Turning the Corner

CHAPTER THREE

Blaise Zabini's Bet

In the common room that evening it was even worse. While I tried to scribble down spell adaptations for McGonagall and applications of cassia for Sprout, the girls kept humming and hissing.

"I do fancy..." (I couldn't hear the boy's name, and I tried not to listen.)

"Oh, he's a really sweet guy, but he isn't my type."

"Are you kidding? He's gorgeous!"

Then an apparent switch to discussing a different boy: "He's the most sensational-looking boy in the school - such a pity about his personality!"

"Yes, a real bastard, and self-centred too."

"Whereas his friend is quite a decent person - just doesn't have any brains." Giggle, muffle, and eyebrows of innuendo.

It was impossible not to wonder who the victims of these discussions were. I hoped none of them was myself. Then I realised what it would mean if none of the girls was talking about me, and started to hope that one of them was myself. Decent but brainless? Handsome but arrogant? Merely "sweet"? Oh, Merlin, which was the worst fate?

I folded up Sprout's parchment just in time to see an owl tapping at the casement. I let it in, and it swooped down on Penelope Clearwater. She paid the owl, read the note, and suddenly her face was wreathed in smiles.

"It's from my boyfriend at the Ministry," she explained to Sophie Fawcett.

"The one who works for Crouch?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, poor Mr Crouch has come down very sick, so he's sending Percy to represent him at the Yule Ball. I know it's not really good news, but I can't help being glad that Percy and I will be together on Christmas night."

"Well, that's your partner settled, then," remarked Sophie, a trifle sourly, betraying that her own partner was nowhere near settled yet.

"All these chattering girls, the suspense is driving me up the wall," complained Anthony.

"Maybe it's the girls who are in suspense," remarked Kevin, "waiting for some boy to ask them to the ball."

"If they care that much, I wish they would ask us," said Robert, looking up from his book.

"You'd hate that," Terry reproved. "Being asked by a girl is only fun if it's a girl you wanted to go with anyway."

"Well, it's no fun being the one who has to ask and be refused, either," I pointed out.

"No, it's vile. But if I had to choose," Terry sounded quite serious, "I'd rather take the pain of being refused than the embarrassment of having to do the refusing. After all, I'd only ask a girl if I trusted her to refuse me nicely. But the kind of girl who'd throw herself at a boy - well, there's no guarantee she'd accept refusal without an embarrassing tantrum."

"Oh, I can't stand this!" Anthony muttered. He scrambled up onto the table, in full view of the whole house, and shouted more loudly than the girls' twittering:

"Mandy Brocklehurst!"

Startled, Mandy bit off her chattering mid-sentence, while Lisa's mouth froze at a round "o". Every student was silent, while Anthony shouted:

"MANDY, WILL YOU BE MY PARTNER AT THE YULE BALL?"

Now everybody was rigid with horror. It seemed a very long three seconds before Mandy replied:

"I should be delighted, provided your robes don't clash with purple."

We all burst into applause, while Anthony and Mandy laughed with relief.

The girls' chattering was no better the next day. There was glancing and giggling all through Potions, as Padma and Morag and Mandy and Lisa and Su struggled between Snape's frowns and their overwhelming urge to compare notes with the Hufflepuffs. Only when we arrived at Greenhouse Three did Padma abandon Morag in order to slip her hand through mine - she must have drawn the line at sharing her intimate speculations with the Slytherins.

"You were wrong, Pansy!" were Lisa's first words. "Mandy was the first in the class to find herself a date for the ball."

Daphne Greengrass tittered pityingly. "What, the rest of you haven't found anyone yet?"

The class kept itself strictly in four separate groups for that lesson, which was entirely a practical, charming the cassia pots to withstand the frost. Terry rather overdid it, because his plant caught fire, and he foolishly tried to clamp down on the flames with his bare hands. I saw him doubled over in agony, with the apricot flames still burning brightly and about to lick into his hair, and hastily doused the fire with a water charm.

"Prize idiot, Boot," sneered Nott. "His plant catches fire, and he touches it!"

"I didn't think it could be real fire!" Terry explained weakly.

Professor Sprout arrived at our side and pulled Terry's palm towards her. "That's a nastier burn than can be treated with anything I have in the greenhouse," she said. "Go to the hospital wing at once. Honestly, Boot, what possessed you to touch a live anti-frosting flame with your bare hands? If anyone else has forgotten his greenhouse gloves, put them on immediately!"

Terry shuffled out of the greenhouse, still in too much pain to care about the Slytherins' sneers.

"There is no need for anyone else to stop working," Sprout reminded us. "Has anyone finished a first batch of pots yet?"

I had; I carried my tray to the back of the greenhouse, which meant walking past the Slytherin boys' table. Sprout was busy at the front, so while I unstacked empty pots and filled them with fresh compost I was on my own. Malfoy didn't notice me when he handed Zabini a bucket of white egg-shaped stones.

"I've charmed these," he said. "There are twenty of them. You ask a girl the Yule Ball, you touch her with one of these. Before she replies - it won't work if you wait until afterwards. On the robes will do if you can't get it to touch her hand."

I abruptly turned my back to them so that if Malfoy did see me, he would not realise I was listening intently to every word. The stones looked very ordinary; you might mistake them for eggs, but you wouldn't think of them as charmed objects.

"When the girl replies," Malfoy continued, "her name will appear on the stone in silvery letters. Or maybe gold. But more likely silver. And the stone will change colour. Got that?"

"Okay." Zabini lifted one stone out of the bucket. "Got that. But why?"

"So that I'll know you didn't cheat, of course. Twenty stones. The chance to ask twenty girls."

Zabini had obviously upped the stakes since the conversation yesterday. His original plan had been to prove he could invite three girls to the ball. But ... twenty?

Malfoy did not seem perturbed. "I can give you more than twenty, of course, if you use these up, but the point is I need to keep count. At ten o'clock on Christmas Day you bring them back to me, and I'll know how many girls agreed to be your partner at the ball."

"How will you know that?"

"Well, if the girl says no, the stone will turn black. If she says yes, it will be red, blue or green. And if you didn't bother asking as many as twenty, the spare stones will stay white."

"Why three colours for girls who say yes?"

"Ah, that's my secret for the time being. I'll tell you when we settle accounts. All you need to know now is that a green stone is worth one Galleon. A blue is worth two. A red will be three. A black, of course, is worth zilch. So you'd better hope they all turn red. And if any of them have gold writing, that doubles the stakes. So if you bring me twenty red stones with the names of twenty different girls in gold letters, I'll owe you a hundred and twenty Galleons - that's the theory. Some chance, of course!"

Goyle was stuttering, as if he wished he'd thought of betting on the Yule Ball too. It must be nice, I thought, to be able to throw the Galleons around like that.

"A hundred and - " Zabini was gasping. "So what's the catch?"

"None," said Malfoy, "unless, of course, you're afraid of girls."

"Me? Ha!"

"The catch is that I've put a time limit on these stones," continued Malfoy. "Ten o'clock on Christmas night. So when you bring back your multi-coloured stones, I'll be taking the spare white stones around the Great Hall, and touching them on the girls I think suitable. And those stones will change colour - red or blue or green or black - according to whether the girl would have gone to the ball with you if you had asked her. And if they all turn black, fair enough. You win your bet, as many Galleons as your coloured stones add up to. But if even one turns a different colour, you lose. All your coloured stones - both the first set, back in this bucket, and the new ones that I'll be bringing back to you - they'll all add up to money that you owe me. Got that? One Galleon for green, two for blue, three for red, and double if the writing is gold."

"Well, I don't see that that's such a catch," said Zabini. "All I have to do is use up all my stones before Christmas Day, and the second half of the bet won't be happening."

"Correct. But if you're bringing me a bucket of twenty black stones for no cash - and I'm knowing the names of twenty girls who didn't fancy you - well, so much for your claim to get yourself three dates at once!"

"Not a problem." Zabini was lazily swinging the bucket of stones. "I'll get three dates. More likely six. And there is no way I'll fail to invite any girl who is going to accept me."

I had run out of excuses for lingering, so I slowly carried my pots back to the Ravenclaw boys' table. This bet wasn't just a Slytherin thing any more. If Zabini really wanted to win his bet, he'd be hitting on girls from other houses too.

It sounded like an everybody-lose situation to me.