he is caught up in his lessons so that he doesn’t have to repeat the year.
I will be in contact soon.
Sincerely,
Madam Poppy Pomfrey, Hogwarts School Mediwitch
She nods absently. Well. That’s settled then- Colin will recover and she will send him her thoughts and all will be well.
Mr. Creevey comes in from running his Saturday errands with Dennis soon after, and Mrs. Creevey reads them both the letter. They all agree that it’s best to follow Madam Pomfrey’s advice. They won’t worry, but they will think often about their son. When their friends and family ask where Colin is, they answer politely that he is heavily involved with school life and simply couldn’t get away for Christmas this year.
It isn’t until after the New Year that something in Mrs. Creevey’s mind turns over and a wave of panic sets in. “Mandrakes in the spring?” she shrieks at Mr. Creevey over the phone when they’re both on lunch break. “He’s lying in some magic hospital bed and he hasn’t heard from us since Halloween and he won’t be well again until the spring?”
“We have to get to him,” Mr. Creevey agrees as though awakening from a winter’s hibernation. “We’ll try to send an owl asking for the school’s location.”
So decided, they meet after work while Dennis is at a friend’s house and they try to find an owl in the wood outside their village. When they do see one, they chase it through the trees. It squawks indignantly and outmaneuvers them with ease.
“That won’t work,” Mrs. Creevey sighs. “We’ll have to find a wizard and ask them what to do.”
“And where shall we find a wizard?” Mr. Creevey asks hopelessly.
“We’ll go to London. We’ll go to that pub- the Whistling Cauldron?”
“Leaking.”
“Fine, the Leaking Cauldron. They congregate there, don’t they?”
Mr. Creevey nods sharply, and Mrs. Creevey calls Dennis’ friend’s mother, asking if he can stay over. That settled, they depart for London. They arrive early in the evening but they cannot find the pub. It isn’t listed in the telephone directory. They go to the spot where they both remember it being, but it isn’t there.
Mrs. Creevey’s eyes slide from the rundown bookstore to the second-hand record store with dismay. “I was so sure it was right here!”
“Could they have closed up and moved?” Mr. Creevey asks, sounding rattled.
“And moved that entire hidden community behind its brick wall, too?” Mrs. Creevey shoots back.
“They’re all magic. It’s possible.”
She shakes her head. “It’s here, I know it is. I just don’t understand-“
Twin cracking sounds interrupt her, and before she can react, a middle-aged couple is standing in front of them, arguing.
“You know Flourish and Blotts’ll be closed by now, I told you we should have come earlier!”
“Oi, Muggles,” the man says, startled.
The woman looks at the Creeveys with surprise. “Don’t usually see them lurking about here. Best we obliviate them?”
“Best,” the man agrees.
Mrs. Creevey doesn’t know what “obliviate” means, but it sends a chill through her and she says, “Wait! Please, our son is attending Hogwarts and something’s happened to him. We don’t know how to contact him and they won’t tell us anything!”
The woman’s face softens. “They say something’s going on up there. I knew old Dumbledore was hushing it all up!”
“Come with us, then,” the man says, and he holds a door open- a door that simply hadn’t been there before.
“Where-? How-?” Mr. Creevey gasps.
“You can only see it when you’re with a witch or wizard,” the man explains. “You were with your son last time you were here? That’s why you found it, then.”
They follow the couple into the pub. It is a dingy, dim place, though it is much fuller than the last time they were here. Its tables are occupied by strangely dressed men and women of every age. The snatches of conversation Mrs. Creevey can overhear frighten her, with words like “Slytherin” and “sickles”, along with fragments of bad Latin, bandied about the room. She bites her lip and tries not to break down, thinking about their trip through Diagon Alley months ago. Colin had been bursting with excitement as he’d tried wands until one had shot periwinkle sparks from its tip and the strange, silver-eyed old man serving them had nodded sagely and said, “nine inch, maple with a unicorn hair core. Excellent choice.” They’d passed shop windows filled with animals she didn’t recognize, restaurants featuring dishes she’d never heard of before, stalls selling plants she couldn’t even pronounce. It had overwhelmed her and she’d blocked much of it out, though Colin had almost seemed to be in his element, and she’d believed that she was doing the right thing, letting him loose in this bizarre, here to for unheard of world.
“We need to get to Hogwarts,” Mr. Creevey says desperately, and the woman who brought them into the pub nods toward the fireplace.
“You can floo into Hogsmeade and then walk up to the castle,” she says. At their confused looks, she giggles. “Muggles really have no idea, do they? Come here. Take a pinch of this, toss it into the fire, say ‘Hogsmeade Station’, and step in.”
“Into the fire?” Mr. Creevey gulps.
“It’s perfectly safe,” the witch says with a wave of her hand. “Just say your destination clearly and keep your elbows tucked in while you go.”
Mrs. Creevey nods smartly. She isn’t about to back down now. Her baby needs her, and she hasn’t gone to him. All these months, and she’s been content with regular reports from Madam Pomfrey that she and Mr. Creevey have taken turns reading to each other. She doesn’t understand why she’s been so complacent. It isn’t like her. She is an overprotective mother and she’s proud of that fact. She should have been with her son- ill? Injured? She doesn’t even know!- from the moment she received the first letter.
She takes some of the glittery powder and tosses it into the fire, which immediately flares and becomes a deep emerald green. “Hogsmeade Station!” she shouts, and several patrons turn with interest to watch. She steps into the fire and gasps as it licks at her face and hands without burning her. She feels like she is on the champagne ride at an amusement park as she spins around and around. She is sure that the high-pitched noise surrounding her is actually her own scream but she can’t stop, not until she tumbles out of a cold grate and into a snowy street, landing hard on her hands and knees and coughing up soot. She is joined a moment later by Mr. Creevey, who manages to stay upright.
They look around, wide-eyed. They are in a village lit by lanterns. People in brightly coloured robes stroll by them, not even sparing them a glance as they chat about the firewhiskey at Madam Rosmerta’s and the troll sighting that was reported only hours from here. Mrs. Creevey sneaks her hand into her husband’s and together they set off for the dark silhouette of a medieval castle, its hundreds of windows flickering invitingly against the sable sky.
It takes them twenty minutes to hike up the gravel path, through the lofty, gothic gates, and up to the colossal wooden doors of the castle.
“Should we knock?” asks Mrs. Creevey, but the doors seem to sense their presence and swing open by themselves.
Once inside, they find that dinner has just finished and they are enveloped by students, all wearing black robes like the ones they bought for Colin, chatting about Quidditch and homework and-
“Did you hear that?” Mr. Creevey hisses. A blond boy with a sour face strolls passed them flanked by two hulking youths that make Mrs. Creevey think of bookends shaped like gargoyles.
The blond is speaking in a mocking tone. “’Course I don’t know what the monster is, Crabbe, only that it’s striking out against Mudblood filth. About time, too, I say. Petrifies its victims, just like Filch’s cat. It’ll kill soon, mark my words.”
And then the boy catches sight of Mr. and Mrs. Creevey and he smirks. “And now they’re letting Muggles in,” he drawls. “That’s really going too far, isn’t it? Staining these halls with that kind of dirt.”
Mrs. Creevey gapes at the boy as he sweeps away imperiously. She splutters, “What did he just say?”
Mr. Creevey gripps her arm. “Come on, we’ve got to find the infirmary.”
A girl with blond pigtails overhears and smiles at them. “The infirmary? I can take you there.” She stares for a moment at Mr. Creevey. “You must be that first year’s parents. Colin?”
The Creeveys nod in unison and she motions her arm sharply. “I’m Hannah. Mind you stay close- it’s easy to get lost if you don’t know the way.”
They pass portraits that not only move but also speak, suits of armour that wolf-whistle at them, and a ghost with wide, staring eyes covered in silver blood stains. Five minutes and several moving staircases later, they arrive in a room filled with high, narrow windows and rows of beds against the walls. Several of the beds are hidden with white curtains. Mrs. Creevey whimpers.
“Is he in one of those?” she asks, but before Hannah can answer, a witch in a white wimple bustles over to them.
“This is an out of bounds area!” she scolds them.
“We’re looking for our son!” Mr. Creevey says helplessly.
“Colin,” Hannah adds helpfully.
The witch’s eyes widen and she turns to Hannah. “Thank you, Miss Abbott. Could you please summon Professor Dumbledore for me?”
The girl nods and disappears, and the witch turns back to them. “Mr. and Mrs. Creevey, I presume? I’m Madam Pomfrey. We didn’t expect you to come here.”
“We have every right to see our son!” Mrs. Creevey cries.
The door bangs open, and an ancient wizard with the longest beard Mrs. Creevey has ever seen appears. His nose looks like it has been broken once or twice in his lengthy life, and his blue eyes reflect both curiousiosity and solemnity. She recognizes him from the Chocolate Frog card, and she takes a step toward him.
“Headmaster Dumbledore? We’ve come such a long way. Can’t we see our own son?”
Dumbledore smiles at her, and the smile is so warm, so genuine, that she can’t help but feel relieved. “Of course. This way, this way.”
They follow him to one of the cloistered beds and he pulls the curtain aside. Lying frozen upon the mattress is Colin Creevey.
He looks like a wax mannequin from Madam Tussaud’s. His skin is sallow and taught, his eyes wide and staring, his fingers curled strangely in front of him, almost as though gripping an invisible camera.
“What’s happened?” Mrs. Creevey whispers, leaning down to sweep her son into her arms. He is so stiff, so utterly inhuman that she has to fight not to recoil. She puts her head on his chest and listens. His heart is beating, his chest rising and lowering almost imperceptibly. He is alive, but barely.
“What’s happened?” she repeats, rounding on Dumbledore and Pomfrey, fury in her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell us how serious this was? Why did you keep us from coming to him? We asked you! We told you we needed to see him! We asked you point blank what was wrong! How dare you keep this from us?”
“My dear woman,” Dumbledore says, placing a hand on her shoulder and looking deep into her eyes. “He has been petrified. It is not a common occurrence here, and rest assured that the students at Hogwarts are perfectly safe. As we told you, we’ll revive him just the moment the mandrakes have grown.”
“And no one else in the world has mandrakes that you can use now?” Mr. Creevey asks. He hasn’t been able to take his eyes off the immobile form of his son. “No one else has this ‘restorative draught’ to help him?”
“Alas,” says Dumbledore. “All mandrakes grow at the same rate. Everyone’s crop will be ready at the same time. And the draught we need for Colin does not keep well. It must be ingested fresh or it will not be effective. Stick of chewing gum?”
He pops a green piece of gum into his mouth and then proffers the pack to the Creeveys, who both accept numbly. Mrs. Creevey’s is blue. So is her husband’s.
Dumbledore stands with them as they hold their son’s hand and stroke his forehead and whisper meaningless words to him, working their own kind of magic, soothing themselves more than the petrified boy in the bed.
“Colin, Colin,” Mrs. Creevey cries. “I’m sorry I sent you to this horrible place! When you’re well, we’ll take you home and you’ll never have to come here again.”
Mr. Creevey wraps an arm around her shoulders and says, “You and Dennis, we’ll send you both to Hastings next year, son. It’ll all be all right.” His voice is rough with suppressed emotion, but Mrs. Creevey can feel the tremor in his arm.
Dumbledore watches over them for half an hour or more before clearing his throat. He looks at them both intently and speaks very gently. “You have to believe me, Mr. and Mrs. Creevey, that your son is safe with us. There is no reason to deprive either of your children from the magical education they deserve. No reason whatsoever. We will cure your son. You do not have to worry. You do not have to come back here to check on him. We will see that he gets the best care. Understood?”
His words are so soothing, so warm and full of hope, and Mrs. Creevey nods. She feels drowsy but at peace, knowing her son is in the hands of such a wise and capable man.
“Thank you, Headmaster Dumbledore,” Mr. Creevey murmurs at her side, and she grips his hand.
“We didn’t realize how safe he is here,” she adds, and Dumbledore smiles again.
“We can’t afford to lose students,” he says softly. “Not now, not when the world is as it is. We must have as many trained wizards as we can. Your sons both have places here. This is where they belong.”
“Keep us apprised of his condition,” Mrs. Creevey says and she bends to place a kiss on her son’s chilled forehead.
Dumbledore kindly helps the Creeveys return home- Mrs. Creevey can’t quite remember how they arrive so quickly, but she is grateful for Dumbledore’s assistance.
Winter gives way to spring and one warm afternoon an owl arrives, delivering the joyous news that Colin has awakened.
“Always knew he would!” says Mr. Creevey.
“That Professor Dumbledore is just wonderful,” Mrs. Creevey agrees, hugging her husband with delight. “He’ll be home next month, when term ends!”
Colin’s letters start showing up every week once more, describing his private tutorials that are catching him up to the rest of his class. He talks about his friends and his housemates and how Harry Potter saved them all and how he wants to try out for the Quidditch team next year, and Mrs. Creevey smiles fondly. She is happy that her son is doing so well at his special school.
They pick Colin up at King’s Cross Station and bring him home. His trunk is full of his spell books and he spends the summer doing homework and telling Dennis about the wonders that await them both next year. When they both receive letters from Hogwarts later that summer, they take turns reading them out loud to their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Creevey couldn’t be prouder, and they don’t have a second thought about sending their sons back to Hogwarts. Dumbledore is watching over Dennis and Colin, and nothing can go wrong. By the time both boys are back at the school, Colin’s mysterious malady has all but disappeared from the Creeveys’ minds. All they can remember is the twinkle of Dumbledore’s eyes and the words of those Hogwarts letters. Nothing else matters.
Fin