Discipleship
Chapter 3 – Discipleship
The day after I received his name, I stood in the barn door and called him out of his stall for the first time. Holding out a piece of meat, I said, “Come out, Protecteur, come out and stretch your legs.” He regarded me steadily, then closed his wrinkled lids for a moment, as if he were embarrassed and needed to recover himself.
He shifted his weight to his shoulders as he came forward, and I saw his problem.
His entire gait was thrown off by his shortened leg, and this powerful, beautiful animal, who should have moved with grace, galumphed across the barn floor like a rickety cart with a bent wheel, each step pitching him to the right as his stump came down with a thump and pushed off again. His wings half unfolded in a syncopated rhythm, struggling to keep him balanced, and the talons of his foot scrabbled on the boards. He made his way to me and stood, head high, stump lifted. The breath of exertion whistled in his nostrils. My heart ached for him, but I did not let on.
“Brave man,” I said. “Brave man.” Then, struck with an idea, I said, “Show me your wings,” lifting and stretching one from beneath.
I barely got my head down in time as the enormous wings unfolded, swept forward and beat the air, sending bits of straw skittering across the floor. They stretched as wide as he was long, flawlessly plumed in an intricate pattern of black, tan and brown. And they were perfect.
“Well then,” I said from where I sprawled on the floor, laughing. “Well then, I think we have something to work with.”
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Jean felt it would be better to fly him at night. Fewer things to frighten him and no students for him to frighten. As I was still feeding him by hand, I had no doubt that he would return to me, but how to teach him to come at a call? Le Soin des Hippogriffes had the young, barely fledged griffs fly on a leather lead until they grew accustomed to the return. The trainer was to shorten the lead and pull them in while giving the signal. But besides the improbability of my being able to pull Protecteur anywhere, I had committed myself to teaching him without physical restraints.
Jean came with me the first two times. We chose a night of the full moon. I led Protecteur out to the pasture by walking with him, my hand resting lightly on his neck. If I maintained enough tension in my arm that my own movements communicated themselves to him as we went, it seemed to make my wishes clear enough. His willingness to comply, however, was mysterious.
It was slow going with his damaged leg. When we had reached the far side of a stand of trees, I offered him a strip of meat, giving the return whistle, a series of three long notes, as I did. He took it and gulped it down.
“How do I get him to go so he can come back?” I asked Jean.
“I don’t know,” said Jean. “With a horse you slap his flank. Try that.”
I slapped, with no result. I got behind Protecteur and gave him a little push, feeling ridiculous. He paid me no attention. I ran a little way, looking back as if I were launching a kite.
“It’s no go,” I said. “Literally.” Jean and I leaned against a tree, studying the problem. Some time passed as Protecteur cleaned his claws with his beak.
Suddenly his head snapped up. With a discombobulated flurry of wings, hooves and tail, he raced awkwardly toward the far end of the field. Then like a racehorse meeting a fence he leapt, and at the top of the arc caught the air on a downbeat of muscular wings and soared.
Now he was all grace and power, legs drawn up as the mighty wings carried him higher. He circled over us, then dove. I saw him grab something from the air. Another wider circle around the perimeter of the pasture, then down to earth in front of us. I had been too surprised to whistle.
From his beak hung the limp body of a bat. He gave it a little shake, then swallowed it whole.
The next night, I climbed a tree and chucked a dead mouse as high I could while Jean gave the whistle. It fell before Protecteur could launch, but it got him into the air. He returned at my whistle and took a piece of meat.
After that, I took him out alone for an hour’s practice every night. I didn’t feel as if I were training him, but rather collaborating on how we would work. He still followed under my hand, and as the days passed he placed his neck under there when he wanted to go. We invented flying games such as Fetch the Mouse or Find Me, in which I would hide while he was getting up, then whistle him down. He always found me.
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By now Jean and the stable boy came and went freely. Protecteur ignored them, but I wanted to accustom him to other people, so I began bringing them closer and encouraging them to feed him. Jean had a good way with him, different from mine. He treated him kindly but commandingly, like a horse.
“Don’t touch his head,” I told Jean. “He’ll bite you.”
“Someone did him a piece of harm,” Jean replied. “He’ll let you touch his head someday. You keep at this. He knows you’re trying to help.”
“Thanks.”
“He’s blooming.” Jean stroked the hippogriff’s neck. “So are you.” The look he gave me over the tawny back contained admiration, respect and – for the first time that I’d ever noticed – masculine attraction. I was fifteen years old and I silently cursed my fair skin as I blushed.
Once Protecteur began flying at night, I returned to my classes and tried to catch up on my work. I knew the semester might prove a wash, given that I’d done no schoolwork for nearly eight weeks, but I wanted to make an effort in gratitude to Madame. I attended classes during the day and spent my free time studying in the barn, using a hay bale as a desk and Lumos for light.
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There was still the problem of riding, however. Protecteur liked having me on his back, and sometimes invited me with a bow after a grooming session or at a quiet time in the barn. There is a theory that all hippogriffs, even wild ones, are descended from previously domesticated stock, and that wizards have been riding griffs since prehistory. But given Protecteur’s disability and difficulty getting himself into the air, how was he to do it with ten stone of me on his back? Once again, Jean came up with an idea.
I’d started taking Protecteur out in the afternoons despite the audience of students and sometimes staff that collected. I didn’t like talking about him or being watched, so I ignored them, hoping they’d tire of it and go away.
One day he landed on the stable roof. Gripping the peak with his forelegs, he settled his hind legs on the sloped side, but not before freeing a number of shingles with his hooves. The roof creaked alarmingly.
“Get down!” I yelled. “Get down, Protecteur, that’s not safe!” Finally I remembered to whistle. He launched himself with one push – more shingles rained down – into a graceful circle that took in the yard before meeting me on the ground.
Jean had been cleaning tack nearby and looked up.
“He mustn’t do that again,” he said.
“Right,” I replied. “We’ll work on it.”
“But,” he grinned, “look there.” And he gestured to the hayloft door.
I stared for a moment before I got it. “Could we?” I asked.
“Let’s do it now,” he said.
That is how I came to be standing in the hayloft door, twelve feet off the ground, whistling Protecteur down. He understood immediately, circling high then plunging toward the opening like a kingfisher. At the last moment he folded his wings tight as I whipped out of the way. His one foot and two hooves hit the loft floor and slid, scrabbling, until he came to rest awkwardly against a stack of bales.
I brought him around to the door and Jean whistled him out. He leapt from the edge without hesitation, pushing off with his powerful flanks, spreading his wings and catching himself just as he crested. It was beautiful.
“Don’t you wait!” shouted Jean. “Call him back and ride.”
Back in the loft he turned right around and came to the door. I bowed. Protecteur swiftly kneeled.
Better not to think of the drop. My heart pounded as I straddled his back, holding him lightly at the wing joints. He was waiting. Without question, I knew what to do. I tightened my legs around his body, tucked my elbows and leaned forward.
We fell.
Eyes screwed shut, I felt the barnyard rush up at us and prepared for the impact. Then Protecteur whipped his wings open – whump -- and with single thrust, bore us up. I heard his hooves scrape the ground, but we were safe, we were climbing into the air and I dared to open my eyes and see the barn below and Jean cheering, waving, and there was Thalia on the path to the Quidditch pitch pointing and screaming, or was that me letting loose a pure high whoop of joy?
I let Protecteur choose our way. We circled the chateau, garnering startled gapes from students caught window-gazing. He took me over the kitchen gardens, bare and sere in the January frost; the river, still running under a partial coat of ice; and the pastures. Madame’s winged horses moved nervously away as we passed.
It was freezing up high and I sunk my icy hands into the feathers of his neck to warm them. The feel of his muscular body flexing in the grip of my legs with the beats of his wings was exciting and calming both. Laying my body along his, I rested my head on his shoulder and looked down. All was strangely natural, this very first time. He was following the path of the river, out into the countryside. After five miles, I began to worry about Muggles. Beauxbatons, of course, is concealed and covered with Muggle-repelling charms, but I had never thought to ask how far the invisibility extends.
As soon as I sat up, he subtly checked himself. Only a slight shift to the side and pressure from my knees, and he circled back toward the school, once more following the river’s path.
When the barn came into view, I tightened my grip and again he shot through the loft door. This time, however, when he slid to rest against the bales at the far end, I pitched off and rolled.
“Okay, we’ve got to work on the landing,” I said, brushing off the straw.
As I came down the hayloft ladder, Thalia and Sandrine, my two best friends, were waiting. They gave a soft cheer and surrounded me in a group hug. Thalia had tears in her eyes.
“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. “I’m so happy for you.”
“I didn’t get married,” I scoffed. But I felt as if I had.
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One late afternoon in the quiet of the barn, I swotted wearily away at an essay for L’Histoire de la Vie Francaise Magique. Brushing the quill idly against my lips, I pondered whether it was possible to stretch the material I had gathered to cover the required 24 inches of parchment, or if I’d need to return to the library. An owl swooped in through the hayloft door and landed with a flutter on my bale. Protecteur, who had been dreaming, opened his eyes with a hiss at the sound.
“Oh! Have you got something for me?” I rarely received owls. I detached the scroll from her leg and looked around for a treat. Empty coffee cup, Chocolate Frog card without Chocolate Frog, packet of Charme Savoureux biscuits, empty. I shook the broken biscuit bits into my hand from the wrapper and offered them on my palm. She took them delicately, gave me a dirty look, then flew off.
The scroll was from my father.
Dear Jehane,
I hope you are well. Madame Maxime tells me that you are recovering from your recent shock, that you have returned to your schoolwork and that you have undertaken the training of a hippogriff. To that end I have created an account for the boarding of your animal and one other if you can acquire it.
I will be traveling during the summer on business and I think it will be wise for you to stay at Beauxbatons. You can catch up on your schoolwork and continue your hippogriff training without interruption. I will be home so little in the summer months, I am afraid you would not care for it here.
I will visit you there in August.
Fondly yours,
Papa
I felt sick to my stomach and regretted the coffee and Chocolate Frog I had eaten instead of lunch. Not going home. I recognized that this was not an invitation to stay at school, but a refusal to allow me back home. He didn’t want me there to remind him of our old family, the family my mother made.
By myself, I wasn’t enough.
I felt horribly tired all of a sudden. The essay was forgotten as I pulled a horse blanket off the shelf and stumbled to Protecteur’s stall. He was lying on the floor, asleep, his head resting on his crossed forelegs. I curled up against his warm side, cradled between his feathered elbow and furry hindquarters. With my head against his shoulder, I fell into a deep sleep under the blanket, oblivious to the daylight.
Half-waking in the dark, I felt Jean putting another blanket on me, then slipped back into sleep.
When I awoke for good, it was in the blue light of predawn. Someone was tugging on my hair. I opened my eyes slowly. Protecteur had turned his head all the way around and was methodically drawing the curly strands through his beak. I raised my face to him, and he rubbed his forehead against mine.
“Hey, boy,” I whispered, slowly raising my hand. “Hey hey hey there.” And he bent his head to my fingers to receive my caress.
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Over the summer I did catch up to my class and move on to the sixth form. Some of the staff and a few students remained at Beauxbatons, but I spent most of my time at the barn and the stables, so Jean and Claude, the stable boy, were my most frequent companions. I enjoyed their practical wisdom and Jean’s fatherly protectiveness. By dint of not thinking about home and working with Protecteur every day, I kept myself happy.
In August Jean announced that he had found me a second hippogriff.
“I didn’t know you were looking,” I exclaimed.
“Didn’t want to disappoint you if it couldn’t be done,” he said gruffly. Hippogriffs, of course, are expensive, and rare, but what is more, as I got to know her, I realized that Jean had been screening for the right temperament as well.
She was a yearling and had been the pet of some spoiled wealthy child who had spoiled her as well by giving her no training, then tired of her. She behaved like a neglected child, seeking attention with misbehavior, treating those around her with contempt and showing no respect for herself. What she needed from me was completely different from what Protecteur had, yet once I found the key, all my actions were guided by understanding. Within a month of firm, loving and consistent discipline she was a beautiful, responsive animal, ready to be trained for riding.
She was brown and tan with a rare brown beak and talons. Her previous owner had given her a cute, stupid name, so I called her Serrebrune, meaning Brownclaw.
Thalia came back to school two weeks early and we had a wonderful time. She talked nonstop as was her wont, and I listened and commented. We climbed trees and walked into the town and slept in the stables. She and Protecteur achieved a détente of sorts; she would pet and feed him, and he invited her onto his back, but she refused to fly him, and perhaps she was wise in that. Looking back, I see that they were adjusting to each other as new love and old friend often must do.