Prologue
Callum Bridgeforth sat in the familiar seats of the Hogwarts Express box car. The red velvet of the bench seats usually felt soft and welcoming, embracing as he buzzed with excitement for a new year at the wizarding school. This time, the seats felt like jagged rock on his back and the small box car he was tucked into was less inviting than previous years. He fidgeted in the seat, trying with no avail to find a comfortable spot.
The stress of his sixth year at Hogwarts already weighed on him. His parents pestering him all summer to “Improve your grades or you won’t make it in the wizarding world!” was in the forefront of his mind. They didn’t understand the trauma of living through the Battle of Hogwarts as a preteen. At first they were there to calm his nerves as he woke with a scream, covered in sweat, terrified that the Death Eaters returned to consume him. But as the summer wore on and his nightmares continued, they grew tired of his trauma.
When the older girl passed his car on the way to her seat noticed him alone, holding back tears, surrounded by notes on spells and an unfinished potions recipe, she slowed to a stop. She was in his house,a year above him, and had walked in on him a couple times last term tearied eyed and frustrated in an empty classroom. She handed him a small tablet and gave him a small smile. It was supposed to ease his burden and Callum felt like he had nothing left to lose. The chalky, bitter pill caught in his throat before he swallowed hard and forced it down. He fell into a coughing fit before regaining his composure and turned back to his potions problem. There were six hours left in the journey, and Callum prayed to Merlin that whatever he consumed worked its magic quickly.
Not ten minutes later, Callum began to feel calm, more focused, his already perfect vision sharpening like the eyes of a phoenix. The tension in his shoulders eased and he felt his jaw fall slack.
“I haven’t been this calm in years” he thought to himself.
Callum slouched back into his seat to revel in the peace the miracle pill provided. He swiveled his head, left to glance at the passing Scottish landscape outside the train car window, and right to study the cracked gold molding of the ancient locomotive.
As he stared at the ridges in the paint, imagining a whole world existing in each crevasse, he felt the air around him start to vibrate and a deep crimson red covered his vision. The tension that melted from before returned violently. Callum cried out and threw himself to the ground in an effort to escape the force attacking his body. He could feel his stomach bloating, his intestines twisting and burst at the seams, acid pouring out and surging up into his throat. His fingers felt like they were being stuck with thousands of needles, sinking into the sensitive skin at the tips and prying the nails off at the cuticle.
Callum glanced down at his hands, fearful of the sight of bloody nail beds. Peeking through squinted eyelids, he saw his hands intact, nails and all, no needled in sight. He puffed a sigh of relief, shaking his head and laughing to himself at the brief moment of insanity. He sat back on his heels, slowly rising to his feet. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to calm his nerves and clear his vision of the sea of red.
He used the creaking of the old train car around him to ground himself. The creaking grew louder, consuming his sense of sound to the point of ringing in his ears. He covered his ears to drown out the sound but the cacophony of creaking was soon joined by explosive popping and Callum’s hands were ripped from his ears. He fell heavy to his knees as the popping and creaking continued. He gazed down at his hands in alarm as we watched his nails drop off his fingers to be replaced by dark talons. The hands he stared at were unrecognizable; the once smooth spindly fingers replaced with giant, cracked skin and gnarled knuckles.
Nausea overtook Callum and he could taste the rising bile in his mouth. Searing pain returned with the realization that the chorus of pops and creaks were coming not from the train, but from the terrifying rearrangement of bones in his teenage body. Callum let out a mangle, gurgled cry. As it passed his lips, the scream morphed into a grisly howl, like the pained call of a dying wolf.
The confusion and horror consumed him. Callum struggled to his feet as best he could, his body stuck in a crouch and hunched over. He felt panicked, from the base of his feet (Merlin, what became of his feet if his hands were in that state?) to the crown of his head. Tears stung his eyes and he continued to call for help, but the howling from his throat continued. He screamed and cried until his throat was raw and dry. From his crouched position, Callum made his way from the train cabin to the hall, praying someone had heard his calls and was rushing to help. He ran down the cramped hall, stumbling into the windows as the train rocked back and forth on the tracks. Why was nothing in his life stable?
As he passed cabins and looked inside for help, all he was met with was ghost pale, terrified faces, people huddled in their seats as far from the cabin doors as possible. Callum reached out a gnarled hand, begging for someone to end this awful ordeal. The faces of the people in front of him contorted in horror as they let loose shrieks that pierced his ears. Suddenly, the breath was knocked from his lungs as something barreled into his left side.
His head hit the floor.
He felt a burning over his body.
And then black.