Fred dove back into his cereal, George gave me a weak smile and Lee was pretending he had noticed nothing. I did not feel relieved, though. So I decided to be brave and have things spelled out.
‘I’m speaking to Draco again,’ I said. My mouth seemed to have become thick and heavy all of a sudden.
‘And smiling, too,’ George observed, as if he was talking about the weather.
‘And blushing,’ added Fred mercilessly.
Lee merely stopped staring at the ceiling.
‘Well, he asked for a second chance and as I said before, Eslis seems to reckon I should...’
Fred put his spoon down and looked seriously at me.
‘Look, Cybele. I’m not going to have a go at you because you are friends with a worthless bully for reasons that escape me completely. We’ve came to an agreement,’ he waved to the two other boys, who looked sheepish, ‘that we would have to trust you on that as long as he doesn’t start to rub off on you… again,’ he added pointedly.
‘No, this time he won’t. It’s not going to be like that. If he wants to be my friend, he will have to hear out my points of view and respect what I value or he will just lose me! And believe me he won’t want to, seeing the intellectual level of the rest of his friends!’ I explained eagerly.
Fred still looked serious, though.
‘Look, Cybele, again, I really don’t see how you can expect a guy who bullies and insults people in the worst ways to come round to your views. But that’s not the point,’ he added quickly as I made to answer, ‘please don’t bring in Eslis as an excuse. He is a House-Elf; he would say whatever he thinks you would like to hear to please you. And he is forbidden to say anything against any Hogwarts student, did you know that?’
‘Yes, I know. Believe it or not but Eslis has very specific reasons to recommend me to keep trying with Draco. I… just can’t share them right now.’
‘Look, Cybele,’ George said kindly, ‘we know you won’t let Draco speak or act in front of you like he did last year with Hagrid or Eslis. If you think that in spite of that, he still will want your company, that’s a mystery to explain, but fine with me.’
I laughed. ‘I think he needs someone to contradict him a bit. It seems to be a very new feeling to him and he likes it, as far as I’ve figured out.’
‘Just be careful,’ Lee warned. ‘Seriously, this guy is not just an arrogant spoiled kid; he’s evil. I’ve heard him say racist stuff, and praise violence. He’s not just your average git.’
‘I know… It’s… been explained,’ I said vaguely, remembering my peculiar detention with Professor Snape.
‘Let’s not talk about that. We trust you. As a matter of fact, George and I have a little project to share with you two,’ Fred teased maliciously, changing topic.
Lee and I looked at the twins expectantly and George went on.
‘Wouldn’t you like to pay a little visit to Phil?’ he asked conspiratorially.
I opened wide eyes.
‘Very funny…’
‘Look who’s speaking! Not afraid of single-handling Malfoy but you recoil in front of a modest spider nest?’ Fred teased.
I looked at Lee for back up. He looked somewhat half terrorized, half tempted.
‘Come on, have you been paying attention to Hagrid?’ I asked at large.
‘Okay, okay, okay, I take you guys don’t want to hear about our plan, then,’ Fred suggested.
‘Never mind,’ George took in, ‘Cybele’s right, it could be dangerous.’
They made to leave the breakfast table.
‘Guys, guys, don’t be… wait!’ Lee stammered.
‘All right, come back, it won’t hurt to hear it,’ I gave in.
‘Let’s not talk about it here, we don’t have time anyway. Sunday after lunch behind the Green Houses?’ asked Fred.
‘Fine.’ I made to stand up too – and arrive on time in Charms for a change – when Caroline came to the Gryffindor table. Lee froze.
‘Hey, Cybele. Hi guys,’ she added to the Gryffindors.
‘Hi,’ answered Fred and George, already on their way.
‘Lee, wake up, we don’t want to know what happens when students arrive late in Transfiguration!’ George warned.
‘Hi,’ said Lee at last with a vague wave of his right hand, and he ran for it.
‘Cybele, just take a look at this, number twelve; gotta run!’
She placed a book in my hands. An all too familiar book…
‘Caroline, no! I’ve just given back this book!’
But Caroline was gone. Here I was again with the Tales of the Wandering Wand, which I had never looked back at since the disappointing tale of the Wandless I had read the previous year, but which seemed to stick to me like a magnet. I stuffed it in my bag and ran for Charms only to bump into Draco.
‘Cybele, will you meet me tonight in the Hall?’ He looked very excited about something.
‘Okay,’ I said quickly, ‘I’ll be there, you’ll explain it to me then; I’m late for class.
I arrived late in Charms, as usual. There was something cursed about Tuesday mornings, I had noticed that last year.
Draco was walking up and down the entrance Hall when I arrived. He was holding a broom.
‘Are we going to fly?’ I asked.
‘You bet we are, come!’ he ordered, dragging me outside and in the direction of the Quidditch Pitch.
‘Aren’t we going to get in trouble, flying at night?’
‘The Slytherin Quidditch team has booked the pitch for tonight; you’ve got to see that!’
He stopped and brandished his broom under my nose. It was a very nice broom.
‘New Nimbus Two Thousand and One!’ he declared. ‘The whole team has them, now. My father sponsored them! And I’m on the team; I’m the new Seeker!
‘Slytherin has made their tryouts already?’ I asked. This was not the reaction Draco had been waiting for and he brushed it aside.
‘Yes, no, they will organize tryouts for other positions, but they want me as Seeker. Wait and see this one flying. We have half an hour before the rest of the team comes. I don’t know if they will let you watch.’ He actually grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward the pitch.
I felt puzzled. Draco had claimed last year that he wanted to be a Chaser. And I could have pointed out that with such a sponsorship, Draco’s father had not left much choice to Slytherin team but to let Draco in. I felt like Draco had chosen the easy way into the team rather than wait for the tryouts and take his chance to be a Chaser as he had wanted to.
‘Come on,’ he was insisting, pulling my arm, ‘you will fly with me, you won’t believe the speed.’
Suddenly I had the vision of a four-year-old dragging the attention of a busy mother. ‘On the other hand,’ I thought, ‘I’d better save my comments. There will be more serious matters to argue on than Quidditch, no need to spoil his joy now.’ I broke into a beam.
‘You’ll fly me, really?’
Draco smiled back and let go of my wrist, breaking the pathetic childish effect and comforting me in my decision to let go of this argument.
‘Sure, you’ll love it. I remember you are not afraid when you fly with me,’ he added proudly.
‘Yeah, and this time we may avoid to fly over the Forbidden Forest,’ I reminded jokingly.
I enjoyed flying with Draco even more than the first time. The new broom was indeed very fast and smooth at the same time. Draco was showing off but it was fun. We landed when he spotted the Quidditch Captain entering the pitch below.
‘What is she doing here?’ he barked as a welcome.
I hid behind Draco who, I was relieved to see, stood up for me.
‘She’s fine. Cybele, this is Marcus. Marcus Flint, Cybele Philius. She’s my friend, she’s all right,’ he repeated.
Flint totally ignored me and started telling Draco off for bringing me to their practice.
‘You’re not bringing your filthy little girlfriends from other Houses over to our training sessions. We want to keep the brooms as a surprise effect for the first match of the season and you see fit to drag Gryffindors to the training!’ he yelled.
‘I’m a Ravenclaw!’ I cried indignantly from behind Draco’s shoulder. Feeling ridiculous, hiding behind my friend, I stepped forward.
‘There’s no need to insult me. And I won’t stay for the training if you don’t want to; you could as well let me know in a civilized way.’
‘Yes, you will stay.’ Draco stepped back in front of me.
‘She knows about me being in the team and about the brooms, and she won’t repeat. And she’s staying to watch the training. Or you want me and my brooms to go back with her?’
Flint laughed at Draco.
‘Those brooms aren’t yours, Malfoy.’ He seemed to be unsettled by the thought of losing them, though, because he added, ‘Have it your way. I hope she knows better than going babbling around.’ He gave me a threatening look and kicked off his broom.
I was not feeling so much like sticking around, now.
‘Draco, I’d better go anyway. I’ve flown with you, so I can go now.’
‘No, you gotta see me, see us, fly,’ he corrected. ‘Stay a bit.’ It sounded, as often with Draco, as an order.
‘All right, I’ll stay a while.’
Draco didn’t smile but made for the second time since we’d come back an unexpected gesture. He grabbed and squeezed my hand quickly in a sporting way before he kicked off too.
I sat down in the stands. Draco was flying gracefully over the other players, chasing the Golden Snitch. The curves, dives and sharp turns he was taking were fascinating. He grabbed the Snitch and let it go several times. I followed his movements in the air for what felt like mere minutes and training was over. I left the pitch before the team could come out of the changing rooms, unwilling to be referred to like I was not there again by this Flint troll.
Back in the dormitory, I lay down on my bed with the Tales of the Wandering Wand. Why did Caroline want me to look into that?
Number Twelve. I opened the book at the table of content and looked down. I gave an out loud gasp. How could I have not noticed it? But then I had not reopened the book since I had chosen to read the tale of the Wandless and the Willow at the beginning of last year and left the all book as a bad job.
There it was, though, last but one before the Tale of Selwyns and the Scorpius; the Tale of the Times of the Magi. I whispered the title and the pages flipped obediently to the beginning of the Tale.
‘At the origins of Magic, when Magi were It, before they hit the curse and liberated It from within, before parchment and quills, is it true what they say? Magic was wordless, Magic was wandless.’
‘I need to show that to Professor Snape,’ was my first thought after I read through the Tale. But then Professor Snape had not let me know yet when we were to meet again. Last year he had not seen me before we were three weeks into the term. Maybe beginning of term was a very busy period for the teachers. Shall I wait or shall I drop by his office to show him the book?