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When the final light flicked on, the person standing on the other side of my front entrance was the last person I expected to see.“Harry?”
I rushed to open the door.My friend was in trouble.Blood covered his white shirt and dripped onto the concrete sidewalk beneath his feet.
As soon as the door opened, I threw up a protection spell that would allow Harry to come inside but stop anyone else from entering.“What happened?”
I reached out for him, desperate to help.Harry took one step toward me before collapsing into my arms.
“Oof.”He was heavier than I expected, and I would have dropped him if I hadn’t bolstered my strength with my magic.I grabbed onto his sagging body and managed to drag him fully inside and sit down on my white-tiled foyer floor with his head in my lap.
I stroked his short dark hair and whispered.“Who did this to you?”
He stared up at me, his brown eyes filled with shame.“It was me.A spell… it backfired.”
Hot tears filled my eyes and leaked down my cheeks when I saw how much blood was pooling around us.“No Harry… I’ll fix you.”
I put out my hand, my arm trembling with the stress of seeing my childhood friend bleeding out before my eyes.I began to chant, a basic healing spell.I’d never mastered more than high school level magic when it came to healing, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to be able to do to help him, but I had to try.
My parents had normal jobs.There were a limited number of magical jobs within our world, and they’d encouraged me to live outside the warlock realm where I’d been raised.I’d crossed over with them into the human world straight after high school, and as a result, my magic wasn’t as well-developed as it could have been.
White light sparked from my fingers and passed over Harry as more tears leaked down my face.But nothing changed in relation to his injuries.
“Come on!”I ground out, forcing more magic into the spell.
Harry reached for my arm, his wet fingers leaving sticky, bloody fingerprints on my skin.“It’s okay… Tan.It’s okay.”
“Why didn’t you go to your parents?”I demanded of him, anger born of fear ripping into me.I couldn’t lose him.He was one of my oldest friends.“They could have fixed you.Helped you.”
He chuckled softly, then coughed, sending more blood over his lips and down his chin.“They don’t deserve the last of my magic.”
“What do you mean?”I asked him.
“The spell… that’s killing me.It’s a genie spell.”
I gasped.Surely, he hadn’t been trying to do a forbidden spell?“No!You didn’t…”
He groaned, his eyes closing.“You know I only ever wanted one thing.”
“For your parents to accept you… for who you really are,” I whispered, hoisting him higher so I could cradle him in my arms.
Harry was gay, a fact that had been obvious since he was little.His parents had rejected any notion of him not being ‘normal’ and he’d spent most of his teenage years living at my house.
My parents had loved him like a son.And to me, an only child, he’d been the closest thing to a brother I’d ever had.Even if we’d drifted apart over the last ten years, I still loved him with all my heart.
I shook him a little.“Harry, I would have helped you if I’d known you were struggling this much.You could have lived here with me.We could have been the odd couple all over again.”
He sighed, long and heavy.“I should have come here earlier.But I should have done a lot of things.Now stop and listen to me.What is your greatest wish, Tan?”
“For you to live!”I cried, a sob catching in my throat as Harry’s eyes began to close, his skin as pale as the white tiles beneath us.
“No.”His voice was a choked whisper.“You always said you wished your magic matched your physical strength.Do you still wish that?”
“You remember that?”I said, and he nodded.
As two outcasts at a magical high school we’d often wished for things to be different.Part of me had wanted to be small and sexy, but most of me was proud of my curves and strength.When that size hadn’t translated into anything special magically, I’d often wished for more.
I gulped.“Yes, of course I do.But not just for me.For all the big girls out there.That our strength, our power, our size… meant something more than just being… fat.”
Harry forced his eyes open, a strange green mist floating across them.His lips trembled as he lifted his blood-covered hand and touched my cheek.
