academic curiosity

They were transfiguring ants today. Lily had managed her's by the end of class.

Professor McGonagall was walking around the tables.

"Excellent work, Potter. . . Pettigrew, if your looking for your ant I believe that black smudge on your elbow might just be it. . . Oh, Longbottom, one leg shy but nice touch adding a second aedeagus, yes, Black you can stop grinning like a fool. I know that was really you. . ."

After McGonagall released the class Lily packed up her things silently and was the last to exit with Dale and Joe Leary. She notice that the Professor was leaning by her desk, looking weary. It had been a common sight, lately. Lily wondered what was worrying the staff.

"You know who I haven´t seen round lately?" Joe muttered as he and Dale walked on either side of Lily.

"Who?" Dale and Lily asked at the same time.

"That Nico Quietus," Joe replied making a face.

He then spit out what appeared to be a toffee. "I think it was trying to sprout legs," he explained the sticky expulsion. Sure enough, after the candy hit the floor it crawled into a crevice in the wall and disappeared.

"Y´know, I haven´t seen Quietus either... Not since before Christmas," Dale added.

"That´s funny," Joe murmured but was looking with interest at a spectacle before them in the grand entrance of the castle.

They all stopped to appreciate it. Severus Snape was plastered to the wall upside down. His robes stuck like glue to the stones and a portion of Violet´s portrait.

She was sputtering and spitting up black ooze from Snape´s robe and shaking a fist in the direction of the stair case, where a path had been quickly cut by the responsible parties.

"This is a strange kind of scene," Lily applied.

"Yes, 100% agreement from this side, you Leary?"

"Yes, on this side as well," Joe concurred.

As it was between classes nearly two hundred students were already milling about and staring at this wonder. Snape was trying to scream something but his mouth was glued shut. All he could do was stretch a thin layer of skin-colored glue and make sticky bubbles.

Lily saw a group of much older students enter the front hall and look up at Snape.

A particularly huge seventh year with long, flowing white hair laughed loudly and pointed up at Snape with his wand.

Dale yelped, "IT´S VIGGO FROM GHOST BUSTERS II!!" Then ducked behind a confused suit of armor.

With a sweep of his white mane the seventh year chortled,

"See that, Narcissa? Now if I had been given the Head Boy place instead of Johnson this sort of havoc would be stamped out. I say, is that Snape?" He stepped closer and then roared laughter.

The girl trailing behind him, Narcissa, laughed obligingly but stopped abruptly and yawned. Lily had never seen a lovelier or more frightening creature. She was playing with her own wand in a bored way and kept shooting suspicious gazes at the other students.

"Who do you think is scarier, `Narcissa´ or the white-haired bloke?" Lily whispered more quietly than was necessary in the busy hall.

Alia, within earshot on the stairs, raised her eyebrows. "Narcissa Black for sure. Can you believe that´s Sirius´ cousin?!"

"Then that means..." Joe began, startled.

"She´s also Andromeda Black´s sister!" Alia finished for him, with a self-satisfied smile.

Lily gaped. Andromeda was the second best Quidditch player at Hogwarts right behind Gryffindor´s Wanda Wingham. Well, maybe she was the `first best´, it was all conjecture and it depended on what house you asked anyway. She played seeker for Hufflepuff and was best known for being able to see through blood and rain. Once she even got knocked out on her broom and when she went down happened to fall on top the snitch, which technically was counted as a catch. Now that Lily recalled, it was a Bellatrix Black who had knocked her off her broom in the first place. Weird family.

The white-haired seventh year uttered some spell and Snape slid down the wall like a giant slug, then losing his goo power crashed at the foot of the wall, much to the glee of everyone there.

Lily frowned.

"Thanks MALFOY!" Snape snarled, as he snapped to his feet.

Lily saw him look up at the white-haired young man indignantly. Or she thought she saw it, the look disappeared fast. Malfoy reached down and took Snape by the shoulder.

"Who´s responsible for this Severus? Since Johnson isn´t doing his job I´ll take the responsibility of making sure the troublemaker is punished..."

Lily gulped when she saw Snape look up at Malfoy with an evil smile.

~*~

There was at least a half hour until anyone had another class, so the Gryffindor common room was packed. She saw Potter and some of his friends moving to a table to play wizarding chess. Just as they were pulling out their men Lily stepped over. Potter didn´t look up, maybe too involved in convincing the chessmen to come out of their bag and play.

Sirius was there, doodling on parchment and yawning. Lily could see a family resemblance.

"Evans. What do you want?" Potter suddenly intoned, without bothering to look up. He set the queen on the board gently and she turned and took one of the knight´s javelins and jabbed him in the finger. He yelped and cursed and her. She appeared to be laughing.

Lily wondered at his less than amicable speech but decided that more important matters were at hand.

"You made up that Spew Goo hex, am I right?" she asked. He didn´t look away from the board and the riotous queen, but both Remus and Peter stopped and looked up at her. Sirius began to whistle.

"I´ll take that as a yes. Well, Snape is sicking that giant white-haired monster Malfoy on you so you better watch out."

James finally looked at her and shrugged. "So? Maybe it wasn´t me. People are always copping my hexes. Besides, Malfoy doesn´t scare me."

"Or me," Sirius yawned again.

Lily put her hands on her hips and gave them what her father referred to as her "saucy look." Who did these two think they were, laughing in the face of a Slytherin seventh year and a prefect to boot? She turned away wordlessly.

"Oh, Evans!" James suddenly called. She turned and looked at him expectantly.

"I almost forgot to say, mind your own damned business from now on. My father wanted his gargoyle eye back and I had to tell him some GIRL stole it. Never make me look stupid like that again or you´ll pay for it."

Floored, Lily´s jaw dropped slightly and a automatic response issued from her mouth.

"You don´t need me for THAT, you stupid git!"

Cursing all the way across the common room, she ran into Ada and a few more girls by the stairs. Lily joined them and with the specially tuned ears of a pre-teenage girl picked up immediately that some important covert thing or other was being said. She put the scene with Potter behind her quickly to hear the gossip.

A third year named Sharon Wiggins was coming to a close with "...blown up!"

This was the end of a very impressive statement, for Lily saw that all the girls around her looked shocked.

"But!" Ada began, then looked down at the stairs with a sulky expression Lily didn´t understand.

"My mum was scheduled late that night too! But what with that strange mark in the sky and everything, she figured she didn´t want to risk it."

"Smart, she is!" An older girl Lily didn´t know remarked.

Sharon nodded fervently.

"So what exactly is The Local UFMC?" A second year named Harriet Perkins asked.

"It´s the Union for all non-human magical persons," Sharon explained patiently. Even some of the goblins have memberships. Say they don´t need it, but the cost to join is nothing to them. My mum was working on getting house elves the right to join-"

"House elves?" Harriet laughed. Ada and a few other girls giggled snidely.

"Well, why not?" Sharon snapped.

"I think it´s a swell idea!" Lily soothed her.

"Thank you! Well, anyhow. Now they have to find a new office building for the Union. But nobody will let them rent once they find out who they are! The Local UFMC causes all sort of trouble for people who abuse magical creatures."

"So their old office was... Blown up?" Lily asked.

Sharon and the other girls nodded.

"But who would do that?" Lily asked. It was one thing not to rent to the Local UFMC, quite another to blow it up!

Sharon shrugged, "Nobody´s sure. The night before someone came out of the office and saw a bunch of wizards standing around and pointing at the sky. A giant skull was floating right above the building! The skull didn´t go away so most the workers were to afraid to come back. It definitely has something to do with the explosion because it disappeared a day after it hit. The ministry refuses to believe it was even there, though!"

"How can they?!" A third year asked.

"They cant!" Sharon sniffed angrily, "Over one hundred witnesses can confirm it was there. But the stupid Minister won´t issue a public response and the Daily Prophet didn´t include it in their story!"

"That´s garbage!" Sixth year, Jessica Eadha spat.

"What did it look like?" a fourth year named Miranda asked suddenly.

"Yes, tell us!" Harriet demanded.

"I saw it myself," Sharon began, "it was a kind of big ugly skull... Yeah, and I think there were, like," Sharon made a motion of wiggling things coming out of her mouth, "kind of like snakes shooting out of it´s mouth!"

"GROSS!" the girls cried earnestly.

"It was glowing green and evil-looking..."

~*~

Ada followed Lily as she ran upstairs to the dormitory.

"Let me see it!" Lily demanded.

Ada unpinned her Death-eater badge and bit her lip as Lily made another study of it.

"Well, this is it all right!" Lily snapped.

Ada looked tragic. "No! See, see... Uh, it kind of looks different!"

"No. Ada, look. It´s the same. We should show it to Sharon and see what she says!"

"NO!" Ada sighed and took back the badge.

"It was the Death-eaters!" Lily exclaimed.

"Oh, no!" Ada stomped over to her bed and pouted. "I don´t care! Maybe they deserved it!" she crossed her arms.

Lily raised an eyebrow at her friend. "Deserved to get blown up?"

"Well! People who work at such a controversial job should be used to things like that!"

"Don´t be so stupid," Lily muttered as she went back through the door. She thought of something then. "How many people have you shown that thing to?"

Ada smirked, "Only about seven hundred."

"Well, why don´t you go ahead and show it to Sharon. No, GIVE it to her. She can owl it to her mum and the Union so they can start their own investigation. It sounds like the Ministry knows who their up against and are too afraid to name the Death-eaters publicly."

"What?" Ada replied, confused. She was fingering her badge sadly.

~*~

Ada made a show of sulking the rest of the day. At the feast Lily leaned over to her and asked, "Did you give it to Sharon yet?"

Dale looked from one girl to the other. "Give what to who?"

Ada rolled her eyes, "Yes! Okay? I gave the stupid badge away so..." Ada sighed theatrically, "So the stupid Union could have a stupid investigation," she made a rude but also fairly accurate imitation of Lily´s voice.

Dale blinked. "That nasty skull badge?"

"Yes!" Ada pointed accusingly at Lily as she chewed.

"SHE! Made me give it up. But, perhaps it was for the best. My fa would kill me if he learned I had anything to do with that Union building explosion!"

Dale choked and pointed a fork at Ada´s chest.

"Anyone care to explain this tom foolery?"

"Yes, Dad!" Ada replied hotly, "Lily thinks the Death-eaters blew up the Magical Creatures Union over Christmas break. Stupid Sharon´s hippie mum almost got blown up."

"They did do it. They marked the sky with that skull! I think they wanted everyone to know who it was." Lily and Dale exchanged meaningful glances.

Ada was busily slurping soup and complaining about how her friends were trying to be her parents and how she already had a dad and on and on.

"This could be bad for her," Dale gestured to the trilling Ada.

"Most likely, but all she has to do is shut-up about it until it blows over." Lily replied impatiently.

"What if it doesn´t blow over?" Dale asked pointedly.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, what if this is some sort of dark movement? People have been talking about this for a while now. In the halls this morning I overheard a lot of strange stuff... People who are suddenly missing..." Dale leaned closer to her and whispered, "They even are saying that Lord Voldemort himself has just come back to England from the East."

Lily didn´t know what to think so she just shrugged and when Ada turned to her to drive home some point that neither of them was listening to, she nodded and then looked back at Dale.

"We need to get a muzzle!"

"Oh!" Dale slapped his forehead, "I just thought of something!"

`What?" Lily asked.

~*~

"Hi!" Elaine Philips was standing over a sink in the ladies lavatory as Lily came out of her stall.

"Oh, hello Elaine." She turned on a faucet and began to wash her hands, then had a thought. "Say, you haven´t heard from Nico in while, have you?"

Elaine looked at her solemnly and then stared into the sink as if for an answer.

Consequently Lily came over to her sink and looked into it as well.

"I dropped my ring in the drain," Elaine mumbled.

"Look... This is a funny sink. See this weird snake motif?" Lily pointed at the faucet.

"Yeah. I suppose my ring is for lost. Oh, well. It wasn´t very pretty any ways."

"Maybe I can find out a charm to retrieve it. We could-"

"Nico is missing," Elaine interrupted.

Lily stopped and stared at the other girl, who was still looking into the sink.

"We´ve been best friends since we were three. When my mother died two years ago they took me in until they were able to find my aunt. But she was awful... She hated me and already had a son to take care of. Her husband hated me too so I ran away and the Quietus´ found me and let me stay with them until my aunt got in trouble and had to take me back."

What a terrible fate. No wonder Elaine was so skinny and shy, Lily thought.

"I ran away Christmas... See, every holiday we always arrange it so I stay with the Quietus´, they never minded having me. But this year they never came to pick me up after we made plans. So I ran away and got there by Knight Bus..."

Lily thought of what she had been doing Christmas. Opening presents and eating breakfast with her (mostly) loving family. Meanwhile, little Elaine was by herself on a bus, running away from her hateful Aunt and Uncle.

"See, the thing is..." Elaine started but just then the bathroom door slammed open and a group of very noisy girls walked in. Lily felt her stomach plunge when she recognized the sisters Narcissa and Bellatrix Black in the bunch. The former went into one of the stalls and the other girls yacked away, giving the two little speck-sized first years threatening looks. Needless to say they fled and Lily saw that Elaine was heading in the opposite direction.

"Elaine!" Lily called.

The other girl turned and held out a hand, then walked away.

Lily was turning towards the greenhouse, because Herbology started in about five minutes when suddenly a girl´s voice called out from behind.

Turning, she saw to her astonishment that one of the tall Slytherin girls was beckoning her back towards the lavatory. Foolishly, Lily went back inside as requested. The other three girls were standing alongside the bank of sinks and each of them smirked lackdastically at Lily.

"You know who I am?" Bellatrix asked.

"No," Lily lied. The tall girl before her looked just like Sirius, the same dark eyes and sleepy good looks. And also like Sirius she had black hair. The other three girls laughed in a way that made Lily regret that she had came back into the lavatory. What was worse was that she would be late for class!

"We know who you are," Narcissa spoke and for some reason the girls laughed again.

Lily suddenly felt inside her robe for her wand. She could out-jinx all these girls in a heartbeat. Seeing her motion Bellatrix laughed again but Narcissa glared.

"Don´t even think about it you little Mudblood."

Lily´s blood turned cold and she clenched on to her wand inside her pocket, desperately.

"Oh, I like her! Little bitty witty first year!" Bellatrix´s laugh suddenly turned to a squeal and even the other three girls winced along with Lily.

"What do you want?" Lily´s voice came out with a tinge more attitude than she wished and held her breath as Narcissa opened her mouth. But all she did was yawn and look bored.

"We know all about you, little girl. Were keeping an eye on you now. So don´t you worry about anything anymore." Bellatrix made a strained face. Lily realized she was trying to smile. The older girl went to a mirror and studied her own reflection.

Bellatrix smoothed her hair and spun around gracefully.

"Well... Why are you still here? Don´t you have a class or something?!"

As Lily was turning away she thought of the mysterious owl she had received before Christmas.