White Heather for Protection

Student's Bane

"If we win we get exclusive use-"

"-of your lab for a week; you always hog it."

"Fine," she agreed.

"Your loss then, harpy. We've been throwing-"

"-gnomes for years! You don't stand a chance."

"We'll see about that," she said, smiling widely.

Fred and George shivered inexplicably, but handed Heather a protesting gnome. It was a fairly large thing. Just because she was their best friend didn't mean they'd go easy on her.

Heather lifted it experimentally, testing its weight. It was really heavy. No matter. Focussing inwards, she readied herself. She then hefted it higher and flung it forward. It flew and flew and flew...

Until it finally landed.

She grinned in satisfaction as she looked at her two friends. Their jaws hung open, staring at the gnome as it righted itself and scuttled away. She could understand their shock. She was really tiny - petite damn it! - and slim. Her appearance didn't exactly scream strength. And it was true, she wasn't really very strong.

Her magic, on the other hand...

They really should know better than to bet with a Slytherin.

"Hmm, is that 41 or 42 feet, I wonder?" she asked airily.

"How- what- huh?" they stuttered.

Fred then looked at her accusingly. "You used magic!"

"Wandless is cheating, Heather!" George whined.

She remembered the conversation she'd had with them about her and Hadrian's wandless capabilities about a year back. After impressing upon them the importance of keeping it a secret, of course. While not exactly thrilled that she'd kept it from them, they understood her reasons. If anything, they mourned all the missed pranking opportunities.

They had been very impressed when she demonstrated some wandless magic later on. Not just wandless spells, but her manipulation of wandless raw magic. Spells were just a sort of structure to mould magic around for a certain outcome. Kind of like a template. However, with enough control, focus and imagination, anyone could just bend magic to their will without spells. Keeping in mind certain laws of magic, of course.

Predictably, they had begged her to teach them how to do it too. She had had them starting simple with just wandless first year spells at the time.

She raised a sceptical brow. "As I recall, the only terms were that I exceeded your throw of 33 feet. You didn't specify that I had to use only my strength to throw it."

"Damn Slytherin," they muttered together.

"Cough up the Honeyduke's Finest, boys!"

"It's in our room," they grumbled as they trudged back inside to fulfil their bet.

Laughing, she followed them in, already anticipating the delicious confection.

~~~

Munching delightedly on a bar of her winnings, she watched as an owl flew into the room and dropped off several letters. The twin pouting expressions morphed into curiosity as they looked through the mail.

They shouted eagerly, "They're here! They're our-"

"-exam results?" Heather finished. The release of marks had been delayed this year. The public outcry after Sirius' situation was made known forced the Ministry into restructuring several departments. Among the affected was the examinations department. (Heather highly doubted that there was any improvement made.) Thus, the tests hadn't been marked in time to release the results before term ended.