Wizard Tarot Foxglove

1994

A girl with straight, long auburn hair and a penchant for teenage drama sat in her classroom seat next to her best friend. She twirls one chunk of hair between her fingers and blows a light blue bubble with Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. It doesn’t pop, and she hastily bites it back as a surly, frightening professor marches into the room, a peg leg occasionally slapping the floorboards, giving the odd image that they were all going to soon be ushered off of a pirate's plank. Her eyes swell to the size of saucers very quickly.

This girl is Jessica, or, as she prefers to have others call her, Jessie. She is the oldest Potter alive, though that isn’t much an impressive title as the only other Potter in existence is her little brother, Harry.

And she is not much like him, at all, or she likes to think.

Silly, sarcastic, frivolous, perpetually bored and lazy…that’s Jessie. And, if she knew or cared to find out much about her brother, she'd realize they were two pees from the same teenage dirtbag pod. Though, once in a blue moon (or in this case, a giant blue bubble), she entertains the thought of being sensible and realistic, such as when her brother inevitably finds trouble and she needs to try to find a way to bail him out. This has led to some nights spent drinking copious amounts of caffeine while under the Invisible Cloak, reading Restricted Section books and forming nonsensical, yet intriguingly successful plans.

Is she a childish teen with a talent for disregarding convention? Or is she a deceptive young adult with hidden depths? That’s for you to decide.

Jessie would answer: probably neither, with an apathetic shrug of her shoulders. She’s not self-aware enough to know.

“Alastor Moody,” Mad Eye introduced himself to the class with a look of grave superiority. He wrote his comical last name on the board and then threw away the chalk…for some reason. Jessie had to stop herself from laughing out loud when it clattered away, leaving the room oddly silent for far too long. “Ex-auror. Ministry of Malcontent. And your new Defense Against The Dark Arts professor. I am here because Dumbledore asked me. So long, goodbye, the end,” he abruptly states.

“Adieu, to you, and you and you and you,” Jessie whisper-sang to her best friend, Addison, making the latter giggle.

“When it comes to the Dark Arts, I prefer a practical approach.” Mad Eye glared at the two giggling girls, who quickly pretended they hadn’t been communicating. “As a part of sixth year education, you will learn about the three Unforgivable Curses.” Moody turned to write on the board again, with another piece of chalk, soon to be chucked away as well. “Personally, I believe it’s a bit late showing you these for the first time. But, we can’t remedy that. Miss Potter, can you keep your gum in your mouth so it doesn’t end up on the underside of a desk!”

Jessie froze, her gum stretched between her teeth and her fingers. She hastily put it back in her mouth and began chewing it again. She leaned over to Addison and whispered, “Do you think he has a 360-degree-view charm?”

“I can also hear across classrooms!” Alastor turned and predictably threw the piece of chalk at her head.

“Merlin!” She dodged it as the white blur sailed over her head and hit Fred Weasley. He griped about it. But instead of becoming scared or indignant, Jessie was smiling like it was the funniest thing she’d seen all day. “I apologize, sir,” she said, still unable to stop smiling.

Moody became increasingly irate. “So, which curse should I demonstrate first? Weasley!”

The Danger Twins, as Jessie has come to call them, looked at each other, as if begging the other to answer. Fred socked George underneath the table, and the latter grudgingly responded with, “yes, sir?”

“Stand,” Moody commanded.

George reluctantly did so.

“Give us a curse.”

The student looked at him wearily before answering, “The Imperious Curse, sir.”

“Ah, yes, yes. You would know about that one. Gave your father at the Ministry some trouble a little while back.” Moody strolled to a glass container with a spider, picked it up, enlarged it, and then chanted, “Imperio!”

And that’s when the fun really started. Jessie was transfixed, suffocating on her own laughter as her and Addison fumbled for each other's hands.

The spider jumped from desk to desk, wreaking havoc among the arachnophobic classmates. At one point, it crawled up a Gryffindor girl’s arm and started dancing on her head. Jessie hadn’t laughed this hard in ages. Her stomach burned with the effort.

“Talented, isn’t she? What should I have her do next? Jump out the window?” Moody forced the spider into glass. “Drown herself.” The spider squeaked as it was levitated over a bowl of water. But, Moody went through with neither threat. The spider was brought to his palm and he severely addressed his shocked class. “Scores of witches and wizards claim that they only did You-Know-Who’s bidding under the influence of the Imperius Curse. But, how do we sort out the liars? Okay, another one.” Moody looked around the room at the raised hands. “Yes, you.” He pointed at Cedric Diggory, who sat diagonally in front of Jessie. That was purposeful on her part, she loved to look at the back of his head, conjure up romantic scenarios, and, sometimes...a quite disturbingly raunchy one.

“The Cruciatus Curse,” the Hufflepuff heartthrob answered confidently.

“Correct!” Moody moved to the spider and chanted, “Crucio!” Instantly, the spider started squeaking, and the mood in the room dropped to Antarctic levels. Jessie hated the sound. The poor creature…It did nothing wrong!

“Can you stop it?” She snapped at the Professor quite rudely. Addison, worried for her friend, lightly hit Jessie's thigh with the back of her hand. Licking her lips and conveying, in barely a nicer tone, Jessie added, “The spider doesn’t deserve that. Please, sir.”

Moody turned his unbelievable frightening gaze on her, and the class held its breath in anticipation for missed points, or possibly a curse in her direction. Jessie couldn't give a single shit, she wasn't intimidate. Not yet. To her, he was just some weirdo, washed-out Ministry henchman. But, the rest of the class expected terror, probably in the form of those curses he liked to show off. Instead, Moody spoke calmly and directly, though still managed to give enough of an ominous undertone that chilled the brash girl. “Miss Potter. Maybe you can give me the last one."

Of course, she could. But that was kind of the point.

She swallowed, a bad taste suddenly filling her mouth at the thought. “Avada Kedavra,” Jessie eventually answered, reeling in all of her courage and concern for the spider to continue her request from before. “And, please don’t murder the thing. No one needs a demonstration to know how that one works. It’s green. It kills instantly. Pretty obvious.”

“You may be correct on that. But, you’re also the only one in this class, other than me, to have witnessed it,” he pointed out tactlessly, his whirling eye suddenly settling on her with increased accuracy. “I believe it would be a disservice to the rest of you if we ended the lesson here. Avada Kedavra!” A flash of green light followed his spell, and the spider was rendered dead on the desk it was tortured upon.

A chill erupted over her skin, and tears threatened to fill her eyes. Jessie knew her turmoil wasn’t just for the spider, but that same flash of green haunted the earliest memory she had of her childhood. And out of that pain came indignation.

“I have a question about the Unforgivables, sir.” She raised her hand sort of lazily into the air, her inherent disdain for authority rising up in her and chasing away her fear of the unstable man’s temperament.

“Yes? What is it?” Moody asked quickly, eager to move onto his other devious lessons.

“Why aren’t more curses considered Unforgiveable? Fiendfyre can kill dozens, even hundreds, easily. The simple Reductor curse can blast apart bones and tissues as it does wood and rock, and the blasting curse is similar, but employs fire. Then there’s the entrail-expelling curse, which is self-explanatory…Gormlaith Gaunt's curse…”

“Yes, yes, yes…there are many creative ways to kill people. You don’t have to tell me that, Miss Potter,” Moody grumbled, sensing her subtle disobedience and sassy tone. “But, those curses are theoretically possible to defend against.”

“Since when is the act of killing more virtuous when using a defendable spell versus a crazy powerful one?” She argued. “It doesn’t make sense. That’s like saying if a Gringotts vault gets robbed and the perpetrators are caught, they should get a lighter sentence than those caught robbing a house, because Gringotts has better defenses.”

“Well, then you can take your complaints up with the Ministry. But I doubt they’ll think the same!” Moody suggested in a taunting sort of way.

“They don’t think at all.” The words were out of her mouth before she could…ah, think. How ironic? “I don’t mean you, of course, sir. Or the other Aurors. Just the bureaucrats who sit and twirl on their bums all day, collecting a paycheck,” Jessie added hastily. The rest of the class, if they weren’t nervous before, was certainly awaiting doomsday now.

Moody scowled at her for a few tense moments, and then bellowed out a laugh that made the first-row students jump in their seats. Jessie smiled uneasily and gave a side glare to Addi which clearly conveyed the following: this guy was nuttier than a jar of peanut butter.

“I do agree with you there, Miss Potter. Sitting and twirling on their bums…” He laughed to himself again and turned back to the board. Apparently, that was the end of the conversation, and Jessie seriously dodged a bullet, because he resumed teaching like the topic of Ministry bums never came up at all.

“Harry!”

The Boy Who Lived turned his head towards the hysterical whisper. Jessie crawled passed multiple irate Gryffindors—sometimes bumping them off their seats—to the bench to seat herself next to her little brother so she could whisper, again, more fervently in his ear. “You absolutely cannot get into trouble this year. I think I finally have a chance with Ced—”

“Jessica Potter!”

Dumbledore’s voice echoed around the room. Jessie winced as every head swung to find her, and she ducked down.

“Sorry, Headmaster, I’ll be quiet," she lamely mumbled, and a few laughs came from her house who heard the pathetic, embarrassed apology.

“No…” The old man looked at her wearily, holding up a piece of charred paper. The weird trophy she hadn't cared anything about before gave a final, pointed blast of blue fire, as if to follow Dumbledore's words with emphasis.

Jessie’s brain took a second to connect the dots. Her jaw dropped and her heart started palpitating at a horribly fast rhythm. A flush of heat—embarrassment, fear, both?—followed.

“What?!” She squawked, her face turning as deeply red as her hair. “I didn’t put my name in there! I’m not suicidal!” Jessie exclaimed, but to no avail. Her shrill voice echoed around the room in the death-like silence. Harry, in his infinite capacity of helpfulness, pushed her forward and she stumbled off of the bench and towards Dumbledore. Protests lodged in her throat. She looked back at her housemates, who all sat there dumbstruck, their mouths wide open.

It felt like the walk of shame.

She passed students, who looked at her like she was a scoundrel. The Slytherins started booing. The Ravenclaws were obviously torn. Some of them started to clap; others seemed to side with Cedric. Predictably, the Gryffindors woke up from their temporarily stunned state and started cheering, drowning out Slytherins and Hufflepuffs who were scandalized by this turn of events.

“POT-TER!!! POT-TER!!! POT-TER!!!”

Fred and George got a wave going. The Gryffindor bleachers undulated with crazy wails. There was definitely going to be an after party for this. They were all too hyped up to go back to their dorms quietly for the night.

Then, there was the staff. McGonagall had a worried look on her face, as well as Hagrid and Filius. Both Severus and Mad Eye had impassive, if not outright scary, expressions.

For the first time, Jessie was the center of attention.

And she did not like it at all.

“I didn’t put my bloody name in the Goblet of Fire, please stop shaking me!” Jessie exclaimed, extraditing herself from her Headmaster’s surprisingly iron-like grip. He was an old man! Shouldn’t he be feebler?

“For God’s sake, she is lying,” The French Headmaster accused, swinging a lamp out of the way of her head before it could tangle in her freezy, giant hair. She was much too tall for it to be natural.

“The hell she is!” Moody cut in. “Her 16-year-old peers have been trying to breach the age line non-stop. You believe a mere additional few months of age is enough to confound the cup into spitting out a fourth name? Only an exceptionally powerful confundus charm could trick that exceptionally powerful object!"

“I second that!” Jessie raises her hand. “I am completely incapable of this!”

Minerva looks at Jessie disapprovingly. “Now, we both know that is a lie.”

“Indeed, it is,” said Snape, his lips curling into a sort of twisted smirk.

Jessie clicked her teeth at both of their accusations and crossed her arms.

Igor marched up to Moody, his off-white and stained robe nearly tripping the younger Headmaster in the process as he scathingly suggested foul-play. “You seem to have given this a fair bit of thought, Mad Eye," he suggestively growled in the Auror's face.

“It was once my job to think as dark wizards do, Karkaroff. Perhaps you remember…” Moody responded, a nod to Igor’s past as a Death Eater. Jessie heard enough rumors to understand the insinuations between them.

“That doesn’t help, Alastor,” Dumbledore growled irately, passing between the two and separating them.

“The rules are absolute,” Crouch begins, anxiously smoothing his Hitler-stash, as Jessie would call it. “The Goblet of Fire constitutes a binding, magical contract. Miss Potter has no choice. She is, as of tonight, a Tri-wizard Champion,” he declared, moving to tiredly hunch over a desk that wasn't even his.

All heads turned to Jessie, and the poor girl felt like crying. But, she couldn’t, not yet. First, she needed to find a way out of this mess!

“This magical contract you’re so hung up on? Yeah, I didn’t sign it,” retorted Jessie, with more than a hint of sass. “Veritaserum me, if you have to, but I do not want to partake in this year’s stupid orgy of death! I’m over it! I have been cursed by a literal two-faced professor,” she starts, counting on her fingers, “possessed by a 16-year-old memory of Voldemort, nearly killed by dementors, and now, you want me to risk my life in a competition that I never wanted to be a part of in the first place?! No!”

“My decision is final. Your insolence and disregard for tradition are no excuse!” Crouch chastised her, suddenly finding in himself enough vigor to separate from the desk and stand on his own. He waved his handkerchief at the girl. “You will participate in the Tournament, despite your tampering with the cup. And expect punishment if we find that you did!”

“My tampering?!” Jessie’s shoulders sagged. It’s not fair! Why would this be happening to her, and not Harry? Usually, he gets himself into trouble, and then she comes to help him! It didn’t make any sense!

“You people are all crazy!” She exclaimed hysterically and marched out of the office, near tears from her combined frustration and fear.

1984

A TV blared at her new home. Jessie sat in front, on her knees, mesmerized.

“Reports are coming in from a catastrophe in London’s zoo. At this point, the exact cause remains unidentified, but some of the zoo’s buildings and habitats were severely damaged. Explosive devices have not been ruled out, as of yet; however, the lack of fires or scorch marks baffles investigators. Miraculously, there have been no fatalities, but six were injured and transported to University College Hospital. Law Enforcement is currently working with animal control for recapturing efforts around the city. If you live within ten miles of the zoo, it is recommended you stay inside and lock your doors. More at 6 with Colleen Gibbons on this strange case.”

McGonagall quickly shut off the TV and gave Jessie a disappointed look, hands on her hips and all. Jessie still smiled, though, because McGonagall was wearing her funny work hat.

"What did I say? No TV for a while," the woman reminded the little girl. "We have quite the job. All your clothes need to be unpacked and washed."

1994

“I absolutely object to this!” McGonagall shrilly declared.

“Minerva is correct. This is unwise.” Severus, for probably the first time ever, agreed with McGonagall’s opinion on the matter of letting Jessica compete in the Triwizard Tournament. Not that the girl didn’t have the ability to hold her own, but it was clear the cup was tampered with, and he seriously doubted it was her doing. The girl commonly shirked intense work and pressure, if it didn’t directly correlate to her grades. This could either be a prank by a very advanced seventh year, or…something worse.

“I agree,” Dumbledore said softly, and the two professors in the room relaxed somewhat, before Dumbledore revealed his next words. “With Alastor," he added, to Minerva’s and Severus’ disappointment. Moody had suggested the girl be allowed to compete, provided she be under extra surveillance. For unknown reasons, something bigger is afoot. The headmaster wearily leaned over his penseive, in deep thought.

The decision has been made: Jessica is a Triwizard Champion. Whether the girl will be so easily ordered, however, remains to be seen.

“Fuck it, I’m not even going to show up. Those ministry bastards can’t tell me what to do.” Jessie plops down on her bed and crosses her arms.

“Wow, you really didn’t put your name in, did you?” Addison shakes her head in disbelief. She also flopped onto the bed, her legs kicking back and forth absently.

Jessie scoffs, “Of course, I didn't!”

“Well, at least you can use this as an excuse to get close to Cedric,” Addi offered, trying to look on the bright side.

“He’s my competition! He won’t want to be anywhere near me!” Jessie cried. “You know what? It was probably that bitch Patricia who confounded the bloody cup. She’s been after Cedric for years!” Jessie rolled onto her back and hit her fist against the bed.

“Her? The one who kept fainting during her O.W.L.s?” Addi asked disbelievingly.

“It’s a trick, I’m sure of it. You know, that whole ‘oh, help me, sweet prince, I don’t understand how Quidditch works’ kind of vibe. She gives Hufflepuffs a bad name,” Jessie ranted. “She wants me out of the way, that has to be it.”

Addi scooted next to her and a serious look came over the girl's face. “Do you think this could have to do with Harry in some way? Like with what happened our fourth year?” She asked quietly.

Ah, the Basilisk and the diary.

Jessie sighed and buried her face in her hands, trying desperately to regulate her breathing, lest she hyperventilate and pass out from the stress. “I don’t know…This situation’s so different. That diary bullshit was literally a remnant of Voldemort, and it used me to get to him. But…I don’t see what a stupid competition, where only my life will be at risk, even factors into some greater plan with Harry!” Jessie rolled over and buried her face into the mattress. She might as well be transfigured into a bug with all the flailing and burrowing she decided to do.

“Have you talked with your mum yet?” Addi asked, rubbing her friend’s back in a soothing manner.

Jessie slowly shakes her head into the sheets, feeling utterly hopeless. “She’ll be upset, but I doubt she can really do anything. This is the Ministry.” Again, she shoved her face back down into her quilt.

“Maybe she can lodge a complaint or something?” Addi shrugged. “You never know, they might change their mind once things cool off.”

Addi was the opposite of Jessie: utilitarian, infinitely calm, and patient. If Jessie didn’t know any better, she would say Addi was an old woman in disguise. Her outfits betrayed as much: cardigan sweaters. Lots of them. Addi knew what she wanted to be from age six: a magizoologist. In fact, it is her and Jessie’s shared interest and benevolent love for animals that brought the two together during their first train-ride to Hogwarts. Jessie rebuffed much of the Slytherin opportunists who tried to be friends with her, and in retaliation, one shot a hex at Jessie’s pet guinea pig. Addi knew an innervate spell which allowed Mr. Chunks to wake back up again. The two have been best friends ever since.

Thinking desperately about those 'easier' times, Jessie sighed heavily. It was a habit. Sometimes, she wasn’t even aware she did it. Addi could read her like a book because of such ticks, and the comforting back-rubbing continued again. “Maybe,” Jessie settled on, grasping at that one hope.

“Hey!” Another roommate, Marian, barged into the room, with a fourth person on her tail, Samantha. “The Weasley twins are trying to get a party going, and they invited all of the Gryffindors! Let’s go! Time to celebrate!”

“Because I could die soon?” Jessie added drily.

Addi winced, but then reluctantly nodded. “Yeah…I think a party's a good idea.”

At this, Jessie sort of sighed and shrugged, getting over the impending doom quickly enough with the promise of alcohol poisoning in her future. “Fuck it, let’s go. Is it the Shrieking Shack again?”

“Duh!” Marian cheered, her brown hair bouncing like it had been possessed with the same amount of excitement.

Jessie groaned. It was a dusty, gross location, but perfect for parties. It was far enough away that the sounds wouldn’t alert anyone. And even if they did, the locals would probably mistake it for ghosts, per the legend. “I’ll steal my brother’s Invisibility Cloak and map again. What time is it?” Jessie fiddled with her wrist, realizing the familiar weight of her watch was missing under the sleeve of her robe. Where the hell did she put that thing?

Samantha checked her ankle as if she expected it to be there, but came up empty. Jessie quickly questioned all of her life’s choices as she stared at the blonde, slightly ditzy girl.

Addi, ever the responsible one, checked her watch, which was sensibly found on her wrist. “Half past midnight.”

“Alright,” Jessie nodded. “It’s a Monday, so Filch should have quit patrolling by now. I’m thinking we’ll be coming back too drunk to see the map correctly, anyway.”

“Oh, God. Not firewhiskey again. Since that night, I haven’t been able to smell it without feeling sick,” Addi winced. The night in question was her birthday, when she drank shot and shot after shot and threw up all over Filch’s cat when they got caught coming back from Hogsmeade.

Jessie and Addi shuddered simultaneously.

Marian started bouncing up and down like a toddler hyped up on too much caffeine. “Come on, come on, get ready, let’s go!"