Harry Potter and the Bottle of Fire

Part 1 of 4

Harry woke to an alarm clock’s shriek grating the air into cacophony. Reaching for the bedside table he tapped his wand to silence the wailing. He pinched his eyes tight shut and felt his body swimming in the dull ache of an early morning hangover. A headache was already beginning to chew through the back of his head and burry itself throbbing behind his left eye. That was going to be there all day. It was probably a tumor, he thought.

“Fucking Mondays.”

Harry rolled from bed and lumbered to the bathroom. Deep set eyes like pink quartz stared at him through the mirror as he scrubbed the stench of fire whiskey and cigarettes from his gaping maw of yellowed teeth. Foamy spittle dripped from his slack jaw onto his chest as he lazily inspected a weary bloated face.

How had no one figured out to magic away a hangover?

He reached out and traced the famous lightning bolt on the forehead in the mirror. “The boy who had lived,” he mumbled with a self-indulgent smirk.

Steam from the shower had begun to fill the room. Harry shrugged off his faded flannel pajamas and stumbled into the steam’s warm envelope.

The kitchen was empty except a lone bowl set on the big wooden table. Good. He wouldn’t be dealing with Ginny this morning. The last thing he needed was a fight.

The cereal must have been set out at least an hour earlier because it had turned to room temperature paste. Harry indifferently shoveled down the shredded wheat pulp.

Why was there no magic for the everyday, for the real problems? You could stun someone, or turn their legs to jelly, or even become someone, but where was the spell to cure the hangover, to unsoggy cereal, to find the clitoris? Why couldn’t one dispel that nagging fear of grinding inevitability?

Harry turned up his bowl and slurped down the last sugary dregs of cereal milk.

“You slept in the guest room last night”

Fuck.

Ginny stepped in from the living room.

“Why?”

Harry silently walked across the kitchen and set his bowl in the sink.

“I asked you why you slept in the guest room last night.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you, dear.”

She raised her arms in a shrug. Harry knew she wasn’t really asking a question.

“You stayed up drinking again didn’t you.”

“Only a little.”

She placed her arms across her chest and locked Harry with a glowering stare. She knew he was lying. Her face looked as weary as his. She didn’t care that he drank to much. She was indifferent to his health. This was just her role, like some somnambulant cuckoo driven by the clock spring of a long dead relationship.

“And you’re going to that cookout tonight. I’m sure you’ll drink too much there too.”

“No I won’t.”

“Yes you will. You always do. You’ll drink too much and make an ass of yourself in front of my brother and his wife.”

His wife. She spat the phrase out like cold lead.

“Look I’m going to see my friends tonight. I won’t drink too much. That’s well within my rights. I don’t know why you’re getting upset.”

“You know how I feel about this. You know what I’m talking about.”

“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He knew exactly what she was talking about.

“Look, I’m running late for work. I’ve got to go.”

Harry grabbed his briefcase and made his way to the garage, without giving Ginny a chance to respond.

The garage smelled like rancid oil and decaying plastic. In the dim glow from the windows’ translucent with dust, Harry dug for the broomstick he’d carelessly tossed in a corner the previous night. He found his Firebolt perched on a pile of boards haphazardly stacked against the wall in an altar of two-by-fours and cobwebs. The wood was for a project Harry had thought up years ago, a fort for his kids and Ron and Hermione’s kids to play, but he’d never found time to start it, and now that all the kids were away at school he didn’t see the point.

Harry stumbled through the rubble of toys left behind and never cleaned. His thoughts drifted back to 107 Privet Drive, and the Dursley’s spotless garage, filled with uncle Vernon’s big red boat of a car. He thought about Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, and if their marriage had been this miserable, if all of the suffering they had forced upon him had simply been a projection of their own. He thought about Dudley, and his garage, and his soft piggy children.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Harry stepped out of the garage’s side door and onto a short driveway. He straddled his broomstick and kicked off the earth; relief washed over him with the gust of wind. Things were right again with the world. He was eleven again, playing in his first Quidditch match. He rolled and swooped lazily, climbing high above the rooftops, imagining teammates and opponents he hadn’t seen in years. There was Oliver Wood and Angela Johnson, as excited as ever. There was Malfoy, before the pancreatic cancer, and Cedric and Fred. Poor Cedric and Fred.

He thought back to his childhood days, when he had no worries but his parents’ deaths and a psychopathic wizard, and he began to feel things were right again. He had his health. He had his broomstick. He had that first cigarette he would smoke when he was safe at work, away from Ginny. He was going to see his friends tonight. He was going to see Hermione tonight.

His heart seemed to inflate at that thought. He gently rolled over and tilted his head back to smile at the inverted world passing underneath.

Then he heard a sputter. Then a clunk. Then a clatter, like a toaster thrown in a spin cycle. His broom began to buck and shake, and started swooping out in a widening gyre careening toward the earth.

Harry fought frantically with the broom, his white knuckled hands wrestling to yank up on the handle that seemed pulled by an unnatural force to the fast approaching ground. The rush of wind pressed against his face and forced his eyes to narrow squints. In a desperate attempt to avoid complete destruction Harry steered the broom down to a barren lot between two buildings. His side slammed into the earth, sending his body rolling as his broom was thrown clattering into the street.

Harry lay still on the ground with his eyes shut. Pain was lancing through his arm like he hadn’t felt since his second year at Hogwarts when he broke his arm. It was broken again now; he knew it. Harry reached in his pocket for his wand to mend his tattered arm, and withdrew a palm full of splinters. His wand had smashed during the fall.

“Fuck,” Harry whispered.

He rolled onto his good arm and managed to push himself onto his feet, moving toward the street in a galumphing crouch, cradling his broken arm.

He’d landed in an abandoned lot in a seedy part of town. Looking around, it became apparent that he had been lucky to miss the heaps of rubble and decrepit cars. On one side of the lot was what appeared to be an abandoned laundromat, windows smashed or blacked out with graffiti. The words “FUCK YOU” were scrawled in ornate pink bubble letters, next to a drawing of a well-endowed horse making love to a disgruntled dwarf. The other side of the lot was lined by a dingy pub that seemed open but empty.

Harry’s Firebolt lay in two separate pieces on the sidewalk.

“Fuck,” Harry almost whimpered this time. This was the worst part of today.

Harry kicked the broken handle of the Firebolt across the asphalt and began walking toward the pub. He’d call Ginny to come get him, but in the meantime, he needed a drink.