A/N: Today's chapter is a short one, but one that plants a few ideas for the future.
Friday November 1st, 1991
There were two things Melissa hadn't expected when it came to Halloween. The first was ending up bedridden and missing the entire feast. It had almost put a wrench in her plans when it came to Harry. Fortunately, Harry had enough wits about him to prevent the troll incident before it could even become an incident. The second thing she hadn't anticipated, however, was just what would happen with his new-found friendship.
"Is it true that you can cast the levitation spell wandlessly?" Hermione asked with a voice of awe.
Melissa flashed an accusatory look at Harry, and said boy promptly pretended to admire the curtains instead of meeting her gaze. Knowing that her gaze would lead to nowhere, she met with Hermione's attentive face. With nothing but an affirmative grunt, she turned to the herbology textbook on the nightstand and made a wand-like gesture with two fingers. At once, the book hovered upward, then followed her forced gesture as her fingers guided it in front of Hermione's standing figure.
"Incredible!" The girl gasped as she grabbed the textbook. "Nonverbal and wandless magic aren't even taught until NEWT classes. Did you really learn before coming to Hogwarts? How did you learn to do it?"
'Damn it, Harry.' Did the boy really have to give out that bit of information?
Rather than let her frustration show, she merely shrugged and gave an answer. "It was an accident, the first time. I was doing a motion similar to the wand movement when my sheet music started to float. It worked for about a third of the time, so I just kept practicing until it came easily to me."
Hermione looked enraptured for a moment, then closed her eyes and shook her head. "That can't be right. Practicing wandless magic is too difficult, especially when you're underage. Otherwise everyone from a magical family would be able to do it!"
"It doesn't work with magical families because they expect it to not work." Melissa's face grew smug. "If there's one thing I know about wizards, it's that they're stuck in traditions and traditional thinking. They limit themselves based on what the world around them says is or isn't true. You should know more than most that wizards aren't a logical lot." Melissa paused, a brief fact flitted in her mind. "Actually, a point in two facts, most wizards in other continents don't even use wands. Some use amulets, staffs, or runes, and some don't use anything at all. All because they traditionally don't so they never transitioned to wands. So, when you think about it, I just went about it the ultra-traditional way. Only difference is that I didn't have anyone around to tell me 'no one can do it' and giving me the expectation to not believe in myself and fail."
Hermione was quivering where she stood. Her hand twitched, as if wanting to grab at something. Chuckling to herself, Melissa patted her hand on a quill and spare parchment on the nightstand. "I take it that you want to write that down?"
Hermione practically pounced at the offer, happily taking to the nightstand to write down the information Melissa offered. While she wrote, Harry turned his 'attention' to the girls. "You'll be discharged before supper, right?"
"Mhmm. My knees are back in the right place, but my toes have a bit to go before they're back to normal." To demonstrate the point, she pulled the covers and wriggled her hoof-black toes."
Harry winced at the dark and still-hairy feet. "That must have hurt."
"Eh, it's no big deal. If I knew how to play the pan flute I might have kept them an extra day for a jaunt." The witch giggled at the thought. "Just call me Philoctetes, hero trainer extraordinaire!"
"You mean Chiron." Hermione asserted, eyes still on the parchment. "Chiron trained heros, and he's a centaur, not a faun."
"So you know your Greek mythology, well whoop-de-doo." Melissa sang aloud, then chuckled lightly at the diddy.
Hermione looked up with furrowed brows. "There's nothing funny about getting it wrong."
"It is if you get the joke." Melissa grinned. Harry facepalmed as he realized her meaning.
"What joke?" Hermione demanded.
Melissa tried to wave it off. "I just sang something from a cartoon. Said by a faun named Philocetetes who trained heroes."
"...Oh." Hermione blinked. "Well, I suppose that's alright, but you really ought to read a faithful telling of Greek stories. Isn't there a group of third years doing a self-study on Greek mythology?"
"Ugh, don't remind me." Melissa grumbled. "They're still trying to figure out what's being guarded in the third floor corridor."
"But it's being guarded by a cerberus! They could be killed!" Hermione gasped.
"Or worse, expelled." Melissa chortled.
No one else laughed. "That's not very funny." Hermione asserted. "How can that possibly be worse?"
That only made Melissa laugh harder. Eventually the laughter subsided. Wiping a tear from her eye, she looked at the bemused first years and chuckled with a dawning exasperation. "You know, the sad thing about all of this is that there is no way you two can possibly appreciate that joke."
A short while after Harry and Hermione left, the hospital curtain was pulled closed by another visiting first year.
"Mister Malfoy." She purred. "An unexpected pleasure." She closed her herbology book and put it gently onto the nightstand. Interlacing her fingers, she regarded him in a cool and calming tone as though she were not, in fact, a (reasonably perplexed) medical patient.
"Miss Bennett." He greeted her politely. He glanced back at the curtain, assuring himself that it completely obscured his presence. "I came to check in on you. Potter mentioned coming in to see you."
Quite recently. Went unsaid. She highly doubted the young Malfoy was simply in the area at the time.
"He introduced me to his new friend." She gave a cutting smile, enjoying the muffled displeasure in his eyes. "Quite a precocious one, isn't she?"
He huffed. "I suppose for a- … a Gryffindor."
"Indeed." She was rather enjoying the young Malfoy attempting to play nice.
"...I'm sure he told you about yesterday. About Granger and Weasley?" Curious about the mention, Melissa gave an affirming nod and allowed him to continue. "Though I can't say I'm surprised. The Weasleys are an unsavoury sort. After all, they did spend the past ten years harbouring a Death Eater."
Oh, cute, he's trying to play war. A puff of laughter left her nose before she could help it. The act stopped Malfoy's scheming in its tracks, bringing him to glare at her with slitted eyes. "If you don't believe me, fine!" He spun on his heel and made for the curtain.
"No, no. Please wait, Mister Malfoy." The attempt at decorum was rather obscured by the giggle that echoed between the lines. Fortunately, though, the young blond halted and faced her again. She gestured to the chair at her side, flicking her fingers at it to remove a discarded textbook. Turning back, she couldn't resist a smile at the boy's shocked expression. "Please, have a seat." The boy did so, though his expression seemed far more guarded. Melissa narrowed her focus on Malfoy, knowing what he was hoping to achieve yet at something of a loss as to how to counter it. "So tell me, what sort of relationship are you hoping to have with Harry?"
Malfoy frowned at the question. "What do you mean?"
"When you imagine yourself around him, what do you want it to look like? What's your goal?"
"My goal? ...To be his friend." He answered hesitantly. "Should there be any other reason?"
It was clear to her that the boy was evading the truth. She refused to take the bait, though. "What does friendship look like, in your eyes?"
He blinked. Searching for an answer. "Playing quidditch together, studying, talking about interesting subjects…"
Seeing his sense of loss, she added to the interrogation. "And how do you imagine that will fit around his other friends?" She took a moment to pause, Malfoy clearly not having an immediate answer, either. "Harry is a very welcoming person, with friends from different walks of life. Knowing your own self, is that something that you will be okay with?"
"I don't…" He paused, open-mouthed. The action made her wonder how the boy wanted to finish that thought. Certainly different than whatever words he's hoping to correct it with.
"Have you ever heard of a honey badger, Mister Malfoy?" The non-sequitur caused him to snap his mouth closed. Expression lost, he opened it again to mutter in the negative. Melissa, though, wasn't looking at him at that point. Her eyes drifted into the distance. "Fascinating creature, the honey badger. Fierce, fearless, one might even call them reckless if it wasn't for the fact of their resilience. They'll take on a pack of lions, deadly snakes, why- I've seen a honey badger be poisoned by a snake it's killed, only for it to sleep off the poison and continue eating the snake." She smiled at the thought, almost fondly. Her eyes flicked back towards Malfoy's. "Though I suppose a European badger is different, isn't it? Caring more about loyalty and friendship. It's not as though it has traits equal to a fierce predator, like a lion. If it were a blend of the two, it would certainly give one pause before trying to disturb its burrow-mates, wouldn't you agree?"
The boy paled to an interesting shade of ash. "...I imagine it would be."
"For certain. Though, look at the time! I should speak with Madam Pomfrey, now, before dinner. I hope you don't mind, Mister Malfoy?"
"Not at all." Malfoy stood up quickly. He gave a hurried but polite goodbye, then half-raced out of the hospital wing. Watching him, Melissa couldn't help but chuckle at the boy's retreat. Honestly, it's as if he forgot that she's a Slytherin, too.