academic curiosity

*    *    * 13

"Looooony, loopy Lupin, Loony, loopy Lupin! Up heeeeeere HEE HEE!"

SPLUNK.

"Gulping gargoyles!" Alia Bashir grimaced at what had just been dropped on the heads of Remus Lupin and the shorter boy next to him, Peter Pettigrew. "I think that´s illegal in some countries."

"Wish it was illegal bloody here! I told my pops all about Peeves and he said a bunch of bilge but then he said that Dumbledore must be dotty to allow a poltergeist to run free in a school!" Ada replied.

"OH! No, he didn´t!" Dale hissed with disgusted glee. "He just dropped that big one right on that bloke´s head..."

Alia saw this too and motioned for Lily not to turn her head and see for herself. She yanked at Joe´s collar and dragged him away towards safety in the great hall. Lily, Dale and Ada followed closely behind. Never had Peeves made such a vibrant display of anarchy. It must have been a long, boring summer, Lily reasoned.

The whole staircase was sopping wet from Peeve´s upturning old chamber pots from the ceiling and now Professor McGonagall had come in with a few choice words and a severe finger pointing for the poltergeist. The Headmaster followed after her with raised eye brows.

Dale led the way through the entrance to the great hall and the first thing he did was to point out the Slytherin table to Lily and Ada, with a dry smile.

Bellatrix Black was already seated, holding court at one end of the table. Lily noted out loud that some things never changed. However, different then last spring, most of the Slytherins were rather crowded at the opposite end looking away from Black´s bunch. It was more than a tad obvious.

"What do you make of that?" Alia wondered, not troubling herself with discretion, pointing at the Slytherin table with a gaping mouth.

"Maybe there´s a foul smell at the other end of the table?" Ada suggested, glowering menacingly at the small, dark group.

"She finally exposed herself," Lily replied with more than a little satisfaction.

Bellatrix had six friends. They were all people Lily knew at least by sight, which was convenient so she knew who to stay clear from. Severus Snape was there, his hair had grown longer and stringier. Lily saw that he had a person on either side of him, which was unusual as Snape hardly ever was near other people. A girl with short curly brown hair and pointy eye brows was on his right. She had a athletic build and Lily realized she was on the Slytherin Quidditch team. On Snape´s left was a boy she knew was named Nott, a surly slender type that kept his thin hair in front of his face and hardly spoke but always had a nasty scowl. He had made nasty faces at her personally more than once, because she was a muggle born. On the other side of the table by Black were two clumsy boys that looked like brick walls. Everyone knew them, Crabbe and Goyle, about as yobbo as you could possibly get and still be identifiably human. Also next to them was a tall, somewhat handsome sixth year who had a prefect badge. Lily remembered that he had a foreign sounding name and indeed he looked very mediterranean.

Ada, smirking said to Lily, "Binky told me to stay out her way this year. . . But I think maybe a few more tricks in line with that crup-kidnapping might be in order. . ."

Lily frowned. She had some long, hard thoughts about what she had did. She came out of it with not just a little shame. Not so much for Bellatrix Black´s sake, or for the sea slug Corp. Cupcake, but she didn´t think the behaviour was something she would be proud to remember and have others remember of her later on.

Ada was already in the advanced planning stages of some other diabolical plot, but Lily shook her head without hearing it immediately.

"I don´t want to have to deal with her this year at all," she replied stoutly, staring Ada down. They were for the very first time of nearly equal height and Lily didn´t have to look up at her anymore. "We haven´t the time, I mean this year´s course work has been greatly increased..."

Ada´s eyes unfocused with boredom. From over her shoulder Alia was stifling a big yawn.

"Right-" Lily interrupted herself with a smile. "So Alia, are you going out for Quidditch next week?"

"Oh, haven´t you heard?" she replied somewhat cooly, flicking her long black hair from her face. "Deck has sprained a wrist, or some junk! So the tryouts have been postponed until the end of the month!" she said this in a conversational voice but her face had gone pink and she looked angry.

Several heads swiveled in their direction at the Gryffindor table. Everyone had the same tightlipped grimace. Apparently Lily was the last person at Hogwarts to hear of this.

"Then it is true?" Frank Longbottom asked.

Alia could not speak again, but she nodded sharply.

Lily looked at her in amazement. "But the first match is less than two weeks after that!" she cried. "Will they get enough practice with their new players before then?" Lily looked around at the more experienced wizards. For all she knew, people good enough to play on house teams could get plays down quickly. But somehow she thought not.

"They won´t and we´ll just lose again as we did last year!" a fourth year boy announced from the far side of Longbottom, confirming this.

A gloom fell over their half of the table and luckily, everyone´s attention was called to the entrance as a few forlorn Gryffindor boys entered and made themselves a seat.

Among them, James Potter, glasses affixed at a strange angle sat on the empty spot on Ada´s right, causing her to quickly slide far away with a sour look (squishing Frank Longbottom into his pouty friend and the pouty friend into a second year and so on, the last domino at the other end of the table was prefect Corky Puggler, who landed on the floor). Potter didn´t seem to notice Ada´s rudeness, though. He had been doused in foul-smelling liquid, than he had been hastily air dried by McGonagall, causing his already madcap dark hair to stand straight on end like he had stuck a fork in a light socket. He obviously had been under one of Peeves´ chamber pots.

Peeves himself fluttered in with a whimsical grin, headed straight for the Gryffindor table, pointed at Potter with glee, then sang (very loudly so everyone turned):

"Potty Potter got the pot! Potty Potter got THE POT!! Woooooo!" And he did seven somersaults above their heads, the eighth was abbreviated as that was how long it took the Bloody Baron to glide over. Peeves disappeared through a wall.

Ada and Alia were crying with mirth. Potter pretended to not hear them. And Ada was opening her mouth to make a rude comment to him but just then Dumbledore spoke aloud and everyone turned to see him.

With his wand he flicked open the school song banner and they all then began to sing in two hundred and twelve different keys, some that had been made up just then and had never been heard by human ears before.

*    *    *

Still rubbing her ears, Lily followed after Prefect Corky, who was leading the first year Gryffindors to the portrait of The Fat Lady.

"So, would you like to go fly sometime?" Joe asked happily, as they stomped up the last flight of stairs. The Bloody Baron was watching the proceedings from above and Lily wasn´t the only one to pause and gape at him before turning quickly away.

Lily let a few of the younger students in the portrait ahead of them and said, "Well, since the team is sod-all I don´t see why someone shouldn´t be taking advantage of the empty pitch... Yeh, and also if we book it enough days in advance we can prevent the other teams from getting in extra practice time at our expense!" Lily formulated, twiddling her fingers eagerly.

"STEBBINS! Drop that firework, this instant! I´m a Prefect now!" Corky shouted, pointing needlessly to the badge affixed to his lapel. It had been shined so blindingly bright that it could have directed planes at Heathrow.

"We could have a match!" Joe continued, not so easily distracted from talk of Quidditch. "I know, we can ask some people from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw to play a match against us..."

"Not going to bother with Slytherin then?" Dale joked. "Poor Snape! Oh, did you all remember to get your Hogsmeade slips signed?" He waved his own and Lily could just barely make out that the signature was a man´s. Which was a bit weird as Lily had never heard Dale mention anything about having a dad.

"Who signed yours?!" Ada replied snatching away the form to study the signature of `Bob Elmenheimer´.

Dale looked briefly confused but then shrugged. "The ol´ man. Back in town I guess. Anyway. . ."

"I see!" Ada sighed and handed back the form slightly crinkled. "Well, we´ll make a great team the three of us. . . We can hit Zonko´s first. . . We´ll need some nose-biting tea cups this term, I foresee a crises with the Hufflepuff third years. . . Maybe a dung bomb or two for Bellatrix The Black. . ."

"Um," Lily imparted regretfully. "I forgot to ask my parents to sign the form." seeing the looks on her two best friend´s faces she amended, "DON´T WORRY! I´ll owl it to them immediately and I´ll have permission probably way before the first weekend we got!"

Both Dale and Ada stared at her angrily.

"Gee whiz!" she waved her hands at them and turned to go to the owlery right then. She danced around Corky and another new prefect who were desperately trying to douse purple flames from the hair of a disgruntled second year and leapt through the opening portrait hole, just barely dodging Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. She could hear one of them make a comment but she didn´t stop. She wanted to take care of the note before McGonagall was onto her and made her wait until tomorrow.

She was entering and pulling out a roll of parchment and a quill from her bag, when she was startled by James Potter, who was already there talking pleasantly to his scruffy-looking tawny owl, the setting sun casting a orange glow over the sky behind them. It could have been a movie... A boy and his bird! Lily snickered.

He looked up but then went back to tying a message to the owl´s leg lovingly.

Lily turned and did likewise except with less partiality to one of the self-important school owls.

"Writing home already?" Potter asked as they both sent off the owls through one of the huge open windows.

"What´s it to you?" she replied benignly watching the school owl haul off with her bit of parchment.

"Just making conversation, Evans. I like your hair. . ."

She rolled her eyes. She had gotten plenty of guff about her hair and it being red and all. There seemed to be no end to people´s amazement about it, although it was just a twist of science that made her hair this particular colour.

She made a face and replied gruffly, "I was going to colour it black." This was sort of true because she had asked her mum this one bad evening over summer but after that reaction, had not once used the words `hair´ and `black´ in a sentence again.

"Short like that, I mean," he added quickly. "It´s very nice."

She didn´t know what to make of him. "Okay," she said and backed out of the room.

*    *    *

With the extra classes on her schedule, Lily had expected the pressures to increase, but so far it had been easy sailing. For her electives she chosen Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures. Sharing a few classes with a better mix of the houses, made it easy to arrange a Quidditch match.

In the early afternoon of their second week, Lily was out by the broom shed with a few of the Hufflepuffs when Joe Leary came blazing over the side of the hill and ran to her, red-faced and ecstatic.

"THE BROOMS! THE BROOMS! THERE´S AIN'T NO NEED FOR `EM NOW!" he finally stopped running and held his side panting. They had been gathering all the brooms for the game, Hugh Lucre already had seven brooms tethered to his own, Lily was in the process of attaching a few to her own exquisite Nimbus 1001.

She exchanged bewildered and disappointed looks with the others by the broom shed. She was sure that the other fourteen or so kids they had picked up for the game would be very downhearted as well if the match had to be called off at the last minute.

"What are you TALKING about man?" Hugh Lucre demanded, a hand on a hip.

Joe took a deep breath and said, "We don´t- Need- Brooms-" he was still out of breath, bent over at the waist and looking at them as if a piece of the moon had fallen from the sky and conked him on the head.

"WE GOT THAT!" Henrietta Borg cried clutching the handle of her Shooting Star, "But WHY?" Henrietta was a portly, pink-faced witch who felt every emotion to the absolute limit. Her red cheeks made her look as if she would just then burst into tears.

Joe looked around in amazement. "Well that´s the thing, that´s the thing. We won´t be able to fly at all!"

"But why, Joe?" Lily exclaimed.

"Why? Because the match has been called off!" he replied.

"Who has called it off!?" Henrietta cried angrily, getting ready to berate some stodgy member of the staff, meanwhile Hugh was smashing at a shrub with the end of his broomstick in fury.

"Who? Oh! James Potter did it!"

Hugh stopped thrashing and everyone stood staring at Joe.

Hugh grasped Joe´s shoulder and demanded, "Potter? James Potter?! Has he gone mad? Has he gone unhinged? Or what!? What´s he playing at, I ask you?!"

Joe was finally catching his breath, "No... Un,uh! They´re having TRYOUTS! They´re having the tryouts today! After Deck had canceled them! But were having them anyway!"

No one wasted any time responding to this verbally. A few crows were forced to scatter to the four winds as a small group of Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, Joe trailing behind waving all four limbs in excitement, sailed over the side of the hill towards the pitch.

It was obvious as they got closer that something was going on that was very strange.

Nearly sixty or seventy students were mingling in the stands to the left of the pitch, where Gryffindor usually sat, and far below in the center of the pitch where no one could hear them two young men were having a private discussion.

As Lily got closer she saw that the bulkier of the two, the Gryffindor´s inept Quidditch Captain Omar Deck, was wearing a roguish-looking arm bandage and even an eye patch. He was shaking his head demurely at a short dark figure who was wielding both a broom and the chest filled with the magical balls for Quidditch.

Lily squinted at them as she wandered into the crowd in the stands.

"Is that-"

"Potter?" Frank Longbottom supplied with an amplified smile. He was leaning over the side of the front row looking like Christmas came early. "It all started up in the common room. . . Potter started something with Deck and called his patch" Frank gestured to his left eye, "stupid and then hexed him so that he had to follow him down to the pitch. . ."

Alia laughed happily. "And he hit his head on the portrait on the way out! I told him, `Where there´s no sense there´s no feeling!´" Quite a few people laughed at this. But it wasn´t a hateful laugh. Lily saw that pretty much most of the Gryffindors in the stands above them looked at Deck without respect, true, but with a sort of possessive doting, like someone would look at their dog or something.

Lily eyed the people around her, making out the ones who had been waiting innocently for the match. Flavia Ire (Lily herself had invited a few of the third year Slytherins for the game) still had her quidditch robes on, she raised her eye brows when she saw Lily and shrugged.

"So Potter started this? All by HIMSELF?" Lily asked around, vaguely impressed but mostly disappointed that their game would now not be happening.

No one deigned to reply this time and the two students below them all in the pitch broke apart abruptly, the air of agitation and decision about them.

Potter took to the skies and flew up until Lily could no longer see him. Omar Deck, eye patched and arm in a sling, approached and everyone grew solemn. He mounted the stands slowly on foot, without any sense of purpose.

"Uh, hullo! Everyone´s here then I suppose. . ." he peered at them with his one eye for a moment then went on, "Guess it´s by popular demand that we start the Gryffindor team tryouts this day, although it would have been perfectly fine to hold them in two weeks after-"

Someone cleared their throat in the front row, farther down. Lily leaned over and saw Steve Ingraham, one of the Chasers on the team looking impatient.

"Um-yes. So, as you might have guessed we haven´t exactly got this thing organized very well-"

"Alphabetical order!" someone shouted from behind Lily.

"Oh, well, no. That would be stupid," Omar replied to the heckler. Not a trace of cynicism was on his face, Lily could only conclude that Deck was just like this.

Confirming her theory Alia whispered in her Ada´s ears, "He´s always like this, I think the nurse dropped him on his head. . ."

"See here, why doesn´t every one trying out for my team come and stand over there with the balls. Yes, that´s the ticket."

Students began filing down to the pitch eagerly. Lily was surprised to see that almost thirty of their number were going to try out.

"What rubbish..." Lily mumbled sadly. "By the time this mess gets over with it´ll be dark and we won´t get to play our match!" She and the others consigned themselves to this dreary forecast and set their brooms at their feet.

"Hey! Dravus! Corner! Back in the stands! You have to be a Gryffindor to make my team! Do let´s not waste time!" Deck was shouting, waving his hands about at various people like a cop directing a traffic jam.

Alia was in the queue to try out, in between a huge fifth year named El Palmer and a portly third year named Oscar Bodin. She was the only girl.

Omar studied them from his place on the edge of the stands through, what caused much hysterics, a spy glass he had pulled out of his trousers pocket.

He frowned and began pacing. "Um. So let´s see, we need a Chaser, a Keeper and a Beater. . ."

"That means he´s not playing this year himself!" Frank hissed around the stands while the current players came down with their brooms. The Chaser, Miranda, opened the trunk filled with the balls and released them. The team organized it so that three people tried out at once, for the needed positions.

"Efficient," Dale nodded approvingly. Deck seemed to be impressed too. He was rubbing his chin and smiling down at them as his team began to whiz to and fro past him, passing the quaffle and ducking the bludger.

Alia was still waiting to try out. Lily could see she looked more than a little uncomfortable. She was much smaller than the boys that surrounded her and no one was talking to her.

"You know Ada," Lily pointed this out saying , "we should go down and try out with her! Neither of us want to be on the team so we can make her look good! I mean, if she doesn´t get on, then this year we´ll only have two ladies on the team and that´s just unacceptable!"

Ada laughed. "I like it! Did you bring my broom? Let´s go!"

Lily handed it over to her and the two snuck onto the pitch under the melee of the first try out. They nudged their way on either side of Alia and she grinned.

They watched for about an hour before finally all three girls were called.

Alia had her hopes set on Chaser, so Lily took Beater and Ada, Keeper.

It went well, at first. Alia nearly intercepted a ball from Steve Ingraham and they could hear Omar whistle with amazement when she spun out of the way of a bludger and then hit the quaffle directly to Miranda so she could score a point. Ada cursed loudly.

Lily felt a little bad because she should have blocked the bludger that almost hit her, so she began to pick up her pace and play better. A bludger came at Wanda Wingham and she swooped down and smacked it so hard it flew clear out of the pitch and she could no longer see it. A few people laughed and pointed at the air in which it disappeared.

It was about then that Ada too, forgot the whole point of their trying out with Alia, and began blocking her Quaffles as if life depended upon it. Lily hit a bludger in Ada´s direction to distract her as Miranda went to sail the quaffle into the center hoop. Ada hit the bludger back, it hurtled at what must have been one hundred miles per hour in Alia´s direction before Lily flung herself in between the ball and Alia and blocked it with the bat. It still made impact with her leg and she rubbed her thigh. "Ouch!" she shook her fist at Ada and they both cracked up. Lily saw this was hardly a accurate method of trying out new players for the team. . .

She and Ada were still laughing loudly as Omar told them to break up and make way for the next three.

"What´s your name?" one of the players on the team asked her as she flew past him. She knew that he was the other Beater, Pontus Cruz.

She told him and he smiled and waved at her as she hit the ground and rejoined the group waiting to try out.

Alia had her arms crossed. "That was SO harebrained. Were you two trying to make me look good? With friends like you who needs friends?"

"Hey! We tried to be good. . . But were too bad and then we weren´t bad anymore and we were good but that doesn´t mean you were bad!" Ada explained defensively.

"In other words, you did great," Lily added. "Here´s to you making it!" Lily and Ada hooked arms and performed a jig.

The three who had followed them were now done and then James Potter mounted his broom and flew off the ground with a couple of other Gryffindor boys. He played Chaser, and Lily noted that everyone chatting up in the stands had become silent. Some of the team were watching Omar´s face, trying to see how he would take Potter.

Not very well, Lily judged. His face was turning purple.

It was because he was good. Too good to be denied and Alia crossed her arms again and went back to the stands in distress.

"Don´t worry," Lily called after her, "why would he let Potter on the team after what happened earlier?"

Eventually everyone had had a go at their position and Omar made a clumsy path back to the center of the pitch where they were all standing, waiting for his decision. But it seemed that he had told some of his team first and they were looking riotous.

Pontus Cruz tugged at Deck´s arm violently and the two were hissing at each other, having a quiet argument. Everyone began shuffling their feet hoping they weren´t the one being argued over, and some were shaking their heads and looking positively delighted, hoping they were the ones being argued about. James Potter, flanked by Roscoe Barrett and Frank Longbottom was the picture of confidence. He had no doubt in his mind he would be made Chaser, and Lily grudgingly wished that Deck would just choose Alia even if she wasn´t nearly as good.

After several uncomfortable minutes of this, Deck broke away from Cruz and waved his hand at everyone as if warding them away.

"Okay! We´ve had a bleeding committee over it and we have chosen THREE of you to be on Gryffindor´s Quidditch team for this season. . ."

A few people clapped and hooted.

"First off, like to thank all of you, as you might have guessed this is the biggest turn out Gryffindor has had in over ten years when half the team was taken out by the great storm of 62´. . ."

A few of the team players made noises and Omar looked back and scowled at them lovingly.

"Right! So for Keeper it was a toss up between Ada Mac Fusty and El Palmer," Ada jumped, "But we decided to go with Palmer as Mac Fusty has a bit of a hot temper. . ."

More than a few people were chuckling, including Ada, who nodded with pride. Palmer was looking modest as people congratulated him. The truth was that no one cared about who made Keeper or Beater, it was Chaser they were worried over. Would Potter save them from another humiliating defeat?! It seemed that his presence made Deck more controllable as well.

"For Beater-"

Everyone sighed. It seemed Deck knew what his coin was to get people to listen to him for once today and he held it greedily.

"Lily Evans, who will be one of the youngest additions of our team. . . the other beingjamespotterwhowillbechaser. . . Well! That´s it! Thanks everyone!" and Omar stalked off jovially, with several of his team mates following after with various complaints or commendations.

"Ace!" Potter shouted and he and Sirius were smacking hands. No one seemed to notice or care that Lily had also been mentioned. People swarmed around Potter, their new Quidditch messiah, who would apparently lead them the way to grace and glory.

But three people were just as dumbstruck as Lily.