I spent Saturday, January first, as well as the following day, in the common room, occasionally visiting the library, which was empty at that time.
On Saturday evening I checked on my tree-bow. Visually, of course, I could see it without any checks; it was growing in a pot beside my bed, with a straight trunk and sparse branches bearing equally sparse leaves. But in terms of magic… it was almost mature, which meant it was time to resolve the issue of the bowstring.
On Sunday morning there was a small meeting of our House team, where Cedric announced the training schedule. It was not particularly demanding, and if anyone wanted to train more, he said, speak up now and we would adjust. No one showed any special desire; flying just for practice, working on maneuvering and aerial figures, could be done without outside involvement.
And on Monday the ordinary school bustle began: lessons, walking from classroom to classroom, evenings in the common room over homework, chess, sweets with various effects, or simply talking. Yet no matter how familiar this measured school life had become, the influence of those stupid Dementors was felt even in the warm, homey common room. Which meant something had to be done, since the Ministry categorically refused to catch Black properly. That left the bow. Of course, magic alone was an option, but I only had will-based control of it, and the more global the effect, the greater the mental effort required. I simply would not manage it. Besides, it would cause too much panic: a massive area-of-effect spell of enormous size and power dispersing hard-to-kill creatures. But the bow was not simple either. Strong doubts gnawed at my soul—doubts concerning the tree-bow itself.
So there I was, sitting in my corner of the common room, looking at the potted tree, unable to decide on the final magical intervention. The reason was simple: I felt a slight unpreparedness in the tree for such a step, first. My previous experiment with plants had ended not quite as intended, second. The final result differed from what it should have been—not for the worse, but most importantly, I had no idea why exactly what happened had happened.
Perhaps local plants react very differently to the life energy I know, to rituals and magical circuits. After all, purely elven techniques connected to nature have a somewhat… blurred character of final transformations. Yes… I needed the opinion of an expert, or at least someone knowledgeable, or someone who could feel it—a foreign world, foreign rules.
With those thoughts I left the room and went to breakfast. I spent almost the entire day thinking about where to find such a knowledgeable person, but not a teacher. It was not about distrust or anything like that. Simply, teachers are responsible for us, and if they decide that my experiments might pose a threat—and they might—then not only would they confiscate the tree-bow, they would also impose some kind of sanctions on me.
Lost in such thoughts, Potions passed by, during which Daphne poked me in the side to stop me daydreaming. Transfiguration passed, lunch passed, and then Herbology. There I more or less came out of my reverie and once again noticed an interesting fact. The Gryffindor Longbottom, because of his modesty and insecurity often incapable of much in other classes, gets along wonderfully with plants. Not just skillful repotting or the like, but almost communicating with them, instantly understanding what a plant needs, how best to water and care for it, and so on.
As soon as Professor Sprout announced the end of class, I immediately headed for Neville, who had not yet even properly taken off the special brown robe and gloves we worked in in the greenhouses.
"Neville, right?" I asked with a smile.
"Uh… yes," he nodded.
"Hector Granger," I extended my hand.
"Yes, I know," the boy nodded modestly, extending his. "I mean, I wanted to say… Neville Longbottom."
We shook hands, though in the eyes of the chubby boy there were some vague misgivings. He seems to feel among all these children like a poultice on a dead man.
"I would like to show you a plant and hear your opinion."
"Well… I'm not that good at this," the boy became flustered. "You'd be better off going to your Head of House. Professor Sprout is a big expert in this."
"No, professors are professors. You can go to them with some things, but with others you'll only get a dressing-down," I said, taking off my work robe and hanging it on a hook, placing the gloves beside it.
We were among the last of the class to leave the greenhouse area.
"Come on, the pot with the tree is in my room."
"Well, alright," Neville nodded.
Reaching the entrance to the common room and tapping out the correct rhythm on the barrel lid, I opened the passage.
"Go on in," I waved Longbottom through, and we quickly entered the House common room.
Naturally, the appearance of a student from another House attracted some attention, but it was by no means negative—quite the opposite.
"Is it alright for me to be in someone else's common room?" the boy asked shyly, looking around as I led him to our usual spot and seated him on the sofa.
"No problem at all. I brought you in; you didn't sneak in on your own."
"Exactly," Ernie nodded vigorously, frantically sorting through his notes at the table. "Damn it, where did I put…?"
"Not going to be late for Muggle Studies?" asked Zacharias as he passed by, followed by three younger students who, judging by appearances, were waiting for his promised help.
"Will you wait here?" I asked the nervous Neville, sliding a dish of cookies and a jug of… milk, as it turned out, toward him.
"Yes, I suppose," he nodded awkwardly, noticing the "offerings."
"Great."
Going up to my room, taking out the pot, making sure there was nothing extra on the tree or in the pot and that the plant was magically unchanged, I carried it into the common room and placed it on the coffee table in front of Neville. My actions did not attract any undue attention, though some noticed potentially interesting activity in our corner. And this is what I like about our House: they do not impose if not invited.
"Took your bush out for a walk?" Ernie smirked. "Oh! Found it!"
He shook a stack of notes in the air like the Holy Grail, quickly stuffed them into his bag, and left the common room.
"By the way," I addressed Neville, who was chewing a cookie and carefully examining the tree. "Aren't you going to Muggle Studies?"
"No," the boy shook his head. "It's not interesting at all. Though… the others say it's pretty easy to get a high grade there."
"To hell with grades. Here's the tree."
"That I noticed, strangely enough…"
For a couple of minutes Neville examined the tree this way and that, touching the sparse leaves with his fingers, and only then asked:
"And what is it supposed to become in the end?"
"You know," I sat down in an armchair, "it feels like it's stuck…"
And I began explaining my thoughts.
"Yeah?"
"Yes. It goes through several stages of development, and the final one is a form independent of the ground."
"I see," Neville drawled. "That's about how it feels. I think…"
He hesitated, then sighed and looked at me more confidently.
"The tree is depressed. Like all living things, it wants to leave offspring, and there isn't a single related tree around."
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