SOUNDS LIKE A BREAKFAST CEREAL

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that J.K. Rowling says is hers. I also don't own any part of Brooklyn (although there is a bridge I'm looking at…), McDonald's, Barnes & Noble, and any of the bands Hex listens to. I only own Hex Holmstrom and his little corner of the world.

Part One — Chris

The Letters in the Refrigerator

"I'm sorry, Chris," Cathy Lartmore said, pulling away from him, "but we can't see each other anymore."

Chris Holmstrom looked blankly at the pretty girl sitting as far away from him as the car's tiny back seat would allow. "What?" was all he could say.

"We can't see each other anymore," his girlfriend of less than one month repeated.

"Are you serious?" The look on Cathy's face said she certainly was. "Can you give me one good reason why?" he asked, arching an eyebrow and ignoring the pain from the piercing he'd gotten just that day.

She shrugged. "We're too different."

A roaring was beginning in Chris's ears. "I thought you said opposites attract."

"That's when it's a good different. We…well, we're different in a not good way."

"Like how?"

Cathy cocked her head to one side and scrunched up her button nose, thinking. Chris once thought the habit was cute. Tonight, it made him nauseous. "Like, I try to do well in school, and you're…well, you just got kicked out."

"I didn't get kicked out," he clarified. "They just encouraged me not to come back next school year. Anyway, what does it matter? We can still see each other. I can wait for you after school and we can hang out."

"My parents don't want me seeing a boy who got kicked out of school."

"So this is all about your parents?" Chris chuckled. "What do they know?"

"Chris, you don't understand. My parents and I sat down and talked it over, and I realized that they were right. You're totally wrong for me. I have a bright future ahead of me if I work hard and go to college. You're…well, let's just say you're distracting me from that goal."

"Hey, I never made any demands when you said you had to do your homework."

"It's not just that," Cathy said. "You're a bad influence, trying to get me to ditch school and drink beer and…and…go all the way." This last was said in an embarrassed whisper.

"I'm trying to get you to live your life," Chris told her. "You're only young once, y'know. There's not much time to do stupid things before you have to grow up."

"You have no intention of growing up, Chris! Look at you! You have no sense of responsibility, no work ethic, no conscience—"

"—unlike Jeff Spielman?" he asked, naming the straight-A golden boy jock from Lawton High School, which they had both attended the previous year.

Cathy's baby blue eyes widened. "How did you know about me and Jeff?"

Chris frowned. The truth was he didn't. "So this is about Jeff?"

She shrank further into her corner of the back seat. "Well, it's partly about him, too."

"Damn." He fell silent.

"Chris?" Cathy asked tentatively after a nerve-wracking pause. "Say something, Chris."

"Not yet. It's not everyday a guy gets dumped. I'm trying to make the moment last forever."

Tears welled up in her eyes. Chris was once a sucker for that move. Tonight, he knew she could turn the tears on and off like a faucet. "You're mad."

"I'm hurt, and upset, and confused," Chris told her, opening the car door and unfolding his long legs. "And yeah, I guess I am a little mad." He slung his leather jacket over his shoulder and slammed the door shut. The glass in the window shattered and the alarm began to shriek piercingly, disrupting the other couples at the drive-in, as he walked away.

"You're late." Tiny Thompson, the enormous owner of Tiny's Electronic Repair Shop, greeted his employee as Chris slouched into the store the next morning.

"It's only ten-thirty," the boy replied, dropping his battered knapsack on the floor behind the counter.

"Work begins at nine. I called your place, but your old man said you weren't there. Where did you stay last night?" the big man asked sternly, opening a small refrigerator that stood in the corner.

"A friend's." Chris eased himself down behind a wilderness of TV, radio and VCR innards and Tiny set a chipped bowl, a bottle of milk, and a box of Cheerios in front of him.

"Hmph. Found a new school yet?"

"Nope."

"Bet you're not looking, either." Tiny sighed. "You're wasting your brains, boy, if you stop now."

Chris grunted around a mouthful of cold cereal.

His boss placed a hammy hand on his shoulder and squeezed, not noticing him wince slightly. "Eat your breakfast, now, then get back to work. Mrs. Fletcher's coming in for her fax machine this morning."

The stairwell was dim and stuffy when Chris trudged his way up to the tiny apartment he shared with Hank Ulster, his foster father. From behind the thin walls and doors, he could hear people arguing, watching TV, or making dinner.

From behind his own door, he heard the TV and a mighty belch, a sign that Hank was home. Chris produced a key from a chain around his neck and let himself inside.

The windows were shut, trapping the mingled odors of sweat, beer and stale food inside the cramped space. The late afternoon sun shed light on the piles of dirty clothes, old newspapers and empty pizza boxes, making the debris seem oddly beautiful.

His foster father was sprawled in the battered La-Z-Boy, staring at the TV. He was a balding, rather flabby man in his forties. There were quite a few empty beer cans at his feet, and he looked like he'd spent the whole day in the stained tank top and sweatpants he wore (which he probably had).

Hank looked balefully at the boy. "You're back."

"Hello, Chris, welcome home!" Chris said sarcastically, in the high-pitched voice he imagined a hysterical parent would use. "Goddammit, kid! Where were you? I've been worried sick!"

The man snorted. "I don't care where the hell you go so long as I get my check."

"Go to your room, young man, and think about what you've done!" Chris went on.

"You're starting to get a smart mouth on you, boy," Hank said, his voice beginning to rise.

"You're grounded!" Chris gave his parting shot in the same high-pitched voice as he dragged his knapsack to the tiny alcove off the living area that he called his room.

He flopped onto the rickety camp bed and put some System of a Down on his Walkman to drown out the noise of the TV. Chris then rolled back his sleeve and looked thoughtfully at the bruises on his arm that were starting to turn a sickly greenish-purple.

Before he knew it, he was asleep.

He awoke early the next morning to the grumbling of his stomach. Hank had forgotten about dinner last night. Or maybe, Chris thought as he noted the empty pizza box on the scratched dinner table, he'd forgotten to wake Chris up for his share of dinner.

The door to the single bedroom was open, allowing his foster father's snores to reverberate throughout the tiny apartment. Chris showered and changed his clothes, not caring how much noise he made because Hank slept like the dead. On his way out, the boy helped himself to a couple of wilted twenties from Hank's cracked and greasy billfold.

As he dawdled over his Egg McMuffin at a nearby McDonald's, Chris thought about how he had to drag himself out of bed every morning when he had been in school; and how easy it was to get up early now that he wasn't.

He arrived at the repair shop just as Tiny was opening up for the day. The big man smiled when he saw him. "Morning, son."

Chris nodded briefly. "Morning."

"There's a letter for you."

"What?"

"A letter. Something came in the mail." Tiny grinned and handed him a large yellowish envelope, addressed in green ink to

Mr. C. Holmstrom

The Front Counter

Tiny's Electronic Repair Shop

125 14th Street

Brooklyn, NY USA 52416

There was no stamp or postmark. The envelope was sealed with a coat of arms with a lion, eagle, badger and snake surrounding a large letter H. Chris looked blankly at it.

But his boss was brimming with excitement. "Looks like it's from one of those fancy private schools. You applied without telling me, didn't you?"

"No."

"Maybe one of your guidance counselors at Lawton recommended you. I knew one of them could see you had some potential."

"They all hated me. I gave Mrs. Spears a nervous breakdown, remember?"

Tiny was grinning so hard he looked like the bottom half of his large face was all teeth. "Whoever it was, Chris, it looks like you have a very good friend somewhere. Go on, open the envelope!"

Muttering something about mail bombs and anthrax, Chris unsealed the envelope and slid out a letter written on the same heavy yellowish paper.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards) Dear Mr. Holmstrom, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31. Yours sincerely, (signed) Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress

Chris was even more confused than before. Hogwarts? Witchcraft and Wizardry? What was all this about an owl?

"It's a new school isn't it?" Tiny asked excitedly. "Why don't you look happy?" he asked with less enthusiasm when Chris nodded numbly.

"Take a look at this," the boy told his boss, handing over the letter.

Tiny's beady eyes skimmed it quickly. When he was done, he looked just as confused as Chris did. "Witchcraft and Wizardry? What the hell…?"

"Never heard of the place. And there's no such thing as magic, right?"

A second sheet of paper listed the requirements mentioned in the letter. Cauldrons? Robes? Chris was pretty sure Barnes & Noble didn't stock A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot. Maybe he could mail the letter to one of the weird Goth chicks who had been in his English class last year. He was pretty sure they'd flip if they got a letter like this one. Maybe they even had an owl to send to the school.

Tiny's huge shoulders sagged in disappointment. "And here I thought you got into a new school."

"Aw, Tiny, don't worry about it. I can get a late transfer and just catch up, right?"

"First you have to find a school that will take you."

Another letter was waiting for Chris ("Mr. C. Holmstrom, the Alcove Beside the Bathroom, Apartment 5B, 697 ½ Bedford St., Brooklyn, NY USA 52416") when he got back to the apartment that afternoon, which he promptly pitched, unopened, into the garbage.

He thought the joke was over, but the next morning there were two more yellow envelopes nailed to the front door beside the eviction notice they got every week. Two more were on the front counter at Tiny's when he got there. "This wasn't much of a joke," Chris said as he sent them through the shredder. "Why do these people keep at it?"

Tiny only grunted in reply. He'd become more of a slave driver after his initial disappointment.

But the letters continued to arrive. There were three waiting on Chris's bed after work. One was in Hank's pocket the next morning. He threw that one out and breathed a sigh of relief that he'd found it ahead of his foster father.

The counter girl at McDonald's gave him a weird look when she gave him his Egg McMuffin and a letter addressed to "Mr. C. Holmstrom, Order # 8964, McDonald's, 564 Bedford St., Brooklyn, NY USA 52416". There were even more waiting in the refrigerator at Tiny's, which didn't do anything to cheer up the big man. "Will you please tell these friends of yours to stop wasting paper?" he asked Chris as they took a garbage bag of shredded letters to be recycled.

I would, but I don't have any friends, Chris thought. Cathy crossed his mind for the first time in days and was surprised that he felt no pain.

Hank was already home when Chris arrived that afternoon. The TV was off and there was twice the usual number of empty beer cans at the man's feet. The hairs on the back of the boy's neck prickled.

His foster father chugged down the last of his beer and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "Hello, there, boy," he greeted Chris with a slight slur to his words. "How was your day?"

Chris grunted noncommittally and tried to slink away to his alcove.

"I asked you a question." Hank's tone was heavier, as if he were offended at Chris's display of bad manners.

"Fine," he finally replied.

"I'm glad you had such a good day," he said in a sugary-sweet voice that screamed danger more than his earlier tone of voice had. "You know what kind of a day I had?"

Chris didn't answer. He knew he was going to hear about it anyway.

Hank rose unsteadily to his feet and tried to recount his day. "Well, this morning I got up, and…I had breakfast…then I went to work, only they wouldn't let me in because they said I was fired."

"That's too bad," the boy said, trying to humor his foster father.

"That's too bad," he mimicked in a mocking voice. "It gets worse, boy…they didn't give me any final pay. So I get back here, and what do I find?" He shoved a thin white envelope practically up Chris's nose.

"What's that?"

"What's this?" Hank snarled, breathing beery fumes right in Chris's face. "This is a piece of paper saying I owe six hundred dollars to repair a broken car window."

"What?"

"I said that was funny, we don't have a car," his foster father ranted on. "But then I remembered you, boy."

"What? Why me?" Chris asked. "I didn't break any…" His voice trailed off as he remembered the scene at the drive-in. Breaking up with Cathy…walking out of her car…slamming the door…the alarm shrieking. Had he slammed the door enough to break the window? I couldn't have! "I didn't break any car window!" he said.

But Hank was convinced he was guilty. "Don't lie to me, boy. You've gotten in enough trouble in the past. Didn't I tell you that the last time was to be the last time?"

"I didn't do it!" Chris cried as his foster father shook him roughly by the shoulders.

"Don't give me that!" There was a great burst of pain as Chris's shoulder hit the wall, and another as Hank's foot connected with his side, reaching ribs that had already been sore for the past few days.

The boy slid to the floor, trying to shake off the daze so he could get up and finally fight back this time. It hurt to breathe. Chris jerked reflexively as he heard a footstep, but relaxed again when he opened his eyes and watched Hank walking toward the refrigerator.

His foster father's roar of outrage blasted Chris to his feet. "What is this, boy?" Hank demanded, rounding on him. "What is this?"

"What is what?" he asked, confused. Then he saw the refrigerator, its door ajar, and the yellow envelopes flooding out of it. Chris groaned. "No! Not now!"

"You know about this?" Hank took one and peered at it. "It's for you," he growled, tossing the envelope at him. "Where's my beer?"

"I don't know!" he said, backing up against the wall as his foster father advanced toward him, murder in his eye. "Maybe you drank it all!"

"Maybe you drank it all!" Hank roared, grabbing Chris by the scruff of his neck. "Your check is late, boy! Maybe they know you're drinking and won't pay me to take care of you anymore!"

"I didn't!" Chris said, panicked and angry, pushing futilely at his foster father. He was strong for his tall, lanky build, but Hank outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. "Get your goddamned hands off me!"

"This is for your own good!" Hank said as he threw the boy against another wall. "You need to be taught a lesson!"

The next eons passed in a haze of pain, noise and blood as Hank took his frustration at his sad and wasted life out on Chris's hide. Chris tried once or twice to get off the floor and make a run for the door, but the pain and fear finally overpowered him. Finally, he just lay there and waited for the fire in the different parts of his body to run together and finally numb him.