Puzzle Pieces

Section 4:

To my great good fortune, Draco was so pleased with himself for ‘pulling one over’ on me that he didn’t even notice my uneasiness as the after-lunch tutoring session approached. As I headed toward the classroom where we were supposed to meet, I was plagued with doubts. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe Draco had had the right idea when he thought I shouldn’t meet with a Gryffindor alone. Maybe I should just blow her off and work on the spell some more on my own. Maybe I should… maybe I should just go into the room and stop acting like an ickle firstie.

She was already there when I arrived, seated at the teacher’s desk at the head of the room, nibbling on a sugar quill while flipping through a massive book and scribbling something onto a piece of parchment. She looked up when she heard the door open, but made no move to attack, or even defend herself against attack. Her wand was resting on the desk, but her hand didn’t so much as twitch in its direction. My worries were starting to seem more and more foolish, and I was glad that I hadn’t given in to Draco.

“Have you got the rabbit, then?” she asked abruptly.

Nodding, I held up the rabbit I had captured earlier that morning. She nodded, a quick jerk of approval, gesturing to a pen she had conjured on one of the desk tops. Placing the rabbit inside, I turned to her and awaited further instruction. She had stood and moved around to the front of the desk, seating herself on the edge as she watched me.

“Go ahead, then,” she stated.

I raised an eyebrow. “Granger, if I was able to pull off the spell as easily as that, I wouldn’t need your help, would I?”

“And how do you expect me to be any help if I don’t know what you’re doing wrong?” she countered. “I have to see you try it first, don’t I?”

Oh. Right. She had a point. Turning to face the rabbit, I raised my wand to cast the spell.

“Lepus florens!” I stated firmly. As usual, nothing happened. I turned to Granger again, waiting to see what she would say now.

“Again,” she ordered. “Try it again.” Rolling my eyes a bit mentally, I inhaled to say the words of the spell.

“Stop!” Granger commanded. Though surprised and a bit bewildered, I obeyed.

“What were you thinking then, just before casting the spell? What were you concentrating on?”

“Enunciating the words?” I stated uncertainly.

“Good,” Granger smiled briefly in approval. “What else?”

“The correct wand movement.”

“What else?”

“Focusing my magic.”

“Very good. Now, what *else*?”

I paused, considering it, and coming up blank. What else *was* there? This was magic, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that how magic worked? Wave a wand, say the magic words, and something was supposed to *happen*… wasn’t it?

Granger must have seen my confusion because she hopped off the desk and came over to stand next to me, very carefully pulling the wand out of my hand and placing it on the desk. (McGonagall must have warned her.)

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Go ahead,” I replied warily. Merlin only knew what kind of question would drive even a Gryffindor to request permission before asking. I comforted myself in the knowledge that I’d be able to lie circles around her without her noticing if it was a question I truly didn’t *want* to answer.

“Do you like your first name?”

“It’s a family name,” I answered stiffly.

“That’s not what I asked,” she replied, obviously fighting the urge to smile.

“I fail to see what my name has to do with Transfiguration,” I stated freezingly. She refused to be frozen.

“That doesn’t answer the question, either.”

“I asked you here to *tutor* me, not to cross-examine me.”

“You asked me to *help* you, and I agreed. You didn’t ask what methods I would use. And you still haven’t answered the question.”

“What business is it of yours if I like my name or not?”

“None of my business at all, but that’s not going to stop me from asking. Just tell me: do you like your—”

“No, alright? I don’t like my name!” I shouted out, temper snapping at last. “I hate that people are always spelling it wrong, or thinking it’s a girl’s name, or calling me Blay for short, like my cousin Trent. It sounds like the name for a horse, not a person!”

“And did you ever pretend you had a different name, when you were little?” she prompted, and I answered without thinking.

“I used to pretend my name was—”

“Yes?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled.

“Doesn’t it?”

“El Dorado,” I mumbled, barely audibly.

“Really?” she replied. Her voice sounded more surprised than amused, but I hated the thought that she might be laughing at me behind her courteous facade.

“I always liked the name,” I added defensively. “I liked the way people said it, like it was something powerful and wonderful and mysterious and—”

“Magical?”

My eyes snapped up to look at her. “Yes,” I answered eventually. “How did you know?”

She smiled softly, almost nostalgically. “How much do you know about magical theory?”

“Do you ever actually *stay* with a conversation until it’s finished, or do you always randomly jump from one topic to the next?”

I had hoped that using her own tactics of asking abrupt questions might startle her, just as it had startled me, but it didn’t seem to work.

“It isn’t random,” she replied smoothly, without a hint of hesitation. “There’s always a link. It’s just not always an obvious link to someone who doesn’t know me well enough to know how I associate ideas. So how much *do* you know about magical theory?”

“A bit,” I hedged, uncertain exactly what she meant.

“Aside from magical quotient and knowledge of the words and wand movement necessary to cast a spell, what else is involved? What’s the catalyst that makes magic take place in the end?”

I shook my head. Obviously, there was something else involved, but I hadn’t the faintest idea what. I had the sneaking suspicion, though, that it was what gave me such trouble with Transfiguration and Charms.

“Imagination,” she answered simply. “In order to change something into something else, you have to imagine the change, picturing it in your mind. It’s not enough to want a spell to work; you have to believe that it *will* work, and be able to picture the results along with the process of the change.”

“Is that true?” I questioned, wondering if she was pulling my leg. The whole touchy-feely, ‘connect with your inner imagination’ lecture sounded like a variation on the old ‘if you close your eyes and wish really hard, a fairy will bring you a surprise’ hoax that my sisters used to pull on me when I was little and gullible.

“Haven’t you ever wondered why there are so few Ravenclaws who are known as being really *powerful* witches and wizards?”

My eyes narrowed. Now I *knew* she was toying with me. “You can*not* convince me that there is any logical train of thought connecting your last two sentences,” I stated, trying to keep a firm reign on my temper, without much success. I hated the thought that she was deliberately wasting my time.

“Ravenclaws don’t have much imagination,” she explained patiently. “They’re very bright, of course, and they can research and understand very powerful spells, but they can’t usually *cast* them. They’re just too practical to indulge in imagination and too logical to see things as they *could* be instead of as they *are*.”

“But Flitwick is one of the leading Charms masters in England!” I protested.

“And he’s also lived a long life with a disability that required him to constantly find or *create* ways to get around his disadvantages. It’s the imagination he has developed; combined with his Ravenclaw logic and discipline; that have made him such a leader in the Charms field.”

To my utter consternation, it almost sounded as if it made sense. But I wasn’t ready to yield the point easily. “What about Slytherins?” I questioned. “We’re practical *and* powerful. How do you explain that?”

The smile faded from her face. “You’re also ambitious,” she stated softly, “which can lead to the development of a very dangerous type of imagination. Did you know that Voldemort was raised in a muggle orphanage?” Dumbstruck even more at the ease with which she said You Know Who’s name than at the sudden shift in the conversation, I could barely manage to shake my head in response.

“He hated it,” she continued. “Hated the people at the orphanage and hated his family that put him there. He got revenge on his family early on, but destroying the orphanage wasn’t a one-wizard job, and with destruction of muggles as his goal, he was a little hesitant to admit to his followers that he was raised in a muggle orphanage. About a month before he attacked the Potters, he finally felt secure enough in his power to take his Death Eaters with him to take his revenge. They attacked the orphanage and burned it to the ground, killing everyone inside, including children who hadn’t even been born when he lived there.” She bit her lip, seemingly searching for the right words.

“The spell he used to burn it down… he *created* that spell. Before that night, there was no such thing as a fire that didn’t go out when it had nothing left to burn, or that followed anything that tried to escape the target until it had been burnt to ashes as well. Five children managed to run from the burning building just to have the fire follow after them, burning them as they stood, in the middle of the street. When the muggle fire department came the next day, all that was left was ashes. *Nothing* had survived even partially intact, all the way down to the foundations of the building. No wizard on earth had ever heard of a fire that could do that. But no one had ever wanted so badly to eradicate something that they were willing to kill without mercy, in as painful a manner as could be devised. Witnesses said he laughed as he watched the building burn, saying that it looked just as he had imagined it would, all those years. That kind of hate, that kind of destruction… it’s just not *possible* unless you’ve spent so much time imagining it that the picture of the process is clear in your head.”

She fell silent, lost in her thoughts, and I fidgeted uncomfortably, wanting badly to break the moment. Political conversations always made me uncomfortable. Zabinis were nonpolitical by nature. My sisters were married to stuffy diplomats who had no understanding of the world outside their limited spheres, and my parents were too wrapped up in their businesses to concern themselves with politics. They were not Death Eaters, but as far as I could tell, they didn’t much care who won the war. I hoped for a Death Eater victory mostly because I wanted Draco to be on the winning side. Other than that, the war was of little concern to me. There was no reason for me to be involved; the Death Eaters had no cause to direct their venom at me, so it wasn’t my problem. I told myself that I wasn’t bothered by Death Eater raids, or by the things the Daily Prophet claimed Death Eaters did. Everyone knew the Daily Prophet was full of rubbish, anyway. Voldemort and his Death Eaters were ruthless, sure, but everyone was ruthless when there was a war to be fought. That was the only way to secure a victory. I knew full well that the man wasn’t a saint, but hating muggles wasn’t a sign of incurable dementia. Just because he was a hard man didn’t mean that he was a sadistic monster that liked the drink the blood of babies, as the journalists seemed to claim. Unquestionably, the truth lay somewhere in between, as it did with most things.

“That’s probably just an exaggeration,” I stated confidently, breaking the silence. “You can’t believe everything you read in the Daily Prophet.”

She looked up, startled. Apparently, she had forgotten I was there. “Oh, I didn’t read about it in the Daily Prophet. Or rather, I didn’t read about it *only* in the Daily Prophet. I read the muggle news story first, years ago, for a primary school project on news stories from the day I was born. It wasn’t until I came here to Hogwarts and learned about Voldemort’s background that I made the connection and read the Daily Prophet’s story.”

“But that’s not the point,” she continued briskly. “The point is, you have to be able to *imagine* something in order to make it happen. Especially with transfiguration. Knowing what it’s supposed to look like in the end isn’t enough. You have to imagine how one object will transform itself, piece by piece, into something else. That’s how magic works. If you can imagine it, if you mind can conceive of even the *possibility*, then magic can make it possible. But if you simply can’t imagine a rabbit turning into a plant, then it’s never going to happen.”

“Oh,” I stated, deflating visibly. “So you’re saying it’s hopeless? I’m never going to be able to nail this spell?”

“No, that’s not it at all!” she protested, shaking her head so energetically that her hair tumbled into her eyes. She brushed it back impatiently. “I’m saying you *will* be able to do it. You’re not used to using your imagination, but you still have one. The way that you used to imagine you had a different name proves that. Now, do you like flowers?”

Unable to keep up with her verbal pace, I growled in frustration. “Why do you ask so many random questions?”

“Because when I catch you off guard, you’re more likely to give an honest answer.”

I opened my mouth to retort, then closed it. “You’re right,” I admitted. “And *yes*, before you ask again, I like flowers.”

“What’s your favorite?”

I started to shrug, but she raised that damn single eyebrow again, and I knew I wasn’t going to get away with not answering. “Roses, I guess,” I answered. “Yellow ones.”

“Good!” she answered, smiling approvingly. “Now, close your eyes.” I hesitated, and she huffed in annoyance. “I outscored you by more than twenty percent when you were in Defense, Zabini. If I was going to attack you, I wouldn’t need to wait for your eyes to be closed.”

She had a point. Alright, so she had a very *good* point. Although my hexes were better than my Charms and loads better than my Transfiguration, I knew that they didn’t even approach her level of expertise. I closed my eyes.

“Now picture the rabbit,” I heard her say, her voice coming closer and closer until I could tell she was standing right next to me. “Picture every detail, from the color of the fur to the way its nose twitches. Can you see it clearly?” I nodded. “We’ll start simple. Imagine a green ribbon around the rabbit’s neck.” I added the ribbon to my mental picture of the rabbit. “Now imagine the green spreading out from the ribbon to cover the rabbit. Spreading backwards over the rabbit’s back, down to the legs, and up to the head, all the way to the tips of the ears until the rabbit is green from head to toe. Are you picturing that?” This was a bit harder, but eventually I was able to grasp the picture, and nodded.

“Now imagine that the fur changes texture,” she continued. Her voice was softer as she forced me to concentrate. She was standing to close to me by then; I could feel the warmth coming off of her. “It bunches up into clusters, shaped almost like leaves. But if you look closer, you see that it *is* leaves. The fur is shifting into leaves, all over the rabbit’s body until it’s covered in leaves. Still with me?” Again, I nodded.

“Okay, we’re almost there. Imagine, here and there, that you can see the beginnings of buds coming up between the leaves. Do you see them?” Nod. “They’re growing fast, inching their way up out of the leaves until you can see them clearly, half a dozen or more buds, spread out through the leaves. But the buds aren’t green anymore. They’ve grown until their natural color shows, and you can tell that they’re yellow. But they don’t stop there.” I felt something press against my hand and grasped it, recognizing the shape and feel of my wand. “The buds keep opening slowly, just a few petals at a time, blossoming gradually into half open, yellow roses.” I could smell her hair. It smelled like roses, and that helped cement the picture in my mind. “Can you see them?” One last nod.

I felt her hand on my wrist, aiming it in a particular direction. “You know the words,” she said. “You know the wand movement. You can feel the magic inside you and inside your wand, and you know exactly how it will look. So say it now.” Inhaling deeply, I let the words flow out of my mouth as I exhaled.

“Lepus florens.”

“You can open your eyes now,” she said, her voice once more on the other side of the room. Unaccountably, I felt disappointed that she was no longer next to me. Opening my eyes, they slid automatically across the room to find her. She was packing her books back up into her bag.

“What are you looking at me for?” she asked when she noticed my eyes on her. “Shouldn’t you be looking at that?” She pointed over in the direction of the table where I had left the rabbit. Following her direction, I looked over at the table and was hard-pressed to keep my jaw from dropping open in shock at what I saw.

My rabbit’s foot flowering plant. It was perfect. Looking exactly as I had pictured it, it maintained the shape of a rabbit formed out of leaves, sprinkled throughout its body with large, half-open, absolutely beautiful yellow roses.

I heard the sound of the classroom door open, and Granger’s voice softly saying, “Well done, Zabini,” but by the time I looked over, she was gone.


End Section 4