academic curiosity

                                                    "How are you coming with the Transmogrifier?" Professor McGonagall questioned over her head, while she was trying to make a goblet without a hairy rat tail. Lily, caught off guard and already feeling nauseated, could hardly come up with a good reply even though she was quite far along with the thing.

"Um, er, uhhh. . ." Lily sputtered, "Well, I. . . I just need to find a test subject that isn´t someone´s pet." She had meant this as a joke. Obviously the subject wouldn´t be alive. Animal testing was against her ethics.

But McGonagall responded cooly, "Well, naturally Miss Evans. I would hope that you´d refrain from using anymore of your roommates' things. It´s sounds like Miss Mac Fusty has been through enough tribulations with her frog. . ." she may have winked here but Lily couldn´t be sure. "I hear that there is a crup loose in the castle. . . No one knows how it got here but Groundskeeper Filch has been trying to wring it´s neck for a month now. . . If you caught it first . . You´d be saving it from a worse fate than whatever it would meet in the Transmogrifier."

It took Lily most of that day, but eventually she worked out a few facts. She had overheard Slytherins talking about Bellatrix receiving a crup. . .

*                                         *                                            *

On the edge of the forest that night, Lily, Ada and Dale hung behind a craggy rock by the lake shore, watching a scene unfold by the edge of the Forest. A lovely girl, walking her pet dog on a leash. It stopped to take a leak, she waited for it with such perfect patience that Lily cracked up, then the pair went on, the crup trotting after loyally.

"When do you think Sirius Black and that Potter are going to show their faces?" Ada asked the other two, concealed behind the huge boulder.

"They should have been here by now," Dale replied with annoyance. He glanced at his watch for the fortieth time in five minutes and sighed.

The two boys from their house had agreed to dress as Lily and Ada, in concealing robes to help hoodwink Bellatrix long enough for Lily to perform a spell. . .

Just as Lily was going to voice her own impatience with the boys, two hooded figures appeared as if from nowhere at the crest of the hill.

Bellatrix saw the them too. By the look on the older girl´s pale face, Lily can tell she was completely fooled. When the crup saw the figures approaching it momentarily went rigid with suspicion, but then started to yip with delight and spin in circles. Beside Lily, Ada fought hard not to snort laughter.

Dale looked troubled, though.

"What is it?" Lily asked him, watching the scene unfold.

"They´re getting close. . . We should do this soon-"

Lily looked at Ada and nodded. Ada immediately removed her wand and hissed, "Corporal Cupcake, Lende ana sinome!" It was a very old spell that could force a dumber species to come to you immediately.

The leash snapped and the crup, Corporal Cupcake, small and not of the highest intelligence, was immediately drawn toward Ada. Bellatrix gasped with surprise then attempted to chase after Corp. Cupcake but it was too fast. It ducked between two small bushes and was gone from her sight. It ran straight for the trio and dove into Lily´s waiting arms.

Dale was gaping. "If only everyone obeyed my will like that. . . Nice work Mac Fusty!"

Lily peeked over the rock and saw that the hooded figures of Sirius, and presumably of James Potter had stopped to watch Bellatrix flip her lid. She was combing the edge of the path, calling in a high pitched squeal that was almost funny if it didn´t make your skin crawl, "Cuuuuuupcaaaake. . . Cuuuuuuupcaaaake!" Lily almost felt bad for her. `Almost´ being the key word. She tucked the Corp. Cupcake under one arm and marched them the long way around the lake, where Bellatrix would not catch sight of them.

"What do you think Black and Potty will do now?" Ada asked, polishing her wand with satisfaction.

"Probably dying with laughter now," Dale replied, looking backwards and laughing himself. `What a freak. Who does she think she is chasing after her pet like she´s a normal human being with feelings!?"

Ada gave both of them a severe eye roll. "It´s all you damned English. You´re only capable of showing affection to animals that are much stupider and hairier than yourselves."

"Is that why Sirius Black is so popular?" Dale joked, garnering a derisive look from her, Lily snorted.

*    *    *

McGonagall entered class just as Sirius had put an abrupt end on a dramatic reenactment of a troll ballet. Lily looked over at her transmogrifier. She had pasted it all together last night and brought the crup in via a small box. It rustled every now and then under her desk, mimicking the tossing of her stomach.

In the last quarter hour of class the Professor announced that Lily Evans would be the first to present her term project. Lily, knees shaking like jelly, stood up and lifted out the crup and immediately it´s appearance was met by swoons of delight from all the girls and happy grins from the boys.

She took the crup under one arm again, business like, then went to the table where she had left the transmogrifier at the side of the room.

At some point she had begun to speak, when, she wasn´t sure but it came out as it was supposed to. The class followed along plainly enough, with the polite ears of those who knew they would be meeting this fate very soon and should be as kind to her as possible.

Once she began explaining the gist of the device beside her the girls in class began to look fretfully at the squirming animal under her arm and back at the transmogrifier.

After four or five minutes of this she lifted the crup into the box and popped the lid closed.

To give it power she held onto the ignition, turned it and waved and invoked the charge with a incantation.

There was a series of put-put-puts, then she let go of the ignition and stream of neat little clouds of dust expelled from the cracks in the lid. It rattled a bit then began to lightly steam. A `beep´ announced that transfiguration had been completed.

With not just a little trepidation, Lily fixed her sight on the lid to the machine and lifted it open. She waited for the steam to clear and to make sure nothing would come flying out right away.

After nearly a minute, she leaned over a top of the open transmogrifier, expectantly.

Inside, changes had been made that were greater than her wildest dreams.

She spun around, attempting to conceal the grin her face was trying to slide into. "Ladies and gentleman, we once had a crup. I have tuned the device to retrieve a shape from it´s distant genetic memory. . .

Fortunately for the creature it´s distant ancestors were the noble family of the. . ."

She reached in and pulled out Corp. Cupcake, still wearing his studded collar with an advisory to call Bellatrix if he became lost.

"Mollusk."

She smiled at it fondly. "More specifically, a gastropod of the suborder Nudibranchia. Also known as a Sea Slug. . ." She could see that Remus beamed with pleasure.

The class went into a joyful uproar. Only a few of the girls crinkled their noses at it, but otherwise the Corporal was enjoying a wild fanfare. "Might as well enjoy it now, mon frer," Lily spoke to the large slimy thing oozing between her fingers quietly. "Because what you´ll be getting when I leave you at the Slytherin common room doorstep shall be quite depressing."

*    *    *

"So, what´s all this then?" Ada questioned imperiously. She waved a finger at sheets of parchment spread out all over the girl´s dormitory. It was early June and many of their dorm mates had already packed for the long train ride home the next day.

Lily didn´t bother to look up, she was counting scrawled signatures on the parchments. She conjured her wand, which was lying a few feet away and charmed it to do rest of the counting for her and turned to speak to her friend.

"As if YOU didn´t know! I´ve only been explaining this whole thing to you twelve times a day for the past two weeks. Do you LISTEN to me ever?"

"Not really," Ada lied and sat on her bed, resting her chin in her hands with a theatrically glum expression.

Lily agreed to take the bait and asked, "What´s wrong?"

"Oh, well. Binky hasn´t written in ages. . . You know. So I´ve been a bit sad and lonely. So I asked out Nathan Corner from Ravenclaw-"

"`FROM RAVENCLAW?'" Lily gasped, throwing a few of the parchments aside in astonishment. Her wand stopped counting and spun around in frustration then went on ticking off each name. Lily glanced at it apologetically. She had been surprised because Ada still shook her fists at anyone wearing blue since early their first year when she and a member of that house had a wizarding feud that went awry. Ada was very bad, or good you could say, with her grudges. She had a ongoing list of all those who trespassed upon her and in a hierarchy of level of the crime, with side lists on offenses against those she cared for. She had a particular distaste for Osman Shodwick, who had often made jokes about Lily´s eating habits, which floundered on the heavy.

"Yes." Ada seemed baffled at the reaction, but didn´t bother to inquire. She put forth sao much energy in vengeance that she had no room for any for things like curiosity. "We´re going to meet up in Diagon Alley next week. It will probably be a total waste of time. He thinks Voldemort is a 'loser' and I told him he didn't know jack about that and he just laughed. Moron. So I´ll be near Brixton maybe. . . You did say that was in London, didn´t you? Why don´t I visit you afterward?"

"Sure, I know my sister would LOVE you," Lily smiled. Alia Bashir entered then and took in all the mess with mild amusement.

She lifted one of the parchments from the bare wood floor with her graceful hands and examined it carefully. She turned her gaze down at Lily.

"A petition? Is this for the Magical Creature's Union?"

"OH NO! Not that lot again!" Ada threw her hands up and stuck her head under pillow.

Lily didn´t notice this and smiled, "Yeah, I got a few signatures for that girl from Hufflepuff, Matilda Upchuck I think is her name. . . She´s a representative fro them over the summers."

"You´re kidding?" Ada came up for air and barked. "What a horrible, disgusting waste of time! Trying to petition for hinkypunk rights or something. Might as well get something that PAYS you at least!"

Alia waved a hand, "Actually, they do pay you. Sixty-two galleons a week for at least twenty hours of service. It´s not such a bad gig. I was thinking of joining myself but my dad just owled and said we were going to be vacationing at my Sito's in Tel Aviv. Are you going to join the UFMC this summer, Lily?"

"I hope so. I have to ask at home. My dad made Petunia get a job at thirteen so I don´t see why I will be excused from the same. Anyhow, I´d love the opportunity. It be good to see what wizarding work conditions are like!"

"But aren´t you petitioning for CREATURE´S rights?" Ada snapped impatiently as she fixed her front fringe.

"Well, you can say it like that I guess. But I imagine that this will be closer to how a wizarding company works than say The Burger Bobo, which is what Petunia got for her thirteenth summer!" Lily laughed lazily at this memory. The aura of grease at the job had set into poor Petunia a aversion for any sort of grime. She now spent hours cleaning spots on the kitchen floor with the special cleanings rags their parents had bought as this activity seemed to be her most supreme interest. Lily privately had thought a different gift for Christmas might have been kinder, but what did she know, she was after all twelve.

"Oh, why doesn´t Binky ever write?!" Ada flopped backwards, messing up her nicely coiffed hair once again.

Alia changed her robes and went downstairs. Lily´s wand stopped ticking and a number appeared under it´s tip at the bottom of the last parchment.

Lily sighed with ecstasy.

*    *    *

She half-ran, the parchments neatly tied together, as she went to find the Hufflepuff commons downstairs. She had agreed to meet Upchuck on the train later to give her the petition back, but that was before she realized how many signatures she had gotten. She wouldn´t be able to fit any more names even if there was anyone civil in this school left who hadn´t already signed it. Even Severus Snape had signed the thing, although Lily would skirt around the details of using a Voice Charm when she related this Upchuck.

She had been waiting on the bottom-most floor, where she knew the opening to the Hufflepuff´s commons to be, when a familiar laugh filled the stuffy air of the narrow corridor and Lily grew a bit tense.

Four people waltzed around the corner and stood facing her for a moment before one saw her and laughed even more wickedly.

Bellatrix headed straight for her, as Lily sensed with dread she would and opened fire before she could even try and retrieve her own wand. Even if she had time to get it, it wouldn´t be in her pocket to find. She had left her wand in her dormitory!

She struck with some strange hex that Lily didn´t know. But it was a nasty one. It sliced open her face and she could feel blood oozing down her left cheek.

"What´re you doing down here you filthy Mudblood? Coming to leave more of my things that you´ve stolen at the doorstep?"

Lily shook her head and touched the cut on her face angrily. She was growing more accustomed to that word, `Mudblood.´ She couldn´t think of any word she now hated more in the entire language. "I´m meeting a friend-"

"Oh, well, it´s good you have one of those. But you won´t soon. Once The Dark Lord rises for good no legitimate wizard will bother with you. Mark my words Evans and mark them well-"

"Yes, I´ll definitely remember as you often have the habit of repeating yourself a couple times in each sentence!" Lily snapped without a trace of humour.

Bellatrix took a threatening step forward, her wand still pointed in Lily´s general direction.

"Don´t take THAT tone with me. I could finish you right here and no one would do anything about it!"

"I highly doubt that, Black. Why don´t you scatter off? I´m really sorry about your crup. I can even change him back if you´d like. But you´ve been so nasty to me and my friends that I thought it would be funny. Besides, he´s better off than if I had handed him over to Filch, which I was sorely tempted to do," Lily lied about this last part. She didn´t particularly care much for crups, but she didn´t wish any creature to fall into Filch´s evil clutches.

Bellatrix didn´t seem to understand anything she had said. Instead she pointed her wand, again, without any warning, then with some incantation Lily was to enthralled to understand, she felt a burst of energy rupture the weight under her arm. Bits of parchment went spraying everywhere, refined to fine bits of dust and snowflake shapes where you could just barely make out the many signatures.

Lily was too shocked and taken off guard to respond. She watched the bits and pieces of her latest effort take to the wind.

She could hear the Slytherins laughing and eventually she sensed that they had left as well.

She sniffed and soon she decided not to fight back her tears of fury. No one was around to see her any ways.

*                                *                                    *

"So what did Upchuck say about all those signatures?" Dale asked Lily after a mild conversation of wizarding wheezes had been commenced on the train for twenty minutes. Ada was letting Dale sample one of her Fizzing Whizbees, which had just hit the market.

Lily blinked and looked at Ada.

She smiled. "I told him about it, y´know, six hundred signatures is quite impressive. Because, when you think about it, that´s almost everyone in the school. . ."

Lily knew that Dale had tipped Ada off on this one. Despite her cooled vehemence, Lily grinned faintly. "Even Snape signed it. . ." She wondered if she could possibly hate Bellatrix anymore than she did already. She then went on to wonder which girl hated the other more. Lily was positive that she had to hate Bealltrix the most.

"Wow!" Alia looked up from her book and raised her eyebrows, impressed by the number of signatures Lily collected.

Lily didn´t have the heart to tell them what happened in the lower corridors. So she turned and looked out the window and pretended to be too lost in thought to talk anymore.