Saturday 21st
September
By the end of the week I was so happy with myself. I’ve
managed to do my first spell. Even in Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall
told me that I was so close; she can sense my potential to be an excellent
witch – how amazing was that. I was beaming from ear to ear when I came out of
her class on Wednesday. Professor Binns even gave me a ‘Congratulations’
comment on my History of Magic homework – now to get a compliment from that guy
is pretty awesome. I’m yet to get a note of acknowledgement from Professor
Snape, but I think it’s all a matter of time. He’s growing on me. At first I
wasn’t too sure about him; I mean if his appearance wasn’t enough to make me
think that he should have been cast as the bad guy in some spooky sixties
movie, he’s one of the strictest and most coldest people I have ever known.
That said, I’m really warming up to him. It may have a little something to do
with him favouring Slytherin and how amusing it is to see him torment the
Gryffindors in Potions class, but I’m definitely becoming a Snape fan.
*
Following on from my positive week, I met Josie and Jed in
the library on Saturday afternoon. We had decided that this was the best time
to study being as loads of the students were having a food eating contest in
the Great Hall. At first, I was surprised that Jed didn’t want to go, but being
as he’d stuffed his face at every given opportunity these past three weeks, the
sight of food was now making him feel sick. “I told you not to eat all those
pork chops with your cave of potatoes last night,” I told him when he gripped
his stomach and groaned at the breakfast table this morning.
“I couldn’t help it,” he whimpered,
throwing up the hood to his thinning over-baggy bluey-grey hoodie. “They tasted
so good.” I just smirked and rolled my eyes at him. It was a self-inflicted
injury.
Upon first hearing
about it, I had wanted to go to the food eating contest that the Weasley twins
had organised. It sounded like fun. However, I think that I must have had a
similar problem to Jed. I hadn’t eaten loads, but even I couldn’t resist an
extra helping at last night’s dinner. It was delicious. I didn’t feel sick,
like Jed; but saying that I was a little bloated would be an understatement.
Josie didn’t seem
fazed by the food eating contest either way. She didn’t mention it at all. Jed
and I spent most of the first hour asking Josie things that we were stuck on
with our homework. “Which one came first again: Emeric the Evil or Uric the
Oddball? It was Emeric, right?” asked Jed.
“No,” Josie sighed sliding her purple
glasses up her nose as she looked up at Jed. “Emeric the Evil was about during
the end of the Middle Ages, around the fourteen or fifteen hundreds. Uric the
Oddball was born in the year nine-hundred-and-eighty-two.” Scratching his head
with the spine of one of his textbooks, Jed frowned at her.
“An’ how do you know that?” he asked.
“It’s in your textbook,” Josie exclaimed.
“Right…” I said slowly, looking from
Jed to Josie. “So was Emeric before or after the Snow Blizzard?” I asked as I
glanced down at my parchment and pinched the bridge of my nose. Oh, how I hate
History.
“Snow Blizzard?” Josie repeated in the
form of a question. She stayed quiet for a while, so I looked up and spotted
her tapping her nails against her textbook while she gazed at the wall. “Oh
wait,” she said with a smile as she turned to me. “You mean the Soap Blizzard
of thirteen-seventy-eight?” I shrugged.
“How does she know all this stuff?”
asked Jed.
“Simple,” she retorted. “I actually listen in class and read the textbooks. Seriously,” she said with a giggle. “Where
would you two be without me?” I know that this sounds bad, but she was right.
Okay, I’m getting stuff, but I wouldn’t understand half as much as I do without
her help.
After studying the
History of Magic for over an hour the dates, names and places all began to
swerve around in my mind. I liked learning about it, but sometimes things were
just a little too much. Jed was the first to cave in. “No, I can’t take it
anymore,” Jed groaned and thumped his head against the desk. “How does wearing
a jellyfish on your head and sleeping in a room with Augureys relate to why he
terrorised half-bloods and Muggle-borns?”
“It doesn’t,” Josie laughed. “You’ve
got the two mixed up again. Emeric the Evil was the slaughterer. Uric the Oddball
was just an eccentric Ravenclaw – haven’t you heard the jokes?” As neither of
us responded to her, she didn’t bother explaining herself further. I seriously
don’t think that my head could have handled it anyway – it felt like it was
hailing soap balls on my brain. “Doesn’t matter,” Josie said seeing that Jed
and I were both too brain dead to be able to handle any more of her
ever-expansive knowledge.
Jumping up from her
seat, Josie announced that she’d be back and wandered off down an aisle of
books. While she was gone, I stared at her jacket that hung on the back of her
chair. I was mesmerised by those same coloured buttons that caught my attention
the first time that I met her. She really was creative. I’d have never thought
of sewing buttons to a jacket – not that I can sew. She’s always wearing
brightly coloured bracelets, coloured scarfs in her hair or has decorated some
item of clothing in such a way that I would never have expected to do. But what
I loved most was that not once has she retorted to one of the Slytherin girls’
sly remarks about her unusual accessories. She’d just shrug it off. It was
amazing. She was amazing. I must
remember to tell her that sometime. Being around her just makes me want to be
creative about something. I wouldn’t know where to start. What if it looked
silly? What if I liked it and no one else did? I guess that was part of the
risk that came with creativity.
Hearing the rhythmical
pattering of Josie’s shoes as she skipped back to us, I tried to look perky.
Rubbing my eyes, I pushed myself up from my parchments and sat up straight.
“Here we are,” said Josie with a huge smile and wide eyes. She placed a
discoloured yellow book on the table, with her little bracelet full of tiny
keys jangling all the while.
“Not more reading,” Jed grumbled.
“Nope,” Josie sang out. “Watch.”
Bending down, Josie whipped her wand out from her right boot, and pointed it at
the book (I also wanted to point out that I find where she keeps her wand
amazing. Whenever Josie wears her black cowboy boots, she always keeps her wand
hidden inside her right one. Isn’t that so cool? I just keep mine in my pocket
or in my bag – how boring. Okay, my new task for the next week or two is to
find a new and unusual place to store my wand).
“Ducklefors!” she
called out as she slashed her wand downwards and onto the book. A bright yellow
beam sparked as her wand made contact with the book. As she waved her wand away,
I gasped. Jed leapt back, nearly falling off his seat.
“Quack!” It was a duck. Josie had
transformed her book into a bright yellow duck. “Quack!”
“What the fudge?” exclaimed Jed with
wide eyes, clawing a hand through his bushy curls. “How in the name of Merlin
did you do that?” Josie shrugged and muttered an incantation returning the duck
back into a yellow book.
“It was pretty cute, don’t you think?”
she asked.
My mind was blown
away. I’ve only just managed to get a feather to float, I can’t even turn a
matchstick into a needle, yet Josie can turn a book into a duck. A bright
yellow, fluffy duck. I sat there with my mouth open. I had no idea how to
respond to that. There was no way to respond to that. It was just out of the
blue – or should I say yellow.
“I think it works best
with a yellow textbook,” Josie said as she bounced back up to return the book
to its place on the shelf.
When she returned, Jed held a hand to
his mouth and through a fake cough said, “Show off.”
“Am not!” Josie replied with a hard
stare.
“Are too!” snapped Jed folding his
arms.
“You could do it too if you only tried
hard enough instead of spending all of your spare time goofing off,” she
declared.
“Goofing off!” Jed raged. “Who do you
think you are? How dare you judge me?”
“Alright,” she said sharply. “Was it or
was it not you, Vincent and Gregory who threw Dungbombs into the girls’ toilets
on the second floor? Or who replaced Neville Longbottom’s wand with a trick
one, so that every time he tried to cast a spell a cascade of slugs shot out
everywhere? And let’s not forget how Hermione’s Potions textbook got covered in
salamander blood so that all of the words ran – was that not you too? How about
Hannah Abbot’s homework turning into confetti – does that ring a bell to you?
Or what about the chocolate syrup on the benches at the Gryffindor table in the
Great Hall? Huh? Are you trying to tell me that you were innocent in all that?”
Folding her arms,
Josie cocked an eyebrow up at Jed. Throughout her little rant, he remained
silent. He just sat with his nose snarled at her. “I have witnesses Jack –
don’t even try to deny it. So if you want me to help you, I suggest you grow up
and study.”
“It’s First-Year for the love of
Merlin. Can’t you can the lectures?” he growled. Slamming his fist against the
table, Jed pushed himself up out of his chair. “I’ve had it with you always
having a go at me. Do this, do that. No Jed, that’s not right.” His arm shook
as he pointed a finger towards her. “You’re such a stuck up know it all.”
“Fine,” snapped Josie standing up to
face him. “But I’ll let you know: I don’t
rub it in your face when I can do a spell that you can’t. I don’t tell you to do the work yourself
when you ask for help, even though I had to figure it all out on my own
– especially when you’re the one who
comes from a fully functional wizarding family background. I don’t lecture you to study all day and
night. Goodness Jack, I’d flip out if
I had to. Just quit having a go at me when you don’t get it first time round.
Jeez, what d’you think I am, some sort of robot? I have to practise too, you
know.” Running a hand through her hair Josie turned her head away from us,
puffed up her cheeks and exhaled. “I only showed you Ducklefors, because I
thought you’d find it funny. If I knew you’d flip out I never would’ve
bothered.”
Leaning over the
table, Josie spread her hands out and pushed together all of her papers and
notes. Taking the quill out of her inkpot she threw it down on the table and
snatched the lid. Spots splattered on the table. Not knowing where to look I
stared at the smudges of ink. While Josie shoved all of her things into her
bag, Jed dropped back down into his seat. “You don’t have to go,” I squeaked,
as Josie snatched her jacket and looped the strap of her bag over her arm.
“I’d rather live through more taunts
from your precious roommate Posey Pansy than spend another second at this
table,” she snapped.
“Sorry,” Jed mumbled as Josie spun
around to leave. Josie turned back around slowly and gazed at him. Jed
continued to stare at the table. “I didn’t mean it,” he muttered, barely moving
his mouth.
“Me either,” she whispered tracing a
circle with her finger on the top of her chair. “I’m sorry too,” she said with
a shrug. Catching me looking at her, Josie glanced in my direction. I jerked my
head towards her chair, hoping that she would stay. She shook her head. “No. I
should go.”
“You’re not gonna be able t’ answer
Binn’s question on soap trade if ya leave,” said Jed looking up at her with his
eyes, keeping his head low. Josie turned her head to him. “I’ve got the last
‘Medieval Madness in Magic’ textbook…” A smile poked its way into the corner of
Jed’s mouth as he could tell that she was fighting with herself.
“Fine,” she said with a slight smile as
she rolled her eyes. Hooking her bag onto the back of the chair, she slid back
into her seat and pulled her paper back out. “I’ll stay.”
Phew. I’m glad that’s over. I knew
these two could argue, but boy, do they argue. My head panged. I already had a
headache from studying, but this took it to a new level. I thought they were
going to kill each other. And there wasn’t a teacher or librarian around to
stop it. I guess you could say that stress gets to everyone, but if this is
only the third week in the school year, I’d hate to see these two coming up to
end-of-year exams.
- Josie -
