Draco persisted in keeping his silence with me. At breakfast the next morning, he didn't say a word to anyone. I talked with Crabbe and Goyle through the meal and hoped that Draco would at least look at me. Towards the end of breakfast, several hundred owls came pouring into the hall carrying envelopes and packages. I recognized Amadeo as he came swooping towards me. He flew down and landed in front of me on the table.
"That's got to be the weirdest looking owl I've ever seen in my life," Draco said, finally speaking to me.
"That's because he's very unique," I replied, scratching the bright red feathers on Amadeo's head.
I continued to pet him absent-mindedly, glad that Draco had finally said something to me. I smiled in his direction, but frowned when I felt Amadeo nibble at my finger, drawing blood.
"Amadeo!" I said, putting my finger in my mouth, "you did it, now you have to fix it."
I placed my finger down on the table within Amadeo's reach. He bent over my finger and let a few tears drip onto it. The small wound healed almost instantly and I smiled once more.
"Thanks, Amadeo," I replied, petting him some more.
"Hey, how'd he do that?" Crabbe asked me.
"I'm not quite sure how, but he somehow has phoenix blood in him. That's why he has those weird red feathers. He can carry really heavy loads and his tears can heal wounds, just like a phoenix," I explained.
"I bet that comes in handy," Goyle replied.
"It'll really come in handy after I get through with her," I heard Pansy say behind me.
"What are you talking about? I've never done anything to you," I said.
"Don't you lie to me! You burned my cloak last night!" she yelled at me, holding up a set of robes with charred edges.
"I did not! Don't you dare accuse me of something I didn't do!" I shouted.
"You did do it! You're the only one in school who can burn things with her hands!"
"So what? It doesn't mean I did it!"
"What is going on here?" said a man coming towards us.
"Professor Snape, Elizabeth burned my robes on purpose!" Pansy replied, holding up the robes in her arms so Snape could see.
"But I didn't do it!" I pleaded.
Pansy and I opened our mouths again to say something else, but Snape gestured for quiet.
"Miss Parkinson, do you have any proof that Miss Silverlio is guilty of what you are accusing her of?" Snape asked, looking in Pansy's direction.
"Well...no...but she's the only one who could've..." Snape stopped her again.
"Without proof, I'm afraid you have no case against her. She cannot be punished," Snape replied, walking past us towards the doors of the Great Hall.
"You just better watch your back, Lizzie," Pansy retorted before turning on her heel and leaving the Hall.
I turned back to the table to find that Amadeo had eaten all of the bacon on my plate. I laughed and scratched his head. I gave him another piece of bacon from the platter on my right and watched as he ate it quickly and then flew out of the Great Hall.
A piece of paper was placed in front of me at that moment. I looked over my shoulder and saw a boy handing each person at the table a slip of parchment. On the paper, I saw, was a list of the classes I would be taking. I wondered how my courses had been chosen for me, since Draco had already explained that in your sixth year, you could choose your courses based on the career you chose to be involved in after school had ended. I hadn't really decided what I wanted to do as an adult, so I wondered how my classes were chosen. I knew I'd have to ask Draco.
"Um, Draco?" I said, still looking down at my schedule.
"Yes?" Draco replied, seemingly reluctant to say anything to me.
"Who chose what classes I would be taking this year?"
"I believe Father wanted you to have the same schedule as me, and he seems to want me to be an Auror. These are the classes to take if you want to be an Auror. I guess that's why Father insisted on buying our books for us," he stated.
"Oh, I see."
"Come on, we don't want to be late for class," Draco said, getting up from the table and walking towards the exit doors.
I sighed, glad that he was again talking to me, and stood up and followed Draco out of the Great Hall. We stopped by the common room to get our bags full of books, quills, ink, and parchment, and set out for our first class: Potions.
The class took place down in the dungeons of the school, which were dark and cold. We arrived at the classroom a few minutes before class was scheduled to begin at nine oclock, and Draco and I sat together at a small table in the middle of the room and waited for class to commence. I noticed Pansy Parkinson talking to Crabbe and Goyle, and Harry and his two friends were seated at a desk in the back of the room, conversing about an article in the daily newspaper.
At exactly nine oclock, a man in dark black robes the same color as his hair came bursting into the room, whom I recognized as Professor Snape from breakfast. His robes swirled around him as he turned quickly on his heel to face the class.
"Welcome, sixth years. I must say that I am not surprised to see some of you," he said, looking towards Draco and me, "and I am very surprised to see several of you," he looked towards Harry's table.
"Now, for today, we shall be brewing a love potion, and I am sure that you will not abuse the potion once it is made," Snape replied, looking in the direction of a large cluster of Gryffindors.
I noticed Draco grinning.
"The procedure is on the blackboard," he waved his wand towards a large board where words magically appeared, "and one person from each table shall go to the back of the room for the main ingredient, which you will not find just anywhere."
He moved quickly to the back of the classroom, and students from each table began to set up their supplies for the potion. Draco gave me a small smile before moving to the rear of the room for the special ingredient needed for the concoction. I began to unpack my bag of the items that would be needed for the mixture, which reminded me of the collapsing cauldron I had bought a month ago. I told myself to be sure that Pansy got it within the next few days, without her knowledge, of course.
After several minutes, I began to wonder what had happened to Draco, since it couldn't have taken that long to get an item from the teacher and come back. I turned around and found the reason immediately: Pansy. She was holding onto Draco's arm for dear life, keeping him from returning to the desk we were working at. I could feel my face getting redder every second I watched Pansy with her hands all over Draco. Even though I tried to calm myself down since I knew it would happen, I still jumped slightly when all the fires in the room ignited. A small fire soon blazed under every cauldron on every desk, and the fireplace roared with huge flames. I walked to where Draco and Pansy were standing.
"Draco, what's taking so long? We need to get started on this potion," I said, glaring at Pansy.
"What? You mean he didn't tell you? He decided he'd rather work with me," Pansy replied.
One look at Draco told me that she was lying through her teeth.
"Do you really expect me to believe that?"
'Well, actually..." Pansy began.
"Stop it, you two," Draco said with a glaze in his eyes from the fires, "come on, Elizabeth, I've got the ingredient, so we can go get started. Pansy, will you please get off me?"
Pansy reluctantly let go of his arm and crossed hers over her chest. Draco gave her one last look before heading back towards the front of the room. I glared at Pansy and raised my eyebrows quickly. To make it seem even more intimidating, I made sure that the flames rose with my eyebrows. Pansy seemed to get the message, and I stormed up to work with Draco. I made sure that Goyle put the wrong component into her cauldron, just so she could fail the potion assignment, too.
My other classes werent nearly as interesting. I had my Transfiguration lesson after lunch with Draco, and I merely spent the time watching my classmates trying to transfigure their desks into turtles. I had learned that spell at the Academie towards the end of my fourth year, so it didn't take long for my desk to become a turtle sitting on the floor. I turned it into a wooden desk and then into a turtle once again. I continued transfiguring the desk to the turtle and back again until I got bored of that.
I was glad when we were finally able to leave the classroom. Draco and I worked on our homework in the Slytherin common room for a while before going to dinner. As soon as we entered the Great Hall, I sensed that something was wrong. Eyes from all the tables followed us, but I couldn't figure out why. A group of Slytherins were crowded around one portion of the Slytherin table which parted as Draco and I approached.
"What's going on?" Draco asked with a smirk on his face.
"Apparently, someone decided that Pansy didnt deserve a seat at our table," said a Slytherin student in front of us.
I looked down, confused, and saw that the seat that Pansy normally occupied was charred and black.
"Hey, why's everyone crowding around my seat?" I heard Pansy say as she approached the table.
She stopped as soon as she saw the charred remains of her chair, and her jaw dropped. She glanced around the group and her eyes settled on me.
"How could you do this to me? Again?! First my robes and now my chair at the Slytherin table! What do you want from me?!" Pansy yelled at me.
"Look, I told you this morning that I didn't burn your robes, and I tell you now that I didn't do this either! I've been with Draco since the end of class!" I exclaimed, looking towards Draco for some help.
"What is the matter? Why are all of you yelling?" said Professor McGonagall as she came towards us.
"I'll tell you whats the matter! She," she began, pointing at me, "keeps burning my things! She burned my robes last night, and she burned my chair at the Slytherin table!"
"Miss Silverlio, is this true?" asked McGonagall, looking towards me with a slight frown on her face.
"Of course not! I didn't do anything that she's claiming!" I practically yelled at the professor.
"She's telling the truth, Professor," Draco interjected, "she's been with me since the end of your class.
"Well then, that's settled. Though the circumstances are unusual, she has an alibi, so there's nothing I can do," McGonagall replied.
Pansy was speechless. She looked from McGonagall and then to me with her mouth open. Professor McGonagall merely raised her eyebrows and walked off towards the head table. Pansy glared at me with a look of hatred in her eyes. I loathed that I was being blamed for something that I hadn't done, but I had to admit that it was a peculiar situation. Everyone knew that Pansy and I hated each other, and I figured that most would probably think that I really was guilty, no matter what Draco said.
All through dinner, the eyes of the other students remained on me. Every time I looked up from my plate, the other students would quickly look away from me and pretend to be engaged in conversation. I was glad when dinner was over and we were all allowed to leave. I was the first person in the common room since I practically ran to get away from all the cold stares I was getting.
Unfortunately, even though I was in the company of some of my friends, the atmosphere didn't change much. I sat in one of the chairs beside the fireplace, with my knees pulled up to my chest, resting my head on my kneecaps. Draco sat next to me in another chair, and Crabbe and Goyle were trying to play chess a few feet away. Every time I looked up from my knees, I could tell that there were Slytherins all over the room that were looking at me.
I glanced over in Draco's direction, who avoided my gaze and forced a smile. It was bad enough that everyone else in the school thought I was responsible for the burnings, but for Draco to avoid my eyes made everything even worse. Fed up, I stood up from the chair and headed towards the stairs that led down to the dormitories. No one said a word to me as I left, which was fine with me.
I descended deeper into the ground beneath Hogwarts, but the air did not get any cooler. I opened the door to the sixth-year girls' dormitory and walked into the darkness. I sent a ball of flames to the fireplace in the center of the room as I walked towards my four-poster bed.
"Not shy, are we, Firestarter?" I was surprised by the voice of Pansy.
I looked over my shoulder to the bed across from mine where Pansy was sitting. I sighed heavily and put my hands on my hips.
"Why should I be?" I asked her.
"You'd think," she began as she stood up, "that you would want to keep your powers under wraps, especially since everyone thinks you're a danger to our school."
"No one has anything to fear of me. I haven't done anything to anyone. Besides, why would I want to waste my fire powers on someone like you?" I retorted.
I could see Pansy getting madder every second.
"I'd watch myself if I were you," she replied.
"Why? It's not like I have any reason to be worried about you," I said.
"Take that back!" Pansy said, pulling her wand from her robes.
"I won't!"
"Furnunc--" Pansy began.
At that moment, I felt every part of my body heat with rage, and I felt flames erupt from every pore. I watched with blurred vision as Pansy's mouth opened in shock, and after that, I knew no more.
"Hang on, I think she's coming to..."
I opened my eyes slowly to find a large group of people above me.
"What happened?"
"That is we would like to know," I heard Snape say above my head.
"We heard a scream, and we all came running," Draco replied from the spot where he was kneeling next to me, holding my hand.
"What...? Pansy...she...she..." I stuttered, unable to remember much of what had happened.
"Pansy?" Draco looked puzzled.
"Yeah, she was just here," I said.
"Are you sure? Because no one has seen her since dinner," Draco asked.
"But...but, she was here!"
"What's going on with Lizzie now?" I heard Pansy's voice from the door of the dormitory.
"That's what were trying to figure out," Snape said over my head.
"Pansy, she was here. She was going to curse me..." I stammered.
"What are talking about, Lizzie? I've been in the library since dinner, hiding from you and your fire-starting ways," Pansy said, her hands on her hips.
"What? You were here just five minutes ago," I said from the floor.
"No, I wasn't. I just got here from the library," Pansy insisted.
"Are you sure you weren't just having a nightmare?" Draco asked.
"Draco, I might dislike the girl, but I'd never waste a nightmare on her," I answered.
"Why you little..." Pansy started, coming towards me.
Draco stopped her.
"Come on, Pansy. Calm down," he said.
"Why should I, Draco? She's done nothing but cause problems since she got here!" Pansy said.
Draco ignored her and rolled his eyes. He turned to me.
"Come on, we'd better get you to Madame Pomfrey," he said.
"It's okay. I'm alright," I insisted.
"No, Mr. Malfoy's right. You should probably spend the rest of the night in the hospital wing," Snape said.
Knowing I couldn't argue with Snape, I slowly climbed to my feet with Draco's help, and together we made our way to the hospital wing of the castle. Madame Pomfrey rushed about, trying to find me a pair of pajamas to wear and ushered me into a bed. Draco sat next to the bed, even though Madame Pomfrey tried desperately to get him to leave.
She left the room and came back a few moments later with a large bottle in her hand. She poured some of the liquid from the bottle into a cup next to my bed and handed it to me. I drank the bitter fluid and felt my eyes grow heavier every second that passed. I lay back against the pillow and was covered with a blanket from Draco's hands. I looked in his direction, and his face was the last thing I saw before I drifted off to sleep.