Chapter Text
The compartment door slides open, and Draco Malfoy comes sauntering in, a smirk on his face as his flunkies Crabbe and Goyle put on their best glowers behind him. But instead of his usual slicked-back blonde hair, he's strutting around as a giant magical crow, as tall as a first-year, with black feathers and a sharply hooked beak very different from Sirius's gently curved one. Almost a year later and he's still prancing around in his Pureshape form, if only to prove he has it.
It still sends a little pang of jealousy through me.
"What do you want?" I say, not even waiting for him to open his fat beak.
"Manners, Potter," Malfoy says, buffing his prefect badge with the tip of his wing. "Unless you want detention – seeing as how I, unlike you, am a Prefect. Looks like even Dumbledore knows not to give the badge to a Noshape-in-waiting—"
"Shut up," I say, "or when I get my shape, you'll find out what a dragon can do to a little bird."
He sniggers, and it comes out faintly like cawing. "Everyone knows you won't be a dragon, Podmore."
"Don't call her that!" says Ron, his face turning red as he scrambles to his feet, gets his wand out as I try to hide my cringe. Potter is my Pureshape father's clan name. I can use it until I turn 17 – but if I don't get a dragon shape like his, I'll have to change it.
"Why not? We all know it's only a matter of time, Westley. You're both already fifteen. You're late. Even Crabbe and Goyle have their shapes now." They, like most wizards, are Halfshapes, turning into mundane animals, unable to use magic without turning back. And Goyle's a pig – he barely looks different from his human form! "You two are the last ones left out. Such a shame – but not a surprise. Everyone knew it was coming. Not even two years before you're both officially Noshapes. Aren't you petrified?"
"Get lost, Malfoy!" I yell.
"Oh, but it isn't Malfoy any more," he purrs. "It's Draco Black now. My Pureshape clan, like my mother before me."
"Get out!" says Hermione, her body changing, shifting into her own shape, the midnight-blue jaguar baring her teeth, just the faintest haze of magic on the air.
"Fine, Granger," Draco scoffs. Even he can't say her name with the dismissiveness and the anger he used to – because it isn't just a Muggle name any longer. Hermione is the first and only member of our trio to get a shape – and it's a new Pureshape form. Her jaguar form is a magical creature, larger than life, and never before seen in Britain. She's the first of her clan – and so the name Granger now means wizarding royalty, just like Black, Malfoy, or Potter.
He flounces out, slamming the door behind him.
~~
I stomp up the steps to my dormitory with Hermione by my side, flop onto my bed. I have stuff to unpack, but honestly, I just want to go to sleep. Lavender and Parvati are already here, Lavender hanging up her enormous mirror while Parvati empties a bag of carved wooden pieces onto her bed.
"Hi, Harriet," says Parvati. "How was your summer?"
"Ugh, the worst," I say, rolling back out of bed and opening my trunk hard enough that the lid clacks against the wall. "I'll just point out that the Daily Prophet spent all summer smearing me, and let you extrapolate to the rest of my so-called vacation."
"That's not true!" says Lavender, jerking away from her mirror. "The Prophet doesn't smear! They're just reporting the facts!"
"The Prophet published seven hundred and eighty seven lies about me this summer – I counted!" My voice sparkles with faux cheer. "That's eleven lies a day on average, with one day having as many as forty-three separate falsehoods!" I roll my eyes, staring flatly at her. "Really, just read the London Owl. Counting lies and wiping arses are the only things the Prophet's good for these days."
"You're just trying to make excuses after the Prophet exposed you!" Lavender shrieked. "And it's not gonna work!"
"Keep your fat mouth shut about Harry!" says Hermione, raising her wand.
"Lavender!" moans Parvati, looking up from the pieces she's assembling. "You promised you wouldn't fight with Harry and Hermione!"
"That was before Harry decided to mock the Prophet, which in case you forgot is where my mum works!" Her voice rises to a shriek at the end.
"Hey, she doesn't write the articles..." I say weakly.
"Shut up, you attention whore!" Lavender turns her nose up at me, then changes into a bunny rabbit, her robes falling to the floor before she hops through the gap in the curtains of her four-poster bed. She sleeps in her shape – almost everyone does, even Halfshapes like her.
"I'm sorry, she's just..." Parvati grimaces, trying to figure out what to say. "I mean, with her mom, y'know..." She brightens up, apparently deciding to just change the subject. "Isn't this pretty?" she asks instead, gesturing to the little wooden thing she'd built – a miniature tree, golden branches spreading out in a fan, sitting atop her bedspread.
"Uh, sure, but what is it?"
"It's a perch!" She smiles almost from ear-to-ear.
"Like for a bird?"
"Yup! I had my change over the summer – look!" She shrinks, her robes falling to the ground like Lavender's had as she turns into a bright pink-and-purple parakeet with a long, colorful tail.
"Wow." I smile at her a little weakly.
"Still a Patil, but at least I'm pretty. I changed a week before my fifteenth birthday – Merlin, was that a relief," she says in a newly musical voice, flying gracefully to her perch – and then she seems to realize something. "Uh... can you close my curtains?"
"Yeah, no problem," I say, waving my wand to close the curtains behind her.
"Thanks, Harry," she says. "Good night!"
"Good night," I echo, but I can't quite keep my weariness out of my voice as I sit down on my bed with a sigh.
"You okay?" Hermione asks, padding up to my bed in her jaguar form. She hops up on the bed to lie down beside me.
"I'm fine," I say, casting a privacy spell with a lazy flick of my wand. "I was expecting someone to believe the Prophet, and Lavender, well, we know her..." I smile at Hermione, and she smiles back up at me. Making fun of Lavender has been a group activity for us since the first week. "It's just... Malfoy was right. I really am the last one who hasn't changed."
"Don't worry about it, Harriet," Hermione says, resting a warm paw on my leg. "I was late too, remember? You're only at fifteen and a month – I didn't change until fifteen and four. I know it must feel awful, with everyone else already changed, but don't forget that you're the youngest of the year. Black was just being an arse like always. Plenty of people change a little late. You still have two years left."
"I know, I'm just... nervous."
"Hey, I was nervous too! More nervous, actually — I mean, a lot of Muggleborn are Noshapes, so your chances are a lot better than mine were."
"You were one of the first, though! And I'm one of the last. There's just something scary about that!"
She doesn't answer – instead, she just leans toward me and licks me right on the face, rough and prickly. I giggle and shove her off. "C'mon, Harry, stop fretting. Can't let it keep you awake – after all, you get your first change in your sleep, right?"
"I guess..." Hermione lets her head fall into my lap, and I scratch behind her ears.
"Go on, Harry," she says. "Go to bed."
"All right," I say with a smile. Hermione nuzzles me, before hopping off, back to her own extra-size bed for the night. She closes her curtains with the quick tug of wandless magic.
I sigh, changing into my pajamas, casting my bedtime spells and then tucking myself in.
Hermione is my best friend. But, sometimes, I'm not totally sure she remembers how gnawing the anxiety is.
Pureshapes like Hermione and Draco are at the top of the Wizarding world. They change shape into magical creatures, larger-than-life and beautiful, able to perform feats of wandless magic unattainable by nearly anyone else. In Britain, they get special rights and privileges – the Wizengamot's Hall of Clans gives Pureshapes control of one house of the legislature. And so many of the greatest witches and wizards are Pureshapes – Albus Dumbledore with his magical lion shape and Lady Voldemort with her dark-scaled basilisk are the stuff of legends.
I always thought I would probably be a Pureshape, because my father was one – James Potter, of the Potter clan, was an actual dragon. Big, flying, winged, fire-breathing, so cool. I've been fantasizing about my change ever since I found out I was a witch. My dad used to fly in and out of his dorm through the windows, they say, just as good at Quidditch off his broom as on it. I still hope to be a Potter... but I am starting to worry.
It wouldn't be so bad to be a Halfshape, I suppose. I'd still lose my family name – become Podmore, like Malfoy said – but at least I'd get some respect. Every night, I go to bed hoping for some change – any change. But for some people, it never comes. Most people who will change, do so before their 15th birthday. But it's only at age 17 when you officially become a Noshape. Someone who can't change.
In some circles, just a step above Squibs and Muggles.
I sigh. See, this is what Hermione told me not to do. Improving my magic and growing more powerful can affect my shape. But fretting won't change anything.
I close my eyes and fall quickly asleep.
~~
I wake up already screaming.
It hurts it hurts it hurts like nothing I've ever felt before – like my skin is liquefying, or maybe burning away. Every part of my body from the chest down feels squashed, mushed flat like a cartoon character by an anvil, and I almost think it's a nightmare except even nightmares never hurt this bad!
At first, all I can think is Voldemort did this, but there's no one here – I'm alone in my four-poster bed, thrashing and rolling around almost on automatic. As I start to hear the other girls wake up, I fall out onto the floor, landing with a thump that feels almost comforting in comparison to the agony I'm in.
"Harry?" asks Hermione, springing from her bed as a cat-shaped blur to rest her paw against my chest. "What are you feeling? What's wrong?"
I just gape at her, unable to talk, my mouth just flapping open and shut. Something in my head shifts – don't look at her! says a strange impulse – and I can't close my eyes but I roll myself over, rubbing my nose into the rough wood floor.
"D-do you think she's changing?" asks Lavender uneasily, and some very bitter part of me wants to make a snarky comment about oh, you didn't care that much before my body caught fire if only I could speak. Instead, I just claw at the ground, retching, but nothing comes up.
"I don't know," Hermione says, her voice strained with worry. "The first change always hurts, but... it's not supposed to hurt this much." Her words seem to harden, turning calculated and decisive. "Go get Professor McGonagall," she orders.
I retch again, and this time I vomit – except it's not vomit, it's a gooey yellow-green liquid, and it hisses when it touches the ground, foaming up, a pungent smell wrinkling my nostrils as a thin column of smoke rises.
"Is it eating through the floor?" says Parvati, her voice rising to a shriek.
"Scourgify!" casts Hermione, and some of it goes away – but not all of it, and it's still dripping from my mouth and burning a hole in the floor, and she keeps casting it over and over again but it doesn't seem to help much.
My whole lower body is burning now, and that smushed feeling just keeps getting worse and worse until something snaps – bones breaking, my pajama pants shredding – the spring of tension finally releases with a punch that knocks someone off their feet – Parvati shrieks – a strange tingling feeling passes over my whole body from head to toe, and then suddenly, blissfully, everything is normal. I feel good. Soothed, if maybe a little bit cold.
I know... I know something important happened, but I don't have the energy left to know or care what it is. But it's cold here. I'm so, so cold...
I wriggle my way to the fire, curling up in front of the comforting heat and light, and quickly fall back asleep.
~~
I wake again with a start, as though a jolt of electricity had passed through me. I squirm in place, turning my head around, only to see Professor McGonagall pointing a wand in my face.
She's still in her nightgown, and wearing strange mirror glasses that I've never seen her in before. The other girls are gone, and Professor McGonagall looks very, very worried – almost scared. "I'm sorry to wake you, Miss—" Professor McGonagall pauses, grimacing. "Harriet. But it seems as though you had a rather violent first change – are you feeling okay? Any lingering pain, anything seem wrong?"
"So it was a first change then?" I smile – sort of, my mouth doesn't quite feel normal, so I'm not sure what that actually looks like. I can't quite manage the jubilance I might expect, but there's a feeling of warm pride nevertheless. I wiggle around a little, raising my head from the floor. "I feel just fine now, nothing still hurts... though it's weird, I don't quite know how to move, I'm not really finding my limbs here..."
I look back – I'd say over my shoulder, except I don't seem to have shoulders. I don't seem to have... anything, actually, aside from just body, and lots of it, a long winding body curled up untidily in front of the fire.
"Um. Well. I guess I don't have any limbs. So I'm not a Potter, I'm some kind of snake, that's weird... though I guess the Parseltongue makes a lot more sense now. If I'm this big, I must be a Pureshape, but..." I turn back toward Professor McGonagall, my tongue flicking out quizzically. "What am I? Do you know?"
"You... appear to be a basilisk," Professor McGonagall says. "There is only one living basilisk clan, and they look very much like you, so..."
"You think I'm a Gaunt?" I rear back, my mouth falling open in disgust. There's a bitter taste in my mouth that I slowly realize is venom. "Like Voldemort?"
"Yes," she says solemnly. "If you like, I can cast the verification spells."
"Do it," I whisper.
She opens a small book – Pureshape Clans of the British Isles – flips to a bookmark, and then mutters a few words at me with a wave of her wand. A white glow surrounds me.
"That's it?" I ask, my voice weak. "That's all there is to it?"
"That's all there is to it," she says. "A positive result. Congratulations, Miss Gaunt."
"T-thank you, I guess," I mutter, lowering my head. Merlin, how did this happen? "Do you mind if I, uh..." I bob my head toward Lavender's giant mirror.
"Go ahead," Professor McGonagall says. I slither up to Lavender's giant mirror, and look myself over.
I am a basilisk – no other snake is so large, and the glow of magic in my eyes makes it unmistakable. My scales are almost mirror-polished, sparkling with reflected firelight. They're exactly the same shade of green as my eyes, except for a single scale just above my right eye – where my scar would be – that's a coppery red color. And I have a hood, my neck scales flaring out as a bright, brilliant headdress. My mouth falls open as I gaze at myself in the mirror. I truly am beautiful this way.
It's also clear that I'm powerful. I have to be at least thirty feet long – I'm looking at myself in Lavender's mirror, but my tail is still in front of the fire on the other side of the room. There's a certain expectant feeling in my eyes, hungry magic just waiting for a push, that would unleash my killing gaze. I flick my tongue out, and when it returns to my mouth, I can taste the air in remarkable detail. I extend my enormous fangs, see the yellow-green venom glittering at their tips. And, looking around the room, I realize that I'm seeing something beyond normal vision – passing my eyes over Professor McGonagall, the still-warm beds, and the fire in the hearth, I realize that it's heat. Yes, I'm certainly dangerous – I can be terrifying, if I want to be.
Slytherin's Basilisk was almost the same color as me, and only a little larger, but it had no hood and dull scales, wet and glistening, no match for my beauty. No, I've only ever seen one basilisk like me before: Lady Voldemort, the black-and-red scaled basilisk of my nightmares, and her deceptively beautiful copper-scaled alter ego Cecilia Gaunt, a powerful politician. And she's my new clanmate.
I don't want to be connected to her this way. It horrifies me. But when I look in the mirror, I don't see her. I see my own beauty, my own power. My scales sparkle like jewelry, my body moving smoothly and gracefully, in a way that accentuates how dangerous I am. So I can't even begin to care about who my clanmate is. I love my shape.
"Are you ready for me to record your shape?" Professor McGonagall asks. I look over my shoulder to see her taking out a heavy, leatherbound book. I saw it once before – when Hermione changed. The Hogwarts student register, where my shape – my clan – will be recorded.
"Yes," I whisper, lowering my head. This is all happening so fast, it's hard to believe I can really be ready for any of it. But I love what I am. Why wait? "I'm ready. Go ahead."
She opens the book, leafing through it to my page. But the moment she raises her quill, Albus Dumbledore appears in a flash of Phoenix fire. "Hold, Minerva," he says gravely. "I have reason to believe this might not be her true shape."
Professor McGonagall is so flummoxed, she nearly drops the book. "Albus, you know it's impossible to turn someone into a Pureshape, or change their clan! If Miss Gaunt wishes it recorded, there is no reason not to!"
"The injury that Voldemort inflicted upon Harriet is unprecedented," Dumbledore says sagely. "Their connection is without comparison. We already believe it made her a Parselmouth. Is it so surprising that it made her a Gaunt, too?"
"It didn't," says a voice from the stairwell. I turn, flinching, to see Professor Severus Prince, the horrible Slytherin potions master, looking almost normal despite it being four in the morning. He strides into the room with his cloak billowing behind him, eyes fixed on Professor Dumbledore. "It's hereditary. Her mother was a Gaunt." He turns to look at me, a glare in his eyes – and then he freezes, dead still, just staring at me. "You look just like her," he whispers, sounding oddly vulnerable.
"My mother?" I whisper, my head tilting almost to 45 degrees. "How?" I ask, my voice breathless. "Everyone said she was a Noshape!"
"She hid it," Professor Prince says, not quite making eye contact with me.
"Why didn't you tell me this?" Dumbledore says, a certain rumbling in the words.
"Lily asked me to keep her shape secret," Prince says, his usual coldness returning in force. "Clearly, she never trusted you with it. And I didn't think it mattered. With how much Pot—Harriet takes after her father, I thought she'd either be a Potter or nothing." His gaze returns to me, though never quite directly at me, skimming across my scales like he's worried he'll die if he looks at me straight on. "I certainly never expected this," he breathes.
Neither did I. No one had ever mentioned anything like it. And yet, somehow, it's easy to picture: my mother as a big green snake, carrying me around the house coiled in her tail, telling me stories in Parseltongue and letting me grab at her tongue. I'm not following in Voldemort's footsteps – I'm following in hers. And even though basilisks are cold-blooded, it makes me feel warm inside.
"Why did my mum hide it?" I ask.
"Three reasons: the Dark Lord, the Order of the Phoenix, and Hogwarts," he says. "Even then, there were rumors about the Dark Lord's connection to Cecilia Gaunt and the Gaunt clan. Openly joining the clan would earn her the Dark Lord's interest, when she wished to be neither recruited nor hunted."
What would that have been like? Going to school at the height of the first war, a Muggleborn Gryffindor with pro-Muggle beliefs, and then becoming a Gaunt? My hood folds, my body curling tightly behind me. That must have been awful.
"It's the other two that need explanation, Severus," Dumbledore says.
Professor Prince seems almost relieved to look back at the Headmaster, away from me. "She already hoped to join you, Albus, and your Order of the Phoenix. She feared that if she showed her clan openly, you'd think differently of her." He sneers. "As you already seem to."
"I see," Professor Dumbledore says. He sounds sad, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "And Hogwarts?"
"Gryffindor House would hardly appreciate her turning into a giant green snake. She feared ostracism. Bullying." A rather bleak smirk passes over Prince's features. "I suggested she change house, but she wouldn't hear of it. Concealing her shape was her solution." He looks back to me. "Though staying in human form for so long certainly wore on her. Eventually she took to casting privacy and security wards around her bed so she could at least sleep in her shape."
"Who knew about this?" Dumbledore says, anger creeping back into his tone.
"I knew, and she said she'd told Alice. But that was in our fifth year – I don't know who she told after that."
"Why did she tell you?" I ask, tilting my head, my forked tongue flicking out quizzically. "Sir?"
"We... grew up in the same city," Professor Prince says, sounding a little strange again. "So we saw each other in the summers."
"Do you have any evidence of this?" Dumbledore asks. I'm starting not to like how betrayed he seems, as if my shape is a personal affront. "Photographs? Notes? Anything?"
"There's a picture," Professor Prince says, eyeing me for a second, "but I don't think she needs to see—"
"I would like to see it, Severus," Dumbledore says, in tones that brooked no argument. "And I can't imagine why you would object to showing a young girl a photograph of her mother."
Without a word, Professor Prince turns away, his cloak billowing out behind him, and strides down the stairs. The moment his footsteps fade from hearing, Professor Dumbledore turns to me.
"I think it might be wise for you to follow your mother's example in this matter," he says, "and conceal your shape." Professor McGonagall raises an eyebrow, turns to stare at Albus, but his eyes are fixed solidly on me.
"No," I say. "I'm not going to hide who I am."
"Why not?" he asks, looking distinctly disappointed. "Do you think your mother made the wrong choice?"
"I don't," I say, glaring at Professor Dumbledore with my hood flaring out around me, "but my mum's situation was different. Professor Prince said she wanted to hide it from Voldemort, from you, and from Hogwarts. But Voldemort's eye is already on me – this can't be worse than being the Girl-who-Lived. You already know, so that one's definitely off the list. And I'm sure a lot of people won't like this, but it won't be the first time I've been ostracized at Hogwarts, and I doubt it'll be the last. I can deal."
"And this... this is truly worth it to you?" he asks, sounding angry, frustrated. "To join her clan?"
"But it's not her clan," I say, my hood flared, my fangs out. "It's my clan. My mother's clan. And I have no intention of letting Voldemort or anyone else take it from me."
Feet stomp back up the stairs. "Well put, Miss Gaunt," says Professor Prince, seeming to relish in calling me a name other than Potter. My fangs retract, and I nod my head. Has he... ever praised me before? A photo is clutched in his outstretched hand as he steps into the dormitory once more. I glance around the room – McGonagall also seems approving, while Dumbledore looks unhappy but resigned. "Here, take a look," he says, before holding the picture out in front of me.
Standing on a grassy field, a basilisk with sparkling green scales is curled gently around a much younger Professor Prince in his enormous black bat shape, wings wrapped tightly around himself. She seems happy, her mouth open but her fangs hidden, her tongue occasionally flicking out to touch his nose or his huge long ears.
I can't help but stare for a little while.
"She does look just like me," I breathe. "I'm not even sure I can tell the difference." Then my mouth curls into a fang-baring smirk. "Aside from the fact that you'd never let me hug you like that."
Strangely, he doesn't bristle at the remark. "I'd just gotten my own shape — she's congratulating me." He gives me another of those looks, where he doesn't quite make eye contact. "You can have a copy of the photo, if you like."
"Yes, please," I say, nodding. "I haven't seen much about what my mum was like away from my dad. Lupin and Sirius are nice, but they're more his friends than hers."
"Lily's best friends were Alice Shacklebolt, Marlene McKinnon, and... and they're both dead, or Alice may as well be. So there's no one left to talk to." For some reason, this earns another glare from Dumbledore. "But she kept diaries, and a photo album. I'm not sure what happened to them after the war."
"Everything left from the Potter home is in storage at Gringotts," Professor Dumbledore says. "Harriet can check with the goblins next time she's in Diagon Alley. Now, Severus, I'd like to see that photograph."
He takes out his wand and casts a duplicating charm, setting the copy gently down on my bed. Then he turns and hands the original to Dumbledore. "Satisfied?"
Dumbledore waves his wand – detection charms, really? – and I can see his face falling before he hands it back to Severus. "Indeed," he says stiffly. Then he turns to me. "Harriet, are you certain you want to go ahead with this? Everyone knows your name. Harry Potter, the Girl-who-Lived. You are a symbol of hope for the whole Wizarding world! And this is the name your father gave you. Now... especially now... are you sure you want to change?"
"Professor, you know I didn't want this to happen. I wanted to be like my dad so, so much. But I changed anyway. All that's left to do now is deal with it. I know there are people who believe in me, but... why can't they believe in the real me?
My eyes scan across the room. Professor Dumbledore still seems sad, disappointed. Professor McGonagall seems pleased – I bet she thinks it's brave of me. And Professor Prince has a sparkle in his eye that I've never, ever seen there before.
"I'm not Harry Potter. I'm Harry Gaunt."
"Then go ahead and record it, Minerva," Dumbledore says.
Professor McGonagall reopens the register and quickly scrawls my new clan name, before closing the book with a thud. "Is that all, Headmaster?" she asks, her voice just faintly frosty, apparently annoyed that this took so long.
"Yes," Dumbledore says. "Good night, Miss Gaunt," he says, an unpleasant curl to the name. They walk off down the stairs, Professor McGonagall and Professor Prince looking much happier than the headmaster.
Not long after, my poor roommates shuffle up the stairs and back into the dorm. Hermione seems fascinated by me, pacing around my body before standing in front of me.
"So... you're a Gaunt?" Hermione asks quietly. "Are you okay? How do you feel?"
"Yeah," I say with a nod. "I'm Harry Gaunt. And I feel great about it." I look over my body again, my sparkling green body, big and powerful, and my mouth pulls open. "I... I love my shape."
Hermione pauses for a moment, just staring at me, her eyes dilating. Worrying about Voldemort, no doubt. But after a moment, she blinks slowly, steps a little closer, and then presses a paw to my scales. "Congratulations, Harry," she says.
"Thanks, Hermione." I lower my head to rest atop hers, and we stay like that for a few moments before she steps away.
"Congratulations," Parvati mumbles. "But why did it take so long? It only took two minutes for Hermione, and they didn't make us leave the room for that. And what was Prince even doing here?"
"Unless you wanted to possibly be petrified," Hermione says, "leaving the room was a good idea."
"No one got petrified," I say, slithering over to my bed, setting the photo down on my nightstand. Do I have enough room to curl up under the covers, or...? "Professor McGonagall had my shape confirmed in like thirty seconds. It took so long because Dumbledore wanted me to hide my shape for some reason. Told him no."
"Crazy old coot," grumbles Lavender, getting back into her bed.
"He doesn't like snakes, that's for sure," I say, getting into bed. It's not quite big enough – even coiling myself up, my tail still trails onto the floor, but that's OK. "Good night, everyone. Sorry about the fuss."
I pull the curtains closed, and – wait, how did I do that without arms? My mouth opens in a fang-y smile. Pureshape telekinesis. Wordless, wandless magic. I know a lot of Pureshapes can do it, but I didn't realize it would be so easy. I closed the curtains – and, actually, I put that photo away, too – without even thinking about it.
So what can I do when I do think about it?
I hiss a quiet warming charm, and my bed heats up, nice and comfortable. I lay my head down on the pillow, and fall almost instantly asleep.