"The Diamond's Encouragement"

Okay, so this post isn't a story I wrote. I must admit I have not yet finished mine. I misplaced the first few pages of my story and just recently found them again, so it will be a little bit before I post my story from one of the previous prompts. However, a reader of my blog, Dr. Watson, wrote a story using a combination of all three of the prompts I gave in my last post. She emailed me her story and I enjoyed it so much that I want to share it with you. I hope you like it and please leave comments for the author! 

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