***
ZOE FELT LIKE HER HEAD COULDN'T WRAP AROUND all the confusing details Harry and Ron explained to them: apparently, Sirius Black was after Harry, to finish what Voldemort had started.
Whenever she thought about her father, it was like her brain was about to run overlaps and she ended up with a headache. She had absolutely no opinion about him because whenever she thought he was only a mad murderer, the mental image of her and him in the photograph when she was a baby came to her mind. And when she thought that maybe his mind just hadn't been able to handle the war and went crazy, she started to feel slightly sorry for him. All the things she had ever heard him do were ringing in her ears and haunting her thoughts if she started thinking the matter for a few seconds too long.
"Zoe, you didn't get any presents without a note who it was from, didn't you?" Hermione questioned, worried, when the girl finally entered their dorm in order to lay face down on her bed.
"No, I didn't," Zoe let out an annoyed sigh, "like I told Professor McGonagall: it's a ridiculous thought that the Firebolt was from Sirius Black. - I mean he could afford the Firebolt, yes, but it's not like that he could just walk into Gringotts and say he would like to visit his vault where all of his money are. And why would he spent hundreds of gallons if he would actually send Harry something, why wouldn't he just send something like a poisoned chocolate?"
Unfortunately, like Professor McGonagall, Hermione wasn't convinced it wasn't a possibility the broom would not be sent from Sirius Black by this reasoning.
Harry and Ron were both angry with Hermione. Zoe completely understood why: Harry had been the owner of the best broom in the world, and as far as she, Fred, George and Ron were concerned, the stripping down of a brand-new Firebolt was nothing less than criminal damage. Even though Harry and Ron didn't, Zoe still remained in speaking manners with Hermione because the matter of Harry's broom didn't really involve her. However, she did think Hermione's reaction was annoying and unnecessary. Why would Sirius Black go through all the trouble of buying the same broom the English National team would have in the Quidditch World Cup next summer just to kill off Harry when there much cheaper things to jinx?
Fred, George and Zoe used the rest of the holiday still having fun by taking the advantage of the empty castle and playing Exploding Snap with Harry and Ron.
All in all, they were glad when the rest of the school returned shortly after New Year, Lee among them and Gryffindor Tower became crowded and noisy again.
The night before the term started, Zoe saw Draco and Blaise in the corridors as they were heading back to their common room after dinner, which reminded her that she would have to talk to Draco about the Hippogriff. However, the idea of getting Draco to tell his father the Hippogriff which attacked him should be released after all, especially, after he had seen what it did to Hagrid, Harry, Ron and Hermione - just because Zoe asked was impossible. She would just have to get Draco somehow convinced the Hippogriff was too great to die.
She had a brilliant thought as she sat down in front of the fire in the common room with Fred, George and Lee.
"That's it!" Zoe let out in joy, abruptly.
Fred, George and Lee all turned to look at her, slightly confused.
"What?" Lee wondered, his brows knitting together.
"I'm going to need your help in this, if you please, and we're making records on one of the most stupid things I've done yet..."
They didn't realize it, but the boys all leaned in slightly at the mention of this. It was rare when Zoe understood herself she would do something stupid. The girl then proceeded to explain to the three boys how she was planning her cousin to ride the Hippogriff which he at the moment wanted to be sentenced to death.
"That's definitely something different..." Fred nodded.
"So, you'll help me?" Zoe questioned, scratching her lip.
"Absolutely."
Zoe grinned. She nodded and pushed herself up to go have a word with Harry and Ron. The pair were hopelessly studying around a table in the common room. It seemed to be harder for them now without Hermione's notes or the girl reminding them to do the homework.
"Could you say something to Hagrid so he would go to the Three Broom Sticks and not come back until midnight on Thursday if I'll try something that could possibly get Buckbeak released of the charges?"
Harry and Ron both looked at her in a mix of curiosity and confusion.
"What-" Ron started.
"You don't want to know... trust me, the less you know is better." Zoe shook her head, her black hair moving along the movement.
***
Lessons started again next day. The last thing anyone felt like doing was spending two hours in the grounds on a raw January morning, but Hagrid had provided a bonfire full of salamanders for their enjoyment. They spent an unusually good lesson collecting dry wood and leaves to keep the fire blazing, while the flame-loving lizards scampered up and down the burning, white-hot logs. During it Harry and Ron went to talk with Hagrid about going to the Three Broomsticks on Thursday, no questions asked. Hagrid did look confused but then he seemed to sniff and nod, thinking about Buckbeak the Hippogriff. Harry and Ron patted him on the back where they could reach and gave Zoe a thumbs up.
The girl felt slightly thrilled of her risky plan now being in motion. She walked over to Draco and Blaise with a crooked grin. She hadn't forgotten Draco had never told her that her father had betrayed Harry's parents and he had known, but she would ask him about it later.
"Could you meet me on Thursday after dinner in the Entrance Hall?" Zoe asked with a casual tone.
They exchanged a look, doubting.
"Why?"
"Trust me, it's worth it." Zoe promised, looking now serious and sincere. This seemed to convince them slightly as they had almost never seen her serious.
"Fine." Blaise said slowly, though raising his brows at her behavior.
"Wicked. I'll see you then."
***
Zoe was absentmindedly fiddling with her fingers, feeling impatient when waiting in the Entrance Hall for Draco and Blaise on Thursday evening. She had barely eaten anything due to the funny feeling of knots in her stomach. Although, it wasn't anything special or new. She was quite used to having the feeling even though she was quite relaxed and eased most of the time.
"So, you know what you'll do?" she questioned Fred, George and Lee, who were all still standing next to her calmly.
They all rolled their eyes in an obvious manner: the three were going to create a distraction in the castle.
"Zoe, we do." Lee said, taking a hold of her shoulders.
"Mates..." George trailed off, gesturing with his gaze the two Slytherin boys were exiting the Great Hall.
"Well, happy behaving!" Fred wished, winking his eye as they turned to leave when they saw Draco and Blaise approaching.
"Later, guys." Zoe huffed, amused. She waited for the two boys to be closer until she greeted them, "Hey, Draco and Blaise."
They both greeted her with a subtle nod, while absentmindedly fixing their robes as if they had been dirtied since they had eaten.
"So, what are we doing?" Draco asked, his voice filled with suspicion.
Zoe laughed nervously. "Everything in time, my young ones." she responded, imitating a voice that people with a lot of wisdom spoke in, mostly because she knew if the two would know what they were about to do, they would back out as soon as possible.
"We are both literally older than you." Blaise stated, rolling his eyes amusedly.
"Well, I'm mentally older." Zoe defended, scoffing with humor.
This brought both of the Slytherin boys to laugh.
"You're the most immature person of our age that we know." Draco said, humored.
She opened her mouth to say something back, however realized she couldn't actually come up with anything witty to prove them wrong , so after few seconds she just muttered: "Oh, shut up."
This made Draco and Blaise chuckle smugly even more.
The girl led the way outside, slowly making their way towards Hagrid's hut, though Draco and Blaise didn't seem to realise that. The evening was starting to darken the sky.
"Zoe?" Blaise questioned, being the first one of the two now to realise how close they were to the hut.
"Yes, love?" she faked an innocent tone to her voice.
"What are we doing here?"
"Saving an innocent life from a misunderstood event."
Draco and Blaise both stopped in their tracks, staring at her.
"What does that mean?" Draco asked, looking at the hut doubtfully.
"It means that if everything goes as planned we are going to have a totally killer story to tell anyone." Zoe grinned proudly.
"And if it doesn't?"
"Er... Well, this is the worst possible scenario, but then two of us would have a different kind of killer story to tell."
"What exactly-"
"We – are – going – to – ride – a – Hippogriff." Zoe shrugged, as if it was obvious and she had to spell it out for them. "Uh, stop with the faces. If you'll listen me and do everything as I say, it's going to be just fine."
Draco opened his mouth to say something again but Zoe interrupted him and with the most pleasing and pleading voice, she begged: "Draco, Blaise, would you please do this for me? Please? I want prove to you that the Hippogriff doesn't deserve to die."
The two boys seemed to be really considering the matter as they looked concentrated.
"Harry and Ron would do it." Zoe pushed after a minute, teasingly trying to manipulate them.
They both scowled at her but then to her surprise, slowly nodded.
"I owe you." she said, smiling a wide, victorious smile.
"No kidding." Blaise stated, crossing his arms against his chest. It indicated he would definitely remember this and would someday collect his favor.
Zoe opened the hut's backdoor with Alohomora, while Draco and Blaise both stood still exactly where they were, not making an effort to move.
"Yeah, you girls just stay there and do your nails." Zoe sneered mockingly, before she entered the hut.
Buckbeak the Hippogriff was lying in the corner, chomping on something that was oozing blood all over the floor. He noticed Zoe almost immediately since he raised his head and stared at the Gryffindor carefully. She swallowed nervously and then took a very deep breath: right now was one of the few moments when she didn't feel much like it was a laughing matter.
Zoe bowed slowly, her eyes watering from keeping the not-blinking eye contact with him. To her relief Buckbeak very slowly bent his neck, as if he was bowing while laying down.
"Hello, Buckbeak." she started cooing, while carefully approaching him. "Want go for a fly, yeah? Would you like that?"
The Hippogriff seemed now curious.
"Please, don't rip my head off." was the thing the girl was more tempted to say, but didn't after seeing the damage the creature had done to Draco.
She cautiously took the rope which was tied to its collar, made her way over to the backdoor and pulled it.
"C'mon." Zoe continued, trying to sound excited. "Come on, Buckbeak, let's go for a fly!"
Suddenly he pulled himself up, making Zoe jump slightly. She walked him through the backdoor to the yard while feeling the slight nervousness grow in her stomach. Draco and Blaise didn't seem very excited either to see the creature come there. Perhaps they had hoped it would eat Zoe and they wouldn't have to keep their promise after all.
"Okay. Both do your bows, very, very deeply. Especially you, Draco." Zoe advised in a serious and a low voice, which was rare. She knew she couldn't mess up this time as it was someone else's life on the line, not hers.
Blaise stepped hesitantly forward giving a deep bow as he stared into the Hippogriff's orange eyes.
Buckbeak bent his scaly front to his knees, unexpectedly quickly. Blaise then nodded more to himself and walked slowly towards it with his hand out, patting its beak.
Zoe turned to look at Draco, who had become slightly paler than he usually was. It was clear that he and the Hippogriff had some action filled history.
He gave a pretty short bow and then looked back at the Hippogriff, who was very cautiously eyeing him. Suddenly he started to clap his wings, sort of threateningly, making Draco back away fast. He stumbled on a branch, which cracked loudly and made him freeze.
Zoe wasn't sure what to do and was starting to feel worried, she still had Buckbeak on the rope, but how long could she hold it if it tried to attack?
As the few dragging seconds passed by, Draco decided to put his other knee down on the ground, now bending his upper body very deeply, very respectively as if he was bowing to a king, his face getting paler.
Buckbeak was nailing his eyes at him, while Zoe and Blaise were holding their breath, then suddenly: he bowed too.
A relieved sigh escaped from all of the three's mouths. Draco got up, his legs seemingly still shaking as he walked over and patted the beak of the Hippogriff.
"Now, just don't say anything." Zoe said amusedly.
Blaise chuckled and Draco smirked slightly, his face starting faintly to get color back.
"Ready?" Zoe said, her voice being confident as usual but her eyes now carefully watching the Hippogriff. She didn't wait for the boys to answer when already put her foot on the top of Buckbeak's wings and hoisted herself onto his back. She pulled Buckbeak's rope over his neck and tied it to the other side of his collar like reins.
Zoe then turned to look at Draco and Blaise, smirking. The boys exchanged looks and then with a sigh Blaise climbed onto Buckbeak's back the same way Zoe had, sitting behind her. He then reached to give his hand to Draco, who took it and pulled him too, onto the back of the Hippogriff.
"You'd better hold on tightly."
A smirk appeared to her face as she pictured their horrid faces and she nudged Buckbeak's sides with her heels.
The long twelve foot wings flapped open either side of them and before they realized fully they were soaring upwards to the dim sky above the forest, which was lucky since it meant that nobody could see them.
Zoe felt surprisingly comfortable with Blaise's hands wrapped around her waist, and she had to hold back her laughter when she imagined Draco doing the same thing to him.
After they had taken some height Buckbeak didn't clap his wing so often anymore, he was mostly just gliding peacefully. They all were quiet. And the view was actually quite nice: even though the sky was going dim, some of the colors from the sunset were still playing on the sky.
But the nice mood disappeared during the next few minutes already: it was bitterly cold outside, none of them had their cloaks because they had gone straight outside after dinner. During the first five minutes, she hadn't been cold as the radiating warmth from Buckbeak and Blaise had kept her warm, but now the shivers were getting to her.
"Buckbeak, could you take us back to the ground, please?" Zoe requested kindly. She figured the boys had already had enough since she felt Blaise shiver as well.
The Hippogriff turned and headed towards Hagrid's garden, Zoe leant slightly backwards as Buckbeak lowered its neck. Then there was a thud when the four ill-assorted feet hit the ground again.
She was the last one to jump off his back and as her feet hit the ground she almost lost her balance and tripped. However Blaise was so close that she didn't have the space to fall and she just rammed into him.
Zoe grinned a thank you to him and then they both turned to look at Draco as he yelped: "Ow!" Buckbeak seemed to have nibbled his ear gently and scared him. "What'd you do that for?"
But Draco's face lightened at Buckbeak, who now tilted his head innocently at him. Draco patted his beak shortly one more time and then Zoe directed the Hippogriff back to Hagrid's hut.
They all made their way back to the castle in a complete silence. Zoe couldn't really believe that nothing had went wrong. When they got to the Entrance Hall they stopped but no-one spoke for a minute.
"Um-" Zoe started, breaking the silence, "Draco, I'm not going to force you to do anything, just do what feels right to you."
She added a faint smile, before heading off to the Gryffindor Tower.
Arriving to the common room, Harry and Ron threw curious looks at her and motioned her to come over.
"What did you do?" Ron asked immediately.
"How did it go?" Harry continued, his voice being slightly worried.
"You didn't free Buckbeak... did you?" Ron asked, furrowing his brows.
"No." Zoe grinned. "Um- everything went well, and I took Draco and Blaise for a fly, that's all." she brushed it off casually.
Harry and Ron nodded for a second and then their eyes shot wide as they registered what they had heard.
"Y- you-"
"W-what do you mean by a fly?"
"I made them ride Buckbeak."
They looked at each other, shocked and then back at Zoe.
"I mean that's... even from you..."
"Brilliant, right?" Zoe finished with a laugh.
"I don't even know what to say..." Harry muttered, looking still faintly shocked.
"A simple thank you would suffice, gentlemen." Zoe said, however they didn't smile.
"Though crowd." she muttered quietly under her breath. When Harry and Ron's faces didn't lighten at least immediately to her jokes, Zoe continued, "Come on, I'm only joking. Look, I know that it was risky," her voice was now a tad serious voice so that they would calm down, "but what's done is done and nothing bad happened. Trust me this is the only way to get Draco to change his mind."
Harry and Ron both nodded slowly, realising even though it hadn't been a good idea, nothing had gone wrong.
"Soo, what happens to Buckbeak now?" Ron questioned, tapping his dry quill against his book.
"Well, there is at least going to be the hearing since it has been already set, but I don't know what Draco'll say to his father, we just have to hope for the best."
They both nodded again.
"By the way, Harry, how did your fighting against Dementors today go?" Zoe asked, tapping the boy to his back on a friendly manner.
The black-haired boy was being taught to fight against Dementors by her uncle, Remus, because Harry had said he didn't want to faint anymore if the Dementors would happen to show up for some reason at their next Quidditch match.
"It was... pretty good, I guess."
Zoe was about to ask if he was okay but saw that they really were loaded with homework, working on it on frustrated manner. The two had most likely left it to the last minute since Hermione wasn't reminding them.
Soon, Lee appeared through the portrait hole, catching his breath by leaning onto a wall but when he noticed Zoe, he dashed to her excitedly.
"How did it go?"
"Good." Zoe answered, grinning from ear to ear. She looked at him amusedly and arched an brow. "But the question is what happened to you? Where's Fred and George?"
"Um- I actually don't know, I lost them as we parted our ways on our run." Lee explained casually. "We set off couple Stink Pellets, just in case, you know, and Filch got mad so we all ran off in different directions from him."
Zoe laughed wistfully. "Aw, man, I like playing tag with Filch."
***
Ravenclaw played Slytherin a week after the start of term. Slytherin won, though narrowly. According to Oliver, this was good news for Gryffindor, who would take second place if they beat Ravenclaw too.
January faded imperceptibly into February, with no change in the bitterly cold weather. However Fred, George, Lee and Zoe took advantage of it by borrowing trays from the kitchens to slide the snowy hills on the Hogwarts grounds, which was actually awful lot of fun when they improved the trays little bit with magic.
On Valentine's day they serenaded Harry with "His eyes are green as a fresh pickled toad" – song from the previous year everytime they saw him.
One morning their Herbology class in the greenhouse, Zoe was paired up with Ernie McMillan, a nice boy from Hufflepuff, who said to her something that caught her totally off guard as she had been in her thoughts half of the Herbology class. She wasn't interested in the subject really and not a big fan of the smelly manouver.
"I'm sorry." Ernie said suddenly. His apology appeared sincere as he mixed it with a faint, sad smile.
"W-what?" Zoe blurted, confused, thinking she had missed the first part of what he had said.
"I thought that you were feeling down cause of this morning's Daily Prophet." Ernie explained, but as the expression on Zoe's face turned to even more confused, he continued: "The Ministry have given the Dementors permission to perform Dementor's Kiss to Sirius Black if they find him."
"Oh." Zoe managed to say, swallowing her dry throat now. "I... I didn't know."
"I thought you had heard and were upset about it... Are you okay?" Ernie questioned.
"I guess I will be." Zoe said slowly, pressing her lips together. She then looked quickly at him, realising she should have lied and just said yes since the man was a deeply hated mass murderer. But Ernie didn't appear to think there was anything abnormal about her answer.
The girl felt slightly odd about the news. She figured tmaybe deep down she had imagined herself having a chance to confront, yell, diss Sirius Black once before he would return to Azkaban, even for just a few minutes. Perhaps, she had wanted to make him feel as bad as he had made her on several occasions throughout her childhood. But now, it seemed that opportunity had went out of the window. Clearly, the Ministry didn't want the man to live after humiliating them on failing to capture him for so long.
"Thank you." Zoe stated, smiling faintly to the boy with a blondish hair.
They went back to their work and Zoe noticed that despite he was a bit pompous, Ernie was actually enjoyable company. It was safe to say that it was a start of new friendship.