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A Four Saturdays Detention

Chapter 12

Fourth Week - Friday afternoon TEMPORARY!!!!!! THE BETAED VERSION WILL COME OUT IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS!
A gift of a small sparkle

It was Friday afternoon, and Hermione was slowly leading towards the Library: a whole week of classes had just ended.

The parchment rolls were messily poking from her bag, the bag was heavy from the tons of books, and she was deadly tired. She had kept running from a classroom to another all day long, focusing on the lessons, and writing down lines and lines of topics to browse later. Especially, she could not help to think about an Arithmancy quiz.

Professor Vector was introducing new concepts, and she had noticed that most her classmates were gaping at Professor Vector in disbelief, because of her thought provoking sentences. Declan, instead, appeared deeply interested in. Quite amused, still, by these new lessons.

A shame he was in Slytherin. She sighed, shuffling her feet, so many things to do, no wonder she was feeling tired.

However, she wasn't as tired as during her Third year at Hogwarts: Professor McGonagall had given her a Time Turner and she had overused it following any possible class, and sleeping too little at night.

The end had been predictable, well, predictable now, but at that time, it wasn't so predictable to her: she had freaked out, slapping Malfoy and slamming the door of Professor Trelawney's classroom. Metaphorically slamming, of course, because that classroom had no regular door to slam, out of spite.

Luckily she hadn't felt so weary anymore. However she was feeling tired, not that tired, but very tired anyway. All that she wanted was a warm bath. Had the prefects changed the passwords, this year?

She mumbled for a while: last year she had elaborated a method to generate the passwords, both for the Common Rooms and the Prefects' Bathroom. The enchanted parchment had to be still in the Prefects Common Room.

Had they remembered to reset the spell? Or maybe they had simply gone on automatically, picking the new words appearing on the parchment as they checked it, this year first week?

Well, probably they had reset the spell for the four Common Rooms, only the Head Boy and Head Girl knew them all for security reasons, but the common parts? The Prefects' Bathroom?

Of course, if she had been in charge, she would have not forgotten to reset everything at the beginning of the academic year, but the current prefects?

In case, she could reassemble the spell and find the current password. She had all her drafts in her trunk bottom.

She wished no one among them was as punctilious as she was: she was longing for a luxurious bath with the warm water, the fabulous fragrances and the bubbling bubbles; altogether, morally she was still a prefect, who could blame her for one single Friday evening washing?

Somehow, and she had a sudden smile, it was a security test, not only a stupid wish, she had to check Hogwarts security. She couldn't help a giggle. She was reasoning like a devious Slytherin.

Draco emerged in front of her abruptly.

She was so shrouded into her dreams, she didn't concisely notice him coming towards her direction.

He didn't talk to her, just made her a discreet sign to follow him. Hence, she trotted, irked, after him through the dark corridors, trying to keep his pace. She didn't like at all his intrusion in her everyday life.

They left behind the noise of the other students, and walked into an empty classroom.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" she asked dryly, after she sat at a desk. She was too tired to stand, trying to look into his eyes, all useless crap, anyway, he was taller than she was.

"I know today it's not Saturday," he teased her, "but I couldn't wait for tomorrow to come: you would have wasted my Saturday afternoon with you ruffled suspicious!"

He handed her a parcel barely wrapped into scrubby gift paper. The girl's hands were cupping her chin, the elbows on the desk; she made no move to take the strange packet into her hands.

After he met her glance, the boy added, "I didn't want it to look like a present, who knows what the hell you would have thought! That's the reason why you have no nice glittering bow on it. And, just to make everything clear and settled down between the two of us, it's a second hand thing."

He put it on the desk in front of her, and made a couple of steps back, eventually leaning against the rocky wall.

Hermione slowly unwrapped the box and looked carefully at the thing: it looked old and slightly damaged, surely second hand stuff, but somehow beautiful stuff.

It was a box with a lot of lateral sides, everyone looking like a tiny door with a little knob, and some funny figures engraved. And the inner face of the doors looked like a tiny mirror. What could it be?

Hermione shot an inquiring glance to Malfoy.

He grinned amused, "It's a Parva Favilla, and I don't think you ever saw one in your entire life."

Hermione nodded defiant.

"Actually it's a very ordinary object, it's something you give to kids, usually, but probably this is the reason why you don't know it. It's too common to be talked about in a Wizardry book."

"How did you know it?"

"I knew what? That you never saw a Parva Favilla before? Because of what you told me last Saturday, that your eyes sting late at night, when you stay awake reading with a candle."

Hermione looked at him, surprised; then that's what Malfoy could remember among everything they talked about on Saturday; did he remember the individualism, the benefits of the boarding school? Or her words about prefects spending more time together? Oh no, all what he was able to remember was her whining about the lack of electricity?

Tired, she asked politely, "How does it work?"

Draco went nearer the girl and took the Parva Favilla into his hands. His fingers were delicate showing her the tiny little doors mechanisms.

"You have to insert the candle here, in the middle, and then you lift the little cover on the top, the central one, this way the candle will burn easily. Then you have to open the door, or the doors, in order to direct the light where you need it.

It works a bit like Muggle lasers: the mirrors are reflecting the waves in order to have a constructive interference."

Hermione cut in suspicious: "Lasers give coherent light, besides they use an energy source to excite the medium inside, that's not burning, just emitting photons; a simple material, generally placed in the middle. Nothing can be destroyed and nothing can be created regarding its energy."

"Well, Granger," answered the patiently, "it isn't a laser, but its behaviour roughly looks like it. Anyway what you'll get it isn't white light, but neither a monochromatic one, you cannot expect from a wizard artefact the same efficiency as a Muggle technological product. Wizards are more like artisans, I thought you had learned it, by now. However there is a second energy source" and he halted slightly embarrassed

"And it would be?"

"The breath of the people near the Parva Favilla."

Hermione bounced back and looked at Draco in horror.

Draco rolled his eyes "I could bet one thousand galleons on your reaction."

"How could it be otherwise?"

"Granger, please, this stuff is meant for kids. Some kids use a Parva Favilla because they like to stay awake till late reading their books, and others are just afraid of darkness.

No kid ever died suffocated because of this kind of objects!

When your eyes are closing and you are slipping into dreamland, slowly, your breath is slower and less powerful: this way the light is dimmer and dimmer. When the emitted light is sensibly low, the top cover slowly comes down. Look here, at the base of the cover, the base is made of glass. It's transparent, hence you can check inside, but the chamber is closed: this way the flame dies because of the lack of oxygen.

It was built this way on purpose, out of security: the flame fades away and no accident might ever happen because of a candle left lit up, near a bed with a sleeping kid. This stuff doesn't steal your breath, simply uses it."

However Hermione wasn't convinced at all "What kind of kids? I mean what kind of parents give their kids a, how do you call it? a Parva Favilla?"

"What do you mean, exactly? Maybe you are asking me whether this stuff comes from Knockturn Alley? Because, if this is what you wish to know, you can ask me without tortuous sentences and questions.

I got no problem into telling you I was at Knockturn Alley, by the way. I used to go there with my father, and I feel no shame. However this stuff wasn't bought over there."

Hermione sighed, too tired to retort him.

"Very well, let's speak clearly, what kind of stuff is this? May I change my question? Would Mrs Molly Weasley give it to Ginny, her only daughter?"

"I think she would!" the boy answered with no hesitation.

Hermione blushed, but she wasn't feeling safe at all. In her humble opinion Molly Wesley was a caring mother, even too protective with her seven puppies, but how did Malfoy look at her? Maybe for him she was just a dumb woman, reading Witch Weekly, ready to believe whatever so-called journalists like Rita Skeeter would have liked to write.

She remembered how Mrs Weasley had believed the gossips about her, Rita Skeeter had wrote on the Daily Prophet that she was Harry's girlfriend, and that she had broken his heart dumping the famous Boy Who Lived with Victor Krum, the Durmstrang Champion of the TriWizard Tournament. And, to add a cruel joke to the damage, that beetle in disguise had implied she was using love potions to seduce the Bulgarian hero, as if a boy like Krum could never find her interesting because of herself.

All lies for the people who knew her, even for those who knew her superficially, yet Mrs Weasley had believed that dragon dung. She remembered very well the glance she had shot her in the Infirmary, while they all were visiting Harry after the tragedy of the Third Task.

Maybe Malfoy thought she was an ingenuous mother, a gullible witch unable to spot a dark artefact? Had she to ask her question, again, differently?

Draco grinned, amused; "I had imagined your reactions, that's the reason why I gave you the Parva Favilla today. Tomorrow you would have felt suspicious and nervous, thinking all Saturday afternoon long, whether I gifted you a trap, a Dark Arts sinister artefact. I don't think we would have had an entertaining Saturday together.

And, seen tomorrow it's our last Saturday together," and he outlined the word "last," "I didn't wish at all to spend it with a defiant Mudblood. Under normal circumstances it takes you an awful amount of time to relax yourself, I don't want to imagine what would ever happen if you'd feel in life danger."

Hermione looked steadily into his eyes; "Do you mind if I ask someone else to inspect it?"

"Of course you can have it checked. I will not feel offended, in case. I've had some hints of your implied trust towards my humble person. No wonder seen our paste experience during the first years.

It would be laughable if I'd thought otherwise.

You can tell you got this stuff from me, as well, I got no troubles about it."

Hermione looked away, she felt a bit embarrassed. Suddenly she noticed the engraving on the top of the cover: "Nisi te plus oculis amarem".

"Why this engraving? "She asked suddenly curious.

"It says 'nisi te plus oculis meis amarem', " Draco looked at her, "It's Latin, do you know what it means?"

Hermione nodded, "I've been studying it on my own, in my spare time."

"Well, in this case you just have to translate it."

Hermione rolled her eyes. " If I wouldn't love you more than my eyes"

"Do you know who wrote these words?"

Hermione knitted her eyebrows, "No, I don't. I'm sorry. I'd say a poet writing love poems, but I can't figure out his name."

"Catullus, who wrote love poems, too. It's Poem XIV, to be utterly precise.

However this poem wasn't written for his woman, it was written for a man, Gaius Licinius Calvus, a friend of his. It's a joking answer for a gift he gave him for the Saturnalia."

Hermione interested cut in, "I know what Saturnalia are! They were an ancient Rome feast, where people used to exchange each other presents."

"Yes, you are right Granger, but it wasn't exactly like Christmas time."

"What do you mean?"

"Well Saturnalia were more like Carnival: all social differences used to disappear, slaves and masters were mixing together, enjoying the feast. The mutual roles were even inverted: nothing was respected anymore, and you could tell things that, in a different moment the other one would have not accepted.

During Saturnalia courts and schools were closed: it was forbidden to start or to do wars, to condemn someone to death, or to do a capital punishment. There was no room for old antics, rage, hates, or embarrass. It was a joyful feast, and, somehow, how would you say? A licentious libertine celebration."

Hermione slowly reddened, an analogy was building into her mind, their Saturdays looked a bit like their own private Saturnalia, but Malfoy, probably wasn't aware of this parallelism.

"Well, " Draco went on, "I thought we could feast a private Saturnalia, too. Somehow we are already feasting, by the way. Well, I'd have to complain about the licentious part, " he was definitely mocking her, "However, during emperor Caligula's reign, Saturnalia lasted about 4 days, and we have chosen a four Saturdays truce.

Actually the real date for this feast would be about the half of December, more or less for the Yule Ball, but by the time the Yule Ball comes, many things are meant to change," the boy was a bit embarrassed, "there's another feast, before, anyway, and who knows what might ever happen."

His voice appeared thoughtful, and Hermione couldn't help to feel startled. What feast was he talking about? He had talked about a Slytherin party last week as well, but she didn't know about any particular feast approaching.

"Yule Ball?" she added just to fill the silence, "It would mean winter solstice."

Draco smiled "Yes, the real beginning of the New Year. Rural societies always used to follow nature rhythm."

"What do you know of rural societies, peasants and countryside?"

The boy sneered "Where do you think Malfoy Manor is located? In the centre of London?"

"But there is a second reason. A story behind those verses," the boy added. "Once upon a time these ancient poems were written on parchments. They came to modern world, through Middle Ages, thanks to the monks. They spent their time, in the cloisters, copying the books they loved or they thought they were important. They didn't want humanity to forget the past and they spent their time making copies and copies of the most important or beautiful books. They could be very critical about what they copied, discussing the authors, the contents, the implied life philosophy, giving life to robust debates between the main thinkers of those ages, however they censored nothing, no matter how blatantly pagan and humanistic, even licentious the ancient text could be. The criterion for selection was quality.

They spent all day sitting in a scriptorium, partly studying, and partly copying by hand: you had no typographies at that time. No press.

The only way to have a copy of a book was to copy it by hand, word after word, on your own.

For more than a thousand year, copying texts in a scriptorium was monks' main task. By day, of course: they couldn't use lamps or candles in the scriptoria because everything in those rooms was flammable."

Hermione smiled, "Yes, I know, I read about old parchments with notes on the border of the page, written by the tired monk, complaining for the cold freezing his fingers."

Draco smiled in response, "You are right! I've always loved the marginalia, the texts, and the funny drawings!

Anyway monks had their troubles: at those time there wasn't cloth paper, but parchments, that's made from animals skin, sheep, calf, of goats. It was an expensive process. When the monk had no parchment anymore, he simply reused old parchments: he only had to scrape the ancient writings, with a pumice stone or a sharp knife, and write down the new books. He had to choose what to preserve.

For this reason we didn't have all the books coming to us intact. Sometimes the studious had to recover the texts, trying to read the semierased first text under the second one, trying to guess the underlying words, and comparing the different parchments from different cloisters, because, you know, differences are always creeping in."

"A very difficult work."

"You are right, a patient work, you could make it only for love.

A man lost his sight, for this reason: he was able to rebuild the verses of the poet he loved the most, and could edit a translation of them into his own language, but for this work, done till late, in the dark, he went blind. On the first page of his book edition, hence, he put a quotation, these verses by Catullus "nisi te plus oculis meis amarem", hadn't I loved you more than my eyes."

Hermione was deeply interested: "Like Borges."

"Who?"

"A poet from Argentina, he wrote the Elogio de la sombra: you know, he had at the same time two gifts, the darkness and the books, when they finally gave him the charge of librarian of Buenos Aires most important library he was blind."

Her explanation was too hasty, she was aware, but Draco nodded in agreement; Hermione felt relieved, well Malfoy was many things, but decidedly not a dumb boy.

"Granger, I don't know if you noticed it concisely, but in this world you can make an arm bones grow up again during a single night. But professor Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard of our days, must use glasses. And no one offered to do anything for Potty baby's glasses, and he is the living legend."

Hermione nodded. "I know, there's nothing you can do for eyesight."

"Hence, Granger, I hope you agree with me, that you can love your books as much as you like it, but it's stupid to sacrifice something so important for them, don't you agree?"

Hermione blushed, feeling clumsy, but Malfoy was right, nothing good could come in the long run, by reading till late at the light of a dim candle.

"You don't need to thank me: if you had whimpered about your tired eyes with your friends, I'm sure they would have told you what to do. Well, I am not sure about the Hero: he is a stranger in this world, quite as much as you are. But the Tagalong surely, he would have suggested you to use a Parva Favilla.

Even Parvati would have advised you to use one, but you had to ask her straight, because she doesn't like reading at all. she would have never thought that your eyes could smart, she is mostly interested into other things."

Hermione shot him an unreadable glance; the boy was using a light tone, maybe too light, or was it just her imagination? How long had Malfoy and Parvati been dating?

Now her roommate didn't use to talk about him anymore. However all that she knew about their affair, she knew it because of Lavender 's and Parvati's late night gossips leaking through their curtains to her bed.

They never stopped talking about boys, and it was impossible not to listen to them, even unwilling at all.

Yet she had never heard anyone else speaking about Malfoy and Patil as a couple, neither she had ever met them strolling in the school corridors as two dating people, like, she blushed annoyed, Ron and Hannah, for instance.

"Why?" she asked abruptly

"Why not?" he shrugged, "Last Saturday you gifted me something too. I thought we could be even this way."

Then he handed her back the Parva Favilla, this time directly into her hands; "I must go now. If you don't want it, please, make me know: I'd prefer to take it back, instead of thinking it thrown into some Gryffindor garbage bin."

She nodded slowly, looking attentively at the little object. She was so taken she didn't notice him exiting the room.

A thousand thoughts were crowding her mind: she wished so much to try the magical stuff, but she didn't trust Malfoy. First she would ask Parvati or, maybe Ron. Thinking oh her so-called best friend, she felt suddenly embarrassed.

Well maybe Parvati and Ron could only tell her whether a Parva Favilla was really such a common object, but nothing more: Ron wasn't exactly the best wizard regarding Dark Arts. If she examined detached the whole Tom Riddle Cursed Diary Affair she could only admit to herself that Ron, who probably had seen that diary among her sister's belongings, hadn't been able to understand it was cursed.

The most sensible thing was to ask a teacher.

Well, it was the most sensible thing, of course, but what if this was exactly Draco Malfoy was after? Hitting the Headmaster through a Mudblood?

In this case, for prudence, the teacher to ask to was Professor McGonagall.

She felt her stomach jump: she hadn't spoken with the Transfiguration teacher since the day she had refused the prefect charge, how could she ever ask her a favour about a supposedly cursed baby lamp?

Well, if she didn't wish to meet her favourite teacher, she could ask Professor Sprout, or Professor Flitwick, or even Snape. Oh no, she could never bear to ask the elitist old bat, she would have rather preferred to ask Professor Trelawney, weren't predictions her own territory? She'd just have to look into her orb, Hermione thought sarcastically.

Somehow she felt absurd: she was allowed to say who gave her the Parva Favilla, if anything bad would have ensued, Malfoy would be easily spotted as the culprit. Probably she was worrying for nothing.

However, in the midst of all these thoughts, a thought stab her, making her feel guilty: she remembered her words to Malfoy about personal responsibility and responsibility towards ourselves.

Tilting her chin she resolved to go to the HeadMistress: she could not run away from Professor McGonagall all life long.

Hermione took back her parchments, her bag and the Parva Favilla, then, tired, leaded towards McGonagall's quarters.

However, later, she had decided it, she would finally take that luxurious bath she was longing for: she had gained the right to spoil herself a bit!