a/n: No clue what's with the formatting in this chapter. Just don't ask. Hey — at least I can see what I'm writing this time! Hope I didn't just….jinx myself… *screen goes black* AAAAHHHH!!!! NOOOOO!!! *knocks fervently on wood* *screen comes back* *breathes deeply* THANK YOU!! *screen goes black again* DIIEE!!!!
ANYWAY…last chapter, before my computer began to die (a process it is continuing to now, although now I am being much more careful about what I write) I was going to go on about how I had never really planned for that chapter and had an awful time coming up with a name for it. With this chapter, I believe, the case was entirely opposite. This was one that I had planned from the beginning, and I kept in there even after I realized that the "secret admirer" didn't really have much purpose. A bit of Snape in here too. Should be fun.
T H E S I L V E R A R R O W
M
onday morning was crisp, clear, cold, and cloudy, like many January mornings. Breakfast for Siandra was jam and slightly burnt toast. She didn't think that the golden brown was brown and crispy enough for her so she tried a toasting spell she had learned in the library. It almost worked, 'With a little practice' said Claire. But then Claire was the one who wangled the sweeping charm in their dorm so that they had to cover their faces when they rushed in and out of it so as not to get caught in a dust bunny storm. Professor Pimea had to sort that out and she was not happy. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, Siandra suddenly remembered her unfinished Transfiguration essay.
"Lily!" she whispered.
"Would you like to tell the class what you were whispering about?" asked Professor Pimea, looking up from the chalkboard.
"Not particularly. All I said just then was Lily though." Siandra answered. She would never have dared to tell this to any other teacher, but she did not like Professor Pimea and was going to make it known.
"Don't call her Lily any more then!" she said, turning back to the chart of numbers.
"What am I supposed to call her? Hippo?" Siandra said quietly to herself. She contented herself with writing a note Lily. She already knew all of the homework she would assign anyway.
Lily, what was the Transfiguration homework?
She crumpled it into a ball and threw it at Lily's notebook. Lily read it, then got her crow quill out and scrawled a note back to Siandra.
You have to describe all of the calculations needed to find out how to turn a brush into a mirror without knowing the spell.
Calculations. This was Siandra's thing.
Is there anything about how many words of how many centimeters of parchment?
No, except it has to be at least a foot, like all of our work.
Siandra busied herself working on her Transfiguration homework during Defense Against the Dark Arts. Professor Pimea only called on her once.
"Siandra." she said.
"What would you like?"
"I was going to ask you the answer to the question I just asked. I assume that you know what it is? Or were you not listening?"
"Yes, I do know the question." Siandra said. She had tried being nice to Professor Pimea and it didn't work, "The answer is the mushroom-shaped wand motion."
"Wrong. Sennin?"
"The mushroom-shaped wand motion?"
"Correct!"
Siandra turned and gave Sennin the evil eye. Sennin returned the sentiment. She noticed that he was quite good at it. They did this for a while. Then Siandra blinked.
"Darn!" she said quite loudly and got back to her homework.
One way or another she finished her Transfiguration homework before class and Professor Comora was very pleased.
"Now, class, look at this! Siandra got a perfect score!"
Siandra blushed.
"Siandra, tell the class how many hours you need to spend on this to get a great mastery work like this."
"I'd say, about one."
"Is a nice, quiet working environment best?"
"I guess, but you don't really need it."
"Good, then. Thank you for your input."
Lunch was cheese sandwiches with crisps. Siandra was too busy thinking about the package in four hours that she didn't even notice when Snape sneaked over and performed and over-exaggerated burning spell on the sandwich.
"Usually when people have practice, they get better, not worse," remarked Betty.
"It wasn't me, honestly!" she said, as the smoke wafted down the table.
She pointed behind her. "It was him!" she exclaimed.
There were snorts from around the table. Siandra looked behind her. There was no one there.
"He was there a minute ago, honestly!"
"Yes, I'm sure he was. Don't worry, we all make mistakes," consoled Gina.
"But — but?"
"Probably Snape did it. I wouldn't put it past him," said Frank Longbottom, "Er… want my handkerchief?"
"Your handkerchief? What would I do with it?" Siandra asked, bewildered.
"Er…it's…the, er, chivalrous thing to do. Honest! We are studying it in History of Magic. Don't you people listen?"
"No," responded Siandra, "You do?"
"Er, yes."
"And are you being chivalrous for extra credit?"
"Er, yes. How did you know?"
"Guessed."
"So now what you do is sign here…" he drew a piece of paper out of his school bag. The bag was green with tassels and a cupcake pattern around the edge. It was one of the oddest bags she had ever seen. "To say that I've been chivalrous to you."
"Acid pop order form?" Siandra read on the sheet she was supposed sign.
"Oops, wrong thing." He shuffled about for a minute and came up with another form. He didn't seem to be very orderly.
"Defense Against Dark Arts Essay on Popular Wand Motions…one hundred percent, very good, Frank, but it's certainly not — "
"Oops, ah, this is the pesky little thing!"
"…to say that your needs were satisfied by chivalrous acts — Needs were satisfied? Why would I need a handkerchief after Snape burnt my toast? Not only that, but do you actually have a handkerchief?"
"No, but maybe I could of conjured one!"
"And made my toast rise up in flames? We don't learn conjuring charms until fifth year, I asked Professor Leftner myself!"
"Ah, well, thought I'd try."
And speaking of Leftner…
"Lily, have you figured out how I'm supposed to get out of Leftner early?"
"No, but I figured out how to tell James. He doesn't really care why, but he likes to figure out how to bend the rules to suit him. Just say you need to get out of Charms a teensy bit early, okay?"
"You tell him."
"No, you."
"No, you thought of it."
"But you need to do it!"
"Oh, fine. Oy, James!"
James left Sirius and walked over to Lily and Siandra.
"Yes?"
"I need to be out of Charms about ten minutes early, can you do that for me?" Siandra asked. James looked pleased.
"No problem, but I'll need your lunch chocolate frog or the card in payment."
Siandra scowled, "Half a frog. Wait, let's see the card….Albus Dumbledore! It's my first one of him!"
"Half a frog? How do you plan to divide it?"
"Er…never mind, I really need this note, okay, fine. One whole frog."
She grudgingly handed over the frog.
"Thank you!" said James curtly, scooping up the frog and dropping it into his mouth and started on the letter.
He wrote the following:
Professor Leftner:
Miss Lorington needs to leave early due to a four o'clock lecture with Ogg and Hagrid. We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences this might cause you.
Thank you,
Viviana Comora
A letter from a cute burrowing owl dropped onto her head.
"Post for you!" said someone jollily.
"I've noticed." replied Siandra.
The owl jumped onto the table beside her plate and started hopping up and down on the tablecloth. There was a chorus of 'awww's from around the table. Siandra fed it one of the smaller crisps off of her plate. It was too big for her to swallow, so she just carried it in her mouth. After she had managed to swallow it, she stuck out her head sideways so Siandra could scratch under her neck.
"It's so CUTE!" said Lily.
The message it carried read:
Dear Siandra,
Thank you for the thank-you note. Okay, Hagrid will see you at four. I hope you like your present.
Hagrid and X
Siandra was getting excited. She looked on the owl's little lightweight collar. There was a little pendant on it with an initial on it! And…she couldn't make it out. It was smudged some and Siandra couldn't tell if it was an M or an N, or maybe a V. Oh well, Siandra thought. You couldn't have everything in life.
Professor Jigger in potions class seemed a bit preoccupied today. He kept asking random students questions about Moira.
Gina giggled, "I think somebody likes Moira," she teased as Professor Jigger walked down the isle.
"Your potion's all wrong!" he accused some Hufflepuff girl.
"But you didn't tell us anything to put in it!" she protested.
"Oh."
Siandra wanted to be safe from these comments so she decided to make the Boil-Be-Gone potion that they learned in their first week. While she was stirring the final product of her potion, there was a loud resounding boom. The walls of the dungeon quivered and quite a few people ducked and covered under their desks. What had happened was that quite a few people were doing what Siandra was. Peter had done that also, but tried his luck at a much harder potion. Not a good idea without teacher supervision. The whole thing exploded and started bouncing off of the walls.
"GET OUT!" cried Professor Jigger. He seemed to have decided that his classroom was more important than his personal matters. "OUT ONTO THE QUIDDITCH FIELD! NOW!"
Professor Jigger stayed inside, presumably stopping the frothing liquid from ricocheting off of the walls. The rest of the lesson was rather fun. They put on their winter cloaks and gathered some common potion ingredients from around the grounds and, once Professor Jigger was done explaining about all the rare plants that can be found around the grounds, they took some old brooms out of the shed and played Quidditch with some fallen pinecones. It ended with heroic capture of the white, enchanted berry by Siandra. Claire had done some pretty cool scoring too.
"It looks like we'll have some pretty good players next year!" complemented Professor Jigger as they ran in after the bell had rung.
It was Charms. Before class, Siandra had to give Professor Leftner the note. She was very nervous about this, what if Professor Leftner called Professor Comora? Comora might try to get her out, or cover for her, but she was very nervous. Maybe she shouldn't give her the note at all. She quite liked Professor Leftner. But she decided to give her the note anyways. It actually was true, she did have to meet Hagrid and he would cover for her, but she had realized, from experience that people did not really trust Hagrid, except for Dumbledore, that is. But she summoned up her courage (did she want to find out about Hagrid and X or not?) and walked up to the teacher, thinking that there would be a lot less trouble if she had checked her schedule before telling Hagrid and X the wrong time to meet her.
"Oh, and what lecture is this? Have you been going off of the grounds?"
"No…er…I'm…er…interested in potions and asked them to give me a tour of the ingredients found around the castle. It's the only time they have open. Sorry about this," she said.
"Okay, go on then. We're learning about the incendio spell today. It conjures fire." Professor Leftner explained to the class as Siandra took her seat. "Since this can be dangerous, I am giving you fireproof glass bowl to practice in. The spell word is incendio. You need to think of flames very hard when you do this spell. For this you use the mushroom-shaped wand motion, have you been practicing that in D.A..D.A..?"
"Yes," answered the class in unison.
"Siandra, could you please explain it to the class in case some people weren't listening?"
"Of course. The motion is basically like drawing a basic mushroom in midair. A basic mushroom is an oval connected to the ground by a cylinder. It is one of the more complicated motions. You do it by drawing a straight edge on the left side. Then you go up and draw an oval and the straight edge on the right. Connect it at the bottom. It should look like…" Siandra did the motion in the air with her index finger.
"Perfect, Siandra! Let's get started!"
Siandra looked daggers at Sennin.
No one was having any luck.
"ARGH!" shouted Peter. "This is never going to work!"
He banged his wand furiously on the desk. A shower of sparks was emitted from the top of the wand and landed on the desk. Pretty soon the whole desk was engulfed in flame.
"I've done it! I've done it!" he yelled.
It was very lucky that the desks were made with fire-enclosing sealant, because pretty soon all the students figured out that (1) the clouded glass bowls did NOT work, because they were so fireproof that there could be no fire in them, and (2) the best way to work the spell was to get very frustrated and prod the table with your wand. Then they were running around the classroom provoking each other so they could work it.
Betty, however, was still trying the mushroom shape with her wand.
"It's never going to work," taunted Lily.
"Yes it IS!" yelled Betty, slamming her wand on the table with the 'is'.
The table burst up in flame.
"There you go," assured Lily.
"But — but, that's not the way you — " protested Professor Leftner.
"ARGH!" she yelled, slamming her wand on her desk, "These students, they…hey…it does work!" she commented as her own desk burst up in fire. "I guess I have…er…smart students this year!" she praised, looking at the class running in and out amongst the burning desks, making faces at each other.
It was so fun that Siandra almost regretted leaving early, but she did anyway. She sprinted across the grounds and over to a rather small hut considering some one of Hagrid's stature. Hagrid was wearing a red plaid shirt with overalls.
"Er…Hagrid?" she asked.
"Oh, 'ello!"
"Have a nice Christmas, Hagrid?" she asked.
"Yup. Hogwar's is always so pretty at Chrismastime. Yep. And you?"
"Yes. Do you have the package from you and X?"
"Yep. I got 'er in 'ere to restrain 'er."
"Restrain?"
"Yep, an' 'ere she is!"
He drew out a shimmering broom from the long box that he had at his feet.
"Ohh…" Siandra breathed.
It was her old Silver Arrow, but it was different. Hagrid and X had fixed the bent twigs in the tail. Now they were all perfectly aligned and cut off at exactly the same place. They had a silvery sheen about them. The handle was no longer chipped and burnt; it was glazed over, stained darker, and it sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight. Before, the real silver letters on the top read, in tarnished letters: SI VE ARR W. Now they were gleaming and read the whole words.
"Thank you so much, Hagrid!" she praised, hugging him around the middle.
"Ah, yer welcome!" he said, going a little red.
"Would you mind telling me who else helped you?"
"Yes I would, actually. 'E wouldn't like it. And anyway it was 'is idea in the first place, although I did give an awful lot of help."
"He? His?"
"Shouldn't ah told yer that," growled Hagrid. "I should not 'ave told yer that. Anyway, you can take 'er now. Me an' 'im bought 'er from the school for yer. I 'ope yer like it, you must be really special to be getting that, 'e sure thinks yer are."
"He does?"
"Shouldn't 'ave told yer that! I will be very quiert now, very, very, quiert." he said as he clamped one giant hand over his mouth.
"Are you busy now at all?"
"No."
"Then one more thing, Hagrid, please," added Siandra, as he was about to go back in to his cabin. "Could you show me around the grounds and point out some of the plant life around here?"