A Bucket of Hexes

CHAPTER FOUR

A Bucket of Hexes

I puzzled over it all through Ancient Runes, a lesson for which Terry did not appear. Meaning to consult him about the best way to warn off the girls, I went to meet him in the hospital wing afterwards. But Madam Pomfrey shooed me away from the door. "Boot needs to sit quietly in his bandages for half an hour yet," she said. "If he fidgets he'll come unravelled and we'll have to start again, so I'm saying no visitors. Oh... but since you are here, Corner, could you ask Professor Sprout for some supplies?"

She gave me a long shopping list, which had to be taken all the way back to the greenhouse, and then the box of herbs had to be carted all the way back up to the infirmary. After Madam Pomfrey had finished thanking me, Terry was still being kept quiet behind the door, and I was very late to lunch.

I was not the only one. As I rushed down the last few steps to the Entrance Hall, a door to my left was flung open, and there were also swift footsteps to my right – the other latecomers were obviously as ravenous as I was. I skidded to a halt with a second to spare as the person on my right, not bothering to slow down, charged straight into my pathway. With an almighty crash, the person on my left was bowled onto the floor, while a number of dense objects smashed around our ankles.

"Troglodyte!" That was Zabini's voice.

"Watch it!" I held out my hand to the person on the floor.

"That hurt! And you've dropped something." These unnecessary observations came from Zacharias Smith of Hufflepuff.

Zabini glowered at us, although the accident had very obviously been his own fault. He was carrying his bucket, and the dropped objects were small white stones. Zacharias, with a resentful glare, began to help picking them up, while I stared stupidly. Those stones... if I could take them away... I actually had one in my hand before I came to my senses. Whatever mischief Zabini was planning, that didn't make it right for me to steal his property. The stone felt surprisingly sticky, as if I could leave fingerprints on it.

"What are you doing? Those are mine!" Zabini rounded on me furiously even though I was handing his stone back to him. "I've hexed them. Don't bring down curses upon yourselves!"

"So sorry!" muttered Zacharias sarcastically. "Next time a lout knocks me out without apologising, I'll not try to help him! Next time I'll be a thug too!"

"How have you hexed them?" I asked.

"Never mind. But now you have poked your fingers where they weren't wanted, don't be surprised if you find you can't tell anyone about this little adventure. Accio, stones!" And they clattered back into the bucket.

"If I was finishing my Potions essay," said Zacharias, "and Zabini was hexing stones, what's your excuse?"

"Errand for Madam Pomfrey. But, listen, Zacharias, about those stones..." I launched into an explanation of the bet. Zacharias, the unlikeliest confidant, listened agog. We sat down back to back, so that I had a clear view of the Slytherin table. But Zabini didn't sit down at all; he ambled over to the Hufflepuffs.

"Zacharias," I craned my neck around to the seat behind me, "can you see what Zabini's doing?"

"Nothing much," replied Zacharias. "He's speaking to one of the girls. No, I'm not knowing her name, she's not in fourth year."

I shifted my gaze cautiously. But Zabini had apparently finished. He was walking away from a block of Hufflepuff girls, slipping something into his pocket and grinning. At the very end of the row he stopped to speak to another girl.

But he can't do that, I thought. That one looks as if she's only in first year. Besides, he's in plain view of the first victim there – he can't go chatting up Number Two in front of her and still expect to have a third opportunity later!

"He touched that little girl with one of his hexed stones," Zacharias muttered in my ear. "What's he up to?"

"He was asking her to the ball," I began to explain.

"That kid? Fat chance! Use your common sense – more likely hexing her with blisters."

So perhaps that was Zabini's ploy: only ask girls whom no-one could suspect him of asking. But how on earth was he going to stop the girls finding out they were being twenty-timed when they discussed his invitations with one another?

After lunch Terry appeared, his hands as good as new, and we borrowed school brooms to practise flying. But the air was so cold and gusty that it wasn't very pleasant. Padma, stamping her feet on the iron ground, complained that it wasn't much fun for her to crick her neck in order to "watch boys mucking around".

"Well, you have a turn flying, then," I offered, holding out my broom.

"No, thanks, you know I don't fly very well."

"Then make yourself some fire and read a book on the side. Or go indoors and do something completely different. Honestly, it doesn't matter to me whether you're watching or not."

"Nice," she muttered to the dead grass. "My boyfriend doesn't care whether I'm there or not!"

"Don't be silly, of course I care. What I'd like best would be if you would fetch your own broom and fly with us. But only if you want to. If that isn't what you want, it doesn't make much difference to me what other option you take."

"Of course, it wouldn't occur to the great Michael Corner," Padma flared, "to give up his flying and spend half an hour doing something that I choose. After all, it isn't exactly as if you're the offspring of Mercury – neither you nor Terry will ever be the stuff of school Quidditch teams."

I thought that was rather uncalled for, so I suppose I was somewhat sharp in asking what alternative activity she'd had in mind.

"I can't decide offhand!" she almost shouted. "I haven't had a moment, for nearly a year, to think about how I'd choose to spend the lunch hour if I didn't have to consider you. But just give me a moment, and I'll think of something, with you or without!" And she stalked off the Quidditch stands, with Morag faithfully trailing five paces behind.

Terry landed beside me. "What was that about?"

"Don't know," I said truthfully. "Girls are just moody sometimes, I suppose. Lately it seems that every little thing is setting Padma off into a dramatic fight."

"Seasoned with too much salt?" he asked. "A sign you're becoming bored with her?"

I stared at him. "No, of course not!" But as we trudged back to the broom shed, it did cross my mind that one possible reason for Padma's touchiness was that she was perhaps becoming bored with me.

Our History of Magic lesson was less torpid than usual. Instead of going to sleep while pretending to take notes, the Gryffindor boys were teasing one another. I couldn't work out what the joke was, but apparently Weasley, Finnigan and Thomas were finding Potter very, very amusing.

Professor Moody permitted neither rest nor play in his classes. He assigned a whole chapter to be read for homework, with threats of a test next Wednesday. But I was so bemused by the idea that Padma might be bored with me that I didn't even write down the page numbers. The four o'clock bell rang, and the weekend had begun.

Was Padma really bored with me?

I tried to remember. The first six months had been idyllic. We had laughed a great deal, and felt very comfortable together, but I had never lost sight of what an extraordinary person Padma was and how lucky I was to have her as my girlfriend.

Then there had been the summer holidays – a flurry of exchanging owls three times a week, and thinking of her every hour, and cajoling my parents into arranging for the two families to meet up together in Blackpool for the first weekend in August. I had enjoyed Blackpool all the more after the month's separation; we had seen the sights, being very careful not to let Padma's twin sister or my little brother feel left out, and I had been so pleased when my parents agreed that "the Patils were a very nice family indeed". And I had been overjoyed to see Padma again on the Hogwarts Express on the first of September, and she had seemed equally glad to see me.

So far, so good. Being fourth years had been very comfortable for us. I hadn't asked myself any questions about how long Padma and I would stay together. I had just enjoyed being a couple, had assumed that she was as happy as I was. Perhaps we had been too comfortable. I'd heard the older boys saying that girls fussed if you "took them for granted". Had I stopped remembering how wonderful Padma was and taken her for granted?

I didn't think so. After all, people who know each other well are supposed to feel comfortable together. I didn't have to keep asking Terry if he still wanted to be my friend! And I hadn't let feeling comfortable lead to being familiar (I was always careful to be polite to Padma) or bossy (I never suggested she ought to give up her other friends or activities in order to be with me). Nor had I really minded Padma's recent spate of ratty moods: everyone puts up with the occasional ratty mood from a friend.

It was just that... well, we had been a couple for eleven months now. And for the last two of those months we had been annoying one another fairly often. Why was Padma so easily annoyed lately?

Could the real reason be nothing more complicated than that she found me annoying?

I pushed that highly uncomfortable thought away easily when Terry nudged me. "Did you hear that, Michael?"

"What? No, sorry, I was miles away."

"Marietta Edgecombe just said that Madam Hooch has agreed to run a dancing lesson tomorrow afternoon. Two o'clock in the Great Hall."

"Oh, good," I said, trying to muster enthusiasm.