A Field Guide to the Magical Plants of Texas

Echinocereus chisoensis

Chisos Mountain Hedgehog Cactus 

Chisos Mountain hedgehogs grow to 8 inches tall, but seldom more than 2 inches in diameter. They are usually single, but branch out occasionally above the ground and cluster together when approached directly. The surface changes from bluish-green to deep green when threatened. There are ten to fifteen spines growing from each areole that the hedgehog will shoot at those who attempt to harvest its flowers. The flowers are important ingredients for fluid generating potions endemic to the region. The base of the petals is deep red followed by a pinkish-white band, with the upper portion pink to rose-colored. This rare hedgehog only grows in the Chisos Mountains. 

–A Field Guide to the Magical Plants of Texas

The heat slams into Harry. Dizzy and nauseous from the Portkey, he leans over, placing his hands on his thighs and tries to remain standing. The ground under his feet is a hard brownish-red sand, and he can feel the heat seeping in through his shoes. The world around him swerves and dips. He heaves, choking slightly, and swallows hard. 

“Ambassador Potter?” someone queries. He distantly registers that the voice is low and melodious, softly accented; not the brash twang he expects from having just arrived in the United States. His Auror reflexes remain, it’s just his ability to respond to them that has changed. 

“Yeah, sorry,” he breathes. “Portkeys…” he waves his hand, trying to encompass severe motion sickness in a gesture. 

“Take your time,” the person says. Female. Older, he thinks briefly. He gives a jerky nod to his head, closing his eyes in an attempt to stop the ground from moving. He’s learned to ignore the feeling of people waiting impatiently for him and take his time before moving after an incident two years ago where he vomited on the French Minister of Magic. The silence around him now isn’t oppressive, however, and he slowly opens his eyes again. As his surroundings stop whirling, Harry chances a glance up, plastering a wan smile on his face. The grey haired woman in a wide-brimmed straw hat next to him is looking away from him, and he lets go of the smile with relief. Her hands are folded behind her back, shoulders relaxed, and Harry feels some of the tension leave his belly. He takes a steadying breath before straightening. 

“Thank you for your patience, Representative Lopez.”

The woman turns around and examines him before nodding. She holds out her hand and he takes it. Her grip is warm, firm and dry, and her eyes are deep set, the skin around them wrinkled by more than age. Harry takes in her brown skin, long skirt, braided hair, floral blouse and large, turquoise brooch, and feels completely ridiculous in his formal robes. 

“We’re grateful for you taking the time to come and hear our case, Ambassador Potter. We’ve been requesting ICW mediation for some time now.”

Harry winces slightly at her understatement.. The Trans Rios Witching Alliance had been protesting the Magical Congress of the United States of America and Mexican Asociación de Brujos incursion into their land for centuries. Muggle politics had been making the situation increasingly more fraught, and by the time his current aid (Jennicka? Jasmine?) had finished explaining what he was supposed to do there, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking why they were sending him.

“They requested you specifically,” she had replied, seemingly as baffled as he was. Months of radio talk shows and routine assembly appearances, and Harry had resigned himself that his current reign as British Ambassador for the International Confederation of Wizards was almost over. This was different from anything he’d been tasked to do in the role so far, but despite his wish to do something more, Harry felt absurdly underqualified for this particular mission. Not only did Harry not speak Spanish, seemingly a necessity, but he had never been a particularly effective mediator–he tended to get too invested in one side over the other. Additionally, he’d sustained so many head injuries as an Auror, it had given him near-debilitating levels of motion sickness for all side-alongs, apparitions, floos and, of course, Portkeys. Harry had come to terms that the role in international politics he’d naively accepted at the urging of the current British Minister wasn’t for him, when he had been given this assignment. 

“Come this way,” Lopez motions, starting to walk. He follows, finally able to take in his surroundings. The sun reminds him of his trips to visit his relatives in Egypt in the way its warmth travels deep into his bones, intense and somehow comforting. The land around him is jagged and rocky, dotted with prickly seeming vegetation that makes him wary of straying off the path they’re on. His aid (Jessamay? Jenna?) had told him to expect rural, but this seems to be…nowhere. There is a lone earthen walled and tin-roofed shack up ahead, and Harry silences the internal rumblings of doubt that attempt to start up at the sight of it. The TRWA have held their own against MACUSA and MAB for a long time, and Harry is not going to get anywhere with this assignment by underestimating them from the outset. 

As they walk, Harry notices that the shack hasn’t gotten any closer, despite it coming into view twenty minutes ago. He lets it go as a trick of the light for another ten minutes before stopping.

“Representative Lopez,” he says, hesitatingly. 

She stops, looking back at him with her head cocked. “Do you need some water, Ambassador Potter? It may take a while to get there.”

Harry suddenly notices his thirst. “Yes, please,” he replies.

She pulls out a small vial from somewhere in her skirts and hands it to him. He pops the top off, trying not to appear suspicious about drinking an unknown potion from his host, and shoots it quickly. If he’s learned anything during his time as an ambassador, it’s that diplomacy trumps self-preservation in all but extreme cases.  He swallows, and coolness ripples through him, radiating from his throat out to his limbs. The lingering traces of his earlier nausea vanish, and he’s left feeling as if emerging from a cold stream. He looks at the vial, then up at Lopez.

“That’s brilliant!” 

She smiles placidly. “Agua verde. It’s a local speciality. Let me know when you’re ready to continue. Our Centro de Magia is especially attuned to new Portkey arrivals, and a little shy with newcomers. It’s a good sign he’s letting you see him so soon. It took six hours for him to become visible when the previous Minister de Brujos came. Another two hours to reach the front door, and then he refused to open. Of course, that Minister turned out to be in the pocket of the cultos Mágicos de la Muerte who work with the Muggle cartels.”

“I’m sorry, but, erm, my Spanish is, well, non-existent. Cultos Mágicos de la Muerte?” he says, mangling the last words.

“It’s ok. We’re aware, and all sides are willing to hold negotiations in English. I was referring to the Death Magic cults.”

Harry manages to stop his eyebrows from flying up. It’s taken a long time and some catastrophic fuck-ups, but he’s finally learned to control his facial expressions. Somewhat. He makes a non-committal humming noise and begins to walk again without thinking. The brief he received was apparently missing some crucial information. He sorts through the many, many questions that have popped up in the last minute and starts with the most potentially benign.

“Is it that the Centro senses intention?” he asks. 

Lopez nods approvingly, matching his pace and walking beside him now. 

“Yes. All magic comes from the land. The land here is less distracted than other places. To those that are paying attention, there is more that can be learned.”

Harry looks around him at the brittle, scrubby looking plants scattered about and the bare, Martian-like mountains. There is little he finds inviting about this landscape, but he lets Lopez’s words filter through what he’s seeing. 

“Do you mean that there are fewer people? Or less in general?”

“The margins here are narrower than other places. Death is quick out here. Approach the wrong plant, animal or person. Wander off unprepared. The life that survives here has to be attuned to the environment as it is. The magic reflects that.”

Harry lets this sit for a ways. He notices a particularly brutal looking plant on his left, covered in spines as fine as needles. The brutality she spoke of is evident all around them. The continued repetition of death can’t be a coincidence. 

“Does this have anything to do with the Death Magic cults you mentioned?”

She gives him a sidelong look, and is silent. The minutes pass, but Harry has learned patience over the years. He listens to the soft crunch of their footsteps, his much louder than hers, and notices that almost all the plants seem to have sharp edges. The heat hasn’t regained the intensity it had before he drank the agua verde, but it is a constant presence nonetheless. Everything around them seems to be shaped by the absence of water, and the life that manages to hold on is geared to protect what little it has. 

“Death is a part of life, not a separation. The dead never truly leave us. Life can neither be created nor destroyed, only become something else. This is something we live by. But, like all beliefs held by people, this can become distorted when power is at stake. So yes, you could say that the cultos arise from this. And here we are.”

Harry looks up, startled. He has been intent on Lopez’s speech, and didn’t notice the shack grow closer. They step into the shade of an awning, significantly larger than what it appears. Lopez knocks, calling out something in Spanish before opening the dust-covered door. 

Coolness wraps around them as they enter. The room is dark, lit only in patches as it stretches out into a vast hall. Harry cannot see the back of the room from where he is now, and has the sense that there are far more people in here than the desolate seeming landscape would have it appear. Lopez gestures for Harry to follow her. There are two old women in rocking chairs next the door who nod at them as they pass.  A man in jeans with a large, gold belt buckle and a battered cowboy hat tips the brim at them as he strides past on his way out the door. The same distortion in distance that happened on their way to the Centro seems to be happening inside it. Harry is genuinely unsure if they’ve walked a long ways or short when they arrive at a door covered in peeling green paint. Lopez opens it to reveal some stairs descending into black. Harry feels his heart speed up a bit as he continues to follow her, wondering what it is about him that appears to be conditioned to blindly follow cryptic and self-assured old people. 

At the bottom of the steep stairs, a dim but clear light illuminates a cave tunnel, fading to dark at either end. Harry shivers at a slight draft running through, and steps quickly out of the way as a muttering older man with a shock of white hair and a slightly panicked expression barrels through. He murmurs a quick hola to Señora Lopez without breaking stride. 

“That’s Señor Castañeda. He’s our potions master and lead strategist for any Muggle or Wizarding border disputes that arise in our territory. Most of us wear several hats. You’ll meet him when the council convenes.”

There’s a fork in the tunnel, and Lopez leads him to the right. Harry has given up any notion that he would be able to find his way out of here on his own. She veers right again, and a cavern opens up. Numerous groups of people are gathered around cauldrons and tables laden with what appear to be potions ingredients. Skirting around the first two groups, she stops in front of a third. A young woman is stirring the cauldron, chanting softly in Spanish. Her black hair is pulled back tightly, and she wears an intricately patterned smock. She nods at them without stopping the incantation. A second person has their back turned, grinding something in a mortar and pestle. He turns around and Harry’s stomach lurches at the sight of pale blond hair and a sharply featured face. 

“Potter,” says Malfoy.