“My brave little cabbage,” Simone’s father had called her as she had boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time. After five years at Beauxbatons, she should have felt ready to face this British school without a qualm, but everything had seemed so horribly, oppressively new. She would have to be Sorted. She would have to wear black, instead of the familiar soft blue. She would have to make friends all over again.
She would have to speak English. “They don’t say that here, Papa,” she had reminded.
And yet it had not been so difficult. Raven-haired and energetic Minerva McGonagall had scooped Simone up the minute she was a Gryffindor, and there had not been a moment of ennui since. Worries, yes, for those friends she had left behind in Grindelwald’s Europe, but never boredom.
And now “ she had come up to their dormitory after a sketchy meal, too full of spring feelings to want food to get in the way, and found Minerva in a rare pensive mood, staring out the window. “Hello,” Simone ventured.
“Hello.”
It was a lovely evening. Finding Minerva indoors, holding still, rather than catching a glimpse of her outdoors and flying, seemed strange in the extreme. “Is something wrong?”
Minerva shrugged without turning around. “Nothing. Just “ spring.”
Spring was wrong, then. “We could play a trick on Augusta.”
“I’m already grounded from the Quidditch team for playing a trick on that beast Umbridge.”
Simone knew she ought to disapprove “ the Slytherin sixth-year could make all sorts of difficulties for Minerva “ but she couldn’t help giggling. “What did you do?”
“She looks so much like a toad already I was certain it wouldn’t take much effort to finish the job.”
Simone squeaked. “You didn’t!”
“I did. And did it well enough that Professor Dumbledore had to be the one to put her back again, too.” Minerva chuckled softly. “And he had to fish her out of Pringle’s mop bucket first.”
Simone pictured the squat older girl shrinking even smaller, the absurd pink bow she wore to contrast their stark robes dropping onto the floor, until with a final croak the girl hopped into the nearest water. The thought made her breathless with laughter.
“Apparently she has sensitive skin when it comes to soaps,” Minerva added dryly, which only added to the fun.
Simone caught her breath. “I think you should be proud of yourself,” she gasped, and started to giggle again.
“I would be, but…” Minerva sighed and twisted to face her friend. “But I’m off the team, since normal detentions weren’t having the expected effect. And Professor Dumbledore said,” she put her nose in the air and made her face long, “‘Miss McGonagall, if you do not learn to control yourself, you may become a hazard to yourself and others.’”
“That’s not a bit fair,” Simone objected. The impression was dangerously good, and she fought back a new round of giggles.
“Not at all. I only turned her into a toad. Anyone would think I had used an Unforgivable on her.”
“And you still haven’t.”
Minerva went back to gazing out the window. “She probably would on me. She’s not the one getting lectures on control, though, because she’s too much a bully and a coward to do it where she might be caught.”
Simone sighed. It was all too easy to picture vile Umbridge taking advantage of a situation where she would not get caught. “Do be a little careful. She can be awfully mean when she thinks nobody’s looking.”
Minerva didn’t answer. Simone picked up the hairbrush lying on her bedside table for want of something to have in her hands, then started brushing her friend’s hair. “Did I say you should do that?” Minerva snapped.
“Pardon.”
“Did I say you should stop?” Minerva said in precisely the same tone. “I’m sorry. That’s why I hate spring.”
Simone resumed her brushing. “I hate that everything seems to be blossoming but me.” Minerva’s hair felt smooth through the handle, and Simone began stroking it flat with her hand after each pass of the bristles.
“Simone, have you ever been kissed?”
Simone blinked, startled. “No. You have, though, no?”
“Benny, once, behind the greenhouses. It wasn’t very nice. He liked it, though, and went all pushy.”
How could a kiss not be nice? Benny was a well-set-up lad. Kissing him should be all right. “Tell me about it.”
“That was all about it. It was last autumn. He talked me into a walk, and when we were out of sight of anyone he started kissing me. And I kept thinking I’d like it in a minute, so I let him try for a while. But…” Minerva shrugged, an impatient twitch of her shoulders. “I never did, so I made him stop and leave me alone.”
Simone set the brush aside with a click, then rested her hands on Minerva’s shoulders. “What did he do, kissing you, that was not good?” She could just feel a heartbeat that was not hers at the tips of her left fingers, then a deep breath under both hands. Hogwarts robes felt so rough and so soft at the same time. Black suited Minerva.
“He “ It seemed more as though he were hungry and trying to eat me than as though he loved me. Do you see?”
“Oui. Boys are hungry for love. Girls want love to be nice.” Simone intoned this with oracular solemnity, from the depths of her utter inexperience, hoping to make Minerva laugh.
It worked. “Since you know everything, then, why do boys and girls seek each other when they want such different things?”
Simone shrugged. “I don’t know. When you say it that way, it does sound silly.”
Gryffindors were supposed to be brave. Simone was not brave enough to venture a squeeze of Minerva’s shoulders, or an embrace, or even a silly little kiss atop the other girl’s head. She swallowed hard and left the next move to her friend.
“Silly,” said the other girl, “But conventional.” Minerva shifted back slightly. “Did you get any dinner?”
Was Minerva ever conventional? “Yes. I didn’t want much.”
“I haven’t gone yet. Maybe I should.” Minerva looked up at her from this awkward angle, not making any move to get up. Simone could feel her lips curving into a nervous smile. It was now or never. She bowed her head, bent around Minerva’s shoulder, and kissed her briefly on the lips. When she pulled away, her friend looked stunned “ but not unhappy.
“Nice,” Minerva whispered to her.
“Good!” Simone squeaked, and fled to the library without so much as a quill.
Lying in bed that night, Simone fretted. Bits of gossip of something wrong about the castle had come to her ears in bits and fragments, too quickly hissed from one person to the next for her to catch. She couldn’t worry about that so much as she did the worried, preoccupied air of her friend. Minerva had not seemed at all herself at bedtime.
Simone’s bedcovers suddenly came to life, whisking off her and out through the curtains faster than she could grab them or shout. With a yell, she threw open her bedcurtains to face an evil-looking little man floating in midair, his arms full of her sheets. “Wakey-wakey, little frog!” he shouted.
She snatched back the covers, wishing she’d worn heavier pyjamas. His eyes twinkled with far too much merriment for her comfort. The yank she gave sent him spinning, which he seemed to enjoy. “What are you!” she snapped at him as startled pale faces peered from the other beds.
“Peeves the Poltergeist, at your service! Always around to make you nervous!”
“OUT, PEEVES!” Minerva snapped from the next bed, and the nasty thing went zooming out of the room with a rude noise. Warily, the girls crept from their own beds to help Simone make hers up again.
“What was that?” Augusta asked, quietly, as though she thought Peeves might come back if he heard her. He might, at that.
“A poltergeist,” Minerva told her. “They’re a product of repressed teenage energies. It’s amazing we don’t have dozens.”
“I’m sure Professor Dumbledore can get rid of it,” said Euphemia, sounding confident.
“He tried at dinner,” Phoebe answered. Minerva looked grim. Simone noted that, and watched the others’ faces. They seemed to know less about poltergeists than Minerva did, and they seemed to think Dumbledore just needed to find the right spell.
“Will “ it “ come back?” Augusta asked them all. “Do you think?”
“Why, when it has the whole castle for wreaking havoc?” Minerva said, her tone a little bitter. “It already tore down all the banners in the Great Hall and turned every desk in the Charms classroom upside-down.”
“And drenched Umbridge in ink-pellets!” Euphemia added, sounding rather happy about this. Perhaps a poltergeist was not an altogether bad thing. This must have been the gossip that Simone had been unable to catch earlier.
“We should try to go back to sleep,” Minerva said with unusual practicality. “If it comes back, we’ll just chase it off again. I don’t think it can do any real harm.”
“Miss Cheney,” Professor Dumbledore began. “Is there anything you might like to tell me?”
Simone was the fifth student to be interviewed in this way, and didn’t care for it. She watched the candle on his desk as it flickered, a draft making it burn unevenly. A runnel of wax ran down the side to the enamelled surface below. She was now quite sure she knew where Peeves had come from.
The library book, Spirits, Manifestations, and Other Household Pests by Gareth Scrimgeour, had contained only a short entry. Simone had memorized it. “Poltergeist: the manifestation of a young witch’s repressed energies and antisocial impulses, removed from herself and taking humanoid form. An attempt to ignore her rebellious natural self will quite possibly produce one, and the result will be virtually impossible to banish. The witch is more docile and sensible after the formation of her poltergeist, but this is hardly a recommended procedure for the improvement of young women. The emergent male spirit will be impossible to control, and will persist in the environment of his creation long after the permanent departure of the girl who created him.”
The candle had now burned off enough wax to make a shape suggestive of grottos. Peeves would listen, rather like Minerva, to a direct order from the faculty. Also like Minerva, he would then devise ten activities he had not been told not to do, whether it was shoot peas at the Slytherins or pour gravy over Professor Integra. Simone was sure she knew where Peeves had come from, and she was equally sure she had no wish to tell Dumbledore or anyone else. She waited in silence for her refusal to be obvious, watching the wax flow and cool.
“I see,” the professor said eventually. He sounded tired. Most of the faculty did, at present. Headmaster Dippett often looked close to tears. Slughorn seemed to have lost weight, though it was hard to tell. Sooner or later, it seemed, all of them would have to adapt to Peeves, because apparently Peeves would not go away. She had thought very carefully about the matter, and decided it really shouldn’t matter to them who was to blame for something that could not be changed in any case.
“Am I dismissed, Professor?” she asked politely.
“Yes, Simone. You may go.”
“Thank you, Professor.” She stepped neatly from the room, her heart pounding. Going to Charms class without incident, luckily, she thought hard about what to say to Minerva, who seemed oddly quiet and drawn. No ideas presented themselves, but something would come along eventually.
That night as she lay in bed, Peeves stole her covers for the third time that month. He never did it to the other girls; he had other tricks for them. This time Simone was prepared. She whisked her wand from under her pillow. “Frio!”
A stream of minute crystals shot from her wand and hit the poltergeist squarely on his round belly. He immediately became blue with cold and shivered, losing his grasp on her sheets. Cursing her, he swooped away, probably to warm himself in a kitchen fire.
“Not bad,” said Augusta, peering from her bed. That was about as good as praise from Augusta would run. Simone felt proud of herself.
Minerva came to help her make the bed while the other girls settled back into theirs. When the curtains on the other beds had stilled, Minerva leaned close. “Simone, I think I’ve done something horrible after all.”
Simone regarded her thoughtfully. “Peeves was yours?”
Minerva looked up, startled. “How did you know?”
“All the prank went out of you. It had to go somewhere.” Simone smiled a little. “Though I think it takes more than a little mischief to make a poltergeist. Do you still hate spring?”
Minerva shrugged. “Less vigorously, perhaps. Yes.”
Simone backed into her sheets and held them up. “Talk to me about it.”
Stiffly, cautiously, Minerva folded herself onto the bed, then into it, drawing the curtains to muffle their whispers. “After you kissed me, I felt “ there was too much of me. So I closed my eyes, bundled off all the bits I didn’t want any more, and pushed them away from me. When I opened my eyes, I was nose to nose with a nasty little man in a ridiculous hat, and he was altogether too pleased when I screamed. Could you really tell he was mine?”
“Yes. And I didn’t tell Dumbledore.”
Minerva shifted unhappily, the mattress rocking with the movement. “I think he already knew anyway.”
Simone offered a hug; her friend accepted it. It felt good to have Minerva in her arms, to be in Minerva’s arms. “So was it that bad for me to kiss you?”
She felt a faint snort in the dark, or the beginning of a chuckle. “No. That part I kept.”
Simone smiled to herself, knowing the other girl could not see it. “I think you should give it back.”