if you want to be held
Once in the third greenhouse, Neville went directly for a door at the back and produced another key.
‘I’ll show you what I’m working on, then,’ he said. ‘They’re school projects, basically, but, well, a bit more advanced. I have to check on experiments sometimes, so I have the keys to come here on weekends. Professor Sprout trusts me,’ he added proudly.
‘That’s great!’ exclaimed Cybele. ‘What is it that you are working on?’
‘You know, lately, I’ve been working on one project only.’ Neville hesitated for a second. ‘It’s quite ambitious, really, but Professor Sprout reckons I should go on, so here you are.’
They reached the back of greenhouse five as he said the last, and he allowed Cybele to enter the very small adjacent glasshouse. Cybele’s breath was caught by the hot and humid atmosphere.
The place was messy and full of unfamiliar plants. A small table on the side was covered with instruments and three cauldrons, two of them on blue fires.
‘Wow!’ was Cybele’s simple reaction.
‘We are trying to acclimatize tropical magical plants, mainly from Africa. Professor Sprout usually travels for conferences, you see, but she never used to bring back specimens because she wouldn’t have time to take care of them. Then I came into Hogwarts and we had the idea to make it a school project,’ Neville explained.
Cybele looked around a while, Neville explaining some of the specimens.
‘You’re working on potions, too. It’s my favourite subject!’
Neville winced.
‘Yeah, so I’ve heard. I’m not good at Potions, but we are trying to replace local ingredients with new plants in simple potions, to see if side-effects can be reduced,’ he explained. He seemed to hesitate, but eventually said, ‘You like Professor Snape, Lee told me.’
‘Not as a teacher, no,’ Cybele admitted. Lee had explained her about Neville’s suffering in Snape’s class and seeing how her own class was going, she didn’t have any difficulty believing it. ‘But I happen to have to work a lot with him outside of the class and yes, I really like him; I’m quite indebted to him, actually.’
Cybele’s tone didn’t invite question. Neville looked at her curiously and changed subject.
By the end of November, they had attended the First Task of the Tournament together and were on easy, friendly terms. Cybele had taken to helping Neville with the potion brewing and was visiting the small lab regularly.
All seemed too good to be true to Cybele. Having spent her first year and a half at Hogwarts dealing with tension between her friends, she was suspicious of her current bliss. She had woken up from what looked like an enchanted sleep to find all her troubles vanished.
She knew now she was a Magian, as limited as this knowledge was. All her friends and her classmates knew she had special powers and bounds. Nobody dared question her anymore about her less conventional friends, namely Draco and Professor Snape. Even Draco seemed altogether tamed now. It was also helpful that unlike before her accident, the school was now engrossed with the Triwizard Tournament rather than monsters and blood status, providing safer conversation topics.
Yet Cybele had the feeling that in essence, nothing had changed since her wake. Circumstances were happy now, but she couldn’t help dread that the day the war would come, as Snape hinted, or some other incidences, and all would turn into the same nightmare as Christmas two years ago.
For now, however, Christmas approaching meant that the Yule Ball was coming fast.
The level of giggling had grown frantic in the Ravenclaw dormitory with everyday closer to the ball and was close to hysteria now that Cho had been asked to the ball by no less than two champions. Cybele had stopped completely talking to girls at all, except for Caroline. She wished she could stop overhearing them, too. What was all the fuss with the ball anyway?
When Professor Flitwick had informed her House about the event, Cybele’s mind had immediately formed an image of Draco inviting her to the dance. She had flushed violently and had spotted Marietta elbowing Cho to check her. She had blushed a shade deeper and since then had simply avoided all things relative to balls, dresses, boys and girls.
Much to her surprise, Cybele had received several invitations. The first had been Ben, who had kindly suggested they go together. ‘You don’t have to,’ had been Cybele’s awkward answer, and not only to Ben – who had seemed slightly puzzled – but also to a friend of Ben’s brother the week after and to a Hufflepuff Quidditch player on the morrow. Cybele suspected that Ben was putting all his Quidditch pals at inviting her, maybe to repay her for her good office as a Mascot. She shared the idea with Caroline.
‘You’re raving! The reason only Quidditch players dare approach you is because you need a certain amount of ego to invite such a pretty girl if you don’t know her. Quidditch players have that.’
In this case, why Draco is not inviting me? Cybele caught herself thinking.
‘What about you, anyway? Have you invited someone?’
‘Not really,’ Caroline started.
‘Well?’
‘I just assume I’ll go with Lee,’ she said very fast.
‘Oh, have you asked him?’
‘Err, no, as I said, I’m just assuming.’
Cybele laughed. ‘Well, maybe you should ask him before another girl does!’
‘That’s a bit rich coming from you!’ Caroline cried indignantly, but she didn’t elaborate. ‘I don’t need to ask him, Cybele, he’s my boyfriend.’
Cybele’s jaw dropped.
‘How come I don’t know?’
‘Dunno, you’ve got a lot to catch up on, you know, and, we, well, want you to take your time, err, growing up, see,’ Caroline formulated infuriatingly.
‘Gits,’ Cybele said soberly, but she smiled.
Caroline smiled, too.
‘I hung out with a lot of your friends when you were taking a nap in the hospital wing,’ she summed up. ‘Why did you turn these guys down, anyway? I mean, the Hufflepuff guy was hot, and he’s close to Diggory,’ Caroline suggested.
Cybele blushed, effectively proving Caroline’s previous point about her maturity.
‘That’s not here nor there. Hot, really, who cares? I don’t know him. I don’t even know if he dances well!’
Caroline giggled.
‘If he dances well!’ she repeated.
‘Yeah, you know, it’s actually a ball we are talking about, not Valentine’s Day!’
Caroline just laughed even harder.
‘Well, are you going to ask someone, then?’
If Cybele wanted to be honest with herself, the reason why she had turned down these guys without even thinking was that she wanted to give Draco time to ask her. But Draco didn’t seem in a hurry at all. Yet, should she go ask him? Over my dead body!
‘I don’t think so. Well, Neville, you know, my Herbology tutor, he said he liked dancing. Maybe if the conversation comes to that again another time,’ she trailed. For some reason, the idea of asking Neville to the ball was not at all as distressing as the idea of asking Draco.
They were all in the Gryffindor common room when the idea came to Cybele for the first time. Fred and George, happily assisted by Lee, were promoting some Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes to the Gryffindors.
Much to Lee’s indignation, Fred had tried to trick Caroline and Cybele into trying some Canary Creams. Fortunately, George had spotted his twin brother and took the pot from Cybele’s hand at the last second. He then had to hide the all lot, as Cybele was actually eager to try the Canary Cream to see if it would have any effect on her, eagerly supported in that by Fred.
Later on, the conversation took a turn toward the ball, which was now dangerously close. As her friends were speculating about who would go to the ball with whom, Cybele was left to marvel at the fact that she was actually missing the plain old Quidditch conversations.
‘Fred’s going with Angelina,’ Lee was providing.
‘And you, George?’ Cybele asked in an attempt to pretend she was all right with the topic.
‘Dunolsee,’ George answered, avoiding their eyes.
‘Sorry, we didn’t catch that,’ Caroline teased.
‘I don’t know, I’ll see,’ George repeated a bit too loudly, still not catching anybody’s eyes.
‘And you Cybele?’ she next asked pointedly.
Cybele looked at her with daggers in the eyes. What was the matter with her? She knew Cybele didn’t have a partner yet – will never have, she added inwardly.
‘No, you know I don’t. Hey! We could-’ Cybele stopped. The moment passed and Lee started on another topic. She had almost invited George and caught herself. He would probably say yes, he was too nice for his own good. But seeing his behaviour now, he probably had someone in mind, so that would not be very sensitive. He could never really want to go and attend the ball with a little girl like her, now, would he?
But since then, Cybele couldn’t shake the idea from her mind. During this few seconds when she had been trying to catch George’s eyes to invite him, she had pictured herself entering the Great Hall at her older friend’s arms and each time this vision was coming back stubbornly to her mind, she swelled with pride.
Eventually fed up with her own obsession, she made a brave decision. If by the eve of the ball they both had not found a partner, she would ask George to go with her.
Draco knew exactly who he wanted to invite to the ball. But he was making it difficult for himself.
The main reason was that Draco would not ask without being sure to receive a positive answer. But with Cybele being in another House and the Slytherins’ inter-House relations being nil, it was almost impossible to check that she had not already accepted someone’s invitation.
To Cybele’s record, she had bravely brought up the topic once, informing Draco that she had turned down Ben. But Draco had simply eyed her suspiciously and had not taken his chance then, which he regretted bitterly now.
The day before the ball, Draco still didn’t know for sure if he could safely invite an available Cybele to the ball. He felt furious with himself. This not being a familiar sensation, he soon managed to convince himself that it was all Cybele’s fault and accepted Pansy’s invitation. Both Slytherins were relieved that they would not have to show up alone.
Cybele looked for the boys on Christmas Eve, determined to stick to her resolution. She simultaneously couldn’t believe her luck and filled with dread when she found George and Fred sitting alone near by the fire in the Gryffindor’s common room. Fred was even engrossed in checking a list into which he plunged with apparent deep concentration after greeting Cybele.
Cybele looked at George who gave her a weak smile. Tension was palpable.
‘So, who are you going to the ball with?’ George asked, simply unable to pretend he wanted to speak about something else.
‘I don’t know, and you?’ Cybele asked with hope.
‘Neither,’ George answered.
‘What if-’
‘Do you-’
‘You-’
‘We could-’
‘Shall we-’
Cybele and George spoke together. Then they caught each other’s eyes.
‘Yes,’ they said together with two large smiles. Fred quickly looked up from his parchment and resumed his checking with a sly smile.
They were laughing out the tension now.
‘I thought I would never dare,’ Cybele admitted, laughing.
George gave a half laugh.
‘You thought I would say no or something?’ he asked jokingly.
‘Of course not, but you seemed to have someone in your mind, I didn’t want to interfere.’
‘It was you,’ George answered without thinking.
Cybele opened her mouth. She felt her heart make a little dance as they locked eyes. Before either could break the silence, a red-haired bullet came crashing on a vacant armchair.
‘Oh no,’ said Fred and George’s little sister, looking over the back of the seat, ‘he’s coming this way.’
‘What’s happening, Ginny?’ Fred asked.
‘Shhh! I don’t want Neville to see me!’
‘Why’s that?’ Cybele asked curiously.
‘My friend overheard that he wants to invite me to the ball!’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Fred asked. ‘Wouldn’t you be happy to go?’
‘Nothing,’ Ginny said weakly. ‘But I could as well go with George, no? He doesn’t have a partner,’ she added hopefully.
Before any of them could answer, Neville spotted them.
‘Cybele! Hi guys, Ginny,’ he said, taking a seat with them all.
‘Neville, so who are you bringing to the ball?’ Fred asked genially, oblivious of Ginny’s glare.
This was the perfect setting for even someone as shy as Neville to pop casually the invitation.
‘I don’t have a partner yet,’ he answered. ‘Actually, I was thinking that Ginny may like to go to the ball,’ he went on quite coolly for his standards. ‘So, err, I could escort you, if you would like, Ginny?’ he asked quietly.
‘Oh, err, thanks Neville,’ Ginny answered, ‘but actually George said he would bring me, see,’ she answered.
‘Oh, okay, go-good for you,’ Neville said kindly. He was looking crestfallen.
Ginny was looking at George sheepishly, George was looking at Cybele desperately and Cybele was looking at Ginny murderously. Fred and Neville were looking at the trio, Fred half-amused, half-sorry, Neville clueless.
A long silence stretched. Cybele looked back at George who merely gave her an apologetic look. They smiled at each other weakly. Ginny looked from one to another, looking awfully embarrassed as comprehension dawn on her. Cybele looked back at her and gave her a grumpy smile. She then looked at Neville.
‘Hey, Neville, why don’t we go together?’ Cybele asked suddenly, beaming at her most recent friend.
Neville looked at her in disbelief.
‘You don’t have a partner? You want to go with me?’ He paused a second and asked seriously, ‘Can you dance?’
And Cybele knew she had found the perfect partner for what was nothing more after all than that; a dance.