academic curiosity

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"What about Dale?" Ada asked as Lily went to go stake out the portrait hole.

"He´s in his dorm! It´ll be impossible..." She wandered towards the exit, pretending to be very interested in the bulletin board next to it.

Ada and Marva feigned a game of wizard chess nearby, every few minutes shooting bored and impatient glances at Lily.

But she couldn´t see how she could get the door open and get herself and two girls through without someone noticing.

She jumped when the door opened of its own accord. It creaked very slightly, as if the person on the other side knew just how to move it to make the least amount of noise possible. She waited and then leaned over, but saw that no one was at the other side!

The door must have just blew open she figured. She turned to Ada and shrugged, slipping through quickly.

"That was amazing!" Marva hissed as they ran down the stairs.

"Ouch!" Ada cried, rubbing her shin.

"Stupid, watch where your going!" Marva demanded.

"I didn´t hit anything!" Ada retorted angrily. "Something hit me! What was it, I wonder..." she was staring into the dark haze. But there was nothing but stairs and large portraits snoozing.

Lily thought she heard a snicker, but decided to ignore it. "C´mon, let´s go. I bet the monster is stalking around the dungeons!!"

Ada let out a whoop and they flew, single file down the next flight of stairs and through the first floor.

"Do you suppose Filch is on patrol this early?" Marva asked. All the lights had been snuffed, because of the curfew.

"No," Ada replied confidently. "He´s in the infirmary."

"FILCH?!" both the other girls cried in shock at their profound good fortunes.

"Yes. I think Potter glued his office door shut with Epoxall and he had to pry his way out with a shovel. Any ways, he ended up injuring himself with it... I almost like that Potter and his yobbo friends sometimes!"

"Oh, shoot!" Marva laughed out loud. "That means every criminal in the castle is out wandering!"

"This is too good to be true!" Lily agreed. "And by the way, I wouldn´t call Potter and his friends yobbo..."

"You would too! They are yobbo!" Ada argued.

"Are not!" Lily replied reluctantly. "I happen to know that Sirius Black listens to The Stones up in his dorm room. So he can´t be all that bad, can he?"

"I´ve always been more of a Beatles fan when it comes to Muggle music," Marva commented.

"Well, that´s you´re problem," Lily told her apologetically. "I mean, I´ll take George. But the rest can sod off..."

"SSH!" Ada motioned to them. "Did you hear that noise?"

Lily pulled out her wand and waited.

Marva hissed, "What did it sound like?"

"SHUT UP!" Ada mouthed and waved her wand at Marva threateningly.

And then they all heard it. A faint hissing, like the sound of water going through a pipe in one of the lavatories.

"Did someone flush a toilet? Damn! If that´s a teacher I´m booking it-" But Marva didn´t finish because Ada turned and gave her a foreboding look.

"It came from downstairs, over there I think..." Ada whispered softly. She led them in stealth towards a large rectangle of pure blackness.

"Oh, good," Lily said. "I was hoping we would go down this one."

"Sarcasm won´t get you a good view of the monster!" Ada hissed impatiently.

"No, I´m being serious!" Lily cracked and she and Marva had to cover their mouths because if they laughed Ada would hex them both and they would be in with Filch.

"Should we light up?" Marva whispered.

"I don´t see why not," Lily replied and before anyone could deliberate further she muttered, "Lumos!"

The tip of her wand lit up and filled the room with shadows. The walls were of stone and the floor was wet. They had been down her only once before in their first year when the dungeons had been closed off on one side.

"It´ll see us now!" Ada said.

"It´ll hear us first!" Marva snorted. "We're as quiet as marching elephants!"

"No, it´ll smell us!" Lily tickled Marva´s neck. "Come here little witch... Let me eaaaat you!"

Marva squealed and dived away and as she did Lily´s wand illuminated a white face far down at the other end of the corrdidor. It had been watching them from the darkness.

She froze and stared back, too frightened to make a noise of any kind.

Meanwhile Ada and Marva began to rough house and tease each other.

"Um, um, mates..." Lily hissed.

"Ouch, YOU HAG! That was my HAIR!" Marva rubbed her head and swung a foot at Ada´s knee.

"Guys... There it is... Hello..." Lily sighed frantically, not wanting to move.

Ada turned and saw Lily´s face. Suddenly her wand light went out. "Oh, god."

Ada said, "Lumos!" and lit her own wand. Right into the white face. It had crossed and was not standing five feet from them.

All three girls screamed as loudly as they could.

Marva proved herself to be the fastest runner Hogwarts had ever seen. With a blur of pudgy limbs and black curled hair she was out of sight and sound in two seconds flat.

Ada fell back into Lily and both girls continued to scream at the top of their lungs from the damp stone floor while the face stared down at them, tilting it´s head.

It was only when Lily whipped her wand out defensively that it made a quick darting move and suddenly rocks were cutting their faces. It had blasted a hole in the wall above them, sending gravel-like shrapnel over them.

Then it made a turn about and disappeared into the vast gloom. Ada´s wand light wouldn´t extend very far. But that was fine with both the girls. They had no more desire to see anymore of the monster.

They got up and ran after Marva, before any of the staff found them or the thing decided to come back.

They had ducked into a broom cupboard on the third floor when they heard Professor Flitwick scamper down the corrdidor.

"It didn´t hover that I noticed," Lily noted calmly, now that she was far enough from impending danger.

"That wasn´t an `it´," Ada replied cooly, deep in thought.

"A person?" Lily wondered. "Yes, of course! It- I mean, they must have used a wand just then!"

"Right. Lily, I don´t think we should tell anyone about this. Y´know, they didn´t hurt us and I think they just wanted to scare us away from whatever they was trying to do!"

Lily stared at her friend for such a long time that Ada went shy and found an old old boot to stare at in turn.

"Is it agreed, then?" Ada muttered.

"I guess, sure."

"Good. I mean, we don´t know what´s going on. It´s best to keep our big noses out of it until we know that Dumbledore needs us. Don´t you think? I wonder where this strange boot came from?" Ada smiled happily, not seeming to notice that Lily didn´t say anything.

***

The following morning brought the security that only the knowledge that you weren´t the only one can bring when Lily overheard Joe Leary telling a fifth year named Roscoe Barrett all about how he, Frank Longbottom and Toggie Booth from Slytherin spent the previous evening wrapping loo paper around every object in Professor Lindelow´s office. The new Potion´s Master had replaced last year´s Vagras and was in no way offensive to Lily, but loo paper was loo paper and what could you do when something was funny? It only made the story funnier too when Filch came out of the infirmary screaming that every ounce of loo paper had been removed from the infirmary lavatory.

"Well, here´s to hoping for Pomfrey´s sake that Mrs. Norris was kind enough to allow him the use of her cat box," Dale replied as Lily relayed the information to him at lunch.

"Ada´s been weird lately too. What did you two do last night?" he asked suspiciously.

"We went looking for that monster."

"And did you find anything?"

"I´m not sure," Lily replied thoughtfully.

In the hallway on their way to Potions (Lily could hardly wait to view Joe´s work) they ran into James Potter who waved a wand casually at a Slytherin fourth year. Lily didn´t know the hex and wondered if maybe it hadn´t worked when nothing seemed to happen. The boy, a boxy sort of fellow named Miles Acme seemed to come to the same conclusion and Lily saw him point and laugh loudly at Potter and then turned away to go to his own class. As he passed Lily and Dale she saw that he had no eye brows.

Sirius Black was about ready to cry from joy, Peter Pettigrew WAS crying and Remus Lupin hung about with a look of exhaustion. There was a deep, traumatic looking red scratch across his face.

"He´ll get you for that in the match next week!" Frank Longbottom called, also laughing from where he was standing holding a door open for some of the girls in their class.

"Ah, well good," Potter shrugged. "I was getting so bored."

Lily remembered that Miles was a Chaser for the Slytherin´s house team. He was pretty good at that. Potter is such a showoff, she thought. She and Dale managed to get past the boys and into class intact (she felt her face to make sure) and took a seat by a huge map of Tibet.

Ada came in a few minutes later looking amazed. She sat next to them and said, "I just past not one, not two, but THREE Slytherins without eye brows... I say, is there some sort of trend going on? Is it a new mark of pure blood or something?"

Dale cracked up and put his head in his cauldron. Lily rolled her eyes.

"If I see The Bellatrix with something missing from her face I´ll be happy," she responded. But she doubted very much whether even James Potter was enough a showoff for that.

"Speaking of The Black One, I´ve been thinking on something..." Dale whispered to them.

"What?"

"Well, you remember when she mentioned you starting up an association for non-pure bloods-"

"Everyone! Light your cauldrons immediately!" Professor Lindelow hurried in through the entrance to the dungeon and waved at them to be silent. Loo paper was stuck to his shoe. Peter was crying again. "We´ll be making a removal potion today that must be finished by the end of class period... Anyone who lags and doesn´t complete their portion gets a zero for the day! Ingredients on the board... Ta ta!" As quickly as he came in, he exited. He was a bit flighty, but at least he wasn´t breathing down their necks while they stewed their school work... Lily was poor enough at potion making.

She gathered the ingredients quickly and then hurried back to hear the rest of Dale´s speech.

"So any ways, I shouldn´t say too much now... But I think that I can get one going. You know, I just can´t decide whether or not to allow pure bloods in as well. The Junior Walpurgis don´t allow non-pure bloods. But somehow I don´t think being intolerant about blood will be much of a counter-statement. But on the other hand..." he went on but Lily had heard enough. After a minute of stirring she smiled at him.

"I love this idea. Can I be an officer in the club?"

Dale thought this over. "Sure. Want to be my secretary?" He smiled whimsically at her and she snickered.

"Well, I hope I´m not the only one doing the cauldron stirring here!" Lily handed the large wodden stick to Dale but he waved it away. "Okay, Ada then!"

Ada took it and dripped the ends of her robe into the mixture, making a face.

"Roll your sleeves up girl!" Dale muttered. Ada was stubborn though, she just let them drip into the cauldron.

***

"Hi, Ossie!" Lily sat next to her advanced Charms partner and watched him pull out a roll of spell-o tape from his pocket. His glasses were on the table, broken in two pieces.

"I dropped them," he explained resolutely. The tape made a swick-swick sound as he briskly cut pieces to apply to them.

"Hmm... Ossie, why not use a charm for them?" she suggested with confusion.

He looked startled by this suggestion. "On my SPECS?" He looked down at them for several seconds and then at Lily, dumbstruck. "I don´t know about that..."

"Here! It´s easy, watch..." She made for them before he could scoop them away. He was very finicky about people touching his things.

She set them back on the table, looking brand new and he prodded them with his own wand and then laughed at them for nearly a minute.

During this display of everlasting mirth, Ralph Venkman joined them eagerly.

"Hullo! Can I show you my new defensive charm?" he asked Lily.

She nodded and he took out his wand with relish. He leaned down, "You´re like, the only human besides myself and Ossie who will fully appreciate this one!"

"Shall I pretend to hex you or something?" she wondered.

"Oh, no. You should really do it. Try something like stunning." he stood back, waiting and Lily performed a perfect example of Stupefy that had the rest of the class stopping their own work to watch. However, when he uttered the words, "expedato maleficus!" Lily´s hex, which burst out in the form of a huge red lightning bolt, seemed to suck into Ralph´s chest and then he made a funny face. He put both hands on his knees and barfed.

Out came a stream of reddish goo that spun in a spectacularily gross whirlwind in between them and suddenly took a swerve towards Lily. She flew back and said, "Ralph!"

He waved his wand quickly and the goo splattered disgustingly to the ground.

Everyone looked at it.

"Well, that´s the catch. If you want to stop it there´s no way to get rid of the ectoplasm... But if you really need it you wouldn´t be worrying about that, of course!" he grinned and sat down in the empty chair by Ossie. He seemed to have just noticed the white chunky spew and was laughing again.

"SCOURGIFY!" a female prefect cried at the pile of sick. It evaporated, but there was a faint putrid outline in the hearth rug.

"Nice," Ralph called to her. "That takes a lot backing power for that... What sort of wand do you use Becky?" he sat up and left Lily and Ossie.

When Ossie calmed down again they went through the list of defensive charms. But none of them sounded as exciting as the one Ralph had just displayed.

"Let´s skip all these for now and practice Ralph´s new defensive charm, huh Lily?" he shoved the list away and wiggled his nose at her.