I become a torture to those I’m with
‘Gross!’ grimaced Fred.
‘Shhh! Lee’s coming, don’t mention it in front of him!’ Cybele hissed.
‘What shouldn’t he mention in front of me?’
‘That was subtle, Cybele.’
‘Oh shut up! Sorry Lee, I was updating the boys about, er-’
‘Your holidays,’ George tried.
Lee raised an eyebrow.
‘Phil’s siblings’ fates,’ Fred provided.
Lee crashed near George on the Ravenclaw’s table bench where the boys had found Cybele, her travelling cloak still covered in snow thrown aside. They were just back from Christmas holidays for dinner time and classes were starting back the following day.
‘Well, at least I’ve saved one,’ Lee eventually answered.
‘How is he?’ asked George.
‘Not good,’ Lee answered gloomily.
‘So how were holidays at the Jordan’s, Cybele?’ Fred tried.
‘Nice, they were great. I loved Cambridge! How was it at Hogwarts?’ Cybele provided happily.
‘There weren’t many of us here, but it was merry!’
They couldn’t manage to make the forced conversation last. Lee was looking down at his plate, playing with broccoli on his untouched plate and their conversation died away. Fred broke the silence.
‘We’ve got to do something. Never mind if we got in detention for the rest of the year or expelled, I’d better hand him over to McGonagall than just let him die.’
Lee looked up at his friend gratefully and they all looked at each other, ready to do anything. But what?
Cybele’s eyes were caught by a glimpse of gold in the corner of her eyes. Funny how she seemed to be noticing her friend’s golden hair so much, lately. Draco caught her eyes from the Hall’s entrance and they smiled at each other. Fred and George looked back, expecting to see some Ravenclaw girls, and turned to their plates quickly without comments.
‘Miss Philius.’
‘Professor Snape! Good evening,’ Cybele said with a smile.
Snape had discreetly walked up between the Ravenclaw and the Slytherin tables on his way to the teachers’ table. As he spotted the Gryffindors flanking Cybele, he immediately regretted stopping by. He bended to his student’s level and almost whispered.
‘I would like to meet you as soon as coming Friday. I have some ideas to put in practice.’
Cybele, however, felt delighted that her favourite professor had come to give the appointment at her table in his enthusiasm to work on new ideas. She beamed gratefully.
‘Yes, Professor, thank you!’
Snape went on quickly without further reply.
When the boys felt safe to look up from their plates to face a still delightedly beaming Cybele following Snape with her eyes, they looked like they had been fed Flobberworms. Lee jokingly broke the tension.
‘I’ll never understand your social life, Cybele.’
Winter passed gloomily into spring. Things felt strange and unstable to Cybele while she was around the boys. What with Draco and her trying to build a friendship based on censorship, both refusing to let go of the attempt for some reason. What with Lee and the twins’ anguishes about Phil and their friendship gloomed by the shadow of disapproval toward Cybele’s respect of Snape and obvious liking of Malfoy.
Cybele was appreciating more than ever the familiar comfort of the evenings in the Ravenclaw common room, where the second-years always gathered.
She had also taken to spend more time in the literature section of the library. The double literature row was the last of the west aisle and a couch and two comfortable armchairs were to be found behind, where she had virtually never came across anybody.
That’s where, however, she had found Caroline on a freezing January Monday morning. Cybele used to spend her first double period, History of Magic, here. The attendance was not checked in this course and it was the most boring experience she had ever been through, including the four hours Christmas mass with the Jordans. She had been only once in Professor Binn’s class, on her first day, and since had consciously spent the hour memorizing the chapter comfortably sitting on an armchair in the library.
‘Hi.’
The tall skinny girl with curly light brown hair was taking a seat in the opposite armchair.
‘Hi.’
‘Hey, you are studying History of Magic too!’ cried the girl, spotting the book in Cybele’s hands.
‘Oh, yeah, I can’t take Professor Binn’s classes; they make me feel sleepy for the rest of the day. Well, I only went once in September; since then I’m catching up here, instead.’
‘No way! You mean you should be in History of Magic right now?’
‘Er, yeah,’ said Cybele, wondering if the girl would report her.
‘Ah! We had the same idea! Well, you had it way first, apparently. We must be in the same class. I’m Caroline, second-year Hufflepuff; our houses are having the class together right now. I couldn’t take it anymore either!’
‘Wow, you did try, though. Four months! I’m Cybele, by the way.’
‘Nice to meet you, I’m Caroline; maybe we’ll study History together here?’
‘Yeah, I’d like that!’
She had since often enjoyed the company of the girl, whether in the library or in the Hufflepuff common room. They mostly talked about literature or Caroline’s Muggle background and had good fun together. But moreover, Cybele appreciated Caroline’s complete lack of differentiation between Cybele’s being friends with Draco, Ben or Lee, liking Professors Flitwick or Snape. Caroline was not a girl of prejudices. She was in second-year like Cybele and personally disliked Snape and had heard only bad things about Draco but she never hold it against Cybele, who she assumed must have good reasons to appreciate them. Hufflepuffs at large seemed to share this comfortable indifference. She had never been stared at in their common-room or at their table.
Though Professor Snape was never running out of ideas, it was also becoming distressing for Cybele to see the months passing without a shadow of an answer or a positive theory coming up about why she was how she was. In the past month, Cybele had been through interviews with Professor Burbage on the Muggle environment, about which she appeared to know absolutely everything in a freaky way. The Muggle Studies teacher could ask her for any historical or scientific fact randomly, and Cybele simply knew. She had even asked her the address or itinerary to some remote small shops and Cybele would just come up with it.
Snape kept saying that the fact she couldn’t do that with magic-related facts, sciences or locations just proved once more that her magic was definitely not foreign to his. But Cybele could not figure how he was coming out with this.
‘It means magic does something to you. I cast spells which pass right through you, charms are nothing to you, and still, when you can account for any detail of Muggle wars, you need to read it from our books, if only once, to know anything about the goblins’ revolutions.’
‘So, what do we make of that, Professor?’ asked a slightly flustered Cybele.
‘It means there is an interaction. Magic is putting resistance to you,’ Snape had answered, ignoring Cybele’s disrespect, in his eagerness to explain.
‘Is that your theory?’ Cybele asked more politely.
‘What do you think?’
‘Well, why should magic resist me? And if it does, how does it happen that it can only counter me in this field and not resist my own magic?’
‘Maybe wizarding knowledge is not the only thing. I would like to do a quick experiment. See the stool, and this book. One has magical property, the other not. Could you tell which one?’
Cybele approached the two artefacts, her interest picked. She looked at them, she caressed them, and she listened to them. She understood that sorcerers had a special feeling for magic. She had never felt magic. If what she could do was magic, it was fully her, so much her that she could not feel it more than she could feel her blood running in her veins. She eventually looked up at Snape and shook her head.
‘In this case,’ he suggested, ‘could you banish them, one after the other?’
Cybele aimed to throw the artefacts a good twenty feet away. The book flew and landed exactly where she had pictured; but the stool did not go as neatly.
‘The stool resisted!’
‘Yes, and it is the one with magic property; an extendable stool. What does that mean, Miss Philius?’
‘You are right! I am not simply foreign to magic, it’s reacting to me, it’s resisting. Why?’
‘Have you been trying what I asked you?’
‘Yes, all the time, I never forget to concentrate and try when I do things, but I never felt anything. I cannot do magic. It just happens, it’s me.’
‘Do not give up, though, keep on trying. I mean that it could take years. It is the key.’
‘The key to your theory, Professor?’
‘Yes, to one of my theories.’
Cybele let the silence lingered, determinate not to ask but to let to Snape the initiative to change the subject. Her teacher did not avoid her gaze.
‘We shall, of course, discuss theories. I have no wish to leave you in the dark, Miss Philius. But I would like us to go through more research and experiments before, this year. Do you understand?’
‘I trust you, Sir,’ Cybele said simply, and she was sincere. She knew that her professor would tell her everything eventually; that he probably considered she was too young to deal with her own identity. She did not agree. But she did trust him.
It was well into spring and the third Quidditch game of the season had come. Cybele was going down with the rest of the school to the Quidditch pitch when it happened.
Ben, out of the sort of superstition game players sometime developed, had taken a habit to always walk down to the Quidditch Pitch with Cybele, owning her the nickname Mascot among Quidditch players. He said she had brought him luck for the trials and since, she seemed to be the only person in front of whom he could open his mouth – whether to put food in or to talk words out – before a match.
He was distracting his nerve this morning by explaining a complex Quidditch move, as he generally did. Cybele spotted Draco and his friends going down and approaching in their way to the pitch until they were almost walking side by side with Ben and Cybele. Cybele never properly listened to Ben’s pre-game babbling and she caught Pansy crying.
‘Oh no, that’s a joke!’
‘What?’ drawled Draco lazily.
‘I didn’t know they were coming in size extra-extra-large! Look at that!’ Parkinson exclaimed.
Cybele gave a glance and her heart missed a beat when she spotted the unmistakably large bottom of Eslis coming their way. Eslis was walking backward, leaning on a heavy Quidditch ball practice set box he was dragging out of the pitch and back to the castle.
She heard Draco laugh.
‘These animals here really don’t have the slightest dignity. I would like to see the Malfoys’ servants let themselves go this way.’
‘Like it would happen!’ said Pansy earnestly.
‘This place is really going to the dogs. You bet the old man over-feeds them out of guilt of not being able to give them wages!’
Pansy burst into evil laughter at that. They had reached the Elf’s level.
‘You need some help, maybe?’ Draco asked in a mocking kind tone. The Elf missed the sarcasm and answered politely.
‘Master is too kind, Master, you is going to the match and us is doing the job, thank you master.’ Draco, Pansy and the others burst into laugher, Pansy repeating the sentence in a cruel imitation. Ben had stopped too, as well as a number of students, watching the scene with distaste but unsure how to react.
Cybele had frozen on the spot, her head almost spinning, unable to act right. Then Eslis spotted her and beamed in pleasure.
‘Mistress Cybele! I is so pleased to see you again. I is hope you is been well…’
Cybele was suddenly sized by panic. She could not think right, about her friend Eslis being humiliated, about her friend Draco eventually showing the ugly face everybody had been warning her about. All she could think about was herself, caught in the stare of a crowd of people, embarrassed by Draco, embarrassed by poor Eslis. She grabbed Ben and hurriedly went forward, letting Eslis to his fate without answering his greeting, burning with shame.
‘Cybele?’ tried Ben; but she eventually ran for it, letting Ben behind as she hurried to the stands. She already hated herself for going away but as she looked back, Draco and his friends were approaching, having no doubt being brushed away by braver students than herself. Indeed when she looked further back she saw Caroline kneeling near by Eslis and none others than Fred and George looking back at her. She felt an urge to run back there but it was too late, she could not turn back now and face the four of them. She ran forward to the stands and bumped into Lee.
‘Hey, Mascot! Fancy sitting with me on the VIP box today when I comment?’
Cybele desperately wanted to be alone and disappear somewhere for ever.
‘Cybele, are you crying? What’s wrong?’ asked Lee.
She looked up.
‘Believe me; you don’t want to be seen with me now, or anytime soon.’ She broke into sobs and ran away again. She ended up hiding underneath the boxes until all the school was in and once the path was cleared, Cybele went back to hide in her favourite spot in the library, burning with shame.