How Hard Can Love Be?

by Holly Bourne

“What the hell is Dumbledore’s Army?” I hissed at Kyle, as someone was announced Ravenclaw. “That’s not a Harry Potter house.”

  “I know,” he hissed back. “Your mum changed it after last year. She got rid of Slytherin and replaced it because none of the kids wanted to be in there.”

  At that moment, I hated her. Irrational? YES OF COURSE. But, but…Harry Potter was our thing! Why wasn’t she being true to the books? We’d loved them so dearly together. What was she playing at?

  “What?” My outraged whisper wasn’t very whispery. “What’s wrong with Slytherin?”

  “Umm… Well, nobody good belonged there, did they?”

  “Are you stupid? Loads of good people were in Slytherin. Snape was in Slytherin, and he was a hero!”

  How could Mum do this? She’d got me into the Harry Potter books in the first place. She’d tuck me up, smooth back my hair and tell me it was like Hermione’s, and read a chapter aloud to me every night. We’d queued together at midnight when the last one came out. Yes, she’d been swaying and tripped over and dented my wizard hat, but she’d still done it. We were obsessed, the both of us. Christ, the very existence of the drunken house-elf Winky had explained more to me about what was going on at home than anything else. How could she change it?

  And what the actual FECK was Dumbledore’s Army for a replacement? It didn’t even make sense.

  Melody’s name was called. She gently pushed off the grasping hands of children fawning on her after her performance, and stood in the middle of the circle without a hint of self-consciousness.

  Mum lowered the hat onto Melody’s head.

  “Gryffindor,” she shouted.

  “Are you fecking kidding me?” I muttered. Well, I thought I muttered, but lots of people turned in my direction. Melody shrugged and smiled, as everyone but me cheered. My blood, which was already hot from a long day in the sun, bubbled over like when you boil pasta too hard in a pan. How could she? How could Mum put someone like Melody in Gryffindor? Melody didn’t deserve to be in Gryffindor. She wasn’t BRAVE – and no, wearing hot pants that hot-pant-y does not classify as “brave”. She wouldn’t have even got into Hogwarts. She would’ve been a Squib – a very pretty Squib or something.

  I felt Kyle looking at me. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

  “No I’m not okay. There are so many things about me that are not okay.”

  Just as he opened his mouth to say something back, my own name was called.

  “Amber,” Kevin yelled, before giving me a little smile and a “cooey” wave. I scowled back at him and dodged over the kids like they were a minefield.

  No good could come of the next five minutes. Whatever happened, all of my childhood dreams would be ruined.

  If I didn’t get into Gryffindor, then, well, I would probably need to cry quietly somewhere without anyone seeing. If I did get in, then I’d be stuck working alongside Melody for the rest of the summer – listening to her drone on about how many people she’d slept with at college, which she’d already done, twice so far. Mum gave me a big beaming smile but I scowled again. I was aware of the whole circle watching, and felt my face glow red.

  I hated people looking, they always looked.

  The drab hat hovered over my head.

  I closed my eyes, just like Harry Potter did, waiting…

  “Dumbledore’s Army,” Mum yelled.

  My eyes flicked open to everyone clapping politely. So many little branches inside of me died right there.

  She hadn’t put me in Gryffindor.

  My own mother hadn’t sorted me into Gryffindor.

  This was even worse than removing Slytherin as a team.

  The tightness caught in my throat and I blinked several times, fighting the tears that had been hiding so well in my soul, waiting for this summer with Mum to come out.

  I couldn’t even turn back to look at her cheering behind me. I was scared – if I did, I would turn her to stone.

  Russ’s loud whooping pulled me out of my sob-spiral.

  “Woooooo, Amber! You’re with me!” He held out his hand and dragged me over. His genuine excitement about spending the summer with me filled the hole a tiny bit. I launched myself at him, wrapping him into a fierce hug – not letting go until it was beyond appropriate.

  “We’re the dream team,” he yelled into my ear, hugging me back. I’d never really hugged a boy before, and Russ was definitely a good place to start.

  We broke apart.

  “Dumbledore’s Army, eh?” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “I know, stupid, isn’t it? What’s wrong with Slytherin? Snape was the bravest one of all.”

  And, just for that, I hugged him again.

  Another boy, a mate of Wayne’s, had been sorted by the time we broke apart. He strode into Ravenclaw, saying: “What the heck is a Ravenclaw?”

  I saw Whinnie in the crowd – she waved, before pulling her lips down into a sad face. Getting it. Only my friend for three days and yet totally getting it. Kyle watched too and I waved, but he didn’t wave back. He had that weird look on his face that I’d noticed before – all grim and determined. To be fair, I had spent most of the evening swearing under my breath next to him. Maybe my bad mood had jumped off me and onto him, like nits?

  We watched as more of the team got sorted. They kept it quick, knowing the kids would be impatient for their turn. You could feel them thrumming with anticipation, quivering in their places on the forest floor, waiting for their turn in the spotlight.

  Whinnie was up next. She struggled to get over the logs with her short legs. Though, just like Melody, she walked without self-consciousness.

  “Dumbledore’s Army!”

  “Yes!!!! Go, Whinnie,” we yelled, pulling her in for a hug. We jumped up and down, pulling in the two others who’d been allocated into our group. Some blond guy called Damien who wore an actual WWJD bracelet. And another girl, Bryony, who’d been in Melody’s Pussycat Dolls dance. She was a brunette version of Melody – all legs and shiny hair. And I was about to judge her, when she said: “I’m so mad they got rid of Slytherin, I mean, Snape was, like, the best one,” as she walked over, and I learned a lesson about not judging people until you’ve found out whether or not they’ve read Harry Potter.

  Kyle was the second-last to be called and my breath caught in my throat. He threw us an anxious smile but glided down towards the fire. I got the sense that Kyle would get put into whatever group he wanted – that’s just how his life worked. I wondered what group he wanted to be in.

  I wanted him to be in our group. I guess I liked torturing myself like that.

  Mum lowered the hat once more. “Dumbledore’s Army,” she called and Kyle breathed a real, genuine smile – one that crinkled up the corners of his wide brown eyes.

  “Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,” we called.

  “Welcome to the winning team, brother.” Russ high-fived Kyle as he scuttled over. He high-fived back and then grinned at Whinnie and me. “So here we are. The only not-real house at Hogwarts.”

  “When the kids get annoying, can we shove them into the Room of Requirement?” I joked, and they all laughed.

  The excitement built as the children began their sorting. They practically hovered off the logs, waiting for their turn. At least two cried when they didn’t get into Gryffindor.

  “You should’ve seen it last year when we still had Slytherin,” Russ told me. “Utter freakin’ carnage.”

  “That is still no excuse for erasing it as a house.”

  “I know. Jeez, I know.”

  It was cute though, seeing the kids cheer when they got into our team. We started making an arch with our hands whenever someone got in, getting them to run under it as we chanted their name. We were already the “fun team”, even when the others began copying. Kyle stood opposite me, so we had to hold hands each time we got a new arrival. It made my fingers tingle and my palms sweat. And sometimes we locked eyes when a kid ran beneath us and I didn’t want to look away.
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  He started talking to me in snatches, whenever we leaned together to welcome in a new recruit.

  “Your mom,” he said. “She gave me a strike for helping you today.”

  I widened my eyes. At training we’d been told staff discipline operated on a three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy, and they seemed pretty hard to get in the first place. “Seriously? But I, like, really needed you.”

  The chocolate girl – Jenna – ran under our arms, screaming with utter joy – her little legs almost going too fast for her body to catch up. We broke apart and jumped up and down, whooping like Indians (Russ said it was okay to use the word “Indians” when you were whooping like the ones in Peter Pan. He was our lecturer in Native American political correctness), getting the kids riled up. We waited for another recruit to be announced before we spoke again.

  “Hank, Dumbledore’s Army!”

  A tall, scrawny boy with thick-rimmed glasses beamed at us and ran over. Kyle grabbed for my hand, quickly, so we could form the arch before Hank reached us. Once again, my entire body lit up like electricity.

  “Is there…something wrong with her?” Kyle asked. I accidentally squeezed his hand to steady myself.

  “Isn’t there something wrong with everyone?”

  “That’s a philosophical answer to a pretty straight-forward question.”

  “I’ve been hanging out with Whinnie all day. She is teaching me the philosophy of Pooh.”

  “Ahh.”

  Hank ran under us and Kyle let go of my hands, just as quickly as he’d taken them. Whinnie had started a new celebration, where we put each new recruit into our circle and galloped around them – the circle getting bigger and bigger as we acquired more campers. So I danced around Hank, my bare feet smushing into the cool dusty earth of the forest floor.

  There were two more Hufflepuffs, then another Gryffindor. Then, “Dumbledore’s Army!”

  Kyle’s hands found my hands. Kyle’s eyes found my eyes.

  “Do you not want to talk about it?” he asked.

  “I’ll never want to talk about it.”

  A child ran under our arms.

  “You know, sometimes it helps, talking about it?”

  “Don’t get all American on me.”

  “I am American.”

  We dropped hands once more, my body entirely unhappy about this.

  “Yes, well, rein it in, Prom King. British people have been successfully repressing our emotions since before your country was even a thing.”

  We were split up by children galloping around us.

  The group of unsorted was dwindling. There were only about ten children left. I calculated that meant a maximum of ten times I would get to hold Kyle’s hands again. Half of me wanted them all to get sorted into Dumbledore’s Army so I could touch him. Because something weird inside of me really wanted to touch him. But the other half didn’t.

  I don’t like questions about my mum. Mainly because I don’t know any of the answers to all of the “whys?” no matter how I’ve tried to figure her out.

  The other groups had copied our whooping and circle dancing.

  “Everyone is copying us,” I huffed at Whinnie, who was struggling from the physical exertion. Her face was wet, her glasses a little misted from the sweat behind them.

  “Because we’re the most fun.”

  Two children were left, looking sad and embarrassed and left-out. One was so clinically obese he could be in a documentary.

  “Calvin?”

  The boy wobbled up to Mum, pulling his stretched T-shirt down over his vast expanse of stomach.

  “I hope he doesn’t get into our group,” Hank whispered loudly. All the kids laughed.

  “Shh.” Kyle’s voice was so sharp I almost didn’t recognize it. “If you talk like that again, I’ll get you transferred straight out of Dumbledore’s Army.”

  Our group did a sharp intake of breath, and Hank’s face dropped in horror. Kyle glared at him, and then glared at the rest of us.

  Calvin was oblivious to the whispers, or maybe he’d just learned to block them out. Suddenly I really wanted him to get into our group. So I could look after him, make his summer the best it could be. I’d been that kid – the one everyone looked at and whispered about. But I’d learned to deal with it, so I could teach him.

  Mum hung the hat over his head.

  Please please please please please.

  “Dumbledore’s Army.”

  And I found myself jumping and screaming, “Go, Calvin!”

  I was so excited I grabbed Kyle’s hands first to make the arch. He gave me a look involving a lot of his eyebrow.

  “We got Calvin,” I said, breathless with excitement.

  “Yes,” he replied slowly. “We did.”

  Russ and Whinnie drummed up cheers as he lurched towards our arch, beaming at our reaction. I bet nobody had ever cheered for Calvin his entire life. I cheered louder.

  “You have a lot of emotions,” Kyle said to me underneath the arch. “They change all the time, I can see it. But you like pretending they’re not there.”

  “Whaaat?” I stuttered. “You’ve only known me three days!” The force of what he’d said had a two-second delay as I computed. Calvin was almost at our arch, his slow run not much more than a walk.

  “What’s going on with your mom? Why is she living in America and not in Britain with you?”

  “I thought I asked you to rein it in, Mr Therapy? I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Calvin ran under us and I cheered the hardest I had all evening, before dropping Kyle’s hands. “I don’t get why you want to talk about it.”

  Kyle gave a half-shrug. “Because you seem sad, I guess.”

  Did I seem sad? How? I’d been laughing and cheering and dancing and doing all the things I never usually do.

  Was I sad?

  I was knackered – the most tired I’d ever been. But it was summer, and I was in a forest with new friends, and the sun was hotter than anything in the UK…and Mum was here. Finally we were together again.

  … And, yes, I was sad. I was so sad that I barely had room left in my lungs to let oxygen in.

  Mum wasn’t the fantasy version I’d been so excited to see on the plane over. She wasn’t letting me in, she wasn’t giving me answers. She wasn’t even the good bits of Mum I distantly remembered from before the day she came back from the hospital crying and clutching her stomach. This woman was still the shitty replacement that woke up the morning after that day. The one who ran away from what happened, and shut you out if you tried to talk about it, and made Dad…go to Penny, and then left me with them once Kevin and his supersonic bumchin rescued her from herself…abandoning me.

  I stopped dancing and wilted, staggering to the edge of our circle. Everyone was oblivious, and continued celebrating without me.

  Everyone but Kyle. He gently put his arm around me and steered me away a little.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Now you look REALLY sad.”

  “I’m fine.” But my voice choked.

  “I shouldn’t have pushed you. I guess I just got really angry on your behalf today, in the art room. It didn’t help I got a strike.”

  “She’s…she’s…complicated.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I…I…” I looked up at him, into his eyes that I’d never seen until the other day, but that already felt familiar. Every girl feels a connection with Kyle… “I’m exhausted,” I admitted.

  I was. I really was.

  Kyle broke into a grin. “First day with the kids is a killer. And yet, here I am, pressing you about your private life. Just what you need when you’re exhausted.”

  I gave him a small smile. “In England we call it knackered.”

  “Knackered?”

  “Yeah, for exhausted. We say knackered.”

  “I like that.”

  I really was tired, now I’d let myself think it. Kyle steadied me on my feet. I tried to find the strength to stay upright, bu
t leaned back into him. He was so tall, he made me feel almost dainty.

  “Yeah, me too. It’s one of my favourites.”

  Over his shoulder, I caught Mum’s eye. She was staring right at us – her face unreadable, but noticing. Definitely noticing.

  My knackeredness evaporated. I felt myself bristle under Kyle’s arms.

  “Whoa, Amber. What is it?”

  She hadn’t put me in Gryffindor. My own mother… She’d put Melody in Gryffindor. And she’d given Kyle a strike when he was only helping me because she had left me.

  She had left me again.

  Because that’s what she does.

  But it’s never her fault.

  Only everyone else’s but hers.

  The anger slammed through my bloodstream, reaching peaks and crescendos.

  “When is it bedtime?” I asked.

  I so needed it to be bedtime.

  So I could yell at her.

  So I could tell her what I thought.

  About her.

  About that dipshit photo of me not in the main room.

  He lowered his face so our eyes were level, which is not something short boys were ever able to do – not that they’d ever wanted to.

  “After this. It will take an age to get them to sleep though. You’re helping Whinnie, right? First night. Homesickness, the excitement of it all. I’ll be on midnight feast watch all night.”

  I smiled weakly as a passing, whooping child nudged into me mid-gallop. Kyle and I were the only two not moving, not celebrating. “Why oh why did I come here again?”

  He searched my eyes again. “That’s what I’ve been trying to ask you all evening.”

  Bumface Kevin yanked out his megaphone and announced it was “OFFICIALLY THE START OF CAMP”. The excitement levels broke and everyone ran towards the fire, merging with each other again, and showing off about who got put in Gryffindor. I jogged feebly behind them – so tired, so angry.

  “You okay?” Whinnie was right next to me. There was so much sweat on her fringe that it was plastered to her forehead.

  “Just tired.”

  “Jeez, I know. And we still have to get them to bed. You’re helping in my cabin, right?”

  I nodded.

  I reached the fire and saw Calvin flagging, his face even sweatier than Whinnie’s.