The next meetings with Professor Snape were full of simple experiments. She had performed a quantity of simple things, including some that wizards apparently couldn’t do, like disappearing and reappearing without Apparating, making food appear out of thin air, and becoming perfectly invisible.
‘Your essay was very instructive and precise,’ Snape had said. ‘I would now like you to keep a journal in which you will write notes detailing what you know about the wizarding world, any interesting observations about the magic you perform in class, how it affects you, and if you have to make particular efforts to replicate wizarding magic.’
That Friday, Professor Snape had met Cybele early to try out spells on her. Magic had generally no effect whatsoever on Cybele, seeming to pass simply through her. Snape had aimed a few well-meaning spells at Cybele with no effect.
‘I don’t understand,’ complained Cybele. ‘That magic can’t be so different… I mean there are just the wizards, me and the rest of the world… I…’
‘Yes, I think the same,’ Snape cut in simply. ‘Actually, I would like you to practice casting spells, not just to pretend as you perform your magic, but to focus with all your might to flow the magic through the wand, using it as a tool.’
‘Perform my magic, instead of just letting it be, right?’
‘Yes, and I would like you to practice it regularly, as often as your friends do. The whole year. Let me know if you feel anything special.’
Cybele reflected on the last instructions as she headed back to the Hall. She realised she could see magic around her. The powerful aura surrounding sorcerers like McGonagall, Dumbledore or Snape, the way incontrollable power bursts happened out of her fellows’ wands in class when they practiced new spells.
She could see the magic radiate, grow, and then burst out of students through their wands. But she could not relate to that. Things that Professor Snape called advanced magic like becoming invisible did not feel like anything special to her. Magic was not something she felt. Before she had met wizards, magic had been nothing at all. She was just herself and she did these things just as she walked or breathed or ate. The wand was just a disconnected wooden stick.
She joined a very subdued Lee, Fred and George at dinner. The twins and Cybele were due in detention every evening after dinner until the end of November. Lee was left to struggle alone with an ill, but still growing, giant spider.
On the Sunday evening after the concert, Fred and George had grabbed their brooms and sneaked out of the castle at night to fly over the Forbidden Forest in an attempt to find the Acromantula nests. Fred had soon been caught by a Thestral preying in the night, and fell, apparently wounded, on the hard ground deep in the forest. George had lost the spot as he tried to escape the invisible Thestral himself and had been left with no other choice than to run to the castle for help. Fred had been found unscratched, but the whole west wing of the castle had been woken up by McGonagall’s yelling.
While Fred and George were doing detention under the fierce supervision of the Gryffindor head of House, Cybele and Draco were doing theirs under Hagrid’s watchful eye.
The following week, Draco had offered to see Cybele on Sunday. She had been oddly happy about it. She was really taking on the “making a good man out of the git” thing, as Cho had put it. And she had yet to really witness for herself the evil side everyone was warning her about.
What Draco had in mind for Sunday was a ride on brooms. As he was a first-year and not allowed to fly, they had to walk quite a long way round the lake to be out of view of the castle. Cybele had never ridden a broom and was thinking she would share Professor Snape’s view on the matter.
Cybele could fly without a broom. But it was something else to assume the adequate position Malfoy had shown her patiently how to grasp the broom firmly and lift it with her, as obviously brooms would not work their magic for her, which she had to conceal from her friend. It was disagreeable and frustrating. Draco was enjoying himself in the fresh air but kept close to Cybele who had confessed it was her first time on a broom.
‘You don’t like flying,’ Draco said.
‘This is so totally unfair. If only he knew…’ Cybele looked crestfallen.
‘Would you try and come on my broom, first?’ Draco offered kindly.
And she had mounted the broom behind him and truly enjoyed the ride, now that she had nothing to think about else than holding her friend and let herself fly otherwise.
‘Could we fly over the Forbidden Forest?’ she asked excitedly. ‘I heard you can see giant spiders! Wicked, no?’
‘Giant spiders?’ Malfoy asked uncertainly. ‘Um… sure, let’s try.’
Cybele could tell he had not envisioned the ride this way but she was stubborn. What had mattered at the moment was saving Phil.
They had only been flying over the forest for two minutes when Hagrid caught them. Draco had positively shrieked when the gamekeeper had dogged to catch them mounted on a gigantic Hippogriff.
‘We had been quite stupid, really, thinking we could head for the forest in the light like that,’ Cybele mused, letting her thoughts linger, remembering her friend’s light, blond hair in face…
‘Cybele! Fred is talking to you!’ Lee was waving energetically in front of Cybele.
‘What? Sorry, I was not listening.’
‘Really?’ George asked, amused. Then he noticed Cybele was turning gradually a crimson red. He smiled. ‘Well, we wouldn’t want to interrupt any daydream…’
‘Oh, please, just don’t comment… Merlin, I hate blushing, why do I do it all the time?’
‘You like impersonating the Gryffindor colours,’ George joked lightly.
‘Well, would you bother repeating whatever you were about when I was er, not listening?’
‘I was wondering how you could still call this Malfoy git a friend, actually,’ Fred said simply, without smiling. ‘You see, I’ve grown to like to think that you call me a friend and I don’t enjoy the feeling of sharing the same category as this slimy git.’
Cybele looked down.
‘Fred, come on, you know it’s not the same. I know you act thousand times better, I… Look, Draco…’
‘Would you mind not using his first name in front of us, seriously?’ Fred interrupted.
George and Lee exchanged uncomfortable looks.
‘Yes, I would!’ Cybele protested. ‘Look, I know he can be really nasty and all, but he had never been so with me, not even in front of me and maybe, maybe that’s a sign that he wants to have better acquaintances or…’
‘You’re kidding yourself. Don’t you see the way he’s talking to Hagrid? And about him too, even worst?’
‘Yeah, I know, he doesn’t like him…’ Cybele defended feebly.
‘That’s not here nor there; the problem is why he doesn’t like him. Have you ever wondered or did he tell you and you chose to give him excuses?’
‘Fred, don’t…’ George said weakly.
‘No, I-’ Cybele started, but Fred had obviously something precise in his mind he wanted to pour out.
‘Makes you laugh, when he makes nasty jokes about Hagrid?’ he continued.
‘He-’
‘Don’t deny it! I know you laughed at one of Draco’s sick jokes the other day, right in front of Hagrid. Hagrid is really getting to consider you not much more worthy than Malfoy!’
‘Fred!’ Lee exclaimed.
‘Well, I noticed! Now what? Do you think me more worthy than Malfoy or shall I go waste space elsewhere?’ Cybele shouted.
Several heads turned from the other end of Gryffindor table.
‘Look,’ Cybele resumed more heatedly but in a lower voice, ‘being good is not always about helping good, selfless and well-minded people! I believe it is also about helping nastier types to have second chances, like flesh-eating giant spiders for instance.’
To this Fred did not immediately find something to answer. George took his chance.
‘I don’t have a problem with Cybele trying to be friend with Malfoy,’ he stated simply.
‘Me neither,’ said Lee. But he added pointedly, ‘as long as the final result is him becoming like her and not the other way round.’
This last made Cybele feel guilty more efficiently than Fred’s anger.
‘I’m sorry for laughing in front of Hagrid. It was nothing funny, you’re right. And Lee is right too, I got badly influenced…’ Cybele looked up at Fred. ‘Thanks for telling me off…’
Fred broke in a smile and hugged her tight. ‘That’s what friends are made for!’ He ruffled her hair just a bit too hard.
‘You had better be off to detention… and me to Phil’s side,’ Lee said.
And they went their ways gloomily, promising for the hundredth time that they would try something for Phil between the end of the record-long detentions and the beginning of Christmas holidays.
‘I think pumpkins are lighter than they look,’ Cybele said as Draco stared at a large pumpkin as if he had been asked to eat it raw.
‘Oh yeah? It’s going to take the night before we lift even one.’
‘Just try, would you? Come, help me,’ insisted Cybele, who had magically lightened the vegetable.
But Draco had seated on a smaller pumpkin as is an armchair and put his arms behind his neck.
‘Look, for the same result, why don’t we relax and enjoy the last hours of our lives?’
Draco was more difficult to manipulate than anybody Cybele had ever met. With him, Cybele understood what the headmaster had meant when he had chosen not to put her in Slytherin lest they asked endless questions. She made a wand-like stick appearing in her pocket.
‘It may be worth trying, if, let say, I had managed to smuggle that!’
Malfoy half opened an eye and jumped down his pumpkin when he spotted the wand.
‘Why didn’t you give me that before?’ he said, reaching for the wand.
‘I’m not even giving you that now!’ she teased, pulling the wand away from his stretched hand. ‘Legero!’ she invented, pointing the stick at the largest pumpkin. ‘I’ll let you try and play with the wand if this one didn’t work,’ she offered sarcastically.
They lifted the pumpkin effortlessly up to the front door.
‘You’re a genius, Cybele!’ exclaimed Draco.
‘Worthy letting me try to handle a spell by myself, is it?’ asked Cybele resentfully.
Draco smiled, which was worth a knee down apology, to his standards.
They brought the pumpkin in front of Hagrid’s door, as requested by the gamekeeper as today’s detention.
They went through all easily and approached the last pumpkin, pretending tremendous efforts, both pulling on a side of the fat squash, as they had spotted Hagrid watching them through his window. Draco did so well pretending to pull on the last pumpkin that he actually fell over on his back. Cybele burst in laughter. Draco was not used to been laughed at and it was not exactly playfully that he grabbed Cybele’s jumper to make her fall too. But she chose to act as if it was and laughed even louder. Then only Draco started to laugh too, deep in mud. As Cybele saw Hagrid behind his window dismiss them with a shake of his head, she lost the mood and step to the other side of the pumpkin to lift it with the others.
‘Let’s go, the stupid oaf said we could leave when they were all pilled up, right?’ invited Malfoy.
Cybele was looking at him thoughtfully as he started to climb up the path.
‘Coming or not?’
Cybele did not answer as she started to walk up too. When Draco looked way, on a strange impulse, she looked back at the pile of giant pumpkins and left them all perfectly Halloween carved, their evil grins facing Hagrid’s door. She did not know if it was a token of apology or just grimaces to him. Probably both.
‘Why do you hate him so much, though?’ she asked Draco, joining him.
Draco looked taken aback.
‘What, the oaf? I don’t waste hate on him, he’s despicable, not even human.’
‘Even if you don’t hate him, you sound like it… I mean, those are strong words.’
‘He is, Cybele, it’s not a way of speaking… Honestly, one would never believe you’re my senior. You’re so naïve sometimes. He’s half giant, only partly human, for real! That’s why he is violent, and clumsy, can barely express himself in any human language…’
‘Giant…’
‘Yeah, and I don’t understand why they even let him close to students. My father had been trying to get him the sack for years. He’s on the Hogwarts board, you know. When he knew I was doing detention with him, he was furious. But this foolish headmaster always protects him, so we’re stuck with him, until things change for the better…’
Cybele was digesting all the information. It was the first time she ever heard speaking ill of the headmaster, who was pleasant and whom everybody seemed to like. She didn’t know how to go on.
‘Well, we’ve been serving detention with him for almost one month now and he’s never been violent with us,’ she tried.
‘You’re kidding? He could have had us killed! The time he let us go alone in the Forbidden Forest? And all the flesh-eating creatures we had to feed?’
It was true that Cybele would not have liked to be a wandless wizard in some of the assignments they had gone through. The pumpkins were a recreation. She had felt afraid more than once during other detention evenings and she resented Hagrid for that.
However, the gamekeeper did not seem to be vicious. He simply did not realise these things, and now Cybele understood why.
‘Well, it’s true he doesn’t measure danger or other people strengths, probably because of his origins; and he sure expresses himself as an uneducated man. But he still doesn’t seem violent or even remotely nasty to me,’ she resumed.
Draco didn’t snap back, he just said, ‘You’re just like your Gryffindor friends, too noble to refuse to mingle with the unworthy… You’d better check your acquaintances, Cybele.’
Cybele did snap back.
‘You could take a leaf out of your own book, Draco. I heard what your friends Zabini and Parkinson did last week with the help of your two best friends. It was disgusting, and I saw you speak to them and laugh with them since.’
Draco did not reply anything. They had reached the front door of the castle. They had usually always come back from their detention laughing at one or the other’s jokes or chatting happily, but all was wrong today and to Draco, Cybele was starting to talk just like her filthy blood traitor friends.
Draco wanted to snap her to go with them and not bother wasting his time with her lenient speeches but the will to keep the only friend with whom he could enjoy a nice conversation was stronger.
‘Let’s not talk about these matters, then, if we can’t agree,’ he offered with a half smile.
‘See you tomorrow, Draco,’ Cybele answered, forcing a beginning of a smile too.
‘Night, Cybele.’
Detentions came to their end two weeks before the Christmas holidays. Draco and Cybele had been true to their word and never mentioned any subjects relating to Hagrid, Cybele’s, or Draco’s friends again. But even though they still spoke easily and laughed, things had changed between them as the gloom of their argument was lurking at every conversation’s corner.
Draco wanted to invite Cybele for the holidays, but feared that his parents’ constant political conversations and noisy family ancestry investigation would be inconvenient. Cybele had hoped Draco would invite her but was not sure whether she did not half fear it too. She was relived to accept Lee’s kind invitation to spend Christmas with his family.
As planed, they tried a last desperate attempt to free Phil before the holidays. They sneaked to the edge of the Forbidden Forest one night, resigned to let Phil go and try to find the Acromantula’s community by himself if he could, thinking that he had better died lost in the forest then trapped in a dark box anyway.
‘We have one hour before curfew,’ Fred reminded. ‘We don’t want to end up in detention until July…’
‘Let’s go behind those trees.’ Cybele was opening the way, followed by Lee carrying the box.
‘Here,’ said Lee lowering the box to the forest ground and kneeling beside. Cybele kneeled down too and sat on her heels. Fred and George stood behind them. Lee opened the box a slight amount.
‘You go Phil. Go find the others …’
Phil made a frantic escape out of view in a spit second.
‘So much for the tearful goodbyes,’ chuckled Fred.
‘You think he’s gonna be all right?’ Lee asked.
‘Sure, he’ll find them… his… er, instincts will guide him, right?’ cheered George weakly.
Cybele turned back to face Fred and she pointed toward a near by tree, from behind which Phil was slowly coming back. He seemed frightened of the forest and made it quite directly for Cybele’s lap, where it stood, long after he finished rummaging the back pocket where he had once found an owl treat. The spider was clicking feebly and suddenly they realized it was talking.
‘Cybele. Cybele.’
‘His first word,’ said George, half amused, half touched.
‘Oh, Phil…’
‘Now, this is getting emotional,’ Fred commented, but he gave a sorry smile.
‘What are we going to do with you?’ asked Lee.
‘I’m taking you for holidays to the Jordans,’ Cybele announced to Phil. She turned to Lee. ‘We can’t just leave him. And we might find out what your parents did with the other ones!’
‘Yeah, and if my parents find out about it, we won’t have to worry about it any more… because we’ll be dead.’