Draco Malfoy and the Girl from Mahoutokoro (Book 1, Year 4)

6 The Amazing Bouncing Ferret

6

The Amazing Bouncing Ferret

Professor Flitwick handed out the timetables to all the Ravenclaw students at breakfast, and Mizuki set hers down at the table, looking it over quickly. She had History of Magic with the Slytherins, Potions with Hufflepuff, and double Arithmancy. Not bad, she thought. Since she had no idea where the classrooms were, she waited until she spotted some girls in her year and a boy with dark hair and blue eyes that she had only seen in passing last night named Anthony Goldstein. She got up and followed them out of the Great Hall toward the classroom, taking a seat near the window where Anthony sat down next to her.

"Hi, I'm Anthony Goldstein," he introduced as the rest of the Ravenclaws and Slytherins slowly filtered in.

"Pleasure to meet you, Anthony," she said. He already knew who she was, but she felt like she had to introduce herself anyway. "I'm Mizuki Saito."

He grinned at her just as Professor Binns floated in through the blackboard. He glided through the aisles, checked off the attendance list in his hands, and then went back to the front where he began to drone on about Goblin Wars. Mizuki couldn't help but notice a white-blond-haired boy from the corner of her eye, and when she turned her head, she saw Draco taking down notes. Her heart sped up slightly as she watched him for a few moments, and turned her head back to her own parchment, scribbling down as fast as she could. However, she was so sleep-deprived that it didn't take long for her hand to still and her eyes to become glassy. Professor Binn's had a monotonous voice that lulled her—and the other students to sleep easily. Most of the students weren't paying attention anymore, but Anthony was doing his best to take notes. He noticed that Mizuki's eyes were closing, and he nudged her gently in the side.

Mizuki sat up straight and began to take notes again, but it was increasingly difficult. Mizuki kept stopping every now and then, and Anthony would have to continue nudging her to keep her awake. A few times, she had to nudge him too, and by the end of the lesson, they were so thankful that it was over that they had gone into the courtyard for their break, gulping in copious amounts of the cool, rainy air that revived them.

"Could I borrow your notes later?" Mizuki asked him shyly, her cheeks pink. She had never almost fallen asleep in class before, and she was terribly embarrassed about it.

"Of course!" Anthony said brightly. He asked her questions about Mahoutokoro and the Quidditch team, and she found him easy to talk to. He was telling her about a trip he went on during the summer as their break ended, and they headed back into the school and down into the dungeons where they had their first potions lesson with Professor Snape and the Hufflepuffs.

They sat down at the desks as Professor Snape strode in, waving his wand to slam all the windows closed. With another flick of his wrist, writing began to appear on the blackboard, instructing them that they would be reviewing a potion from last semester. Mizuki groaned when she saw what the potion was; it was one that she wasn't that good at either—in fact, she wasn't very good at potions at all. It was an exact art that most people couldn't understand, and it took some people years to become good at it with enough practice. Mizuki couldn't understand why Potions was so difficult for her.

"Don't worry, everyone had trouble with this last year," he informed her. That cheered her up slightly. As everyone got to work, she looked over her textbook to find the ingredients and instructions on how to prepare the potion, paying extra attention to the finer details that might be overlooked. However, by the end of it, her potion was bubbling, pink perfumy fumes emitted from her cauldron as Snape walked by, smirking. With a wave of his wand, her cauldron emptied.