academic curiosity

*    *    *15

The next day Lily was standing in a fifth floor corridor where the offending club were to meet, leaning on a large wooden sign that flashed the words `Walpurgis Stink!´

"Evans!" A voice came up from the gloomy corridor. She looked up and saw Pontus Cruz come into the light.

"Uh, oh!" Lily muttered. Her plot had been foiled! She had cooked up a pretty good one that involved charming Alia´s hair red and stuffing her clothes a bit in certain places to make her appear more like the Gryffindor´s new Beater. The practice had started twenty minutes ago... Already Alia had been discovered!

She asked him, "Is the gig up then?"

"No. But I figured it out. So has Potter." He said this gruffly.

"You better switch back with Bashir, P.D.Q. It´s only a matter of time before Cap´n Smiley remembers that you don´t flirt with every male member of the team." Apparently `Smiley´ was a nickname of Omar. And apparently Lily had underestimated Alia´s range of flirtation.

"Nothing doing!" Lily sighed sympathetically. "I have business Pontus, can´t you just cover for me?" But before he interrupted her she knew he wouldn´t.

"There´s a long shot! Longer than the one in which we can suppose you´ll show up to practice! Don´t you want to be on the team?" he asked, lowering his voice.

Ada had noticed the addition to their gathering and was looking over suspiciously.

"No, to be honest... Not if it gets in the way of things that are really important!" she replied, lowering her own voice.

Dale was putting the finishing touches on the sign Lisanne Harris was holding, and the others were already ready to go. They would sneak around the corner where no one would see them at first and then jump out to crash the meeting just as it began, which was supposed to happen in less than ten minutes.

"Quidditch IS important!" He suddenly grabbed her arm and yanked her towards himself.

She looked at his hand on her arm and then up at his face.

It happened so fast that she wasn´t exactly sure what had happened. But Pontus Cruz, Beater for the team, had turned on his heel and waltzed away presumably to go inform everyone what the game was.

But as he disappeared into the darkness and she could no longer hear his feet clunking away she was pretty sure that she had been kissed.

She turned to her posse of protesters and saw that no one was paying her any attention. Ada and everyone else had been distracted and were gleefully watching one of the signs flash, `BLACK! Are you on CRACK?´

*    *    *

"This one was taken only about two seconds after she laid eyes on Joe´s sign with the with the crying sea slug... Classic."

Dale was exhibiting the roll of film he had taken at their anti-Death Eater action the night before. He had been up all night developing them and looked the worse for it but was smiling jovially at his good work. Some of the photos were quite artistic.

"I really enjoy the one where Nott is hexing a melvin on Hugh. I wouldn´t have believed his drawers actually reached above his head unless I had seen it twelve hundred times repeatedly in the photo!" Lily took this one and admired it. Finally Hugh got tough and started strangling Nott with the waist band of his underwear. Not an entirely pretty thing to observe so Lily put it back with the rest of the pile getting passed around.

"In this one, her left eye ball is actually leaving her skull..." someone was commentating. Lily looked up at a table where Omar, Pontus and Wanda Wingham were sitting looking troubled. Even with Potter as a new addition their chances were grim for the match against defending champions the Hufflepuffs, next week. That she hadn´t shown up for the only two practices that had been called was really wrong of her... She wasn´t sure, but it seemed that Pontus Cruz had not let the cat out of the bag so technically she wasn´t busted. But still. She would be expected to fly well in the match and she had never so much as practiced a single play with the team, unless of course you counted that scene in the fifth floor corridor between her in Cruz.

Any ways, if they all ended up hating her guts she could hardly blame them.

*    *    *

It was in the dressing room before the first match of the year, that Lily was delivered from ruin. She had eaten a small dose of refined mandrake powder from Marva that confounded the senses, which wouldn´t help her block a bludger but would sure as hell settle her nerves and guilt. She had not even started to change yet when Potter came in and following closely behind him was Sirius. He had his broom.

"What´s this?" Wanda asked immediately. Omar was down in the stands already and everyone else was huddled together going over some maneuver or other that Pontus had made up.

"Our Beater..." he looked over at Lily and she shrugged at Wanda. Pontus had told her that Potter knew about her skipping both practices. He might have told her he would have her replaced, but obviously he felt himself too important to be bothered.

"Evans is uh, sick. So I figured I´d just get a replacement for her. He´s real good," he pointed to Sirius eagerly and looked like a little boy who found a puppy and wanted to be allowed to keep him.

Wanda, though was not much of a authoritarian. She looked at the other boy with disinterest and turned back towards her locker. "Better tell the others too. Sirius can have the uniform in locker number five... It´s a bit old and smelly but it´s raining anyway."

"Thanks Wingham!" Potter replied happily and Sirius got out the uniform.

"You owe me for this Prongs," Black said to him as he stuck his head through a gray hood that should have definitely been red. He grinned as Potter scampered off to tell the rest of the team. Lily supposed she would be the last to be informed that she was deservedly replaced. What she wanted to know though, was what sort of crackpot nickname was 'Prongs'.

She folded up the Quidditch uniform that she had only been vaguely excited to wear and approached the group just behind Potter.

"Are you ill Evans?" Steve wondered. He didn´t look convinced.

"Probably scared," El Palmer proclaimed pompously.

"Am not," Lily replied casually. "On either counts."

"Look- I got Sirius. You all know he can play. He just didn´t try for the team because he hates Deck too much."

"Yeh, but you can´t just go replacing our team mates." Miranda pointed out hazily. Lily eyed her along with Potter. She had a feeling Miranda was more concerned about getting replaced next, which would hardly be a crime the way she flew.

"Look, you probably should do it. I haven´t practiced..." Lily argued. The mandrake powder was starting to wear off or something, she could feel her stomach knot up.

"Do you think any of us have?" Steve snapped. "You know how many days the Hufflepuffs had practices? Twelve."

"We´ll be lucky if we can just get the Snitch before they score too many points!" Pontus broke in.

Potter glared at him. So did El.

"Oh, don´t you worry about THAT, Cruz. I´ll block my hoops just fine thanks. Maybe you should just worry about making up for your blitzed Beater here!" he jabbed a thumb at Lily. She blinked her dilated eyes politely.

"Excuse me?" Pontus, Potter and Steve all said at once. Wanda and Sirius wandered over looking as if they were forced to witness a family argument.

"And you´re a sad sack Potter if you think I´m going to play next to this guy!" El Palmer went on angrily.

"You got a problem, dick wad?" Sirius inquired eloquently as Potter dived in front of him to block the two boys from each other.

But Potter was not the best mediator: "You bloody stupid git, he could play your position and Evans´, blindfolded better than you can block a single bloody hoop! Don´t think we all don´t go off on your..." Suddenly Potter mimicked what must have been Palmer´s dive to protect a goal. It was a lumbering, foolish movement in which Potter bugged out and crossed his eyes and he swung his arms in a show that he missed the ball by a half a mile at least. It was pretty comical actually and more than a couple people started to snicker, the loudest among them, Sirius.

Palmer had Potter, who was practically half his size, by the collar in a second, although Potter didn´t seem too fearful. Sirius jumped in and Steve was clearing them away from each other while Pontus threw up his hands in a screaming rage with Miranda who seemed to be accusing him of some sort of infidelity.

She removed a little silver ring off her finger and tossed it at his feet.

Wanda was staring at Sirius putting El in a head lock with dumbstruck confusion.

Lily turned and left.

So she had a good view of Madam Mulkey storming into the Gryffindor changing room to the monstrous boos and cheers from respective sides. Everyone but the Slytherins were ticked off that they had failed to show up on the pitch. The match should have started ten minutes prior. No one was surprised to see Lily sit down in the stands.

Nobody probably remembered she had even been elected to the team. Not even Deck. He smiled and nodded pleasantly when they briefly made eye contact.

"That one really did get biffed by his nurse when he was a baby," Ada commented dryly.

"I´m not complaining," Lily shrugged, the effects of the numbing powder starting to make her sleepy.

"I think I´m leaving early," she said. "I´m awfully tired. Coming?" she asked them.

"Yeh, I forgot why were even out here again," Ada joined her in standing up and scooting through the crowd.

*    *    *

The whole match had been proclaimed a forfeit, Hufflepuff claiming victory without one ball even being released.

This did not improve McGonagall´s mood at all. Transfiguration became even more dangerous than Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts, which was being taught by a clueless mad man this year.

No one was sure exactly what happened inside the changing room that afternoon and no one who was present was saying much. However Wanda did publicly lament the loss of one lucky (and unwashed) sock that she had worn since her first triumph in 1968 and that had been lost in the fray.

The dissapearance of said sock, she forewarned, was an omen that ruin would fall upon them all. No one needed the sock to tell them that of course.

The Junior Knights had their third meeting, and despite Lily and her rag tag of anti-Knights speaking out against it, enjoyed their highest attendance yet. Tomoko Satori, the V.P. of the club and to the disgust of many, a Ravenclaw, was overheard by Lily and Alia boasting that they now had over eighty members.

"Eighty!" Lily cried, slamming her bag down onto her trunk and leaning against the window sill. Looking out through the frosted glass she saw a group of bundled up Quidditch players from Ravenclaw on the pitch.

She moved from the window and turned back towards Ada, who had come in with her.

"I want a list."

"A list of what?" Ada asked.

"The names," Lily said.

"Oh, of course. I have that right here in my purse." To Lily´s complete surprise she did have such a list and removed it from her bag right then. Lily took it and gaped at her best friend. In many things their minds were identical, and that was both convenient and scary.

"I was bored... I noted everyone that showed up for the last meeting. I put an eye ball next every one that I know has been there before and a crossbones next to everyone from another house besides Slytherin.

Looking at the list, which was two pages of smallish scrawled handwriting, she was disappointed to see that most of the names had one or both of Ada's notations.

"Damn! Dawn Hirsute and Terry Frond! We´ve hung out with them so much... No! No! Not Lisanne Harris!!" Lily screamed, covering her mouth. Lisanne had helped protest the first meeting with them!

"It´s true," Ada confirmed. "I put fluke worms in her breakfast for it today too."

Lily continued to read off names in horror. Her own friend Eddie Carmichael was a member (though she had a feeling that this was strictly for mercenary reasons as he was muggle born and was always out for a way to make money on his contraband), a shy Slytherin first year she had helped on the Express was on the list, quite a few Ravenclaws, including Nate Corner who Ada had gone out with last year, but it was even more disgusting to see names of Gryffindors. The prefects Abigail Holmes and Corky Puggler had joined in the second meeting. But that wasn´t all. Miranda had joined too.

"I knew I hated her!" Lily cried, waving the list angrily.

"You should never doubt your intuition!" Ada reprimanded, taking the list and throwing it under her bed.

"No!" Lily snatched it up. "Is this labeled?"

"Sure, who do you think I am?" Ada replied. Indeed it was very neatly headed with: 'MEMBERS, Junior Knights of Walpurgis (those gits)'

"I want to leave it in the common room. No reason why they should be shy..."

"No, Lily!" Ada stopped her. "Let´s leave it in the great hall..."

*    *    *

The next morning for breakfast both girls had gotten changed and marched down, Ada´s list rolled up into her right red maryjane.

"What´s the deal?" Dale asked them superstitiously. "I have a bad feeling..."

"Well, there´s a reason for that," Lily assured him.

"I hope there´s banana pancakes again today," Ada said.

"Hey, you guys going to the match tonight?" Joe called to them.

"As long as my team doesn´t have to play!" Lily joked.

"Very funny!" Steve shouted from by the fire.

Dale, Ada and Lily got to breakfast in record time. As Ada forked herself some of those pancakes she set the rolled up list in the middle of the Gryffindor table. It took about thirty seconds for it to become the center piece of conversations. It got torn in half as everyone at the table vied to read off it. Several people turned beet red, or grew quiet. One first year left the table in tears and Lily was hard pressed to feel bad. She had known better when she was just a first year.

She thought Dale would be mad for some reason, but he was ecstatic. "You two are so terrible- I love you!" he exclaimed. "This is just the right thing we need to turn people around!"

Halfway through breakfast word of the list had gotten to the other houses and soon everyone was huddled around the Gryffindor table despite themselves to see what exactly this mysterious document was about.

Eddie saw it over the top of a Hufflepuff seventh year´s head and laughed. "I have an eyeball next to my name! Wonder what that means?"

Lily watched cooly as the senior members of the club sauntered over nonchalantly. Bellatrix got hold of it first and whistled. By then everyone had perused it and watched for her reaction. Federico smiled brightly.

"It means..." Federico began happily, a benevolent smile spreading across his wide face, "That you get five galleons! Five galleons for every single person with one of these, uh... Creative notations by their name! And while we got a lot of you here together I should let you know the upcoming meeting is in two weeks in the new location... You all know the time. Oh, and a two galleon gift for every one who brings a friend, only if they meet the requirements of course..." The only person who looked unhappy in the Walpurgis camp was their treasurer, Bellatrix who was obviously counting every one of those galleons in her head.

"They´re good," Dale admitted, as the three friends tried their best to look indifferent as they headed towards their first class.

"No, they´re just rich. You don´t have to think when you got that much money..." Lily replied.

"At least we made a couple of the bastards cry!" Ada attempted a look on the bright side.

"Yeah, like four eleven year old girls!" Dale responded. "And Corky Puggler!" he added with a smile.

"Will figure out something," Lily told them. "For right now maybe we should just put this aside and get back to our school work. Lay low. I´´ve about had it to here with this." Lily wiggled her fingers at her forehead.

They passed Pontus and he waved at her.

She rearranged her mouth at him and ignored Ada´s low snickering.