Anthony Goldstein was sitting in a rented suit with a thin black bowtie, seething. It was the twenty-fifth reunion of his Hogwarts class, and he had made the stupid decision to attend. Everything in him had been against the idea. He had spent seven years of his life with these people, and that was more than enough. He had let his wife know that, again and again. She had pushed back, telling him that things couldn’t have been so bad as he was making them out to be, and that, besides, people change after graduation. The final straw was her telling him that he had to at least put in an appearance for the sake of his clients, several of whom would be in attendance. And so Anthony had made his arrangements for a miserable weekend. At the very least, he had convinced his wife not to come. Sarah wasn’t a wizard, and Anthony was more than fine with that.
In fact, she and him were part of a deeper tribe, and it was only among his own people that Anthony could ever hope to find someone who understood him and his feelings. She was his perfect complement, and that was why she couldn’t be here. It wasn’t a matter of her being a Muggle, instead it was how she conformed unthinkingly to every awful stereotype that Anthony was afraid of. He loved her, but he didn’t want the others to see her nose or to hear her laugh. The idea of her jangly jewelry rattling around while she drank butterbeer and pumpkin juice nauseated him. They knew what he was, but he would shield his wife from them. It was all that he could do, it seemed.
Incredibly, she didn’t seem to understand this. She, who had encountered so many hidden hatreds growing up, and during her meteoric rise at her family’s publishing firm, couldn’t see that wizards and witches were just as capable of holding the world’s oldest prejudice. Wizarding Britain had kept many of the old traditions intact, and Anthony knew that better than anyone.
So, they had argued and fought and, after she had broken some dishes, she had agreed not to attend the reunion with him. She was at their home in London, probably out drinking with her coworkers and telling them what a beast he was, although she could never tell them all of the details. That was fine, Anthony could endure her anger because he knew that he deserved it. He would make it up to her, but first he had to survive this ordeal.
Reluctantly dragging his thoughts back to the present, Anthony set down his goblet on one of the Great Hall’s heavy wooden tables and furrowed his brow in annoyance as it was magically filled once more with pumpkin juice. There was plenty of stronger drinks flowing tonight, but he wanted to keep a level head. Neville Longbottom’s wife Hannah had already had to be half-guided and half-carried out of the hall after a spirited row in which she had accused Longbottom of every failing under the sun. For a moment, the kindly professor had reverted back to the awkward round-faced boy he had been their first years at Hogwarts, but then his friends had swooped in and saved him from embarrassment. Anthony had secretly reveled in Neville’s humiliation, best for the attention to be on someone else besides him for once, but the spotlight soon was back on Anthony when a powerful hand slapped his back and a familiar voice said, “Goldstein! How the hell are you?”
“I’m doing all right, Harry,” answered Anthony evenly.
“Please, it’s Mr. Potter, when we’re in public, Goldstein.”
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, was no boy anymore. Harry Potter had dropped out of Hogwarts rather than finishing his schooling, but no company or department of the Ministry of Magic would have dreamed of denying a place to the hero of the Wizarding World, nor his band of sidekicks. The lack of education, however, had shown through when it had come to managing his finances.
His black hair was as wild as ever and his green eyes bright, but despite all of the work with the Auror’s office, he was carrying a few extra pounds each year. Anthony had all but counted them during their meetings over the years. After nearly blowing through the fortune he had inherited investing in one ill-fated venture after another, Harry Potter had been forced to accept some financial discipline. Not trusting the goblins at Gringotts (“still a bit miffed about the sword of Gryffindor, you reckon?”), Potter and his extended network of friends and family had turned to the next best thing.
Anthony hated himself for getting a job in finance after graduation, he knew that all of his classmates were making snide remarks about it. But he was good with numbers, and he had a fairly solid base of clients who had their own reasons for distrusting Gringotts. He didn’t hate them though, they had never made him stand out since the goblins loathed all wizards equally. Plus, there was an honesty to their clannishness and skill at always staying on top that Anthony could admire, though he could hardly admit it to himself, let alone anyone else.
But Harry Potter knew what he was, and Anthony felt his body stiffen under his wizard’s robes as Harry laid his arm across his shoulders and started to lead him back to the gaggle of other former students and their spouses that he had just escaped.
“Goldstein here thought that we wouldn’t notice him missing from our little reunion here!”
Most of the others gave polite nods of acknowledgment, a few said short hellos, but Harry Potter wasn’t satisfied with that.
“Those were the days, huh, Goldstein? Dumbledore’s Army, practicing spells, most fun I ever had here, outside the Quidditch pitch, you know!”
Why did he have to call him that? Anthony wondered. Every time he heard his last name, with the brutal emphasis on the second syllable, he clenched his teeth. Harry knew what he was doing, they all knew what he was doing, but no one was going to stand up for him. They never did, and they never would.
“But seriously,” Harry said with a slightly more sober air, “this guy is a wizard with numbers.”
He then laughed at his own joke along with a few of his sycophants. The pressure across Anthony’s shoulders slackened, but before he could slip away, Harry tightened his grip on him.
“We had an amazing year all on account of Goldstein, enough to get all the kids new racing brooms! And you know why that is?”
Oh, I know all right, Anthony thought darkly to himself. He waited for the word to drop, the same one that he knew was always dancing on the tip of their tongues. He wanted to scream at them to say it, and he felt his pulse quicken with anticipation. Let’s get it all in the open.
“Because he’s a Ravenclaw!”
The energy and the excitement that had built up in Anthony evaporated in a flash, leaving him with the same anxiety chewing a hole in his chest. Harry was laughing, and a few of the others with him. Not because what he had said was so funny, but because once again the great Harry Potter had left the real joke unsaid.
They were all laughing at Anthony, he was sure of it, and damnit he heard himself laughing along with them, just to keep from screaming.
He wanted to run away back to his seat, back to the little room he had rented down in Hogsmeade, back to London, to be anywhere but here. But he didn’t, couldn’t. He stayed with the others and listened to hear what was new in their lives since the last reunion five years ago. He even shared a little bit about his own life. Coos of sympathy accompanied the excuse he invented for his wife’s absence, though he knew it was only because they were disappointed that they didn’t get a look at the Mrs. Goldstein of their fertile imaginations.
Anthony hated all of them, but he was powerless to do more than seethe. His mind swirled with lurid fantasies of revenging himself and humiliating them through power far greater than their mere magic. But the goblins and their historical monopoly over the banking trade had deprived him of the same connections Sarah enjoyed in the Muggle world, and there was nothing more to do but to endure the subtle insults and hatreds. It was one night every five years, but to Anthony Goldstein, it felt like an eternity.