Over the next few weeks as the castle became cooler and more draughty, even the Ravenclaw sixth years began to realise that studying for their N.E.W.T.'s really was as nastily exhausting as the name suggested. Though Sapphy and her friends were used to getting top marks with little effort, they were now straining to keep up. In a way, Sapphy was glad to be so busy - without an idle moment her mind couldn't drift back to that night in the Astronomy tower. While she wasn't in the library she was spending precious and blissful hours with Noah in the grounds of the castle before darkness fell. She still had to see Zabini in Astronomy lessons of course, but she sat well away from him and studiously ignored his glances.
She couldn't help but notice a change in him, however. Sapphy had always possessed the ability to See aura - coloured light that emanated from a person and which changed according to mood. Some people's auras were barely perceptible, and the colours were washed out and pastel - or dark and muddy. Others were vibrant and effervescent - Lisa, for example, had stunned Sapphy on their first day of school when she had seen the beautiful, turquoise glow that surrounded her.
Zabini had always interested Sapphy mildly, because although they had never spoken before their fourth year, he had one of these unusual auras; he radiated a deep, crimson glow that had always drawn her eyes to him when their paths crossed. Ocean had taught her the symbolism of colours as a child and she knew his dark aura denoted power, a strong will, passion. But the colour had changed, she had seen, upon their return to school. It was brighter, a violent red that she couldn't remember ever seeing surrounding anyone else. It was unmissable and seemed to burn and pulse out of the corner of her eye.
On the cold, drizzly morning of the Quidditch try-outs, Sapphy and Lisa strolled towards the pitch arm in arm, cosily wrapped up in warm cloaks. They were looking forward to seeing Noah and Harry in action and glad to be free of the Ravenclaw common room where they had been practising the Augamenti charm all of the previous evening; Mandy had gotten the hang of it straight away and had been startling everyone with unexpected jets of cold water to the face ever since. They reached the pitch, which was thronged with Gryffindors in their Quidditch gear. Sapphy spotted Noah who was looking nervous and distracted while he listened to Cormac McLaggen who was regaling him with a long, detailed list of saves he had performed in the past. She tugged on the his sleeve of Noah's red and gold robes and he gave her a dimpled smile.
"Thank God you saved me from that idiot," he muttered as they sloped away. "Can I have a kiss for luck?"
Noah was determined to finally play as a Beater on the Quidditch team. He had always only just missed out to the Weasley twins in his first four years at school, and last year had been banned from playing by Dolores Umbridge after he had smuggled a Niffler into her office. Sapphy kissed him, knowing he didn't need luck. In an advanced crystal gazing lesson given by Professor Trelawney earlier in the week, she had gotten bored and decided to investigate whether he would make the team while staring into the clouded ball - she had seen him celebrating.
He went to take his place in one of the flying groups with McLaggan and Sapphy and Lisa walked to the stands where there were free seats beside the Patil twins and Lavender Brown. "Girls, sit here with us," called Padma bossily and the two sat down with some reluctance. Lisa had held a long grudge against Parvati ever since she had gone to the Yule ball with Harry Potter in fourth year and Padma, who had always been slightly stuck up, had become even more difficult to bear since becoming prefect.
"So Sapphy, Noah Proudlock - are you going out with him or not?" asked Parvati while Lavender giggled and Padma pretended to disapprove of her sister's nosiness - while being secretly interested.
"I don't really know," Sapphy said shyly.
"Oh nonsense," said Lisa. "He gave her this necklace, show them!" she cried and made a dive for the collar of Sapphy's cloak. Sapphy fended her off.
"Well that's the last good looking guy in the school taken," Parvati said gloomily.
"That's not true," said Lavender, as she watched Ron Weasley zoom around the Quidditch pitch, a dreamy expression on her face.
"I can't believe you'd ever consider him after that warning Professor Trelawney gave us in third year," Parvati said, sounding annoyed. "'Beware a red haired man?'"
"She warned you, not me!" Lavender said indignantly. "And she probably meant Artimus Moon, remember he set fire to your robes during our Transfiguration practical? Anyway, Ron's an amazing keeper and he fought off Death Eaters at the Ministry last year," she swooned while Padma rolled her wide, brown eyes. "I don't care what colour his hair is."
"Oh, yes, what a catch!" scoffed Padma. "I went to the Yule Ball with him, Lavender, and until I ditched him it was the worst night of my life."
Lavender shrugged and affected a haughty expression of indifference.
"Anyway, what about Hermione Granger?" asked Lisa in a hushed tone. Hermione was sitting not far from them, and while she was ostensibly absorbed by the tryouts, Sapphy got the impression that she was eavesdropping with all her might.
"What about her?" whispered Lavender huffily, though with a slightly guilty expression. "Didn't you read that Witch Weekly article about her in fourth year? It's Harry that Hermione is interested in."
Lisa gave Sapphy a look of horror.
"English boys are a waste of time," Padma said with disdain, as she watched Noah whack a bludger that sped violently and connected sickeningly with Harry Potter's head.
"Padma is still still going out with Leon from Beauxbatons," Parvati explained. "That is, if you consider being pen-pals the same as going out..."
"Shut up," Padma hissed. "You're just jealous that Remy never replied to your letter. Anyway, it doesn't really matter that there's no-one fanciable here, since Mum and Dad will probably be making us leave any day now."
Parvati's face fell and her sister sat back looking grimly satisfied.
"Really?" Lisa asked. She started to bite at her thumbnail.
"They're talking about it," Parvati said, her expression grave. "They sent us a letter about how dangerous it is at Hogwarts right now. Dad's a muggle born and Mum is worried that we'll be in danger from the Death Eaters if anything happens. I don't care what they say, though. Being murdered by them has got to be better than being stuck at home in the countryside."
"What a stupid thing to say," snapped Padma, as she looked apologetically at Sapphy. "Anyway, I'm not going to be stuck in the countryside because I'm going to ask them to relocate to Cannes."
The rest of the try-outs passed to a soundtrack of the twins bickering. As Sapphy had predicted, Noah was made Beater and his rowdy Gryffindor friends all rushed onto the pitch to congratulate him. "Well done Noah!" she called as he was hoisted onto their shoulders and carried back towards the castle to drink some butter beers.
"Sorry Noah's girlfriend… Ruby or whatever you're called, Noah has no time for snogging. He needs to come and drink butterbeers with us now," said a very large boy in a booming voice as he started carrying him away.
"Nice friends, Noah," Li called sardonically. "So charming!"
"Hey, we're not all that bad," another boy said apologetically. He had blonde hair and a very friendly smile - his aura was pleasingly rosy and Sapphy took an instant liking to him.
"Yes Noah, it seems that one of your friends at least speaks at a decibel level below deafening," said Lisa.
Noah seemed to be trying to apologise too, but he was laughing too much, and when Sapphy looked around after a minute, he had been carted off.
She had been distracted. The Slytherin captain, Grant Urquhart, had been waiting impatiently from the side of the pitch; he wasted no time in gathering the group of silver and green robed hopefuls around him as he rasped instructions. One of them was Blaise Zabini who didn't seem to be listening, but watching Sapphy.
"C'mon," said Sapphy hastily, pulling Lisa away and they began to trudge back towards the castle, both very cold and wet now. After a while, Sapphy realised she wasn't the only distracted one. Her friend was uncharacteristically quiet and she suspected that she might have been thinking about what the twins' had said about Hogwarts being dangerous.
"Sapphy, you don't happen to See anything bad happening to me, do you?" said Lisa after a while, in a casual, off-hand voice that sounded a bit forced. "Perhaps something like You Know Who taking over Hogwarts to torture and slay all the muggle-borns?"
Sapphy wrapped an arm around her.
"Because I hope you'd tell me if you did… or maybe I don't want to know…"
"No," Sapphy said honestly. She knew that Lisa would be safe. She knew the Patil twins would, too.
Glad to be in from the cold, they entered the Great Hall for dinner. After a warming stew the girls began to make their way up the marble staircase to return to Ravenclaw tower. As they entered they heard shouting and, looking around, saw Michael Corner and Cho Chang in a blazing row at a table in the corner. Taking a seat where Terry and Kevin sat playing chess by the fire, Sapphy couldn't help but turn to watch; the common room was quiet as many of the other Ravenclaws were also staring and trying to listen. Seeming to realise this, Cho suddenly got to her feet and ran towards her dormitory with a sob. Marietta Edgecombe, still quite spotty from last term, followed.
"What's going on there?" Lisa asked intently, bearing down on the boys. She was always careful to keep tabs on Cho's love life just in case she happened to pick back up where she left off with Harry Potter.
"She heard something about Michael 'spending a lot of time' with Megan Jones just before the Quidditch try-outs," Kevin explained sarcastically. "That's why she played so badly. Nearly lost out to Sarah Fawcett." Being Michael's best friend they took it that he was a good authority on the matter. Sapphy and Padma exchanged looks of sympathy for Cho. Megan Jones was a buxom Hufflepuff girl with honey coloured hair, big doe eyes and not much sense.
"I heard that, Kevin," came the sound of Michael's angry voice as he joined them, slumping moodily in one of the blue, wing-backed arm-chairs. "What are you looking at?" he said fiercely to a pair of timid first years who walked past quickly in alarm.
"So you're saying you haven't been playing footsie with her during those long study sessions at the library?" Kevin asked in a flat tone, as he urged his bishop to annihilate Terry's queen.
"We're just friends!" Michael cried, and Sapphy could tell that this was one of many times he had said this that day. "I've been helping her with her Arithmancy homework."
"Eloise Midgeon has been struggling with Arithmancy too, Michael," said Terry innocently. "Have you been helping her as well?" Everyone sniggered.
Michael looked enraged for a second, then slumped back in his seat as though defeated.
"None of this would have happened if Daphne bloody Greengrass hadn't seen us in the library," he moaned.
Daphne Greengrass was a Slytherin girl who was known and feared by everyone at Hogwarts for two things. She was famous for being intimidatingly beautiful with a thick mane of long, glossy dark hair, pale, creamy skin and striking silvery blue eyes. And she was infamous for the hellish rumours she was known to begin, spread and perpetuate with the help of her sidekick, Tracey Davis; these rumours were a nasty blend of truth and embellishment, perfectly concocted to cause optimum damage.
These two glamorously bad girls were also known to be some of the worst rule benders and breakers in all of Slytherin; yet Sapphy also knew that Daphne got the top marks in the History of Magic class they shared. She supposed that intelligence was necessary to build up the Encyclopaedic knowledge Daphne seemed to have accumulated of every embarrassing, shameful or incriminating secret of every student in the entire school.
"Well look on the bright side, Michael," said Kevin bracingly. "You don't have to worry about her still being in love with Potter anymore. You were always going on about that." He whooped in triumph as his rook took down another of Terry's knights.
But Michael could not be cheered and he sloped off towards the boys dormitories.
"Prat," Padma muttered, shaking out a copy of the Daily Prophet. "Why he thought he could handle one girlfriend, never mind two, is a mystery to me."
"And he claims to be the Arithmancy whizz," Terry said derisively while everyone laughed.
"Check mate!" Kevin cried over Terry's loud groans.
That night was a full moon and Sapphy, remembering Ocean's advice, took off the moonstone pendant and placed it on the windowsill in a beam of silvery moonlight. She got under the blue silk eiderdown of her bed and greeted Onyx who jumped up to lay on top of her chest for warmth. She rubbed her soft black fur idly and her mind, usually so deliberately occupied, drifted to a boy… Onyx gazed at her with green, half closed eyes and Sapphy stared back vacantly as she lay deep in thought.
He had found her near the edge of the Forest, where she was crying silently with her arms around her knees. The hem of her shimmering, opal coloured gown was muddied, but she was blind to this. She barely knew where she was, or how she had gotten there. She had just had her first vision.
She had been standing next to Jeremy Stretton, her partner, and they were watching the Champions opening the ball. The beautiful lights of the fairies and the drifts of decorative snow sparkled and cast a creamy glow on the complexions of the dancers. She watched Cedric Diggory as he looked into his partners eyes. She had never seen so much joy in someone's smile. And without any warning, Cedric's dead body lay in front of her, right at her feet. His young face was motionless, his eyes completely empty. She closed her own eyes, shook her head and when she looked again he was still there. Another Cedric danced with Cho Chang but this one seemed more real. He looked tangible. She got onto her knees in slow, horrified fascination. She reached out, and her trembling fingertips grazed his cheek. It was ice cold.
Sapphy couldn't remember anything between then and the Forest, but later Jeremy asked why she was gone from the Great Hall when he had turned to ask her to dance. She had run far away from what she had seen, and collapsed in the grass, desperately trying to convince herself that it was all right, that it wasn't real. But she knew with absolute certainty that it was. She sat there for a long time, feeling herself slowly dissolve into the coldness and the dark. Then someone was beside her, bathed in a crimson glow. Reality was dim by then. She felt like she was in one of the intricate, lucid dreams she sometimes had.
"Are you ok?" Blaise Zabini asked. "Sapphire?" She could remember how strange her name had sounded when he said it. His voice was like velvet. His face was structured so beautifully, dark, luminous skin pulled taut over the prominent bones of his cheeks. His lips were impossibly full. He reached out to touch the chilled flesh of her arm. His hand was so warm.
"You'll freeze here," he said. And that was when she pulled his warmth towards her, grasping his hand, his arm, touching his chest, his neck, his face. Feeling how every sinew in his body zinged with energy, with being alive. As soon as their lips met, she knew it wasn't a dream. But her body seemed to take over. When his teeth bit into her bottom lip, she pulled away. His slanted eyes were full of fire. She stumbled to her feet and ran.
She never told anyone. She sent Nan a letter about the vision, and got a sad reply. Ocean had always hoped that Sapphy would be spared from this kind of knowing, but she had to tell her that yes, it would happen, and no, there was nothing she could do. The kiss, however, remained a complete secret.
Only the two of them knew.