The Right Thing To Do

Introduction

Harry Potter was intended to grow up with its readers. The first two books are very childish and have the aura of a safe and harmless fantasy, rather than one that has a very real impact on the characters. The characters are largely played for laughs and no one looks too closely into the unfortunate implications of the stories. As the stories grow older, this balancing act becomes harder to sustain and reading the earlier books can leave the adult reader wondering what is wrong with the Wizarding World? When you read the books as a child, watching Hagrid give Dudley a pig’s tale is hilarious; when you read them as an adult, you see Hagrid as (at best) a child abuser, convincing his parents that their fear and hatred of the wizards who have forced themselves into their lives is amply justified. There’s also the ‘minor’ joke about the Dursleys taking Dudley to have the tail removed, which would have revealed the existence of the entire Wizarding World!

This problem pops up in The Worst Witch too. In A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch, Ethel Hallow transforms Mildred into a frog (in the 2017 series, she adds to this by throwing Mildred out a window immediately afterwards) in an act of revenge. To a child, this is funny and Mildred is in no real danger; to an adult, this is the act of a sociopath, little better than attempted murder and should be treated as such. It works better in The Worst Witch because the books are aimed at children, but the point is still there.

Ethel, at least, lives in a school where there are experienced teachers that can and will help if a student gets into trouble. A minor magical mishap can be handled. The casual reaction of Miss Hardbroom to Ethel being turned into a pig, way back in the first book, may come from the experience really being little more than a bruise to the witches. But what happens if one lives outside a school, where there are no other magicians to help? The existence of such a large power imbalance is rarely a good thing.

It was a part of the Schooled in Magic books from the start, as Emily starts to explore outside Whitehall School, but my feelings on the matter sharpened after reading Anoria (Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett), in which Cordelia Cooper casually recounts the story of how she — a powerful witch — turned a girl into a goat for spying on her, an effective death sentence. She did not seem to regret it, at least at first, nor to realise that her constant habits are turning everyone against her and the only reason people tolerate her is because they’re too scared not to. She isn’t a bad person, and she does have a good heart, but she is blind to the effect she has on others. (Anoria is well worth a read.)

The story gave me an idea. Gorg Huff was kind enough to let me use it.

There are people, I was surprised to discover, who have fantasies about being hypnotised (in a manner impossible in the real world) or turned into animals or objects (also impossible). I suspect that many of those fetishes are safe, in the sense they cannot really become real. It is true a lot of kinks and suchlike can turn nasty very quickly, if one person goes beyond the other persons wishes, but that isn’t true of transformation fantasies because they literally can’t happen at all. If they could, they would be a lot less alluring…

This story, it should be noted, is set between Lessons in Etiquette and Study in Slaughter. But all you have to know is that Emily, having saved King Randor’s throne and being rewarded with a barony of her very own, is exploring the land before her return to school…