Overgrown Expectations
Sinking each of his swollen hands under the running water of his chamber’s sink, Studios Gaunt throws his wet palms into his face. Skin slaps wetly against skin, making an unpleasant sound. Dragging his fingers down his pudgy cheeks, he looks into his face in the mirror. One of his great indulgences, overeating. A sensory buffet, keeping his hands and tongue busy to silence his inner voices. Now, the weight of his flesh upon his bones feels so… heavy. A Gaunt is meant to be gaunt, some of his cousins would say when they wanted to lash out with their tongues. They’re right. It feels wrong. Everything feels wrong. More than anything, he wants to march into the great hall and confess to the lie that is his life. At least the weight on his soul could be sloughed off, if not this weight on his bones.
“Keep it together,” he tells the man in the mirror. The thick Russian accent betrays where his branch of the Gaunts has laid their roots. “You know what they will do.” Studios does not fear that the Gaunts will string him up. He fears what they would do to his parents, for failing to wipe away his blemish upon their blood. “Stay strong. For mother and father. Stay strong.”
Heaving away from the water closet, the bloated mass curls his fingers around his scarlet-and-gold robes and tosses them over his shoulders. From delicate porcelain hands that decorate his vanity cabinet, he plucks a set of rings he will need for today, and forces them onto his sausage fingers. They’re uncomfortable. Meant to adjust size to a wizard’s fingers, even these bands of metal see fit to remind him what he is not. An orange feline, with old scratchy fur, leaps from the floor and walks across the cabinet, brushing his hands with her tail. The faintest touch of her fur whips the rings into line, and they ease their grip, shifting to better suit the diameter of his digits.
“Rise and shine,” a voice like a womanly librarian being strangled by a boa constrictor squeaks from the cat’s mouth, and a faint blue light sparkles for a moment behind her eyes. “Another day, another duty.”
“Another day. Another duty.”
As he repeats the affirmation, Studios Gaunt walks over to a large enclosure taking up much of the space in his room. Inside of it, a bulbous green-and-violet lump grows in desolately sandy soil. It is the bud of the Solutor Apollicaria. Common name, Australian Suneater. Very rare, for its species has been exterminated to near extinction by wizarding authorities. Only a few select specimens are permitted to exist. The ultimate invasive species, able to adapt to nearly any environment. In the sandy soil of deserts and badlands, it can barely eke out an existence. Given more fertile soil, it will explode into a floral colony to rival Pando itself. Luckily for containment efforts, the flower will only bloom and fruit under a sufficiently full solar eclipse. Thus the name, Suneater.
What most do not give thought to is the incredible potential of the Solutor Apollicaria, if its adaptation could be directed and cultivated with an intended purpose in mind. The right environment, the right needs, could result in a plant capable of anything one could imagine. To one such as Studios Gaunt, alive in a world of miracles and yet dead to them, the promise of anything is worth any price.
Light from the stained-glass angels at the top of his chamber window paints Studios’ face in a spattering of color while he regards the plant. The object of his obsession. He chews his tongue, and rests his fingers against the glass of the enclosure. The next suitable eclipse in this part of the world will not be for two decades. Two more decades for the fruit of his labor. Such a long time.
There must be a better way. A faster way. A way to turn the great wheel of the sky, or create an artificial eclipse. In a world of magic, there must be a way. But not for Studios Gaunt, and his fat, dead fingers. Not without help…
“Come, rostok,” the creaking voice of Cronella croons behind him. “You’ve a class to teach.”
Letting his hand fall from the glass, Studios lets a sigh fall from him. His entire torso slumps heavier against his frame when it deflates. Trudging footsteps depart his chambers.