Chapter Twelve: October Blues

Dear Kora,

I MISS YOU TOO. In your letter you forgot to mention how you were doing friend wise. I do hope you¡¯ve found someone. You¡¯re right, it has been a month. So convenient, how time flies.

Nothing much has been happening. I haven¡¯t been spending whole days at the Ministry now, I think I¡¯ve gone back to my normal timetable at last. It¡¯s bad in a way because I have to come home in the end and you¡¯re not there. I have to force myself to cook most nights now! Except sometimes I don¡¯t bother and I order something from Mrs Mews¡¯ Pies or something like that. It saves time, though, especially if the Department calls for an emergency etc.

Well I hope that you continue to have fun. It¡¯s funny how you like Potions, it used to be my favourite subject as well next to DADA. When I see you this Christmas we¡¯ll do a few potions of something. I have tons of old books here that I haven¡¯t touched in years.

Take care now, Corporal.

Lot of love, Pop

¡°And Pippa has the Quaffle! There she goes, past Kev, pass to Lester, he passes to Miriam, pass back to Lester ¨Coh, there he goes, down by a Bludger, and Ravenclaw has the Quaffle! And how¡¯s our Seeker going, not so good by the looks of it, there ought to be the replacement soon ¨C and Ravenclaw scores! Some great teamwork by Yasmine Hoffs and Jasmine Hoffs, always knew those twins were fit for Chasers first time I saw them. The Quaffle is back in Hufflepuff¡¯s possession ¨C¡±

I was watching the game forty feet from the ground only mildly interested. Jim, however, was following the game on tenterhooks, his mouth slightly open and looking quite deranged. As it was nearing Halloween, Hagrid¡¯s garden was highly visible even from this distance, made so by the vivid orange pumpkins he had nurtured especially for the Halloween feast.

¡°What! Cody¡¯s up, apparently he¡¯s just woken up from his concussion. Ah well, waste not, want not. There he goes, flying as high as ever, looking for the Snitch like he had never been hit down with a Bludger in the first place¡­and one of the twins has the Quaffle again, they¡¯re going through the Hufflepuffs like a rock through feathers, pass to Jasmine, pass to Yasmine, pass to Kev, he moves up, he throws ¨C nice block by Keeper Robert Adams, nice block indeed¡­¡±

I was watching Cody, the Ravenclaw Seeker, circling above the pitch on his nicely presented Cleansweep Seven. ¡°Hey, Jim, you want to be a Seeker, don¡¯t you?¡±

Do I ever. ¡°Well, shouldn¡¯t you be watching the Seekers instead of the Chasers and the rest?¡± They haven¡¯t found the Snitch yet, and both Houses¡¯ scores are over a hundred. I don¡¯t think those guys will be finding anything for a while.

It was true. Still, the guy could fly. Cody was doing some sort of loop, and he had gone into a dive. Jim groaned. Now he¡¯s spotted it. ¡°Oh, come on, Jim, the Snitch is supposed to be hard to find.¡±

A short time later, Cody dashed up from the ground, a tiny glint of gold clenched in his hand. The whole Ravenclaw side cheered, and the commentator announced the winning score three hundred and twenty over Hufflepuff¡¯s one hundred and sixty.

Jim sighed. I remember the last Quidditch World Cup. Belgium totally lost against France, were you there at that time? ¡°Yeah, Pop complained about how the game went for three and a half days. We hadn¡¯t packed enough clothes for that length of time and he ended up sending me to go to a Muggle Laundromat.¡± Do you want to hang around the lake or something? ¡°Yeah, okay.¡±

¡°Who are you talking to?¡± Casey Hodgekin demanded. I looked at the Gryffindor girl sitting in front of me and said in-a-matter-of-factly, ¡°I was talking to Jim, Casey.¡±

¡°How can you be making up what he says? You¡¯re a weirdo.¡±

She left, shaking her head, and I looked at Jim questioningly. He was laughing in my head. She didn¡¯t know I was talking to you. ¡°What? I thought everybody knew how you talked.¡± No. No one. Maybe you. They all think I¡¯m completely cut off from communication.

I thought about it. ¡°Gee. You shut up for a whole month? How boring would have been.¡± It wasn¡¯t too bad. Kind of like before I met you.

He had a point. I guess you had to do the same, huh? ¡°Yeah¡­not really. I had dumb people like Francis Avery pestering me in every Potions class.¡± I feel sorry for you. ¡°Not for long you¡¯re not. I think we got rid of him for good.¡±

How wrong I was.

We went down to the lake. A few other people were sitting around on the bank or in the bushes, talking enthusiastically about the game. I picked my budding birch tree and we sat near that, wallowing in the sunlight.

Jim was a great friend, as it turned out. He had lost the paleness that had made his face look so empty, and he didn¡¯t blush so much. He now made it a habit of sitting with me everywhere, sticking with me as a partner when need be¡­basically he opened up and left behind the shy person he had used to be. He was usually the one to start conversations now, anyway.

Once I had picked up a feeling he had emitted, probably without realizing that he had done so. The feeling didn¡¯t have words, but I could read it easily enough. He felt that the two of us were the same, and I had the notion that he was right.

We have school tomorrow.

¡°Yeah, well¡­I kind of like school in a way.¡±

Yeah, so do I, but it¡¯s just that we have Potions first up.

¡°Potions? What, don¡¯t you like it?¡±

I don¡¯t like Professor Snape. He creeps me out big time.

¡°He creeps everybody out. But he¡¯s not that bad, really. Not if you get into his good books not that I¡¯m in them, of course. Despite everything, he¡¯s alright. It¡¯s Professor Duckett that I despise.¡±

Jim turned his head on the grass and looked at me peculiarly. You like him, don¡¯t you?

I gave him a bombshell look. ¡°In case you haven¡¯t heard, I just said that I hated him.¡±

No, not Duckett. I meant Snape. You like him. He was beginning to smile.

It was true, and it was a shocker that Jim had picked up on it so quickly. I couldn¡¯t believe that he suspected me of liking Snape even when I was acting that I truly didn¡¯t like him.

Then something happened that wasn¡¯t so good, but at least it had saved me from any further questions from Jim.

¡°Talking to yourself, Dolly Kora?¡± I recognized the voice. I had had to endure it every time I was in the Potions classroom. I wasted no time getting up and facing Frances Avery and his two friends.

¡°If you don¡¯t mind, Frances, can you get out of here? You¡¯re kinda disturbing us.¡±

¡°Oh.¡± He didn¡¯t look so smart and charming anymore (well, he did) now that he had that permanent look of scorn on his face. The real Frances was out ¨C I had unleashed him.

¡°I was¡­disturbing something, was I?¡± His friends sniggered.

¡°For your information, Jim and I are just friends,¡± I said defensively.

¡°Yes, Kora, I did mean that, why, did you think I was implying something else?¡±

¡°You were and you know it. Just go, Frances. No one needs you here.¡±

¡°Yes you do. I¡¯ve simply come along to ask you one more time. Join me and my merry men and there¡¯s no doubt that you¡¯ll gain more benefit than hanging around with Courage the cowardly dog here.¡± Jim mumbled something about not having a wand at the time.

¡°And such merry men you are,¡± I said. ¡°Guys, the answer is no, I¡¯m not going to become friends with you. I¡¯d rather hang around with the good people, thanks.¡±

¡°This?¡± Frances was looking at Jim. ¡°You know what, Dolly Kora? Good people are only good because they¡¯re weak, and they don¡¯t want anything to come along and disrupt them in case it uncovers this weakness. Your friend Jim is a fraud. The poor wanker can¡¯t even talk.¡±

¡°Don¡¯t you call Jim that! I told you already, if you try anything ¨C¡± ¡°Do you really expect us to listen to you? Listen to yourself, Kora. Doesn¡¯t that sound just a little bogus? It¡¯s more of a case of ¡®taking things for granted¡¯, isn¡¯t it?¡±

These guys are so annoying! ¡°Look ¨C Frances ¨C either you get off our backs, or I challenge you to a duel.¡±

¡°Oooh¡­¡± The two hooligans behind Frances poked each other and laughed. Frances wasn¡¯t laughing though. He looked into my eyes, and I knew that what he was going to say wasn¡¯t going to be good.

¡°Just like the old days, huh, Kora?¡± he said quietly. ¡°I¡¯ll bet your father liked to do this all the time with his pitiful little victims. That¡¯s what I like about him, you know. He squashes them. He squashes them with so much as a wave of his magic wand. His personality shows through you, Kora.¡±

I stared at him. He was lying, of course. He wouldn¡¯t have known how Richard took care of things, he was trying to spite me.

¡°Tell me, Kora, is the curse real? As much as you two are similar, is it real?¡±

Then something huge flew past me ¨C a bright beam of golden light moving so fast that I almost fell over from the force of it traveling by. It hit Frances right in the middle, and with an ¡°Oof!¡± he flew backwards onto the grass some twenty feet away.

I looked to the side at Jim, who was standing beside me with his wand pointed right at where Frances had been standing, and he was breathing hard.

I know that you¡¯re not proud of it, Kora. No idiot¡¯s going to call you your father¡¯s daughter¡­Not while I¡¯m around.

¡°Jim! You shouldn¡¯t have done that!¡± He was rubbishing you! ¡°I know he was!¡±

Frances was pretty ticked off. He shook off his pals and stormed back, his sleek hair now astray, and his eyes wide with hatred for my friend.

¡°You wanted a fight, huh, Jim boy? You wanted a fight? Why the hell didn¡¯t you say so? I would¡¯ve welcomed it at ease!¡±

He threw his arm over his shoulder, and brought the wand down hard. The same beam of light shot out and hit Jim, who flew all the way backwards landing with a loud crunch at the water¡¯s edge. By then the people around the lake had stopped to watch, intrigued by the duel between one first year and another. They weren¡¯t really concerned ¨C almost none of us freshmen knew a spell bad enough to hurt anybody.

Jim got up quite quickly. In my head he cried, Flipendo! A blue whirlwind shot from his wand. Frances copped it full on, and it carried him up several feet before dumping him back on the ground.

I knew better. Jim and I had practiced random spells from my book, so we knew some spells that others like Frances didn¡¯t. I had to stop them either before Jim did something unacceptable, or a teacher came out into the grounds.

I pulled out my own wand. ¡°Finite Incantatem!¡±

The wands stopped working, only for a while. Jim looked up at me. What the ¨C ow!

Frances had become more of an idiot than he already was, and had aimed his next spell at Jim¡¯s hand. Jim jerked in pain, and his wand went flying out of his hand.

It landed far out in the lake, and sank as we watched.

Jim lunged at Frances. You ¨C I pulled him back, and hissed, ¡°Leave him! We¡¯ll get it back later! Now that he¡¯s won he won¡¯t get us into trouble.¡±

Damn that to hell, I wanted to finish this, Kora ¨C! ¡°That¡¯s enough, Jim!¡±

Frances was looking smug. It was a terrible sacrifice that I had done, but it was probably worth it. He dusted himself off and said, ¡°Nice one, losers. Next time, don¡¯t bite off more than you can chew. It¡¯s not a very good habit.¡±

They left, and Jim sat on the bank looking at the ripples that his wand had created.

¡°Are you alright?¡± He didn¡¯t answer for a while, but eventually he said dully, How the hell are we going to get my wand back? ¡°Easy.¡±

He looked at me. So¡­how are we getting it, oh, person who made me lose a duel?

I groaned inwardly. ¡°We¡¯ll just have to do a bit of borrowing, that¡¯s all. You know¡­borrowing without asking. Snape¡¯s storeroom, tomorrow during class.¡±

He looked incredulous. What! In broad daylight? We¡¯re stealing some potion that¡¯s going to get my wand back? It¡¯d better work, Kora, otherwise I¡¯d have to go through the week without my wand. And most of our classes are wand-essential!

¡°Don¡¯t worry so much, Jim. I¡¯ve got something that can help us. Snape won¡¯t even suspect that I¡¯ve got anything like it.¡±