academic curiosity

"Why are you in such a hurry to leave us?!" Lily´s mum cried from the front passenger´s seat. Her father had taken the liberty of exiting the car to pat her on the shoulder as she gathered her own luggage.

"Can´t I help you carry that in?" he asked nonchalantly, nodding far away in the general direction of the brick wall which was lately known as Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

"Oh, sure if you want!" Lily answered, flushed form excitement. "But it´s not a terribly long way. I can get it if you need to get on to dropping Petunia at school!"

She saw her sister sitting in back with her arms firmly crossed. Lily leaned over and grinned at her.

"You´re going to be late!" Petunia snapped, but Lily could see she was smiling in her way.

"No, I wont," Lily replied.

She pulled her trunk along beside herself and her dad followed along with a faint smile. "Well, we´ll be seeing you I suppose," he sighed.

"Yeah! Um, I´ll owl often!" Lily said, wondering whether Ada and Dale had already made it to a cabin on the train already.

"We´ll send you your birthday present back with one of your owls. You still haven´t told me what you wanted," he said.

"Oh... Well," Lily spoke hopefully, "A broom would be really great!"

He looked thoughtful for a moment then, "You know we probably can´t afford that. We´ll be saving up for Petunia´s car..."

"A car?" Lily asked, surprised. "We´re going to let her DRIVE?!"

"She´ll be ready enough in a year or two... You´re mum and I thought it would make her feel good to have something of her own to take care of... For your birthday this year, we were thinking more along the lines of a nice pet! Maybe a frog?"

At this Lily cracked up. Her father talking about both frogs and Petunia so close together was too much. He had a terrific sense of humour. She had confided to him about her friend Ada and the reawakening of her pet in the woods.

"Oh, okay. Maybe you´re own owl then? That would be fun, wouldn´t it?" he asked, not really sounding as if he thought that would be very much fun. Her dad had a fierce phobia of owls and all wildlife that stared at people.

Suddenly he started to chuckle. "What do they- Eat rats and things? Wow, I know you can hardly wait!" he turned and waved, "Behave yourself on the train Miss Evans!" He was imitating McGonagall. Somehow he got it down pat without ever having anything to go on but Lily´s explanation of her. But probably every kid had a McGongall in their school days.

As soon as she stepped through the platform:

"Oy! Lily! Lily!" she turned and saw Eddie Carmichael coming towards her with a few other Slytherin boys their age. He had grown only slightly taller, instead he had spent most the summer growing outward. Lily smiled shyly at this bulkier figure as he approached with his entourage.

"You look fabulous!" he cried. "You obviously have no need for my Perro Matador elixir, but I wanted to give you the first bid on my Recordacion balm! Not even Snape knows how to get his hands on some of these ingredients! I got an uncle who ships me this stuff direct from Brazil! I´m serious!"

"That´s what I was afraid of!" Lily replied, dusting off her hands and examining him closely.

"All right, all right. Just kidding around. Anyhow, we `Mudbloods´ got to stick together!" he joked without a hint of bitterness. "I´ll hopefully be seeing you on board." he left quickly to peddle to some impressionable first years.

"EDDIE!" Lily suddenly called after him.

~*~

She was just getting inside as the train was leaving the platform. She had thus far not seen a single friend´s face from her own house and was starting to get annoyed.

She stumbled down the narrow hall, passing a cart full of candy and she finally saw a familiar head poking out of a doorway.

"Dale!" she shouted. The slick-haired head turned towards her and lit up with amusement.

"Stocking up, are we?" he called down to her and he disappeared. He reappeared a second later and took some of the load she was carrying in her arms. "So you bought up Eddie Carmichael´s entire chemistry set did you?"

"It was for the greater good," Lily replied. She tried to stay good humoured about it, though she was out nearly one hundred muggle pounds- the cost of Carmichael´s entire `Brazil stock´ and her entire life´s savings. Lily let the vials fall all over the floor and turned to greet Ada and jumped.

"You look different!" Lily exclaimed. Ada had grown immensely (in all the pleasanter directions) and she also had become very pretty. It was weird and Lily wasn´t sure how she felt about this. How else had she changed?

"Well, I was never planning on staying twelve forever..." Ada smiled.

"You´re THIRTEEN already?!" Lily sighed enviously.

"No..." she admitted and shrugged.

Dale rolled his eyes. He had grown too. His hair was cut very short and slicked down into neat perfection. He had a new suit this year. "She´s been saying that to everyone!"

"Dale came to see me!" Ada explained.

Lily hadn´t been able to convince her family of a vacation. It was a expensive trip even just to send her alone, not that they would have even conceived of that at her lowly age. Petunia had been allowed to go about the city alone with her friends this summer, a privilege which Lily had not so privately coveted. In her opinion she should already be allowed to go about by herself. She did grow up in Brixton, after all and it wasn´t the most rainbow and cotton-candy filled neighbourhood in London.

"Oh, well did you two have fun?" Lily sniffed.

"Oh! I forgot to tell you!" Ada cried suddenly.

"OH!" Dale started laughing immediately "Let me!"

"NO! Let me!" Ada cried and pushed Dale aside and leaned over Lily and let her chin drop open. "Guess who Alia Bashir is dating?!"

"OUR Alia Bashir?" Lily asked incredulously.

"She´s dating Omar Deck!"

Lily looked from Ada to Dale. "Am I supposed to know this person?" she asked.

"Deck, Evans! Deck! He´s the new Gryffindor Quidditch Captain!"

"I thought that was Enid Longbottom..." Lily began, confused.

"No, Enid graduated early and is studying a fourteen kilometer infestation of bundimun in Iceland now. So they gave it to Deck." Dale explained.

Lily smiled and watched her two friends sit back down and continue to talk.

"So... Where is Alia?" Lily interrupted.

"Right here!" she came in on cue as usual and sat down primly. She wasn´t wearing her robes like Lily and Ada were. She had chosen to remain in a white frock. She had funny pink boots on that matched it. "You look like this lady I saw on the telly once!" Lily commented dreamily. "It was a late night show where people danced around to fun music and there were all these strange lights and bubbles!"

"Muggles are so WEIRD!" Ada cracked up. Alia smiled politely.

"I saw that show!" Dale said, pointing with excitement at the memory.

"So we hear you´ve started working on your Quidditch career!" Ada said languidly, stretching her long legs out onto the opposite cushions.

"I´m sure I don´t have any clue what you mean!" Alia balked, crossing her pink boots.

"Well, then your stupider than I originally thought!" Ada shot back happily. Dale clapped. At the sound Joe Leary and Frank Longbottom came in with eager smiles. Longbottom looked twice at Alia then stared pointedly away as he found his seat next to Dale.

"Okay, maybe Omar can help!" Alia allowed. "But I was thinking more in the lines of practicing maneuvers and..."

This garnered a appreciative round of laughter. Dale shook his head, "I bet he will! What year is he, like, SEVENTH? Couldn´t he find any girls as silly as you in his own age group?"

"No!" Alia protested, "He´s only a fifth year. He´s the youngest captain Gryffindor´s had in thirteen years actually!"

"Do you really want to play on the team?" Lily asked her, not without admiration.

"Well, sure. Who doesn´t?" Alia replied and everyone else nodded.

Lily thought this over while the others discussed Omar and Quidditch. She definitely wanted to be on the team. But she wasn´t particularly good. She was fast but that was about it. Maybe, like Alia, she could ask someone to tutor her in Quidditch so she would be able to try out next year?

As the train came to a halt she watched a stream of oddly eager people below. She wasn´t the only one to be happy to be back at school. Even the tiny first years were smiling. Lily swore that she was never that SMALL last year.

"Lily! Let´s go, huh?" Dale called from the doorway to the cabin.

Ada was gesturing to a flock of tiny first years saying, "MICRO! SCOPIC!"

They had waited for everyone to go ahead so they wouldn´t have to squeeze through. Lily followed them off the train and saw that Hagrid was waving and motioning for the boats. She took a step towards him then stopped and remembered herself. She turned and headed in the direction of the horseless carriages. Meanwhile Ada and Alia acted as if this was business as usual. Alia´s neat little go-go boots clip-clipped on the rocky ground and Ada kept tossing her short light-coloured curls around.

"Which one should we get in?" Ada asked the group. Somewhere, both Joe and Frank had sauntered off.

"They´re all the same," Alia pointed out cooly, looking over her shoulder at Hogwarts.

"No, see this one had a crooked wheel," Dale argued.

"Let´s get in it! I feel badly for it..." Ada sighed.

"It´s a stupid CARRIAGE," Lily could hear Dale reply.

Finally after a few choice words back and forth, her three friends boarded a carriage nearby with perfectly round wheels. Lily seemed to be the only one who noticed that it was missing something- horses.

What is it mate?" a male voice drifted over the din of the excited students.

Lily turned and saw that the voice belonged to a exceptionally attractive boy. Just seeing him wanted to make her throw up. She would have even been smitten had it not been for his hair and general manner of inconsequence. He seemed the type to send someone´s drawers up the `flag pole.´ This had been a daily event at the summer camp Petunia had gone to the summer before last. She had returned permanently mortified and referring to the experience as "that time you people who call yourselves my parents sent me to that wretched place." As for the boy´s black hair, it was so... Long!

"Oh... Good girl, Lily!" Ada clapped her on the shoulder roughly.

"She´s found Sirius Black!" Alia explained giddily when Dale asked what was going on.

But by then Lily´s gaze had drifted. She saw that at least one other person had noticed the obvious lack of horses.

A figure slightly shorter than Sirius, but with similar shaggy dark hair had stopped in front of the carriage that some of their friends had already gotten in.

"What is this?!" the boy asked, as if he had found a fly in his soup.

"What´s what?" Sirius asked in a worried tone. He looked on, scratching his head.

"C´MON!" Dale bellowed impatiently to Lily.

"LILY!" Alia cried.

"Okay!" she replied, hanging halfway out the door. She wanted to see this...

The boy with Sirius straightened and for a moment she saw his profile. Glasses, long features. James Potter had not changed in appearance very much but something in the way he stood and in his face looked older. Lily watched as he turned from Sirius and motioned to the field in front of their carriage.

"What are those things?" Lily overheard him say. That was curious. She had thought he was pointing out that NOTHING was there.

"I don´t see nothing. Get in!" Sirius gave him a nudge before climbing into the carriage. But James stood motionless in the same spot. He raised his hand slowly and ran his hand in a very peculiar and gentle way through the air in front of him. He laughed softly and then got in behind his friend.

"That´s weird," Lily murmured to herself.

~*~

"`Allo everyone!" Professor Crundall shuffled in under a pile of cages, looking at them as if he wasn´t expecting them. He entered the class room and dropped the cages on top of his desk, already cluttered with stacks of papers and books, maps and large sketches of three headed merpeople and other similar mistakes of nature.

Lily had made Ada and Alia sit in front with her. Dale hung back a row back with Frank Longbottom and some other Gryffindor second years.

"Can you believe he´s our PROFESSOR?" Ada hissed to the two girls to her left. "He´s so..."

"Handsome!" Alia finished, smiling approvingly at their new Defense Against The Dark Arts master.

Professor Crundall, oblivious, began introducing himself.

"He´s from Australia!" Lily heard a girl sigh from somewhere in back. They´re were a few other discreet female giggles. Lily blushed a little, he WAS awfully attractive.

After introductions had been established he turned to read a scroll that apparently had been left by their former Defense master, who had up and quit due to stress-related anxiety, in which James Potter and his three associates were currently accepting blame for.

"It seems there was a `leader in excellence´ in your midst as of last year," Crundall proffered good-naturedly. He raised his eyebrows and looked at a person to Lily´s far right. She along with every other head in the class turned to see who he was looking to.

Severus Snape perked up and his lips moved in the form of a smug smile. Lily heard a few snickers.

"Thing is," Crundall continued, "I don´t hold much to that sorta thing... Eh, as it were." He said it gently but Lily could see Snape wilt and the snickers grew louder.

Crundall silenced them and shook his head. "No, the Dark Arts ain´t something that´ll be measured like your other lessons. I wouldn´t feel right teaching you like that. It´s your lives at stake and I´m intendin´ to let you get outtta here without knowing at least a handful of good defenses that can be used to protect yourselves." He motioned to the far off world beyond Hogwarts and grinned. "I noticed that there was another mention of a particular student... Remus... Lupin?" he looked at the scroll and then up at the class again.

Remus raised his hand timidly and turned slightly crimson, an impressive feat for someone who was always so colorless in the face. Lily looked down the row and saw that a few boys were clapping him on the back.

"It was said of Mr. Lupin here that he had a very natural and basic knowledge and understanding of Defense that was considered above and beyond what a first year should be aware of."

Remus positively turned beet red and Lily almost felt even worse for him then she did for Snape.

"There are examples of Mr. Lupin´s essay answers here..." Crundall paused and read on silently. "Very unique..." Crundall sighed happily, "Amazing! In fact, why don´t we start out using one of these answers Mr. Lupin gave in his final at the end of your last term, eh?"

They had been turned out with the cages, one to every two students and given instructions per Remus, much to his dismay.

"So tell me about `Awful Waffle´ again!" Ada asked Lily over their work.

"Oh, that was the game they played at my sister´s summer camp..." Lily explained from the beginning as Alia and her partner, Joe Leary had tuned in with interest.

"Actually it´s kind of awful..."

"Hence the name," Ada waved for her to continue.

"Well, at camp when a kid betrayed another camper... They ganged up on him in the morning and forced him onto the table and poured maple syrup all over his belly and screamed, `AWFUL WAFFLE. AWFUL WAFFLE.´ Until a camp counselor came to rescue him or her."

"Disgusting behaviour!" Frank Longbottom scoffed.

"What did the poor sap do to deserve such a thing?" a boy from Hufflepuff, whom they shared this class with, asked.

"Well," began Lily hesitantly, "mainly my sister said they told on other campers or-"

"Oh!" everyone sighedn with immediate understanding.

"Well, that´s what ya get for that!" Ada nodded.

"Yes, I suppose..." Lily replied. "But what was even worse was when they..." she stopped when she saw that quite a few of the students had started to listen. Even Professor Crundall was seated on a desk above her and waiting, rapt.

"Oh... Well, the worse thing was the flag pole..."

"Yes!" Ada exclaimed, "This is my favourite part!"

"A couple kids at the camp would string up their enemies drawers on top the pole instead of the flag! Then they´d sound the wake up call and when everyone gathered at the pole to sing the camp song they would have to sing it to the poor bloke´s underwear!"

"I´ve done that once!" Crundall clapped, laughing. He straightened suddenly and coughed. "I mean of course, hypothetically speaking, I did that once when I was a lad and that none of you should do such a thing even if we had a flag pole here as it´s completely wrong and all those other things. Yes, moving on..." But at the end of class Lily overheard him mentioning an event back in his hometown on the Queen´s birthday that had a few of the boys roaring. James Potter pushed his glasses back onto his nose and sighed, "If only we had a flag..."

~*~

"Wasn´t that totally amazing? He´s a dream come true ain´t he?" Ada exclaimed in the corridor so loudly that all could hear this praise.

"He seems a bit... Outback?" Frank Longbottom responded.

"Yes, of course! Why wouldn´t he? He´s the real thing!" Joe Leary pointed out. It had been the first clearly stated sentence Lily had heard him say since his exposure to the bad Draught of Living Death mid-last year. Maybe it was the knowledge that Glint had resigned his Potions assistant post over the summer in favor of Divination.

"And he was raised a muggle, did you know?" Alia asked them. "He was brought up in a dingey old orphanage... Can you imagine?!"

"I want to marry him," Ada divulged. Dale raised a disapproving eye brow.

"Oh look! There´s Omar!" Alia left them. She approached a very tall, brusque-looking student. And was that facial hair? Lily´s mouth dropped open.

"We´ll have to lock her up, for own good," Dale whispered to her.

"Or his!" Ada joked, "Has anyone seen that Nico Quietus? I could do with a good feud about now. I haven´t socked anyone in at least a good month!"

Dale rubbed his chin, "Don't remind me!"

"She´s, like, gone," Lily answered.

"Oh?" Ada asked, "How do you know?"

"I don´t know it. But Elaine Philips started to tell me a little when those Slytherin monsters came after me, remember?"

"Good thing they´re graduated now!" Dale said.

"Hey, wait." Ada stopped. "Have any of you seen that Elaine Philips at all?"

~*~

It was true, Lily found out. Elaine had not come back to school and Lily still had one of her romance novels in her trunk! She wished that they had set up a correspondence over the summer. But now she would never find out if Elaine was okay.

In the girl´s dormitory at the top of the stairs there had been a change in decoration. Ada had replaced her Lord Voldemort photos for more socially acceptable images of Quidditch heroes loop-the-looping on their brooms and guitarists charismatically jarring their instruments around. Though Lily suspected that the Dark Lord was there somewhere, hidden behind Stubby Boardman perhaps.

Marva Sequim had brought electric light strings, which she found out wouldn´t work at Hogwarts and funny clay sculptures she had made herself.

Alia, at present absent had displayed a tiny, elegant little framed photograph. . It was a young man, maybe sixteen or seventeen and light-features. Very handsome. His identity was a complete mystery to them all. Ada was explaining this to a few of their visitors from another dormitory.

"What are you going to do for McGonagall´s project?" Ada asked around in a bored sort of voice.

"Create the newest diet craze," said Debra Skitter.

"A quick and painless way to get rid of annoying siblings and get a new pet at the same time," Holly Hawkins spoke.

"I can´t say. It involves a rat on a string, white paint and a fly swatter," Peggy Nerak confided.

"Build a Transmogrifier," Lily answered.

"Shoot a cat," Marva Sequim snorted.

Ada nodded. "Those are all admirable. I wish I could think of something half as great as those. Lily, could I just work with you?"

"You can get transmogrified!" LIly said hopefully, clapping her palms excitedly together like a mad scientist who had finally found her frankenstein.

"No thank you," Ada replied. "I think I´ll write Binky now. See you lads later," she hailed. It had become a trend among the second and third year girls to refer to each other as "lads."

"Who´s Binky?" Debra asked Lily.

"Don't know," Lily shrugged. "At least she stopped writing to Voldemort!"

~*~

The next morning was the start of the new week. Lily fell right back into step with the school routine and her schedule. Ada was having a hard time though.

"I hate that Vagras!" she shouted, sitting down for breakfast.

"Why? Because she´s a woman?" Lily asked defensively.

"Yes!" Ada replied nastily, "Because she´s a WOMAN. It has nothing to do with that dirty look she´s always throwing me and her ear-piercing banshee voice and-"

Lily replied, "I think she´s funny!"

"Then your a sadist too," Ada replied simply, tasting a bit of sausage.

"You don´t even know what that word means!" Lily balked, but she started to laugh because Ada was choking on her food and tears were springing to her eyes.

After a minute Lily became alarmed. "Are you okay?"

Ada continued to cough and hold her chest. She pointed though, above Lily´s head. It was about then that she noticed that a lot of other Gryffindors were looking up in this same direction, mouths gaping.

Lily immediately had a bad feeling. She had them before, like when she was seven and had wished Petunia´s hamster could talk... She turned very slowly, prolonging the moment when she would have to face whatever horror was awaiting behind her head.

When she saw what the thing was she knew instantly that it was at least partially her fault.

"OH MAAAAN!" Frank Longbottom roared. Several boys at the Gryffindor table were already rolling on the floor. The Ravenclaws were just noticing like Lily and the Hufflepuffs still looked confused. The Slytherin table were in a uproar that not even the sudden appearance of McGonagall and their own head of house, Professor Slughorn could hinder. McGonagall´s nostrils flared as if she could smell the tomfoolery from the corridor.

Lily saw Joe Leary covering his eyes and Alia looked sickly green.

On each side of the great hall, four banners hung. Each portrayed a house animal and motto. Unfortunately one of the banners above the Gryffindor side of the hall were missing, Slytherin´s to be exact, although none of that house seemed too concerned. Half the people at that table were in tears of spiteful joy.

From the grand gold stand, a tiny pair of drawers hung precariously. They were a funny shade of yellow and very neatly printed on the waist band was: Severus Snape.

Lily looked around for him, he was sitting at his house table and was staring fixedly into his breakfast. No one at his table had been able to see the label on the drawers yet as they were too far away.

In fact, only the Gryffindors at this point noticed. Lily flew off the bench and swung her wand out.

"INCENDIO!!!"

Severus' drawers exploded in a spectacular display of flames. Tiny fragments fluttered to the floor below. This confused the Hufflepuffs even more but everyone else couldn´t erase the image of the yellowed underwear from their minds. Now everyone was laughing and word had reached the far end to the Slytherin table about whose they had been.

Lily turned back and saw that Severus had disappeared. McGonagall marched over to the Gryffindor table. Lily had never seen a human being so angry.

~*~

"Ohhh, maaan," Frank Longbottom was saying again. Except this time in a much different context.

"That was terrifying... I feel sorry for whomever it was that sent Snape´s underwear up there!" Ada said, shuddering.

"I feel bad for Snape!" Dale protested. "Can you imagine?"

Lily nodded fervent agreement but Dale continued on, "Doesn´t he know a bleaching spell? Are all his drawers likewise?!"

Ada snorted and Longbottom walked off to join some friends.

"Can we just talk about something else now?" Lily moaned.

Before Ada and Dale could respond a group of second year boys came by, laughing. "Did you see that slimeball´s FACE?" Sirius roared.

"I know! I know! How did you get them way up there so fast, Potter?" a boy from Ravenclaw named Bernie asked. Dale, Ada and Lily glared at this one. He had been fighting them in their duel last year.

Lily saw James holding a flash of green and silver, the Slytherin banner that had been replaced by Snape´s drawers. Davey Grudgeon poked happily at it saying, "What are ya´ gonna do with it, huh, Potter?!"

"Flush it down the toilet," he answered simply.

"Potter is the king!" Grudgeon declared and their was a general murmur of agreement.

As the group passed by, Lily heard James Potter speaking. "Will you all lay off? Do you want me thrown in the brig or what?!"

When they were long gone Ada sniffed derisively and Dale´s arms were crossed.

"So does that mean James Potter did it?" Lily asked.

"I guess," Dale replied then shrugged. "Whatever, I suppose it is sort of funny. In twenty years maybe even Snape will laugh about it."

Lily had her doubts about that one but decided not to worry about it.