Chapter Ten: The Close Encounter

The week went on like so. Hogwarts was just only a little difficult on the side of schoolwork – it was getting around the place that was hard. Everywhere I went people would recognize me, and while most just stared others were louder.

"Spotted any victims yet, oh, sinister one?" someone called from a group of fifth years. I forced myself not to look at them in case I did something drastic, and walked on. I had to get to my Herbiology class. Someone else tried to chock a spitball at me and missed – another person raised his wand from one end of the Entrance Hall at me.

Crash! My bag had split right up the middle. All my books, my Herbiology gloves, inkwells and parchment were on the floor behind me, slowly absorbing ink from the smashed glass.

They laughed. Those who were brave enough laughed first, then everybody else thought it was alright and they began to laugh as well. Suddenly the whole entrance hall was laughing, even the people on the stairwells.

I didn't do anything. I couldn't do anything. If I did my situation would've just gotten worse. I was lucky that Greg was around. He yelled for people to be on their way, that Moose McMillan had just earned himself a detention and twenty points had been taken from Ravenclaw, then came over to me and helped pick up my stuff.

"So sorry about that, Moose has always been a brilliant idiot. That's why they put him in Ravenclaw, see, it's full of them. Here, give me your bag –" He tapped it with his wand. "Reparo!" The rip sealed itself. "There, good as new. Now be on your way before someone else tries to sabotage you." "Thanks, Prefect." "You're very welcome."

He ought to be Head Boy, I couldn't help wishing. So decent, at least…

Herbiology was held in one of the three Greenhouses outside of Hogwarts. Our teacher was a stout little witch with extremely dirty robes and horrible fingernails – almost like a medieval witch except she was as nice as nice can get. Her name was Professor Sprout, and we had the subject with her House, Hufflepuff.

We managed to cover care of Asphodel root, the kind of plants Pop kept in his garden, and scheduled next lesson on Thursday afternoon for theory on aquatic plants. After that we had to go up to the castle and wash the dirt off ourselves – who ever knew that gardening could be so messy.

Only one more time that week did Jim catch my eye again in the courtyard, but it was in vain. He was only flurried away once more in the crowd, this time to see a display of Quidditch by the older years at the school Quidditch pitch. By then I had left all notion of the sport behind, so I stayed in the library and tried to practice my transfiguration.

The quill stayed still on the table. I touched it lightly with the tip of my wand and muttered, "Relinquish." It shuddered, then swiftly melted into the shape and colour of a fountain pen. Smiling to myself, I touched it again. "Vedicrement." The pen bloated back into the form of the quill, and I gave myself a silent congratulations.

Now that I had a wand, I was discovering more and more about my ability with magic. From when I was little, I had always known that I had magic blood in me. It first showed when I was battling Pop over baby food and the can just flipped itself out of the window and onto the road. Pop had never questioned what I could do, simply because if anybody did magic when they were under-aged they would get into trouble with the Ministry of Magic, even if they were family members or the future kid king of Egypt.

Here, at school, I had my opportunities to discover this ancient art of witchcraft and wizardry, and I found that I was good at it. My Transfiguration class was still stuck on switching erasers. The largest I had done had been my "One Thousand Herbs and Fungi" textbook, at great risk of losing it when I transfigured it into a dictionary.

I was just getting out my DADA work to start the foot-long essay on the significance of troll security in the wizarding world when Frances sat opposite me.

"Hello, Dolly Kora."

It was lunchtime. What the heck was he doing inside while everybody else was outside enjoying their sun and freedom? Stalking me, that was what. Stalking me and trying to annoy the hell out of me with his 'logical' good-witch, bad-witch talks. Save it, Avery.

"Hi, Frances. Fancy seeing you in the library."

He flashed a look of arrogance and gloat. "I appreciate your opinion of me as a regular freshman jock, Dolly Kora. However, not all popular wise guys like me like to hang around outside all the time. I was simply passing through the library for my favourite Quidditch records book when I spotted you, and so I decided to come say hello."

"How nice of you, Frances." Jerk. "You really should get back outside, though. You need all that fresh air. You know, to relax from the stress school is causing you."

He made a dismissive sound. "Stress? Well, excuse me, Dolly Kora, but I don't experience that sort of thing. Stress is a waste of time, just like how sleeping is. The famous alchemist Quinn-Mill of Bridge used to sleep for only three hours, then he would go back to his studies straight away. Kind of like you, Dolly."

"How would you know that? You're not in my House, let alone in my dorm. You wouldn't know how many hours I sleep."

He leaned across the table and said in a low voice, "One doesn't need to be there when one's got evidence." "What evidence?" "Whenever I see you around you would always look tired and beaten. Like a person who's stayed up too late, and gotten up too early."

At that moment I saw Jim's thin frame come through the library entrance out the corner of my eye. I looked at him, and he saw me, and he stared. He was acknowledging Frances, almost sprawled across the table from leaning so far, and without a single thought to me he turned around and marched out of the library again.

The wall was up. I shouldn't be expecting anything from him in a long while.

Frances had seen Jim. He turned back to me and said, "I know you know my friend Jim Rickman. I've seen you two going around Diagon Alley the other day. Close, you two, were you?"

I felt a bit ticked off. "Yeah, I guess we were, on accord that he'd been the only person in a millennia who had bothered to hang around with me at that time." "Don't fall for it. I mean it, Dolly. You shouldn't hang around with people like him. In Potions when everybody was pairing up – where was he that time? Over the other side of the room with Cindy Maple, I recall." I wanted to say no, it hadn't been his fault, but he went on.

" In fact, you shouldn't be hanging around with anybody. You know it for yourself, there's no one you can commit to in this world. You've seen it, you've experienced it. Nobody…except me. I'll be your friend when no one else would."

Frances seemed awfully charismatic. I feared for the day I gave in and said yes to him, but that day was yet to come. I still hated his Avery guts like mad.

"That's very nice, Frances. But for now, let's just be hello-buddies, okay?"

However dumb and bright I thought he was, he still got me thinking. Maybe he was right. The absence of everybody was just probably doing me good. I could concentrate on school better…get good grades…make Pop happy. He would like that.

Frances nodded a good bye and left me to ponder. He was fake through and through, but he wasn't a fool. Maybe I could even like Frances Avery…like when hell freezes over.