Cybele had not been able to find a single book mentioning Magi in the Hogwarts library and Mrs Pince had snapped at her when she’d asked for help. She was still wondering, on her way down to the dungeons, if she should bring the matter up with Professor Snape.
He had, after all, said that he did not wish to discuss theories yet. Maybe she should just wait until he saw fit before she mentioned Eslis’ declaration - but then, what if Professor Snape himself had not thought or known about Magi and could use Eslis’ hint?
Lost in thoughts, Cybele almost reached Professor Snape office without looking up once. Almost.
‘Hi.’
She recognized the voice before she looked up.
‘Draco.’
‘Trying to bump into someone again?’ he asked with a half smile, clearly testing the waters.
‘Why did you talk to the Elf like that?’ She attacked him directly.
‘What does it matter to you? You didn’t answer to it, either, when it talked to you!’
‘It was mean of me not to. And it matters to me because you are my friends. You, Draco, are my friend,’ said Cybele without thinking, ‘and I don’t like to see you act like a sad arse and he, Eslis, is my friend and I will never again let him be insulted in front of me without reacting.’
Draco put on a face.
‘That Elf is your friend?’ A nasty sneer crossed his face. ‘You’re mental!’
‘He welcomed me to Hogwarts when I first came, alone with no family. He brought me to Diagon Alley; he bought me my wand, checked on me since as friends do. Why shouldn’t I call him my friend? Pray, tell me.’
‘You went to Diagon Alley with an Elf? You know what? Maybe you should call him a friend, if you really think he is your match. Maybe it’s me who shouldn’t be your friend!’
‘Maybe you’re right. I cannot expect you to be as powerful as an Elf or to know as many things. Maybe Eslis and I are out of your league.’
Draco took his wand out at this point but Cybele did not even bother to pretend. Draco uttered a determined, ‘Stupefy!’ which would have worked wonder on anybody else, but Cybele watched Draco’s face smugly as he obviously thought that his spell had been too weak. He looked abashed, but shook his head next and changed tactics.
‘Look, Cybele, you’re a powerful witch, you’re clever. Why waste your time with Mudbloods, Elves and that Caroline I saw you with, she’s a Hufflepuff! Cybele, did you know that house is for stupid people with barely any magical abilities?’
‘It certainly is not, or your friends Crabbe and Goyle would be in it, wouldn’t they? And Caroline wouldn’t, so you’re just plain wrong. It seems to me that they are a couple of things on which you could use to open your eyes. You’re brainwashed!’
‘You’re the blind one! You won’t hear me when I tell you the truth about these people!’ said Draco, infuriated. He aimed another spell which passed right through her. She didn’t bother to take out her wand as she aimed to fight, Muggle style, pushing Draco down in the corridor. Cybele was very much a first-year in size, though, and Draco was taller than her. She did not use her magic; she wanted an even fight, which Draco was winning. She was trying to grab, scratch and punch every bit of him while he, not aiming at her, merely pinned her down the floor below him.
‘Confinio!’
Professor Snape’s separating spell didn’t work on Cybele, but Draco was violently jerked away from her into the opposite wall.
‘Making a demonstration of Muggle duelling in front of my door? I will take that as a plea for punishment. Ten points from Ravenclaw and Slytherin! You will both serve detention with me; separately, as I’d rather keep my stores in one piece. Cybele!’ He unexpectedly barked her first name.
Cybele hurried into her teacher’s office with a last glance at Draco. They locked eyes for a second, with more sadness than anger.
Cybele heard the door closing behind her almost immediately.
‘Sit down.’ She obeyed wordlessly.
‘I accepted to work with you, Miss Philius, as you may remember, out of a mutual understanding that we were perfectly compatible for this type of cooperation.’ Snape was lecturing in his trademark low and slow voice. ‘I will not handle, Miss Philius, any outburst of temper or teenage drama. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, Sir. Sorry.’ She could have pointed out that she had never, ever, acted so during their meetings, but did not say a word. Professor Snape had watched over her outside his office and she had sobbed nonsensical things to him in the library; he was Draco’s godfather and she had attacked his godson with her fists right on his front door. It dawned on Cybele that what Professor Snape was actually saying was that she was more than a research topic to him and what she did outside mattered. She marvelled at how she could always understand self-confidently these subtle shifts when it came to Professor Snape, while she could be so awkwardly thick with understanding others.
‘Sir?’ she asked softly. ‘The things Draco says…’ She did not look up.
‘We will not talk about that now,’ Snape answered, not unkindly. ‘We have work to do,’ he added.
‘Eslis called me a Magian, Monday.’
‘We will also discuss this later.’ Professor Snape said.
‘What you would like me to do, Sir?’ Cybele asked as calmly as she could.
‘I want you to try these potions, while I observe the effects on you. None are harmful.’
‘Very well.’
Cybele reached for the first, bright green phial in front of her and swallowed a disgusting tasting potion without a grimace nor, unsurprisingly, any effect.
Summer had come, but it hadn’t reached Professor Snape’s windowless office.
‘Sit down.’
Cybele took a seat in front of her professor silently and waited for him to state the nature of the detention. But what he said next surprised her.
‘I will now answer your questions. We have an hour.’
Cybele’s eyes opened wide and she tried to wordlessly express her gratitude.
‘Please, explain it all to me.’
‘The Magi?’
‘No, the – all these things Draco comes up with. Explain to me what is wrong with him,’ she demanded with determination.
Cybele thought Snape concealed in a split second the beginning of a victorious smile.
‘You are not curious about the Magi?’
‘I am, Sir. Just please tell me what’s wrong with Draco first,’ she insisted.
‘Wizards,’ started Snape slowly, ‘are not numerous. The few pure wizarding ancient families are well known by name. The Malfoys are one of them, so are the recently extinguished Blacks, and your friends the Weasleys. The thing is, the Malfoys – a very ancient family, French nobility, a Muggle king’s astrologers centuries ago – have, more recently, become very proud of one thing: their family has remained pure in the sense that the ones bearing its name have never in recent history married non-pure wizarding spouses. Do you understand that?’
‘You mean his parents would refuse him to befriend someone like Caroline, for example?’
‘Yes, and he would not like it himself, because his family considers witches of her origin inferior. Draco has been taught that people like Caroline are scum, that House-Elves are no more than stupid animal-slaves and other things of the sort. He would not even look at Caroline or shake her hand.’
‘Does Draco think that I am the same kind as his family, then?’
‘He cannot possibly know that, so the fact that he is your friend could give hope to someone who would wish him to become a better person. I am very close to this family and I don’t know if Draco will ever think for himself and know better one day. It would not be easy.’
‘How have you been raised, Sir?’ Cybele asked before she could stop herself. Again the teacher’s reaction was not what Cybele expected.
‘I am very close to the Malfoy’s family. Don’t ever give anybody a hint of this private conversation,’ he requested confidently, ignoring her last, insolent, question.
Cybele caught his eyes and quickly looked away when she realized she had unintentionally caught what was in his mind. She felt embarrassed. Embarrassed and scared.
‘Sorry, I saw, I did not mean…’
‘What did you see?’ Snape asked sharply.
‘Information, as you call it. I saw it when I looked at you, I didn’t mean to. Draco’s family and others are up to serious evil, something terrible; you are spying on them for people who are trying to stop them,’ she said quickly.
If Professor Snape was surprised, or scared by Cybele’s insight, it didn’t let it show at all.
‘You cannot see what will happen, can you?’ he checked simply.
‘No, how could I? Can we prevent Draco to take part in it?’ she added, and suddenly out of pure guts she said, ‘Promise me you won’t let him get involved!’
She immediately looked down sheepishly. But yet again, the anger she dreaded from Snape did not come.
‘We will do our best, both of us. But it will mainly depend on himself, I’m afraid,’ he concluded.
I was looking at Draco over my office, thinking about the promise Cybele and I had somewhat made to each other. Thinking back about her insolent question, I had been raised like Draco. Or at least I had grown up like him, surrounded by the same pure-blooded maniacs, by Lucius and the gang. Yes, one could wake up from all this madness, I had. Much too late. And at what cost? But here was Draco, a mere child and already bending the rules for a Ravenclaw friend. The arrogance and self-confidence left by his family name turned up to be his ally in this.
‘Don’t! You miscounted the stirs; there is one more before you add the Valerian Roots.’
Draco was sweating with anxiety over the silver cauldron. He would be a good potion brewer one day. In many ways setting him to perform the last stage of my Veritaserum brewing was a good punishment; his anguish was total. He gave me a glance the second time before throwing the roots.
‘Perfect, now three counter clockwise, a shade quicker.’
Draco had not blinked for the last five minutes, as if the success of the potion held on his eyelashes. He counted up to five before removing his wand from the transparent brew. The potion was perfect.
‘Good. However, Cybele did not need any verbal instruction,’ I lied leisurely. ‘Now let’s try it.’ I poured a small spoon of the brew in a tiny phial and handed it to Draco.
‘I have to ask your consent to take the Potion willingly,’ I recited in a bored voice. ‘You know you can refuse – legally’ I added in a voice that left no doubt that in many other ways, Draco hadn’t a choice but to accept my request.
Draco could not have looked more distressed as he eventually understood the real nature of his detention, but said nothing and drank the potion, resigned.
I observed the shift in the grey eyes, indicating the potion had taken effect.
‘What happened outside my office when I gave you this detention?’ I asked.
‘Cybele and I had a fight.’
‘What about?’
‘She was angry after me treating a stupid House-Elf the way it deserved. She doesn’t know anything and she would not learn from me about House-Elves and Mudbloods. She compared me to the Elf, I cursed her.’
‘What curse did you use?’
‘Stupefy, twice.’
‘And did it work?’
‘No, I did not really mean it. I don’t want to hurt her.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s my friend. She’s the first person who claimed to be my friend not being like the others and she’s my friend even when we don’t agree and we fight, and I like that; it makes a nice change,’ Draco explained blankly in the Veritaserum sober way.
‘So, she was the one attacking you, Muggle way?’
‘Yes. She’s just like her other friends; she cannot take the truth about these matters.’
‘What do you think her blood status is?’
‘I don’t know. You said we could not know.’
‘So, you consider her your friend without knowing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Stay around some more time, while the potion wears off,’ I ordered simply.
I stared into the fire, as Draco did, for a while. A pinch of something unusual was playing in my chest, inflating and deflating like a second, minute heart. Hope.
‘What house are you in?’ I asked after a while.
‘Hufflepuff!’ Draco lied promptly, proving that the effect of Veritaserum had wore off
‘Out of here, then.’
We exchanged a quick grin. Draco did not seem to resent his punishment. A go at Veritaserum could be much worse and humiliating, he knew it from home. Something of the grin was still on my face long after the door banged close. Maybe we could avoid a repetition of history after all. The grin faded off my face as I heard the echo of my voice crying, ‘Mudblood!’ at my best friend Lily’s face, many years ago.