Chapter 6-The Brown, Spotted Bird

I rest my chin on my crossed arms which sit on the banister to the seats of the Quidditch pitch. I love the sport. Sometimes, when I need to think, I come and watch the players and they make me wonder what it's like to really be in the sky. I've never really properly learned how to fly a broom before. I was terrified as a first year so the headmaster excused me from the classes. They weren't mandatory. I would've gotten my parents to get me a broom so I could fly high through the air, but the cards didn't fall into my favor there. I have no money. More than a little, I worry about the future. If no one ever remembers me, how will I ever get a job? How will I ever earn a living? I've always wanted children, but I see now there is no such option for my life unless I somehow break free from this wretched curse.

I watch a girl twist through the sky on her broom. Quidditch practice for the Ravenclaws was canceled because Lysander Scamander got a bunch of his team sick in the hospital wing, so I figure she must be of the lucky team members who didn't catch it. I couldn't be sure, though. She was wearing some strange robes, indeed. Some rope strangled her neck and fabric flowed down to her knees a bright orange color, fanning out like an umbrella every time she dipped low so I could see a denim material stretched tight across her legs. It was the strangest combination and I assume a muggle-born friend must be behind it. Perhaps Mary. They're the same age and both Ravenclaws after all. Or perhaps she has a muggle parent.

The girl seems frustrated, getting faster and sloppier, dipping her head back constantly when the ball she hits with her bat doesn't make it through one of the rings. She isn't very good. Eventually, I decide to leave. She's only making me anxious. I have Potions soon anyway. Not that I haven't already been there today, but the professor is giving a pop quiz I need to ace, as I always do on the written exams. There are advantages to living each day twice.

I make it to the bottom of the stands when I see a boy walking towards the girl who's hovering just above the ground just a few meters away. Leo. Concealing yourself in the stands is like trying to clothe a naked man with a few sticks, so I run and duck into the changing rooms before he steps onto the field.

"You can get a lot more power in that swing if you choke up on the bat," he calls over. The girl turns her head and I see her face clear in the midday light. He's as surprised as I am. It's George.

She dismounts and walks over to him. "And what would you know about keeping? You've never played a game in your life, Wespurt."

"I should say the same thing about you. At least I'm always around the players. I'm the announcer; I'm friends with half the school's players."

"I've played plenty of games with my family."

"Hasn't helped much with your aim, has it? Choke the bat."

She looks irksomely down at the bat in her hands before she notices him walking out of the pitch. "Where're you going?"

"Potions," he replies.

She shakes her head and slowly began walking towards the changing rooms. "Why would he walk over like he was going to talk to me and just leave?" She walks past me, slinging the bat over her shoulder. "And what in Merlin's name does it mean to choke a bat?"

I snap back to my senses as a letter drops before me, into my lap. It is crusty as the dried blood on a tooth, pasted over with chunks of mud and grass. I stare at it, sitting in my eggs, for a long while, wondering. No one ever sends me letters. Never. I have no person who would ever think of me enough to do so. A squawk issues from before me and a dotted brown owl drops before me, jutting its head in odd, broken movements. I don't recognize it.

I look around. "I'm sorry," I tell it, tentatively touching its feathered head. "I don't have any food for you." It cocks its head and dips its beak into my eggs, moving them around on my plate like a little game.

I look down at the letter. For me, a crowded room may as well be empty, so I use a knife to cut the envelope open, leaving behind a fragile bit of folded parchment with water-stained ink. I unfold it carefully, enjoying the crinkling sound it makes as I spread it out on the table. At first, I'm not quite sure what it is. I think it must be a joke, but who would pull it? Frieda might think of such a thing, but it would surely slip from her mind. Besides, her owl is a snowy white with razor talons the color of wine. Still, I sit there wondering. Who could this be? No one knows me. My own parents have turned their heads from my face, ripped me away from their memories like a gossamer cobweb they'd accidentally walked through. In summertime, I sometimes sit in my old room, wondering what they thought of the Quidditch pictures I had along the wall that have long been torn down, wondering who they think that girl in their photo album is, wondering who they thought the bright pink comforter was for before it was replaced with a flowery blue and white one.

I look over the paper. It's a swirling masterpiece of ink, turning and cavorting about the page. I've never seen a page quite like it where the designs around the outside wink in my direction, grazing the outside words. It's difficult for me to concentrate on what it says with so many distractions, but years of reading the Daily Prophet has subjected me to moving pictures. It reads:

The Living Pearl

This particular Goblin artifact draws its date back to the goblin craftsman, Baxg (pronounced as bay) Gearshatter, who constrcted it deep in the mountains of modern day Switzerland. For his time, goblins and wizards alike considered Baxg a mad craftsman, so infatuated with his own work, he had driven himself deep into the ground of a mountain that none dared to go within. The Weisshorn Mountain is a famous breeding ground of the Dementors. There is their territory where they do not hesitate to feed on the souls of any who enter. It is relatively unknown as to how Baxg was able to stay tucked away within this particular mountain range for fourteen years, though it has been speculated that he was able to make a deal with the Dementors.

Within the mountain, Baxg used its unique magical properties and even more rare metals to construct what he referred to as the Living Pearl. So infatuated with his own work was Baxg that he created a stone that would increase his brainpower and skill exponentially when harnessed correctly. When Baxg returned to the outside world, he was treated as an outcast. Instead of selling his invention, he kept it for himself to aid in the creation of other inventions, but the Living Pearl needed to be swallowed in order to have any effect and was scarcely believed to be in existence for the simple fact that no one had ever seen it.

Baxg was eventually banished by Bulgaria's magical authorities for his ludicrous creations and lived the rest of his life out in Britain. Today, many of his inventions are revered and goblins and wizards alike have officially repealed their original statements about him. There is currently standing a museum dedicated to his achievements. Since Baxg's rise in popularity, the story of his famed Living Pearl spread like wildfire and his body was later exhumed, people naturally assuming he never bothered removing it to pass on since he had no kin. The grave site was found to have no mysterious pearl in it, though, and since then it has become the quest of every historian or another at one point in his or her life to find the thing. Many goblins have even made excursions into the Weissorn Mountain never to be seen or heard from again.

It appears the Living Pearl will forever remain a mystery of goblin craftsmanship; however, it has been declared by scholars to be nothing more than a myth.

I pop my head back up to meet the glowing hazel disks of the owl before me. "Who sent this to me?" I ask it.

"Hoot," it responds.

I bite my lip. "I don't speak owl," I tell it apologetically. "And I don't have a treat for you. But thank you." I look back at the page and turn it over in my hands to make sure there's no writing for me. None. "That is odd," I note as I fold it up and slip it in my bag. "Can you take me to your master?" I ask it. It doesn't move. "That is bad news. Well, I'll figure something out. Goodbye, then." I get out of my seat, but as soon as I turn around, two sharp hoots call my attention. I swivel back to see it flinching, light brown plumes that stick out of its head waving back and forth. It suddenly flaps up and rests itself on my shoulder, hooting softly. I tentatively walk forward. It doesn't fly off.

I decide to head to the Ravenclaw table where Frieda is engrossed with Lorcan's tales of woe. "Frieda," I say. "Lorcan. I'm sorry to interrupt, but this bird—"

"Get a new bird, Sacajawea?" Mary asked.

"Sacajawea?" I ask. "I thought it was Pocahonor."

"Pocahontas. Sacajawea's just another one."

"There are two famous muggle Native Americans?" Frieda asked with fascination.

"More than that," Mary smirked, "only I don't think she'd like being called Squanto or Sitting Bull."

"Why not?"

"I'm sorry," I tell them again. "But this bird. Who's is it?"

"Looks like Leo's," Lorcan commented. "I didn't know you two were friends."

"I didn't know you were so oblivious!" Frieda squealed. "He couldn't stop talking about her the other day! I think he fancies her."

"Er…don't know how to break this to you, Frieda, but Leo fancies girls about as much as Albus."

"That is to say, not at all," Mary agreed. "He never talks to girls, like he's afraid of us or something. It's kind of weird."

"Well, he's friends with Pocahontas," Frieda states flatly.

"We are not friends!" I shout angrily. I shoo the bird from my shoulder and walk off as it flaps over the table.

"What is Leo's bird doing here?" Lorcan asks, the conversation dropping from his mind instantly.

The feathered creature follows me, though, resting on a nearby perch outside the Great Hall. The late September air leaks into the school, the wind moaning my name outside. I stand there unable to take it. Is this my vision? Could I track down Leo and make him tell me what his game is, then wake myself and know without him suspecting I do? Or is this real? I can never tell. My reasoning is off here. Every time I think of it, my mind wanders, my vision blurs and magnifies as if drops of water are being placed in my brain and eyes. The thought of it makes me feel colder than ever.

I have an idea. It's rather provocative, I must say, but I don't appreciate getting a taste of my own mysterious medicine. I extend my arm towards the bird and it comes straight to me, as I suspected it would. I stroke its feathers with my fingers and it coos as I walk to Transfiguration.