academic curiosity

Severus tried to get away but he obviously did not want to jump into the shadows where he had seen them, Lily and Dale in their horrifyingly bad but evidently convincing enough costumes, hide.

James wasted no time and Lily saw his arms swing back then forward again. A sound and a sharp cry told her his fist had connected with something.

But Snape was not one to give up without a fight. Lily saw James fall back and hit his head, Severus rounded on him and began hitting him back. He only got two hits in before Sirius pulled him off and flung him back against the wall.

James shouted to Sirius angrily, "Back off! It wont be two against one!" Then he jumped on top Snape and was swinging wildly, again and again.

Lily wanted to throw up.

Sirius looked the scene over with distaste, "Should have used your wand, mate. This is real messy. I don´t like it."

James stood up and away from the window so Lily could see Snape half-lying and sitting under the window. His face looked strange.

James was speaking and he sounded, not angry like Lily would have thought after such a performance, but terrified. "That´ll teach you to mind your own damned business from now on. Don´t let me catch you spying on us again or I´ll use my wand next time Snivellus!"

Snape screeched, "What´s up Potter? Afraid you´ll lose in a FAIR fight? Maybe the Headmaster would like to hear what your hiding in the Whomping Willow?!" His voice sounded like nails on chalkboard.

But James didn´t turn back around and the three Gryffindor boys seemed to be fleeing the scene.

As soon as the two Gryffindor boys disappeared down the stairs Severus remembered himself or rather the apparitions of Lily and Dale he saw when he was alone and he flew up and ran out after them.

Lily and Dale sat in the shadows for nearly ten minutes.

"I really, really, really wish we hadn´t seen that," Dale moaned quietly.

"Imagine what it was like actually seeing it, "Lily mumbled. "That was terrible."

"Did he get up? Is he okay?" Dale asked.

"Yes... He ran out right after they did. I saw some blood. Probably okay..."

"Let´s go home. Let´s just go to bed and not talk about this until tomorrow." Dale suggested. And that´s what they did.

**

Unfortunately, it was pretty easy to forget the troubling events of the night before as even more disturbing things were to come the next morning.

Lily had woken three times in the night to strange dreams.

In the first she was swimming in the lake at night and Dumbledore popped his head out, green seaweed in his beard. He threw the racing car from Dale´s Monopoly set at her and it fell in her ear and she couldn´t get it out. She saw Dale wandering back and forth on shore, in Madam Pomfrey´s healer robe. So she swam to him so he could get it out, but she kept getting her foot tangled up in Dumbledore´s beard, which had grown suddenly very long.

The second dream took place in Lily´s room at home in London. Petunia had her pet tarantula and was locking it in a tiny glass fish bowl and wasn´t feeding it enough. Lily tried to yell at her but Petunia couldn´t hear her. When she took a swing at her she saw her hand go right through Petunia´s stomach and she realized she was a ghost.

Then the third dream, which was the worst, she saw Ada being carried away into the Whomping Willow by Voldemort´s followers. They were making her join because Lily wouldn´t tell them how to raise the dead.

After this last dream she saw that it was a gray dawn. Rather than face another nightmare, she decided to just get up and work on their Potions homework.

She did this in the common room, occasionally looking up to watch the heavy rain fall outside. Shortly after she got up she saw that Quidditch players were coming out, seeing the bad weather and bemoaning their fate. But Omar Deck came down and reassured them that practice would not be held in such conditions. Five minutes later Lily saw tiny figures in orange robes in the pitch. The Hufflepuff captain was apparently not as lax. When she finished she rolled up the work and stuffed it in her robe and headed downstairs for breakfast in the great hall.

She was surprised to see that a good number of students were already packed into the hall and devouring pastries and porridge. Seeing none of her friends she made a seat by herself.

Soon the owls began swooping in with daily editions and packages from home. A rather heavy package dropped on Lily´s head. She saw to her delight that it was the parts she had ordered from the catalog.

Harriet Perkins and Alice Milton, two third years came and sat down. Harriet was clutching the daily edition and perusing the cover. Lily saw that the headline in large, bold print was condemning a Quidditch team for their losses. They sat across from Lily so it was why she was one of the first to realize something was wrong. Seconds after she sat down, Harriet turned pale and gasped. Alice looked over her shoulder and to Lily´s surprise wailed loudly. Lily, without any pretense of civility, reached over and read the paper upside down. The two girls were too horrified to notice her.

Lily didn´t see anything out of the ordinary. Finally Harriet threw the paper down and ran up from the table. Lily swung the Daily Prophet around and began searching the headlines for what had upset them so badly. She could sense that there was a tumult occurring at the Ravenclaw table now. Suddenly her eyes fell on the source of the commotion.

**

MISSING WITCH CONFIRMED DEAD

It has been confirmed by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The body of a twelve year old witch and Hogwarts student, Nico Huberta Quietus, was discovered yesterday evening by Muggles. The young girl had been missing ten months and could not be found by authorities. The wreckage of the respected family´s home was found on Christmas last year by a friend. While both Audrey and Gaston Quietus were found dead, their nineteen year old son, Gilmer was alive but insane, wandering a suburb looking for food. Gilmer Quietus is currently recovering at Saint Mungos. The body of his sister was found by a Muggle woman just outside her farm property. The woman had been chasing Halloween hoodlums from the farm when she fell upon the deceased, who had apparently apparated right into a large boulder. She was already dead and still wearing the nightgown she had been kidnapped in nearly a year ago. The woman, so distraught needed three memory charms to fully remove the terrible image from her mind forever. Administering the charms was Serrula Tempora, who said: "It was naturally the single most awful thing I have ever seen and I may just give myself a dose of the same I gave that poor Muggle. It appears to me that she tried to apparate, but obviously being so young and at the beginning of her studies, she would have no grasp [of the skill]." A tearful Tiberius Ogden agreed. "She met her end when she accidentally apparated into the boulder. It must be said that I knew this child. I have been friends with her family for decades and I can tell you one thing. She knew better than to attempt such a thing." Ogden, a member of the Wizengamot went on to say that he believed she must have had no other option to escape her captors...

**

Looking up from the paper she saw that already the Ravenclaw table were sitting in horrorstruck silence over a few copies of the Prophet. How the bad news had spread so quickly when hardly anyone read anything but the Quidditch pages, was beyond Lily.

And where was Dumbledore? She looked around but saw none of him or the head of any of the houses. Hagrid was here early for the first time ever and he was shifting from one foot to the other nervously by the staff table. Glint´s replacement, Professor Vagras was sitting over her breakfast completely oblivious to the news. Professor Flitwick was wringing his hands and looking very close to making a stand and calling for attention when the doors to the great hall slammed open and Dumbledore fluttered in.

Immediately the Ravenclaws flew up and off the benches, shaking their fists and calling for explanation. A few of the Gryffindors went with them and the entire Hufflepuff table was in debilitating tears. Slytherins at the opposite end of the room were still eating or looking on uncomfortably.

"I apologize for my delay... All of you, the news is unfortunately quite true..." Dumbledore motioned with his arms for calm. Standing all around him were his students. He smiled sadly at them all and continued.

"A friend of ours has died far too soon."

It was as if the news had been delivered for the first time. Lily choked. She saw that just now Ada and Dale were coming in for breakfast, followed by Alia and Joe, all looking quite stunned. Alia was already sprouting tears.

"To say this is a tragedy would be wanting. Please go back to your respective dorm rooms and spend this day in whatever fashion is best for you. Classes will be continued tomorrow, any exams planned for today are canceled. Would house prefects please lead the way back to common rooms? Anyone who needs to consult with a teacher or Madam Pomfrey may do so, please inform your Head of house first."

"Who bit it?" Ada demanded quietly as they swept through the hall.

"Nico 'bit it´." LIly answered shortly. She wasn´t sure how she felt about this.

"Nico Quietus?!" Dale, Ada and Joe cried unanimously.

"How did you find out?" Alia asked simply.

"Daily Prophet. Dumbledore told us it was true as you came in."

"How?" Dale asked, amazed.

"Dead?" Joe murmured.

"Apparated herself into a rock trying to escape the Death-eaters." Lily replied.

Ada shook her head. 'That´s not true!"

Lily rounded on her and said, "Please don´t be the last person on the continent who accepts the fact that Lord Voldemort is behind all this. Nico herself warned me about the dark arts... I didn´t listen to her of course. No one did and now she´s dead. Her whole family is dead or bonkers-"

"What would the Dark Lord possibly want with a little first year twit like Quietus, anyway? Why kill off everyone else in the house but take her? Everyone knows that violent crimes like this usually are perpetrated by relatives or friends!" Ada argued.

"That´s a certain thought!" Dale gasped in shock at her line of thinking.

"Maybe she was being used for something?" Joe suggested.

Ada rolled her eyes and moaned. "Yeah right!"

"They didn´t kill her brother either... They must have known something. In the end, they took Nico with them for some reason. Whatever it was must have been important to them..." Lily stopped talking. Her eyes widened.

"WHAT?" Dale asked, gripping her arm.

"Oh... I just thought of something..." Lily sighed.

"What girl? What?" Ada cried.

"Elaine Philips... That Ravenclaw who was friends with Nico... She said she found them and it even mentioned her in the Prophet sort of... But no one has heard from her since last year!"

"The Ministry is taking care of it, to be sure!" Ada exclaimed.

"Yes, they must have connected the two things. Maybe she isn´t even in trouble at all. Maybe she´s just taking a long vacation with her family?" Dale suggested hopefully. "After all, it isn´t every day you find the remains of your friend´s parents-"

'No. Elaine didn´t get along with her guardians. They weren´t her real parents either. She has no living family to take care of her... That was the Quietus and they´re dead. No, this doesn´t bode well. I´m going to Dumbledore straight away!" Lily flung her friends away and ran down the corridor.

Two firm hands grasped her and spun her back around.

Ada looked down at Lily steadily. "You can´t go traipsing about the castle screaming to the Headmaster every time you start feeling heroic. I think maybe you have an idea with all this. But I´m sure Dumbledore is busy dealing with..." Ada stopped and motioned to a few Ravenclaw second years. They were crying heavily. Lily recognized Starla Lark, with her long violet chin hairs and few of the other girls from the duel last year, being escorted away from the group.

"They were her best friends. Can´t you at least wait a few hours?" Ada asked.

"You´re right, I suppose," Lily conceded. Now that the heat of the moment had gone by she was feeling less and less desire to talk to Dumbledore about it. What did she know anyway? Nothing much. Just a wild guess and few (probably misplaced) fears. That was hardly important enough to be delivered to Dumbledore. He was the smartest wizard alive. He of course already deduced these things himself. He was often away from Hogwarts on short errands, probably was helping the Ministry.

Alia joined them. "Nico had plenty of friends even if Elaine didn´t. She won´t be forgotten, Lily. We didn´t even know either of those girls well. Let the people who really cared for them take care of this. It´s only right." This sounded rational to Lily. She wondered at herself for being so bold. Of course their close friends knew more! She was being silly!

"Good. Let´s get back and think of all the stupid exams we won´t be taking today." Ada pulled her back towards the Gryffindor Tower.

**

The day progressed slowly and strangely, everyone touched by the sorrow of the news that morning. The weather seemed to be in accordance to the mood of the castle´s occupants. The rain poured down endlessly and the whole pitch became a sea of thick muck. Hagrid's cabin looked like a tiny lost island and the trees of the forest surrounding were crashing back and forth in the wind.

When conversation proved boring and Dale began threatening to recover one of his board games Lily fled to her dorm. She stashed the parts to her transmogrifier under her bed and looked over her blue prints, modifying this and that, re-sketching portions that had become smudged.

The real problem lay with what she was going to use as the enclosure. The card board box would have worked perfectly had it been in better condition. But a card board box was hardly professional. Wood seemed pointless and she couldn´t imagine soldering metal, so that was out of the question too.

She looked at the soggy, pathetic remains of her card board box prototype.

"Maybe Hagrid will know what to use?" Lily asked the box out loud. She smiled and peered out the window.

His lights were off. Probably helping Dumbledore somewhere, she thought. Oh well. Hagrid was the just the right type of mind she needed for this project.

**

After three weeks and no new news of Nico Quietus death, things began to return to a semblance of 'normal´. Magic in the corridors resumed and Eddie Carmichael went back to selling contraband. It seemed that all there was to be said about Nico was said and the only thing left was Starla Lark´s indignation. Lily overheard her in between classes loudly berating the Daily Prophet.

"ONLY a side panel! The Chudley Canons get the center and bold print! Shows what our priorities are!" she spat to many Ravenclaw head nods.

"Not even a picture!" Sara Convoy drawled angrily in return.

Lily of course agreed too, but didn´t stop to listen as others were doing. Dale didn´t stop either but was interested. "Good point she brings up," he said. "I mean, all this pointless death and destruction is taking a back seat to sport and celebrity gossip. And the stories they are printing are too confusing. I keep trying to read about Chuck and I don´t understand any of what´s being said-"

"That Pentagram fellow again?" Ada asked, joining them in the corridor.

'Pedagogue. Chuck Pedagogue! He was kidnapped... Well it turns out he was just taking A STROLL through the Carpathians... But now he´s changed his policies on everything... I don´t even know what´s going on!"

"When you can´t understand what your reading in the newspaper it´s because pieces of information are being withheld or something is being lied about," said a boy´s voice coming from behind them.

Lily and her friends turned and saw James Potter and Remus Lupin. Remus was looking away from them all at some undefined point in space. One of his legs was bandaged and neither of his feet disconnected from the ground when he walked forward evenly with his companion. It made James seem like a sort of guide.

James had been the speaker and both Lily and Dale blanched. Lily saw that he had a cut near his lip. She couldn´t take her eyes off it.

James, unaware of this, kept talking. "Pedagogue isn´t himself, Percy? Why can´t anyone see it? Can´t you think of a possible REASON for it?"

Dale snapped, "Why don´t you just come out and say it, Potter?!"

"Really!" Ada sparked, "Talk about 'withholding information,´ chum!"

James smiled and shoved his glasses further up his long nose. "I´ll give you a hint... It´s an Unforgivable!"

With that said he and Lupin waltzed around them and started for their class.

Lily issued a high, false laugh. Embittered by everything that had happened she turned to Dale and began unleashing her anger much like Starla was doing back by the entrance to the dungeons. Ada stood by looking helpless.

"WHAT A KNOW-IT-ALL! Obviously you knew that, OBVIOUSLY! Who didn´t?! It was OBVIOUS!! And to think that great prat had the nerve to tell us off after what we SAW him do Halloween night! You don´t need to be under IMPERIUS to act like a complete JERK apparently!"

Ada, overwhelmed by confusion and the looks people were giving them in the corridor fled into the class room. Dale remained by, patiently, shaking his head.

"I know," he mouthed quietly and firmly. "Obvious." He shook his head again. "Let´s get to class before were late..."

"Okay," Lily agreed in preoccupation. She went to a seat in the back of the room, away from everyone. She knew that Dale, on his own, would want to think about things. His hero possibly being under the Imperius curse would be one of those things.

After their last class that day, in which she had spent pensively taking notes in seclusion from her friends, she was surprised to see the edge of a package sticking out from behind her bed curtains, which she had forgotten to pull back that morning.

"A late delivery?" she asked the air.

"No... I bet it´s a birthday present!" Alia smiled from the other end of the room. Lily was surprised that Alia remembered it was her birthday.

Ada, entering the dorm saw what her friends were looking at and smiled too. It took Ada approximately half a second to recognize a gift. "OPEN IT NOW!" She jumped up and down and Lily couldn´t help but laugh. The girl reacted like it was her own birthday present.

Lily reached over and pulled it out from the curtains. But it kept going. And going. It was long and skinny. At one end it was slightly thicker.

"Oh my god," Lily mouthed.

Ada cried, "You got it!" Alia was clapping.

She made a preemptive glance at the friendly tag that detailed her parents love for her and then she tore into the package madly.

When it was unwrapped she saw that it wasn´t just a broom. But the finest broom in existence.

Even Ada, who was no stranger to this sort of practical luxury, came over and sighed. Alia, who´s family dealt magic carpets and grew up with the finest of flying transportation, screamed ecstatically.

"You are sooo lucky!" one of them, Lily hardly thought it mattered, exclaimed.

She lifted the broom stick up and ran a loving hand down the smooth surface. At the base in silver lettering was embossed 'Nimbus 1001´.

"Lily," Alia came over and touched the broom lovingly. "The only one in the school who has this broom is filthy rich!"

"You´ll be the fastest flyer at Hogwarts with the Nimbus 1001!" Ada declared.

"Not even Omar or any of the other Quidditch team players have this latest model!" Alia told her. "The most recent any of them has is Terry Frond of Hufflepuff! He has the Nimbus 1000... But the 1001 makes the 1000 seem like a twig with straw tied around it in comparison!"

"Lily, you´ll be the envy of the entire school!" Ada screeched joyfully.

"Who cares? They can eat my dust!" Lily cried. "I want to fly this baby now! Gosh... I wonder how much it cost em! These things don´t come cheap..." She was already fiddling with the fastenings of her heavy robes.

The other two girls were jumping up and down together. 'We´ll watch from the window!" Ada promised. They both ran to the nearest one. Lily laughed and headed out.

The rain hadn´t let up very much in the past month, less than a week from December and it was very cold as well. Lily didn´t care. She wrapped her neck in the muffler Petunia gave her for her birthday last year and tied it tightly. Outside she mounted the Nimbus 1001 and flicked up into the air cleanly. It was a staggering improvement from the school brooms. She knew at once that whatever the cost, this broom was worth every sickle.

**

Lily had not being much attention to Quidditch this year. But it had been an extraordinary season, beyond compare.

For one thing, Hufflepuff was in the lead. Staggering behind them was Slytherin, then Ravenclaw and in last place was Gryffindor. It shamed Lily´s entire house, to be the worst team. Many put the blame on the new Captain, Omar Deck. But there were a core of faithful Omar fans who refused to accept this truth. All of them were girls.

Lily had gone to only one game, being so busy with her transmogrifier machine and with her new hobby, sleeping.

"Lads," Alia called one day to her dorm mates.

Lily turned her head in the direction of her voice.

"I think we should leave early. I just saw the Slytherins heading out the main entrance with huge banners. We should go get good seats!"

"Who cares? We won´t be winning today or the next. Why should we freeze our tail feathers off just to watch Ravenclaw get pulverized by Slytherin? Everyone KNOWS who will win." Marva Sequim spoke lazily. Lily noticed she had become a bigger loaf than she herself had become. Maybe it was all the bad news in the Daily Prophet for the past three months. Even The Quibbler had become tragically dire, and not in it´s usual quirky way either.

Lily shut her heavy eyelids.

"Marva, kiss this!" Alia instructed their room mate. Lily couldn´t see what she was pointing to but she could use her imagination.

Marva laughed sardonically.

Lily falling asleep, fell right into a dream where Marva´s bored, innocent laughter followed but the sound of it became different. Inhuman and chilly.