Chapter 37 - 20

Chapter Nine

The next morning, Calista persuaded her father to have breakfast sent up to his quarters from the kitchen, and they ate together. She slipped back to her dormitory when she guessed her roommates would be eating breakfast in the Great Hall, and changed into her school robes.

When she arrived in the Potions classroom, she took a seat next to George Spratt, an overweight Slytherin boy who usually had an empty seat on either side of him because of an unfortunate body odor problem. She opened the text at random, pretending to read the instructions for a Hair-Raising Potion. Students streamed in, and her father took his place at the front of the classroom. All too soon, Olivia stormed into the classroom, flanked by Portia and Emily.

Olivia drew up to George's side and thumped her cauldron down on the table in front of him.

"Move it, Fat Spratt," she commanded, and Calista rolled her eyes when he obeyed, carrying his things to the seat Calista normally sat in. Olivia slid into his vacated chair, and aimed a ferocious glare at Calista.

"What did you do?" she hissed, just as the bell signalling the start of class rang. "Colin's been avoiding me all morning. I warned you! If you've ruined this -"

"Silence," Severus commanded, eyes sweeping across the classroom; they paused for a fraction of a second on Olivia and Calista.

"We are brewing Pepperup Potion today," he announced brusquely, "I am told the hospital wing is in short supply, so all those who make it correctly will bottle it for use. You will need to pay very close attention once your potion is in the simmering stage, as it will be ruined if the powdered bicorn horn is allowed to settle at the bottom of the cauldron."

Calista set about preparing her potion, doing her best to ignore Olivia's glowering beside her. She filled her cauldron about a quarter of the way with water, lit a flame beneath it. While it heated, she began untangling bits of knotgrass, so they wouldn't clump together in the potion.

"What did you do?" Olivia asked again, in a vicious whisper. When Calista didn't answer, she 'accidentally' knocked a pile of Calista's things onto the floor. Severus looked over at the sound, and she quickly made a show of helping to pick them up.

"Miss Avril, Mr. Weasley, switch seats for the remainder of the class," he said.

"But Professor-" Olivia began.

"That's not fair sir, Percy didn't do anything!" Oliver Wood protested.

"I don't recall inviting a class discussion," he intoned smoothly.

Neither of them looked at all pleased, but they did as they were told. Percy sat next to Calista, eyeing her warily.

Calista added her knotgrass carefully to her cauldron as Percy set his up again, laying his ingredients out neatly as his water heated.

Without the distraction of a fuming Olivia next to her, Calista relaxed into the familiar rhythm of brewing her potion. She and Percy worked side-by-side in an unexpectedly companionable silence, both cauldrons simmering nicely, precisely the right colour.

Until, that is, halfway through the class, when Portia took an extra fistful of knotgrass and dumped it into Percy's cauldron when his attention was focused on powdering his bicorn horn. Calista saw the motion, turned her head and locked eyes with Portia just as the last of the knotgrass slipped into Percy's cauldron.

Percy missed Portia's interference, but he did notice his potion turning dark, paste-like. His face flushed full of colour as he abandoned his bicorn horn to stir the cauldron frantically.

Professor Snape walked by at this precise moment, raising an eyebrow at Percy's frenzied motions. "No amount of stirring is going to fix that, Mr. Weasley." he waved his wand, clearing the contents of Percy's cauldron. "Begin again." the professor's eyes shot up to the clock on the wall; there were a scant ten minutes left to the class period. "You will remain after class to finish, and be sure to add the correct amount of knotgrass this time."

Percy's face was bright red, and his expression was sad, embarrassed, wounded. Calista thought, with a jolt, that he looked much the way she had felt when Olivia had threatened to tell everyone the love potion was all Calista's doing… in fact, he looked the way she felt at almost everything Olivia had ever done. She looked over her shoulder across the room, and saw Olivia grinning wickedly at Portia. She heard Portia choke on a barely concealed snigger behind her. A familiar burning feeling of injustice swirled through her veins. She hated both of them, Olivia and Portia, and the way they always thought they could do whatever they wanted to other people.

"Percy added the right amount," Calista was faintly surprised to hear herself announcing, loud enough to carry across the room, "Portia sabotaged it when he wasn't looking. I saw her."

Silence fell over the classroom for a fraction of a minute. Then Professor Snape's voice cut through the silence, soft and knifelike at the same time. "I see. In that case, Mr. Weasley, you're off the hook. Miss MacNair, on the other hand, you will stay after class and brew an extra batch for the hospital wing to make up for the one you so casually ruined."

Moments before the bell, Calista finished her own potion, and put the flame beneath her cauldron out. She walked to a small table at the front of the classroom, where her father had laid out flasks for them to fill. She grabbed four, took them back to her station, where Percy was putting his own supplies away. She set the flasks down, took a spouted ladle, and set to filling the first one, careful not to spill a drop.

She felt the presence of someone at her shoulder, and stiffened; when she stopped pouring to look up, it was Percy, holding his own ladle. It was an older, chipped version of hers, but otherwise identical. "I'll help," Percy said, as the classroom bell rang out. Other students scrambled to gather their things and exit the classroom, except for Portia, who sat glowering in her chair, and Oliver Wood, who lingered in the doorway, eyes on Percy.

Calista shrugged awkwardly, and slid one of the flasks towards Percy. Briefly, the only sound was the gentle sloshing of the potion against the sides of the glass flasks; then Percy swallowed audibly and spoke again, hesitantly. "Thanks for telling Professor Snape what happened."

Calista vigorously stuffed a cork into the flask she had just filled. "I just hate them getting away with being arrogant prats," she muttered. Far more carefully, Percy corked a flask as well.

"Aren't you and Portia friends?" his tone was still careful, uneasy, as though he were expecting her to redirect her anger on him at any moment.

"No." she answered shortly, filling the last flask. Oliver tapped his foot in the doorway, aiming a meaningful (and impatient) look at Percy.

"Right. Well, I've got to go… er, thanks again, Calista."

She nodded, but Percy had already turned away, gathering his things and leaving with Oliver. She picked up the four flasks and carried them to the front of the room, where her father had been watching her exchange with Percy. She set the flasks on his desk.

"D'you want me to stay or come back later for my private lesson?"

Severus glanced over her shoulder, and Calista followed his gaze; Portia sat glumly in front of her cauldron, half-heartedly grounding a fresh bicorn horn. She felt Calista's eyes on her, narrowed her own into a glare for the fraction of a second it took her to realise that Severus was looking at her too; then she hurriedly looked down at her potion.

"Come back in an hour; I expect Miss Macnair to be nearly finished by then." He lowered his voice, gave her a wry smile. "I think we'll make a batch of love potion antidote. My supply seems to be depleted."

Color filled her cheeks, and her eyes flashed; Severus bit back a dark chuckle.

(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)

"I finally got my Shrinking Solution to come out right," Marcus said, grinning, sliding into the seat opposite Calista at one of the study tables in the library, "You were right, it was too much leech juice."

Madam Pince cleared her throat purposefully; Marcus lowered his voice by a fraction.

"I remember you said a dash was only a tiny bit, so I just pretended it said 'drop', only I used big drops."

"A dash is an eighth of a teaspoon," Calista said, "It's listed in the index of the textbook. Although I guess a 'big drop' works too, on potions that aren't so sensitive."

"Hang on, if it's an eighth of a teaspoon, then why doesn't the book just say 'an eighth of a teaspoon'?"

Calista shrugged, and stared down at her open Transfiguration book.

"Hey, are you and Olivia fighting?" Marcus asked curiously, "I haven't seen you together much lately."

"We're not 'fighting'. We're just not friends."

"Oh, right. Are you doing that girl thing where you stop being friends for awhile, then make up and go shopping together, or whatever?"

Calista raised her eyes and glared across the table at Marcus; he was grinning, teasingly.

"No," she said, gritting her teeth, "I'm doing that thing where I decide not to hang around with spoiled, stupid prats anymore."

Marcus nodded, as if his suspicions had been confirmed. "I knew it was that girl thing. You people are weird with that. I bet it's about Colin, isn't it? He was in here acting all mental that day, and now you and Olivia are fighting. You both fancy him, huh?"

There was something like derision that twisted at Marcus' last question; Calista barely registered it, felt her face get hot, clenched her fists under the table.

"It's not a 'girl thing'," she said forcefully, with precisely the same note of derision Marcus had used, though she didn't notice. "We're not friends. Period. And I don't fancy anyone. Now, are you going to help me with this stupid spell or not?" She slammed her Transfiguration book closed, and the breeze from the cover snapping down over the pages riffled both their hair.

"All right, all right," Marcus said, shaking his head with a faint smirk that annoyed Calista. "I'm just taking the piss."

He reached into his robes and pulled out a little white mouse by its tail, placing it on the table. "Here, I nicked this from the stables for you to practise with." The mouse scrabbled around on the table, and as soon as Marcus released its tail, it rocketed for the edge of the table. Marcus lunged for it, while Calista went for her wand, intending to cast a freezing spell. She couldn't get a clear shot, though; the mouse slipped through Marcus' fingers and wound up, somehow, in her lap. It squeaked and scrabbled, panicked, and when Calista reached down to scoop it up, it clawed at her hand.

She readied her wand in one hand while the mouse squirmed in the other, and plopped it down on the table again, swiftly casting the spell before it could get away again. The mouse sat in the middle of the table, next to Calista's textbook, with rodent-fear frozen on its face.

"Okay," Calista exhaled, pushing her hair out of her face. She twirled her wand, rehearsing the spell in her mind before casting it.

Marcus watched her, and reached out across the table, touching her free hand. She yanked it back instinctively. "You got scratched, there." Marcus said, and Calista brought her hand up, glanced at it. There were a few scratches from the mouse's sharp little claws, but she shrugged, wiping her hand absently on her robes and concentrating on the spell.

She waved her wand, pronounced the incantation carefully, and produced a very anxious-looking snuffbox with whiskers and a long pink tail.

"I've never seen a girl act so… ungirly about a mouse," Marcus said, "Most of 'em would've started screaming if it landed on them."

Calista made a comically incredulous face at him. "It's a mouse, not a dragon," she said, before turning a scowl on her mouse-box. She lifted her wand to turn it back.

"Hang on," Marcus said, eyeing it thoughtfully. "Can you just… get rid of the tail and whiskers?"

"Uh, no," Calista said, "That's what my whole problem is, remember?"

"I mean right now," he said quickly, "Before you change it back. If you got it partway transfigured by casting the spell once, maybe you can finish it by casting again."

Looking dubious, she cast again; precisely nothing happened.

"I hate Transfiguration," she said acidly.

Marcus scratched his head. "It seems like it should have done something, doesn't it?"

She shrugged, and reversed the spell, reverting the mouse back to its original form. "I have no idea, obviously."

"Yeah," Marcus said, more forcefully, "It definitely should do something. When I was practicing the beetle-into-button spell, one of my buttons still had eyes one time, so I cast the spell again when McGonagall wasn't looking, and the eyes went away."

Calista tried the spell again; the mouse-box returned. "Maybe I've already reached my terminal Transfiguration ability," she snarked.

"Nah," Marcus said, missing her sarcasm, and without a hint of shame, "You're plenty cleverer than me. If I got it to work, you will too."

"At this point, I think I have a better chance of becoming captain of the Quidditch team."

Marcus grinned. "Speaking of which, when are you going to come down to the pitch with me?"

"Since when is that a plan? I hate flying, remember?"

"How can you hate flying? It's amazing! It's the only reason I even care about school, really. You can't sign to a Quidditch team if you don't finish wizarding school."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said dryly. She sounded very much like her father.

He cocked his head, eyeing her. "You're not… are you afraid of flying?"

"No!" her face flushed, and she stabbed her wand angrily in the direction of the mouse again, completing another half-transfiguration.

"Ahem!" Madam Pince called disapprovingly, "Quiet!"

"But," Marcus said, voice lowered, "You get to hit things. Something tells me you'd like that."

(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)

Having officially declared herself once again out of Olivia's clique, Calista resorted to her old habit of tagging after Kim Avery and her friends in the sixth year. They teased her quite a bit - at least, the boys did - but all in all, it was a marked improvement over the way they had competed to gross her out last year. Besides, she knew what to expect from them, and she found that a relief. She'd take their (mostly) good-natured teasing over Olivia's hot-and-cold friendship any day.

Besides, she was starting to realise that Kim was right; Olivia was a toxic friend, and nothing good had ever come for her from that relationship. Of course, Calista following her group around like a lost puppy was probably not what Kim had in mind when she'd said so.

There were places she couldn't follow them, too; namely, Hogsmeade. Third years and over could go with a signed permission form at certain weekends, and though Calista had gone with her father several times, she wasn't allowed to go by herself.

A few weeks after she had become an accessory to their group whether they welcomed it or not, another of the Hogsmeade weekends came around.

"Reckon they'll serve me if I lie and say I'm of age?" Conor Quinn was asking, as the group sat outside next to the lake. Calista had found them out there after her extra Potions lesson one Friday afternoon.

"Not likely," Peter Boyle snorted, "They're real strict about that in Hogsmeade. I've gotten beer with my dad loads of times, but they'll never give it to me at the Three Broomsticks."

"Maybe that's because you act like such a bloke in front of Madam Rosmerta," Kim teased, imitating a dopey, love-sick expression. The others laughed, except for Peter, who blushed furiously, and Calista, who wrinkled her nose quizzically.

"Wait, you fancy Madam Rosmerta?" she questioned.

"No I don't," Peter muttered, just as Kim, Ethan, and Conor all answered to the opposite.

"Why?"

"I don't fancy her, she's just… nice," Peter said lamely.

"Ha," Kim crowed, "He does too fancy her, and it's because of her big -"

"Come off it, Kim! I do not fancy her."

"Actually," Conor guffawed, "Now that you mention it, I think I might fancy her too."

"That's daft," Calista interjected, "She's a grownup."

Conor raised his eyebrows. "Uh, yeah. That's kind of the point."

"Well I think the whole idea is daft, anyway," she declared, "I don't fancy anyone."

All of them snickered at that.

"You don't yet," Ethan said, "But I bet you will. Next year, probably."

"She already does," Kim said, "Remember when Colin Greengrass was all mooney-eyed and lovesick a few weeks ago? Our little Snapelet dosed him with a love potion."

Calista's face turned as red as Peter's had been a moment ago. "That's not true! I don't fancy him! I gave that potion to Olivia, she's the one who dosed him with it."

Kim waved her hand. "Semantics," she said, grinning wickedly. "Look, I'm not saying I blame you. He's plenty handsome, if you're into that pretty-boy thing."

Ethan's grin faded suddenly; he looked positively sulky, until Kim clarified, "Which I'm not. But you and your little friend aren't the only girls at school who are."

Calista was not liking the direction of this conversation; she backtracked it to safer ground. "I made Amortentia," she blurted, hoping it would significantly impress them so they'd stop teasing her.

They looked at her, all but Kim disbelieving. "No way," Ethan said, "You're too young."

"Well, if she's making it up, she committed herself to it, because she was asking me for kneazle claw for the antidote." Kim supplied.

"I did make it," Calista said, unable to keep from swelling up a bit with pride. "In a cauldron in my wardrobe."

"Wow. Not bad," Conor said, "But do something more interesting next time, like Polyjuice Potion. If you're going to get in trouble it might as well be worth it."

"Yeah," Kim agreed, lighting up with a mischievous grin. "You could use it to turn into Conor, you could borrow his Quidditch robes, and then you could sneak into the locker room after practise and watch Colin change."

Calista deflated more quickly than a balloon that had been stepped on by Hagrid, the half-giant gamekeeper. She made an exaggeratedly disgusted face, sticking her tongue out and shaking her head rapidly.

"Ugh, no way. I don't want to see that!"

"Not me!" Conor said, even louder than Calista, "The whole team'll think I'm some kind of pansy all of a sudden."

"Even more reason," Kim said, laughing so hard that her words were strained. The rest of them sniggered, except Conor, who had gone nearly the same shade of red as Calista.

"Seriously, Kim. You better not get the idea to help her pull something like that. I don't care if you're a girl, I'll deck you."

Kim snorted. "As if you could. I'd have you turned into a ferret before you could finish even thinking about it."

"Turn into Marcus Flint," Conor said, shaking his head, "Everyone on the team takes the piss out of him anyway, for being the youngest."

"I am not making Polyjuice Potion to turn into anyone," Calista clarified, "Firstly, because-"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever, we're just teasing." Ethan waved his hand, apparently tired of tormenting both her and Conor.

"What if I drank, like, fifteen butterbeers? Think I could get drunk that way?" Conor earnestly picked up the thread of their prior conversation after a beat of silence.

"Not before you exploded," Peter guffawed. "Maybe we can nick some firewhiskey off the shelf when Madam Rosmerta's not looking."

Calista listened for a place in their conversation to contribute, but she couldn't go to Hogsmeade, had no interest in getting drunk, and had learned her lesson as far as commenting on Madam Rosmerta. She faded into the background of their group, until she grew tired of being unnoticed, and stood up to head back inside.

(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)

Calista hadn't been lying when she'd told Marcus she had no interest in Quidditch or flying in general, but after her Occlumency lesson on Saturday, she felt so burnt out and listless that she'd found herself heading in the direction of the Quidditch pitch anyway.

She was exhausted from the strain of the lesson, to be sure, but she was also awake, restless from exerting so much mental energy, and she felt the need to be somewhere, do something. The key was to be somewhere and do something far enough away from her father that he couldn't spring any more surprise Occlumency tests on her, because she didn't think she had the energy to keep more than a basic defence intact.

There was a team practising on the pitch; they were wearing regular Muggle clothes instead of Hogwarts robes, so she wasn't sure which team until she got into the stands.

There was a cluster of other students watching the practise; she saw the flash of Percy Weasley's red hair among them, so she supposed it must be the Gryffindor team that was practising. She squinted; it was. She could see his brother Charlie now, flying around in slow circles and looking for what even Calista knew must be the Snitch.

She didn't really have any interest in watching the Gryffindor team practise, but she'd feel foolish turning back now after she'd walked all the way here, so she sat down a fair distance from the other students, thinking too late that she should've at least brought a textbook with her, or something.

They were all very good fliers, from what Calista could see. Charlie Weasley was flying slower than the rest of them, but he always managed to dodge gracefully whenever one of his teammates sent a bludger hurtling towards him. The keeper, a seventh year whom Calista didn't really know, was flitting back and forth across the goalposts, and the rest of the team zipped around so fast that Calista could barely keep track of who was who.

It was kind of visually interesting, she supposed, the way they wove in and out of each others' paths, confident on their brooms. Of course, she didn't have a choice but to be interested, since she had brought nothing else to occupy herself with. She had thought maybe the Slytherin team would be practising, and at least she knew Marcus. Maybe, if she had come to watch them practise, he would stop bothering her about it.

Then again, she reflected, if the Slytherin team were practising, then Olivia and her cronies would probably be here too, so maybe it was best that it wasn't the Slytherins.

"Calista. Oy, Calista." she heard her name faintly behind her and to the left; she looked over her shoulder, and saw Percy waving to looked back at him blankly. He was waving at her, right? Of course, he had said her name, so there was that… she lifted her hand, awkwardly returning his wave.

"Come sit with us," he called, and she looked all around, to make sure there was no one else around that he could be talking to. There wasn't. Shrugging, she stood and navigated her way through the bleachers, drawing up a row in front of the other spectators.

Most of them were Gryffindors, but there were a few Hufflepuffs and at least one Ravenclaw as well. There were, she noted, no other Slytherins.

"No sense in watching all by yourself," Percy said. Now that she was close to him, he looked as uncertain and uncomfortable as she felt. Maybe he hadn't really wanted her to join them. Well, she was here now and the only thing more awkward than sitting with them would be walking away again. She climbed back another row and perched gingerly at the edge of their group.

"You're not here to spy for the Slytherin team, are you?" Oliver Wood asked her suspiciously, leaning over Percy and an older Hufflepuff girl with a shock of unnaturally blue hair.

"If the Slytherin team was going to send someone to spy for them, I'm thinking they'd pick someone who actually knows all the rules," Calista replied testily.

"How can you not know the rules to Quidditch?" Oliver challenged scornfully, "It's only the most important sport in the wizarding world."

"How can you not know how to make a basic potion without blowing up half the classroom?" Calista retorted.

"Hey now," the girl with blue hair said mildly, "Blowing up the potions classroom is something that can happen to anyone, right?"

Calista opened her mouth and then shut it again. Well, she hadn't actually blown anything up, but there were a few times when she was younger that she would have if her father hadn't caught her mistakes in time. She shrugged noncommittally instead.

"So what do you know about Quidditch?" the girl asked curiously.

"Well," Calista said, "I know that Beaters get to hit things."

The girl laughed. She had a wide, pretty face that opened up when she was smiling or laughing. "Good answer," she said, and stuck her hand out in introduction. "I'm Nymphadora Tonks, but don't actually call me Nymphadora on pain of death. Tonks is fine."

Calista shook her hand tentatively; the girl had a firm handshake. She seemed pretty no-nonsense in general, aside from the blue hair. "I'm Calista Snape," she said, and watched Tonks' eyes widen slightly.

"I just want to say that none of my explosions in Potions class were intentional," she said quickly, giving Calista a sneaking suspicion that maybe some of them were.

"Is that how you made your hair blue?" Calista asked, "With a potion?"

"Nope," Tonks replied smugly. "Watch this."

She appeared to be concentrating for a second, and then her hair went from a short, spiky blue style to shoulder-length and bubblegum pink. She concentrated again, and her hair was purple. The third time, she changed her nose into a shape that resembled a bird's beak.

Calista laughed. "That's brilliant," she said, "So you're a metamorphmagi?"

Tonks nodded, as her hair went back to the choppy blue style it had been before, and her nose returned to normal. "Makes Halloween right easy, I'll tell you."

"I wish I could do that," Calista said, just as the students around her erupted into a collective cheer. She looked back at the pitch, and saw Charlie Weasley holding up his fist. Something gold glittered in it.

"Forty-six minutes," Oliver called, checking his watch. "Brilliant! It took the Hufflepuff seeker twice as long to find it during their last practise. No offense, Tonks," he added, looking at her sidelong.

"None taken," Tonks said cheerfully, "I'm just here for the hot chocolate."

"Hot chocolate?" Calista echoed, and Tonks pointed towards the pitch, where an empty table sat at the edge.

"Charlie always gets hot chocolate sent out from the kitchens after practise. It used to be just for the team, but then he started getting enough for all the Gryffindor spectators, and then, well...a few of us from other Houses found out, and now the team gets to show off in front of a crowd."

Tonks smiled conspiratorially at Calista, "But like I said, we mostly just come for the hot chocolate."

When Calista looked back at the pitch, she saw that the table was now laden with mugs and a large ceramic vessel. The stands emptied as the handful of students streamed onto the edge of the pitch. Calista followed, and took in the delicious smell of chocolate. She took a mug that was offered to her, and filled it from a spigot near the bottom of the container.

Dusk was lingering around the horizon, and the air was just starting to crisp up. Calista wrapped her fingers around the warm mug of chocolate, watched it steam into the cool spring air.

She took a sip, thinking for the first time that coming to the Quidditch pitch had been an excellent idea after all. Then she felt a pair of eyes on her, and looked up to see Charlie Weasley eyeing her quizzically.

"A Slytherin, eh? I think you're the first one to come for our practise. Not spying, are you?"

"No," she said, and she caught Tonks' eye. "I guess I'm just here for the hot chocolate."

Tonks grinned, and Calista found herself smiling along.