Pandora Malfoy and the Philosopher's Stone

Chapter Twenty-Four: Neville Gets Sent Literally the Most Pointless Object Ever

The rest of the week passed by in a flash. Most of the lessons were quite enjoyable, though History of Magic somehow became duller each time, and Potions was slowly becoming a living nightmare for me. Despite Draco's best efforts, the other Slytherin Purebloods were constantly sneaking ingredients into my cauldron to make my potions go wrong, and then endlessly mocking me for it afterwards. Snape hadn't yet given me detention, but I knew it was only a matter of time — and when that happened, Father was sure to be unbelievably angry with me.

The one thing I was taking hope from was that we didn't have any other classes with the Slytherins, so I didn't have to put up with them all that much. Or at least, I didn't until myself and my classmates spotted a notice pinned up in the Gryffindor common room which made us all groan. Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday — and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.

"Typical," I heard Harry say darkly. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Draco Malfoy."

"You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself," his friend Ron said reasonably. "Anyway, I know Malfoy's always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that's all talk."

Draco certainly had been talking about flying a lot, even more than he usually did at home, which was saying something. He complained loudly about first-years never getting in the house Quidditch teams, and told long, boastful stories which always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters. How he even knew what a helicopter was, I had no idea, since all of his stories were completely made up. The most dramatic thing that had happened to him on a broom was when he'd somehow got himself stuck in one of the Manor's chimneys.

Draco wasn't the only one telling those stories, though — the way Seamus Finnigan told it, he'd spent most of his childhood zooming around on a broomstick, and Ron would tell anyone who'd listen about the time he'd almost hit a hang-glider on his brother Charlie's old broom. Neville, on the other hand, had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his grandmother wouldn't let him near one. Unlike with Father's refusal to let me on a broom, I felt like Neville's grandmother had good reason — Neville managed to have an extraordinary amount of accidents even with both feet on the ground.

"What about you?" Fay Dunbar asked me one night, as we were all sitting in our dorm. "Got any exciting flying stories?"

She and the other first-year Gryffindor girls had actually been quite quick to get over the whole 'there's a Malfoy in Gryffindor' thing, and we had now all become somewhat of a unit, which was then split into the closer friendships of me and Hermione, Lavender and Parvati, and Fay and Sophie.

"I... I've never actually flown a broom before," I said, looking down at my hands.

"Never flown a broom?" she repeated, sounding incredulous. "But Malfoy — your brother, I mean — he's always going on about how good of a flyer he is!"

"He's a pretty good flyer," I said, nodding. "A great one, in fact. But I've never flown before; Father wouldn't let me. He said he didn't want me to hurt myself."

"But he let Draco?" Hermione asked gently. She seemed to know something was up, and I bit the inside of my lip anxiously.

"Yeah, he let Draco. Apparently boys are tougher than girls, they don't get injured as easily or something, I don't know." I shrugged. "I don't expect I'd be very good at it anyway."

Hermione seemed to feel the same way, as at breakfast on Thursday, she bored all of us almost to death with flying tips she'd got out of Quidditch Through the Ages, which she'd found in the library. Neville was hanging onto her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang onto his broomstick later, but the rest of us were very pleased when Hermione's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the post.

I still hadn't had a single letter, a stark contrast to Draco, who received large packages of sweets from Mother and Father almost every day. I was sure Father was monitoring our mail to stop Mother sending anything to me; she was usually quick to forgive me when I did something 'unMalfoyish', and such a long silence just wasn't something she would do. Still, Draco's sweets always contained a large amount of Fizzing Whizzbees, which we had both assumed were for me, since he didn't particularly like them, so all Father had done was force Mother to find a different way of getting things to me.

This morning, a barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly, and showed us the thing inside — a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke.

"It's a Remembrall!" he explained, for the benefit of those who didn't know. "Gran knows I forget things — this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this, and if it goes red — oh." His face fell, because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet. "It means you've forgotten something..."

"Honestly, I can't see how those things are at all helpful," I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. "I mean, can you actually remember what you've forgotten, Neville?"

Neville shook his head. "Nope."

"Exactly! And is there even a limit on how far back it goes? Could it, for instance, remind you that you've forgotten a memory from when you were a baby?" I frowned slightly as a thought came to me. "I wonder if there's a charm you could put on it that would remind you exactly what it is you've forgotten..."

I was just trying to recall a spell that could be used for such a purpose, when Draco, who'd been passing our table, snatched the Remembrall out of Neville's hand. Harry and Ron both jumped to their feet, clearly hoping for a reason to fight my brother, who'd been getting on their nerves quite a lot.

"Draco Malfoy, if you don't—" I started, but I was soon cut off by Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any other teacher in the school.

"What's going on?"

"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor."

Scowling, Draco quickly dropped the Remembrall back onto the table.

"Just looking," he said. Then he slipped away, with Crabbe and Goyle behind him.

Harry and Ron both sat back down, and McGonagall returned to the High Table.

"What a git," I said, as I watched my brother go. "Sorry about that, Neville. But you know, I do wish you'd find some way of differentiating me from Draco. Every time you call him Malfoy, I feel like I have to respond."

"Well, we sort of do," Hermione pointed out. "He's Malfoy, and you're either Pandora or Dora."

I thought about this for a moment. "I guess you're right."

Hermione grinned at me, then launched back into her lecture on flying, taking us through the finer points of the history of broomsticks. Apparently overcome with boredom, Ron faceplanted the table.

***
Word count: 1232