Chizpurfles Are Parasitic, Too

At the age of twenty, having lived with magic for a good ten years, I was used to many things I would once have considered unusual. Travelling through fireplaces, receiving my post from an owl, or holding a conversation with a portrait was not longer anything other than routine. However, my experiences on my twenty-first birthday managed to shock me to the core.

I’d stumbled out of bed that morning, groggy after yet another late night, and was dragging my leaden body to the bathroom to run a shower, when I caught sight of my reflection out of the corner of my eye. I whipped about to face the mirror.

“Oh my feudal lord!” I found myself exclaiming, my hands flying to my chest. “I’ve got tits!”

Granted, it’s not atypical for me to talk to myself out loud when I’m alone, and I do try to remember to check my breasts from time to time—being a witch does not make you exempt from the risk of breast cancer!—but this was really strange. I shouldn’t have been so surprised at having breasts, seeing as they’d been there for some years. On top of that, the language was not the sort I generally use, and my hands were, for want of a better word, groping.

“And they’re fucking fabulous,” I murmured, now looking down at them directly, my hands still working away.

The full strangeness of it hit me then. I had most certainly not thought those words. It was not my will directing my actions. I shook myself and jerked my hands down, raising my eyes to stare at my baffled reflection. Despite looking into my own brown eyes, seeing my own, lightly freckled face, and recognising my own characteristically bushy, brown hair, there was a niggling sense of surprise.

“What in heaven’s name is wrong with me?” I asked, trying hard not to think about Ginny Weasley, Voldemort, diaries, basilisks, or the word ‘possession’.

When nothing and nobody answered, I decided that the question had been rhetorical. Unnerved, I continued on my way to the shower.

Working shampoo through my hair as I stood beneath the warmly soothing, drenchingly heavy rush of water, I felt a vague feeling of confusion.

“Oddsfish,” I said in a puzzled tone. “This hair really seems most disconcertingly familiar.”

I froze. Of course it was bloody familiar to me. I’d always had it.

“Who are you?” I demanded, my voice reverberating within the shower stall.

“There’s no need to shout,” I answered myself crossly. My arms folded over my breasts, and, distracted, a grin spread over my face.

Anyone would have been flustered in my position. “I mean it,” I said firmly, trying to continue calmly with my shower, as though I weren’t going crazy. “Tell me who you are!”

“Ladies first,” was my reply.

Whenever I have an internal debate, the opposing sides are always voiced by Professor McGonagall on the one hand and Fred and George Weasley on the other. Ron would say that it’s proof I’m crazy already, which is why I’ve never bothered to tell him.

McGonagall snapped out her advice with authority. “You mustn’t trust him, Miss Granger. You don’t know how much power over you he’ll attain with knowledge of who you are.”

True to form, the twins Weasley were rather less uptight. “But he’s already in your head—"

“—with some control over your body—"

“—how could knowing your name make things any worse?"

“Besides, you want to know who he is—"

“—don’t you?”

“It’s only—"

“—a fair exchange.”

Decided, I drew myself up straight. “Hermione Granger, sir,” I announced, only realising just afterward how ridiculous it felt to announce my name in such a manner, while standing naked in my shower, to a strange man who seemed to be residing in my head.

I snorted. Or rather, he snorted through me.

“What?” I asked, irritated. He had taken up residence in my brain; the least he could do was be respectful.

“You called me sir,” he said.

“Well,” I replied, not sure of what else to say. I’d been brought up to introduce myself politely.

“It just happens to be somewhat ironic,” he said, twisting the corners of my mouth upward. “I used to be called that all the—wait! Hermione Granger?” He put out my hand in a steadying fashion. “Fuck!”

“What is it, sir?” I asked, more than a little perplexed, with a good side serving of concern.

“Miss Granger,” he said in frosty tones, “I’m afraid that this may be a little difficult to accept, and I hesitate to say it, but…”

“But what?” I shrieked.

He stood my body stiffly, with clenched hands. The water was beginning to run cold.

“I am loath to inform you,” he said in measured, clipped syllables, “that you are currently sharing your…” I felt faintly uncomfortable, and supposed that those foggy feelings were his.

“My body,” I supplied. He nodded my head.

“Yes,” he continued. “With none other than myself…” He paused again, casting about for resolve. “That is…” he floundered.

I was about to lose my patience, when he let the truth fly like a bullet through my brain, leaving a conspicuous hole.

“It’s Severus Snape.”