Wednesday 16th
October
Blondie’s challenged Potter to a midnight duel. Of all the
stupid things to do. He’s so publicising it too. I’m surprised that the
teachers haven’t given him detention already. “Oh, that Potter boy and the
weasel won’t know what hit ‘em,” he jeered at the Slytherin table at dinner
time. By ‘the weasel’ I had figured out that Blondie was referring to Potter’s
red-haired, freckly friend, Weasley. I kept my head down, in case socialising
with him earned me the detention that he deserves.
Okay, so I had Jed
explain to me everything involved in a wizarding duel. Basically, it’s a lot
like when two people in a Weston movie agree to a draw. Two wizards stand back
to back, take so many paces then turn around and shoot a spell at one another.
“It usually roles in a sort of attack, defence pattern,” Jed explained.
“Whoever wins the attacking spell first usually casts a defensive one next.
Then his opponent tries to attack, only to get a hex thrown back at him. In
real duels it isn’t over until someone gets seriously hurt – or dies.” Throwing
a hand over my mouth, I gasped.
“Is that even legal?” I squealed when
he told me.
“This sorta thing can happen a lot,”
said Jed with a shrug. “So longs as the intentions aren’t to kill or to cause
life-long harm or distress, then it’s legally okay with the Ministry. Causing
death isn’t legal, but it’s been known to happen. Usually a duel comes about
when two people want to prove their powers to another, or I guess the old
fashioned way would be to fight for a hand in marriage – the wizard who lasted
the longest in the duel would win the hand of the bride.”
I felt the frown on my
forehead deepen the more Jed spoke. I don’t know why I was so surprised. I’ve
heard of so much stuff that wizards get away with that no one back home would
ever dream of. Like letting First-Year students near an open fire, use
chemically dangerous ingredients for potions and walking up and down the
winding staircase of an eroding castle. This just seemed so, so… stupid. I’ve
seen Westerns. None of them end well for one of the characters. Someone dies.
Someone always dies.
“He won’t go through
with it,” Jed declared as Blondie got up and went to go and boast to some
Fifth-Years. “His dad would never let ‘im ‘ear the end of it – an’ he knows
it.” Stuffing a huge spoonful of mash potato in his mouth Jed grumbled, “He’s
all talk.”
Staring over at Malfoy
I found myself smiling. That boy wasn’t stupid. I bet he knew what he was
doing: creating a huge deal over something, making it look so ginormous that
the entire school knows about it. Everyone will be expecting a result from it.
But, he won’t show. Not that he’s chicken, no, there’s logic behind it. A
midnight duel? The school rules state that all students below Fifth-Years must
be in their rooms by eight o’clock and even the older students aren’t allowed
out after ten. Teachers must be on the prowl around the school at night. Arh
ha! Ghosts don’t need sleep. I bet the ghosts patrol the corridors at night –
parading up and down, keeping a watchful eye out for students. Blondie’s
expecting that Potter’s so hot-headed that he’ll follow through with it – anything
to get back at Malfoy. But if Blondie doesn’t show up, Potter and Weasley will
get busted for sure. Good plan Blondie. Good plan.
*
I hadn’t realised that six whole weeks had gone by
already. This morning at breakfast, Jed received another letter from home. As
his little brown, speckled owl perched herself down beside Jed’s bacon and
eggs, I stared at the envelope that she had dropped in front of her. Jed’s
mom’s handwriting was quite swirly – you could tell that a lot of time had
always gone into her letters. They weren’t scruffy and the ink hadn’t smudged
(like what had happened with my History of Magic homework yesterday). The
envelope simply read:
‘Mr. J. Edwards,
Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.’
As he opened it, I leant a little closer, trying to read
it over his shoulder. She asked him how school was, hoping that he was doing
well in all of his classes. She asked if he was eating well – he definitely
wasn’t starving – I could tell her that. Jed’s just lucky that he has a fast
metabolism. If I’d have eaten all what he did, I’d have probably nearly gained
a stone by now. She asked how Vince and Blondie were – wanting to make sure
that the boys had been keeping out of mischief. At the end of her letter, she
even asked about me and Josie.
‘And I hope that your friends MJ and Josie are doing
alright too. They sound like lovely girls and I’m glad that they seem to be
keeping you in your place. Send them my best wishes.’
Pinching my lips
tight, my eyes started welling up. That was so kind of her… and I didn’t even
know her. This was the third letter that Jed had received from his parents
since we had started, which I’m guessing means that he’s probably only ever
sent her two letters back and he’s already spoken about me and Josie to her.
Nudging my elbow, Jed
said to me, “My mom says t’ say, “Hi,” so, hi MJ.” I laughed at him.
“She seems really nice,” I told him.
Jed just shrugged.
“She’s okay,” he said through a
mouthful of breakfast.
“You must thank her for me,” I said. “I
mean it Jed.” He’d probably forget – I’ll have to try and find him when he
decides to write back to her and bug him constantly until he does.
Smiling, I watched
Peggy nuzzle her head against Jed’s arm. Looking down at her, Jed rubbed a
thumb to her head. “At a girl,” he said with a smile. “You’re doin’ great, you
know Peg. You haven’t dropped a thing in my breakfast all week.” Pulling apart
a bread roll, Jed held the softer, fluffier side towards his owl. She nipped at
it, pulling out little bits.
“Can owls eat bread?” I asked him.
“Dunno,” replied Jed. “But Peggy seems
t’ like it.”
Biting the inside of
my cheek, I gazed down at the letter from Jed’s parents. My stomach swirled my
porridge around, like clothes in a washing machine. I let my spoon sink into
the bowl. I shuddered. Jed turned to me and asked, “You okay MJ?”
“I’m fine,” I told him. “Just
thinking.” As I went back to staring at the letter again, I sang out, “Je-ed…”
“Whar-art?” he replied, copying me.
Turning towards him, I asked, “Do you
think that, maybe I could borrow Peggy sometime? It’s just I realised that I
haven’t actually written home yet and I was thinking that maybe… if I wrote to
my folks… maybe she wouldn’t mind taking it for me… please?”
“Course,” Jed smiled. “J’st let me know
when you’ve written it an’ we’ll take it t’ the Owlery.” The Owlery is the
place where all of the school’s and students’ owls live. I haven’t been there
before, but Scarlett pointed it out to me once as we walked from Herbology to
Charms. It’s a large section of the far-left side of the castle. When Scarlett
pointed it out to me, we saw a couple of owls swooping into a window. I bet it
must be quite busy and noisy being as it’s full of so many owls. I bet there
are feathers everywhere. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
*
Throughout the day I’ve been scribbling away at my letter
home. I chose to write it to Viki in the end, because I felt a little strange
writing to my parents. I just felt like Viki would understand me more and would
get excited about things like I did. Anyway, I’m sure I wrote about everything.
I made a list of everything that I wanted to say. That
seems like everything. If Viki, somehow, writes back then if there’s anything
that I missed out, I guess I could tell here then.
*
The Owlery was amazing. Jed took me there straight after
dinner. I was a little worried that we might get lost, as we had to walk down
parts of the school that I had never been to before. Thankfully, Jed knew where
we were going. “Just one more right turn,” he said as he led me along a thin,
cobweb filled corridor. Turning right we appeared outside. Jed took me up a
winding staircase. The higher we climbed the fiercer the wind became. Clawing a
hand through my hair, I felt like it had turned into a fuzzy nest by the time
we reached the top. Walking towards an archway in the wall, Jed said “And here
we are,” holding a hand out for me to step inside first.
Squawks sounded as a
blast of cold air swept into the tower. I pulled my robes tight around me. The
room which we now stood in was round and completely full of owls. And I mean
completely full. Everywhere we turned there were hundreds of barn owls with
their long brown feathers rustling. Then there were snowy owls – however there
were very few of these. And, also, grey and tawny owls with really wide eyes;
one hooted at me as I walked past. I felt like we were standing in the centre
of a feather farm. Malting feathers littered the floor. In places piles of them
lay almost ankle deep.
Looking up straight
ahead, I noticed that the windows here weren’t full of glass, which would
probably explain why it was so cold. I realised that it was so that the owls
could fly freely in and out of the castle as they pleased – this made me smile.
I’d hate to imagine them all cooped up in cages. As I was gazing up, a rather
elegant-looking, brown, speckled owl shot through the window. Zooming to a
space on my left, it nested down, ruffling up its feathers. Staring at it, I
noticed its beak was much narrower and vertically pointed than all of the
others. “The Malfoys’,” Jed muttered at my side. “It’s an Eurasian eagle-owl –
pretty expensive bird.” Arching my head over my shoulder, I turned to face Jed,
but he spun away, trying to locate Peggy. One of the tiniest of all the owls, I
found out that Peggy was actually a type of scops owl, which is why she is so
tiny. Jed gave her my letter and stroked her head.
“Will she be okay?” I asked Jed. I
didn’t want to borrow his owl if she wasn’t capable of flying the distance of
my parents’ house.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Jed smiled.
“Peggy’ll be fine. Won’t ya, Peg?” Peggy gave a little squawk, before
fluttering of her perch and shooting off into the night sky.
- Josie -
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