earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once
The first Wednesday of October found Cybele hanging around with Draco in the Great Hall after classes. Draco was enthusiastically catching Cybele up with eighteen months worth of Slytherin glory in Quidditch; though with intensive training from Cho, Ben, Draco and the Gryffindor boys, Cybele was an expert at half listening to Quidditch talks while thinking of something else.
‘You could say I saved the day in the third match of the season,’ Draco was explaining. Cybele simply noted that there was only one match to go before they could change the subject. As she looked absent-mindedly around the Hall (‘you should’ve seen Potter’s face when I pulled his Quidditch robes back!’), she noticed a boy sitting alone at the Gryffindor table who glanced in their direction every so often, looking preoccupied. (‘Best part is Madam Hooch was looking in the other direction!’). She made a mental note to ask Lee, who had invited her to the Gryffindor table before dinner, who the boy was.
When Lee arrived and waved to her to join him, Draco was just starting with the fourth and final match of the previous year. Cybele couldn’t wait for the report of the season to be completed so they could get back to having normal conversations – well, normal to Draco and Cybele’s standards, at least.
Lee turned out to be sitting right beside the boy Cybele had noticed. The latest was looking at Cybele approaching with an expression something akin to fear. But why would the Gryffindor boy be afraid of me? Cybele’s smile got stuck halfway as she sat in front of the two Gryffindors.
‘Hi,’ she said uncertainly.
‘Cybele, this is Neville, Neville, this is Cybele. Cybele, we are your tutors!’ Lee announced with glee. The round faced boy looked like he had mistakenly agreed to baby-sit the giant squid.
‘Oh!’ Comprehension drew on Cybele and she beamed. She decided to ignore Neville’s somewhat anxious expression for now. ‘Thanks guys, that’s great! I hope I won’t take too much of your time.’
‘Nah, it’s gonna be fun! I’ll be helping you catch up in Care of Magical Creatures, and Neville here is our junior, but he’s the best in Herbology, trust me!’ he declared proudly. ‘So much for Ravenclaws!’
Cybele beamed at the boy again, who looked at her uneasily. What’s wrong? she wondered.
‘So, you, er, volunteered?’ she asked, thinking that the boys may not have been given the choice and while Lee was happy to help his friend, Neville may find it a burden.
‘Teachers asked us, but we were happy to accept. I mean, I was quite proud to discover I was smart enough to tutor someone in a subject, weren’t you, Neville?’
‘Yeah,’ Neville answered weakly. Only then did Lee seem to realize there was something wrong with Neville. He looked curiously at Cybele, who returned his interrogative look. Lee then looked behind Cybele’s shoulder. Draco was still sitting at the Slytherin table. Understanding seemed to dawn on him, and so it did on Cybele as she followed his gaze.
Neville was her junior, she reflected, he must be in Draco’s year. He saw me with him and he doesn’t like him, she concluded, quite resigned at the fact that every single non-Slytherin in the castle hated Malfoy.
Lee was even more familiar with his housemate’s fear of his bully, Draco Malfoy.
‘You were happy until you saw your future pupil sitting at the Slytherin table, weren’t you?’ Cybele asked boldly.
Neville looked up in surprise. This, at least, had made him look straight at Cybele eyes. She took the occasion to lock eyes and smiled softly.
‘Try me,’ she said simply.
Neville hold her gaze, still looking a bit uneasy but not so fearful.
‘Shall we go to the greenhouses this Saturday?’ he offered quietly, sounding resigned.
‘Of course, and thanks a lot for helping me!’ She then wisely left for the Ravenclaw table so her friend could freely be left to convince Neville that she was a good girl.
Lee proved an eager, though messy, tutor. They got easily distracted. Conversation always flowed freely and fast between them. They had, after all, spent whole holidays together in the past, getting used to hop on and off conversations casually – and they had an awful lot to catch up on.
They met often and chatted more than they studied.
On Saturday morning, Cybele met Neville at the main door to spend the rest of the morning in the greenhouses. After cool greetings, they walked down silently. Neville pulled out a key and opened greenhouse three.
He silently started to bring forward to the study table several pots. Cybele had read her Herbology books and recognized the third year plants that she didn’t have a chance to study. Neville was informed, prepared, and organized. He looked nervous and Cybele could see his hand shaking slightly when he was not holding the pots carefully. He proved to be a very different tutor than Lee. Avoiding her gaze most of the time, he explained clearly the facts about the first group of plants to Cybele, stuttering nervously all the way. He then gave her precise instruction and let her try to handle them.
He seemed relieved that Cybele already knew the theory; probably thankful that the lesson would be short, Cybele reflected. The atmosphere was just as cold when they parted at the door of the greenhouse – Neville nothing short from breaking into a run – as it had been two hours earlier.
Cybele had soon noticed that she lacked practical skills in her fifth-year Herbology classes and she eagerly turned up early at greenhouse three the following Saturday. While Neville was fetching a sample of plants from the fourth year syllabus, she tried both to help and to make small talk, both spectacularly unsuccessfully. Neville was still jumpy and looked frightened by her attempts to be friendly.
As Neville started to help her handle the plants, however, his enthusiasm sometimes made him forget who he was talking to (Malfoy’s girlfriend!) and he spoke pleasantly and happily. Each time he looked up at her is his eagerness to share about the topic, however, he checked himself at catching the deep brown eyes and resumed in his mild, pedagogic manner after a slight shudder.
After an hour of struggle against a Devil’s Snare, they were taking a short break to massage their sore arms when they heard a knock on the door. Neville went to open it, looking curious.
‘Miss Cybele?’ squeaked a small voice.
Neville looked down from human height to the stout Elf holding a basket. He wordlessly opened the door and stepped aside.
‘I is bringing a snack for Miss Cybele,’ the Elf explained as he entered, confirming Neville’s worst ideas about the Cybele girl.
‘Eslis!’ Cybele beamed.
Eslis started to take out cups and pour tea.
‘I is bringing some also for your tutor,’ he invited.
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Neville said super-quick, looking disgusted.
‘Eslis, you’re so sweet!’ Cybele exclaimed.
Neville looked up at that. Did she just thank an Elf?
‘Miss Cybele is telling me the other night when we chat in the kitchen how hard she is working with Master Neville, so I is thinking I should bring you some tea,’ he explained.
Neville raised an incredulous eyebrow as he took in what he heard. She’s having chats at night with a House-Elf?
‘Can you stay a bit?’ asked Cybele. ‘Look,’ she went on without waiting for an answer as she pulled a stool for Eslis, ‘we’ve been pruning Devil’s Snare.’ She pointed at the dangerous looking bushes as Eslis sat down.
Neville’s second eyebrow had lost itself up in his hairline together with the first at this point. He looked bemused at the loathed girl slipping her tea and chatting happily with a House-Elf. There was something wrong. Well, Lee had tried to convince him that beside the fact that she insisted to be friends with Draco (‘she obviously has a crush, love is blind,’ Lee had explained philosophically) and that her favourite teacher was Snape, Cybele was a nice girl and a good friend of his. Back then, Lee had lost Neville at the Snape part. Now, however, he was starting to see his point.
Cybele was happy to have a chat with Eslis. She was growing tired of the heavy silence in the greenhouse.
‘You can see I still have lots to learn; I can’t see any bruises on Neville’s arms,’ Cybele was pointing out to Eslis.
‘Is Master joining us for tea?’ Eslis asked politely, as Neville was still gapping at them from the door.
Neville speechlessly came and collapsed on a stole. He slipped his tea in one gulp and stare back at them after putting his cup down.
‘More tea, Neville?’ Cybele offered.
‘Yes, please,’ Neville said in a blank voice.
*
After Eslis had gone, Neville appeared less nervous and was catching Cybele’s eyes at a natural rate as he directed her in her task with more ease. Cybele congratulated herself. The little scheme she had planned with Eslis the previous night to mollify Neville had worked perfectly.
What with Cybele’s natural enthusiasm and knowledge in Herbology, by the third meeting, they were quite friendly. So well that they scheduled a fourth, though Cybele was already pretty much caught up with everything..
On the Saturday of the fourth and final meeting, they went down to the greenhouses chatting happily. Not only were they comfortable enough with each other by now, but they had quite much to discuss, as the foreign students had arrived the previous evening.
‘Those folks from Durmstrang do scare me a bit,’ Neville was chuckling.
‘I know what you mean,’ said Cybele with a laugh. ‘Quite the tough ones; but at least they looked curious,’ she added. ‘I mean, the French sat with my House and they just looked like they would gladly put a scouring spell on the table!’
‘I’m sure Hogwarts will grow on them,’ Neville suggested. ‘They mainly looked like they were freezing, at dinner.’
‘Oh yeah, you should have heard them complain!’ Cybele answered indignantly. The Beauxbatons girls had been complaining quite rudely in French, assuming that the Ravenclaws couldn’t understand them. Cybele’s loud translation to her friends had done nothing to warm the atmosphere, but had shut them up effectively.
‘Hey, Cybele, are you old enough to enter the Tournament? Lee told me you had great skills.’
‘I don’t know.’
Cybele had not given it a thought. Of course it was out of question. She was feeling enough of a cheat just by taking Hogwarts exams; she would certainly not enter a competition to humiliate all the other participants by pretending to cast spells and have it her way whatever she was babbling. Dumbledore would not allow it anyway and this Goblet would probably do a Sorting Hat and reject her paper shouting, ‘Muggle!’
Neville looked puzzled.
‘Are you seventeen or not? The age limit is below seventeen,’ he reformulated.
‘I don’t know, Neville. You see, I don’t know my family and all,’ Cybele explained plainly. She was quite done with the half lies. Since her close friends knew all of what she knew herself about her, she had taken a taste for telling the truth – or parts of it, anyway.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ Neville said, embarrassed.
‘I don’t think Dumbledore would let me. I don’t know any fifth year who is seventeen yet. But my friends Fred and George are almost seventeen, they want to try.’
‘But if they are almost seventeen …’
‘I don’t think that’s going to stop them! Would you enter if you could?’
‘No,’ Neville answered without hesitation, ‘I’m not much the competitor; I pretty much use spells right only when nobody is looking at me! You?’
Cybele then gave it a thought. If she could? If she were seventeen, if she were a regular Hogwarts student, a good witch who could use her wand and knew a lot of spells, would she like to enter a dangerous and prestigious tournament played in front of the all wizarding world?
‘No,’ she answered simply.
They reached the greenhouse.