November brought the snow, although it mattered very little to me. Much like the months before it I had drifted from day to day, class to class and smiled sweetly through every exchange. It was sideways, the snow. The wind bore it to the windows with such a strength there was chatter about them breaking. I knew they wouldn't break. Nothing protected by magic could break so easily, and yet I would jump at the banging on them.
I had become Pansy and Crew's ideal target for their bullying. It wasn't much, calling of names, pulling on my hair, bumping me in hallways, it was just annoying. One day, after class had ended, I noticed my bag was not at my side. I began to look around my desk, rather franticly, knowing that the mirror I used to contact the First Minister, the Thunderbird feather, and all my school supplies was in it.
Ivy, Hanna, and Susan offered to help look for it, scoffing that it was probably Pansy, as we just had History of Magic with Slytherin. We began searching behind statues, under benches and in notts in trees. We found nothing. We gathered in the courtyard and were stumped. I began to panic, it was no where to be seen.
"Are you perhaps looking for a satchel?" A small, bell- like voice came from behind us. I turned to face them.
"You're the one from the library…" I mused. She was very small, a first year for certain. She had ebony hair that she wore plaited down her back in a French braid. Her collar was done up to the top button, her skirt pulled down to below her knees, and her robe on just so. It was her green and silver tie that struck me, and instantly had me suspicious. She nodded.
"I am looking for my satchel. Do you know where it is?"
She nodded again and pointed to The Lake. We all looked down the rolling hill to the waters that were slowly icing over. On the top of the softly jostling waters were what looked like open books scattered on the surface. I closed my eyes and rolled my head to one side. How inconvenient.
"And how did you know it was there?" Hannah asked distrustfully.
The girl took a step away, peeling her head down, before answering, "I saw the girls throwing it in there. When I saw it, I knew it was yours." She nodded at me.
"Saw what?" I inquired.
Her cheeks reddened, "The Sword and the Rose…"
A sense of calm and shock rolled through me, and I looked closer at this girl, who was cowering from a group of older girls. She was demure, but not cowardly, small and yet she was powerful enough to stand alone.
"I love that book series. Is that why you were looking at me in the library?" I asked gentler than I had been. Again she nodded, but this time she let her eyes meet mine before darting away.
"What is your name?"
"Astoria, Astoria Greengrass," she responded. A member of The Sacred Twenty-Eight.
I nodded, "Well, thank you Astoria, and if you ever want to talk about the Sword and the Rose series, I would love to have tea with you."
With that her eyes lit up and she feverishly nodded, and we turned towards the lake to collect my books. I waved a goodbye to her as we went.
The books were sopping, and one had sunk. Most of my homework was too water damaged to hand in, which was a shame as when Professor Snape subbed for Professor Lupin (whose name I had come to know) he had assigned a tremendous amount of homework about werewolves. I picked up the Impossibly Light Impossible Bag, and started digging around in it, hoping to find the mirror, and the feather, as they were not on the surface of the water.
The others were searching for long enough sticks to pull my books out from the freezing waters. I dug and dug, and still, I could not find them. Either they had sunk to the bottom or had been taken. I sunk to my knees in the new snow, and felt the icy touch of the snowflakes on my exposed knees. I sighed, depositing the bag on the ground and rubbing my eyes to keep them from crying. I stood and without speaking raised my hands above my head and pulled them back, arching my fingers as I did.
The water pulled towards the shore and the books came along with it, my eyes the icy blue of water magic. Then, without moving my left hand I swiped my right, pushing the books beyond the reaches of the water, then pushed my hands away from me, returning the water to the confines of the lake.
"Oh Ellie, all your homework…and uh this old book..." Susan sighed.
"Yeah…" my aged copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them, the cover missing was being held out by Susan between her finger and thumb.
"Pansy will pay for this," Hannah announced, "We won't let her get away with this Ellie."
Ivy nodded, but said nothing. Despite a rather lovely afternoon tea, we were still at arms length from each other.
"Well, for now can you help me get these to the common room? I'll need to pull most of the water out and slowly dry them."
They nodded, and helped me gather my books. For the rest of the weekend I was at the study desks, wand in one hand drying books, and with the other I was attempting to rewrite my homework for the following week. My classmates helped considerably, each of them learning to blow air from their wands, they helped me dry my books by the end of Saturday afternoon.
"You're sure we can't just suck all the water out at once?" Justin asked after a few hours of drying books.
"It will ruin the integrity of the pages, everything has moisture, even the pages, otherwise they would turn to dust." He heaved a great sigh.
The mirror turned up in the hall outside the great hall come the following Monday. It had been tucked into the hand of one of the adorning suits of armour, and I recognized it's pale white bone handle anywhere. Once I got it out, and turned around I saw that they had etched the words "Miss Weed" across the surface. I sighed heavily and tucked it into the bag. One more thing the First Minister will despair when I returned home.
The holidays were fast approaching, and there was one more Hogsmede trip planned before we were all to take off. That had been the talk of the school, but I had not been granted permission to go to Hogsmede. Jacy and Mato had decided to take alternating trips to keep someone at the school with me, and one could still go and enjoy the trip. Mato would be staying behind this time, assumably because Jacy and I still hadn't patched things up from our argument.
"I still think it is unfair that you can't come," Hannah was disparaging The First Minister's decision at the dinner table the Wednesday before the trip.
"I do wish I could go, but without a permission slip, it is impossible," I sipped my peppermint tea, out of the same tea cup that had been appearing wherever I sat for the last year or so.
"You couldn't petition your aunt that it is for the benefit of your recovery?" Justin suggested uncertainly.
I smiled at that, "Oh I think she would rather that I studied than had fun even if I wasn't to be using this time as a means of… healing." I put my hands together at my heart and bowed slightly, striking up laughter from the table.
"I don't know, perhaps you should be talking to someone tomorrow, instead of making light, you know, actually working towards healing." Ivy spat from the end of the table. We hadn't sat next to each other in weeks. The table went silent.
"I told you that talking about it hasn't helped-"
"Well maybe it would help me!" And with that Ivy slammed her hands on the table and stood up, and left dinner leaving a half empty plate and a table full of shocked onlookers.
"Have you been fighting?" Wilbur asked carefully.
I shrugged my shoulders, "…not exactly." I stood to go after her, but Susan grabbed my elbow.
"Let her cool down first."
I sat back down and sipped my tea that now had a slightly bitter taste to it.
Ivy was curled up under her blankets when we returned to the room, and when the others went to clean up for bed, I stayed behind.
"Are you awake?" I called softly.
"No." She answered sternly.
"You want to tell me what that was about?"
"No."
"Ivy, come on, this isn't like you. Talk to me, please?" I tried to be as soft and caring as I could.
"Now you just sound like my mum!" She threw her blankets off and stood to face me, "Your recovery isn't difficult for only you. I don't sleep, hearing the muffled screams you let out at night! Pansy is attacking you, and we are all trying to pick up the slack, but you never say 'Thank you!'"
She rounded the bed, "And I am supposed to be your best friend, and yet you won't even tell me what happened! I am supposed to help you at every whim, difficulty and trial and yet you won't even talk to me anymore!"
My eyebrows were so pushed together I thought they might merge like Pansy's, "You think I am unappreciative? I am so happy to have you all helping me, how could you think that about me? You're supposed to know me better than that!"
"How am I supposed to know anything if you don't talk to me! And yes, a 'thank you' would be nice, we all lost our weekend helping you with your books, including the boys, who didn't have to help! You come from a rich family, so you must be used to people doing things for you without needing to be thanked and that is why you probably didn't have friends before ever coming here!"
I was gutted, and in the place where my stomach stood, there grew a fire, "Fine. Don't worry about helping me out anymore Ivy." I turned around to gather my toiletries in such a rage that I hit the bed post with my elbow and called out in pain.
"You would rather end this friendship than talk to me about what happened…That is incredible."
"You have no idea what happened, I would not burden you with the event that is CRIPPLING my life!" I screamed out.
"SHARE the burden and it will become lighter!" She yelled back.
I breathed in deep, slowing my heart and saying with all the venom I could muster, in a quiet voice, "You are not strong enough to carry the load."
I grabbed my things and I left her there. I opened the door, then slammed it behind me only to turn and look into the shocked faces of Leanne, Hannah, and Susan. "Now, we're fighting." I said quietly, then carried on to the washroom.