The Diamonds’
Encouragement
[The character I chose was Susan Bones, a Hufflepuff from
Harry Potter, and my items were: a fake diamond necklace, a picture frame, and
a ribbon.]
I did the cowardly thing. Any normal witch or wizard
wouldn’t have tossed a magical diamond necklace into the lake. But that’s what
I did. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.
It was the day
that the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were allowed to
go into Hogsmead—the little wizarding village near Hogwarts. Most of the other
fifth year students, including my fellow Hufflepuffs, had gone to the Hogshead
pub or to Zonko’s Joke Shop, but I went to the book store. Hogsmead had a
little book store nestled between two shops on a crowded street. Most people just
walked by it, unless they needed books for school. The shop sold mostly school
books; Defense Against the Dark Arts books, potion books, but the ones I was
interested in were the fairy tales. The books about witches and wizards from
long ago, fighting dragons out in the wilderness with only their wands and
their wits, beautiful witches being rescued from dark sorcerers by young and
handsome wizards in flowing robes. Those were the kind of books I liked. They
almost always had a happy ending—not like my life had been.
Maybe that’s why
my favorite classes at Hogwarts were things like Transfiguration and Charms. In
my opinion, those were real magic. They weren’t just mixing potions, or
defending yourself with your wand. They were required practice, and real
spells—they were the most magical. I don’t know why I felt so drawn to that
kind of thing—I’d grown up in a family of witches and wizards. Perhaps it was
because, somewhere deep inside me, even then, I wanted to make things better
for my family than they had been. Ever since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the
darkest wizard of all time, had come back, my life had been getting worse and
worse. Recently, my own aunt had been mysteriously murdered. We all knew who
was behind it.
That day had just
seemed like another normal Hogsmead weekend. I left my friends near Zonko’s,
and headed toward the little bookshop. I had curled up in my usual corner and
read one of my favorite old fairytales. I’d lost track of the time reading, so
I didn’t notice how late it was until it was almost too dark in the dim shop to
read. I stuck the ribbon from a box of chocolate cauldrons into my book to mark
my place. Then I quickly left the shop to meet my friend before we walked back
to the Hogwarts castle.
“There you are,
Susan,” my friend Ellen, also in Hufflepuff house, said when I caught up to her
heading out of Hogsmead. “What kept you so long?”
I was explaining
to her, my mind still on a particularly intriguing story about a wizard who
discovered a cave full of treasure, when something sparkly glinted in the
setting sun in the corner of my vision. I thought it was just the bright white
snow piled about the streets, but for some reason, I looked back anyway. That’s
when I saw it.
A diamond necklace
was lying, half-buried in snow, on the cobblestone rode.
“What is it, Sue?”
Ellen asked, noticing that my voice had drifted off, and that I was staring at
the ground a few feet off.
“There,” I
murmured. I stepped forward, trance-like, and picked up the necklace by the
chain.
Ellen gasped.
“That’s not…?”
“Not what?” I
asked, still staring at the necklace.
“My mum once told
me about necklaces like that,” Ellen explained. “They supposedly have magical
powers almost as amazing as that Resurrection Stone in the old children's
story. What are you going to do with it?”
I looked around to
make sure no one else had noticed what I’d found. Then I slipped the necklace
into my robes. “I don’t know yet,” I murmured.
****
I had a hard time concentrating in classes the next day. I
kept thinking of the necklace I found. At last, after classes were over for the
day, Ellen and I went down with some other students to the lake.
“What are you
going to do with it?” Ellen asked again. “With that kind of power the necklace
must have…”
“I know, I’ve been
thinking about it all day,” I said, rather weary of the necklace by now. “But
something just doesn’t feel right about that kind of power.”
“You might even
stand a chance of protecting your family from You-Know-Who with that,” Ellen
added.
I thought about
what she’d said. I thought about my aunt’s murder. But then I spotted a black
haired fifteen year old boy with bright green eyes under a tree by the lake. I
thought of something I’d read in the Daily Prophet. Supposedly, this boy, Harry
Potter, was the only one who could defeat You-Know-Who. I pulled the necklace
out of my robes again and studied it. Then I threw it into the lake as hard as
I could.
“What was that
for?” Ellen exclaimed, staring at me as if I’d gone mad.
“I can’t do it,” I
murmured. “There’s no way I can stand up to You-Know-Who. There’s a reason the
Sorting Hat didn’t put me in Gryffindor, Ellen. I’m not brave. I know I could
never do it.”
****
Later that day, I was back in our dormitory putting a photo
my parents had just sent me of us all on Christmas holiday into a picture
frame, when Ellen rushed in.
“You’ll never
believe what I heard,” Ellen gasped, out of breath. “I overheard some
Slitherins talking, and they said that they’d tried to steal a fake diamond
necklace from Zonko’s earlier!”
I stared at her,
the picture frame still in my hands.
“But they lost
it,” she added. “Don’t you understand, the necklace you found—”
“It wasn’t one of
the real ones your mum told you about,” I finished, the truth dawning on me.
“It was just a fake diamond necklace from Zonko’s.”
It made sense.
Ellen rarely went into Zonko’s, and I never did, so we wouldn’t have known they
were selling fake magical necklaces.
Now that I knew
the truth, I didn’t feel at all heroic about the way I’d acted. I’d tossed a
fake necklace into the lake, just because I was afraid of what it would bring
me. I’d been afraid that the rumors about Harry Potter would turn out to be
about me instead, and I’d have to fight You-Know-Who. I hadn’t even offered the
necklace to Harry Potter, when it might’ve helped him—if it had actually turned
out to be real. I’d done the cowardly thing. I hadn’t wanted to be involved at
all.
Ellen seemed to be
working along the same line of thought as me. “Harry Potter was in Hogsmead
today,” she said thoughtfully. “He wants to start some kind of wizard army.”
She said the idea like it was crazy, but I looked up at her, and suddenly
everything that had happened with the fake necklace and all my worrying seemed
laughable.
“I’m joining,” I
said.
“What are you
talking about, Susan?” Ellen asked.
“This wizard
army,” I explained. “I’m going to fight with them. Maybe I was a coward before,
with the necklace, but I’m not going to stand by anymore. Imagine if that
necklace had really been magical, and I just threw it away! That’s not going to
happen again. I’m not the one who will fight You-Know-Who in the end, but I’m
not going to let him hurt me anymore without fighting back.”
And that’s the
story of how I did the cowardly thing. I’m not saying everyone should act the
way I did. But for some reason, call it fate, even though I didn’t do the brave
thing, that act of cowardliness egged me on to do something more—something that
turned out to be far more important than a fake diamond necklace.
THE END
