academic curiosity

*********23

In between studying for fourth year exams, Lily did her best to make friends with Bernie.

Bernie was a stocky kid of medium height, with dark brown hair and mud colored eyes whose face was always pulled into an expression of mild disgust. In their first year he had dunked her friend Joe´s head into a girl´s toilet. Lily had never heard his surname used, or maybe Bernie was his surname.

It wasn´t just Bernie she tried to be friendly to, but nearly everyone in Ravenclaw. Lately they had taken against the Gryffindors, first for the team beating them in Quidditch and the second for Potter´s attack against Bernie. Well, actually it was more because the attack seemed to them to be true. If it had turned out to be some stupid story they probably would have laughed it off. But that one of their own was just as sneaky and bad as a Slytherin was unacceptable. Rather than turn their backs on Bernie they all saved face by embracing him just as they always did and were bitter towards everyone else, daring them to repeat what Bernie´s dad had done out loud.

"No one´s brave enough to say it again. He should be expelled, what if he tries something with a student here? Like father like son, you know... The apple doesn´t fall far from the tree. He looks desperate enough..."

Lily turned and gazed at Frank Longbottom until he saw her.

"Longbottom, I used to think Alia Bashir was the Queen of Gossip around these parts but after hearing you blather on for nearly two hours about everyone´s private business I´d have to say that the title should go to you!"

"Gossip?!" Frank said, surprised. "I´m just telling the truth, everyone knows it´s the truth!"

"You know no such thing! All you have is Potter´s word-which is complete rubbish- and the word of dark magic loving gits all over the country side who want to put the blame of their dirty work on an innocent man!"

"See here, Evans!" Davey Grudgeon stuck up for Frank and Potter, "You can´t say it´s rubbish when it´s been in the Daily Prophet for two weeks now what his dad has done!"

A few girls from Bernie´s house, sitting nearby flinched and covertly looked away as they started to listen to the argument.

"His dad says that he was put under the Imperius curse by a Death Eater!" Dale shouted across the room. He loosened his tie and rose from his seat. "Don´t believe everything you read in the Daily Prophet!"

Madam Pince appeared behind her desk and looked so shocked at the sudden noise that at first she did nothing but stare in amazement. Maybe it was the subject matter too, that stunned her.

"Oh and where did you read that about the Unforgivable then, huh?" Frank retorted angrily. "I have no problem reading the newspaper- I can at least tell the difference between the facts and the utter bilge! I can at least read it without looking for even a minor detail to pin against the old families- "

"What are you implying Longbottom?!" Dale yelled.

At the same time Lily said to herself with disbelief, "´Minor detail?´ An Unforgivable Curse?!"

Dale sprang from the table and started to come around to get closer to the other boys, who were also getting up from their seats.

Lily made a wild grab for his shirt sleeve but missed. The three girls nearby gasped and stared at them all openly, as everyone in the packed library was now doing.

"Dale! Don´t! It´s not worth getting in trouble for!" Lily called impatiently as Pince stormed towards them with a pale face of fury, her fists clenched.

"Yeah, listen to your little girlfriend half-blood!" Grudgeon yelled, rolling up the sleeves to the dopey knit sweater he always wore. "I wonder if maybe The Death Eaters have it right about your ki-"

Two things happened before the last word could be said. Pince arrived and Dale hexed Davey right in the chest so that he was immediately silenced.

*    *    *

"Dale-" Lily began, looking up from her scrubbing. But she knew by the stiff look of his shoulders that he would ignore her.

"Dale, if you just tell Madam Pomfrey how to cure that hex on Grudgeon we can get off this disgusting floor and go back to working on our Transfiguration... I´m going to fail I just know it!"

Dale spit on the floor and then wiped it up with his own scrub brush. "I won´t tell them! What´s more important? Making a statement or failing a stupid bloody quiz?"

"Not a quiz, an EXAM!" Lily cried. "The final exam of the whole class which will determine if we can come back to Hogwarts for next term!!"

Dale looked over his shoulder at Lily stoically. "What makes you think I´m coming back to this place?"

Lily dropped the brush she had been clutching for nearly three hours and scooted over towards Dale. He stared at his own brush on the floor, grayish bubbles surrounding them.

"This floor doesn´t come clean!" he complained. "Someone´s down here serving detention on it every night. Filch must have jinxed it or something..." He turned and smiled at Lily. "You know, you can just leave. You really didn´t do anything wrong... Longbottom even told them not to punish you."

"I won´t let you sit down here by yourself- That´s why I jumped on Frank Longbottom´s back and started kicking everywhere... You´re my best friend!"

"Um, well... Thanks?" Dale said, scratching his ear.

"The exam is not until tomorrow... I´ll just run up and sneak some books down here... We can both study of them while we clean."

"Oh, okay," Dale said, not seeming to be too interested in studying, though he was one of the year´s top students.

Lily stepped out of the filthy pool of bubbles and ran up stairs, looking both ways for teachers, she scrambled quickly up the next flight of stairs and then the next where she ran into Bernie.

She stumbled back a little and greeted him. He had a group of friends with him and among them was one of the girls in the library earlier.

"Aren´t you supposed to be in detention?" this girl asked haughtily.

"Yeah!" Lily said, "I got permission to get school books."

"We were on our way to find you," Bernie began doubtfully, shuffling his feet.

"Why?" Lily said.

After a few seconds when Bernie seemed too tongue-tied, another girl in the group stepped forward and said, "He wanted to thank you."

"We all wanted to thank you," a boy Lily didn´t know, said.

"Why?" Lily repeated.

"For sticking up for my dad." Bernie replied. "Some people- They think he´s a kidnapper and a dark wizard... Even after Dumbledore vouched for him!" He clenched his fists. Lily wondered if he wanted to dunk someone in the toilet...

"I don´t know your dad," Lily began, "But no matter what he´s done in his life that doesn´t give people right to harass you for it." Lily explained.

"But you didn´t have to say anything... You´ve been nice to me for weeks. At first I thought you were bananas or that you were just trying to get into my business..."

"Yeah, well... Us social pariahs must stick together!" Lily cracked, looking up the stairs. "I really should get those books, honestly I don´t have permission to be up here at all."

"We´ll get them then!" the girl from the library chirped eagerly.

"Yes!" the boy who spoke before agreed.

"But they´re in my dorm-" Lily began.

"No matter, I saw Peter Pettigrew upstairs," Bernie pointed above their heads. "That´s one shifty bugger, he can get into anything..."

"But Pettigrew is best friends with Potter!" Lily said to their turning backs. Her Transfiguration books had never received so much attention before!

"We´re even with Potter and them now," Bernie explained vaguely.

How was that for you? Potter was the one who started this entire mess yet he came out squeaky clean. She and Dale landed detention, Davey had sprouts growing out of his nose, Bernie´s reputation was ruined and everyone had been misinformed. But Potter, that smooth criminal, was all right! She sniffed and headed back downstairs to clean and study, which they did until their hands were pink and raw. McGonagall finally called them to bed six hours later.

*    *    *

"How do you think you did?" Alia asked.

"Not so well..." Lily sighed. She was trying to find Dale. He hadn´t shown up for the exam. It wasn´t like him to be absent from any class let alone such an important one.

"I passed probably. Just barely," Alia said grinning.

"Hey there, Bashir," Terry Frond, a Hufflepuff Chaser said.

"Oh, you again? Hi, I guess." Alia waved him away. A moment later she said to Lily, "Want to come out with us, on the lawn by the lake? It´s finally stopped raining!"

"I want to see where Dale went to," Lily said.

"Oh, that´s easy. He´s in the Headmaster´s office!" Alia replied, she plucked an apple from her shiny purple school bag and began to chew thoughtfully.

"WHAT?"

A few Slytherin sixth years slammed into the back of Lily as she stopped walking suddenly. They sneered and a tall boy with crazed-looking eyes muttered, "Ignorant!" at her before they sauntered off angrily.

"Well that´´s a rather baffling word choice, don´t you think?" Alia said with wonder. "Coming from that lot, I mean."

"So, you were saying about Dale..." Lily prodded, shaking herself off.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I passed him by just before class. Said he was meeting Dumbledore for a bit and not to miss him in McGonagall´s."

"Did he say WHY?"

Alia searched her brain for an answer an finally came up with, "No."

They walked out towards the lake the whole time Lily muttering that she should maybe go up and wait for him and Alia shaking her shiny hair in the sun and saying, "No, dear, no, don´t be silly, boys don´t like to be molly coddled all the time..."

Lily decided that Dumbledore must have excused him from the exam for some reason. She hoped Dale´s mum was okay...

At the lake edge a lot of the girls in their year and above were sitting and cooling their feet by dipping them in.

Alia rolled up her pant legs but did not put her own feet in.

"I can´t believe you didn´t at least find out why he had to talk to the Headmaster..." Lily was still mumbling. Alia was generally goof for digging up even the most random pieces of information.

"So I heard that Bernie´s dad is innocent!" Alia said, unceremoniously changing the subject.

"Oh, is that so? From who?" Lily replied sarcastically. Lily had been hinting at this fact to anyone with ears for weeks!

"From Sirius Black..." Alia sighed happily. "I wish HE came to the lake... So dreamy."

"Yeah, I heard he drives a motorcycle," Lily commented off hand.

Alia spun toward her. "A what? When? How? What?"

Secretly pleased she knew a story that Alia didn´t for once she smiled and shrugged. "I thought I heard that somewhere. That he gotten a hold of a motorbike and even bewitched it to fly." If it had been said about anyone else, Lily would have called it bilge, but Sirius seemed so much more... Well, dangerous then the rest of the fourth years.

Alia looked as if someone had slapped her. "I´m going to faint," she breathed lightly.

"That would be so funny," Lily said, watching hopefully.

"Oh. Oh..." Alia didn´t faint, but now she was gesticulating to a place over Lily´s head. She followed Alia´s gaze and saw Sirius himself with his friends coming by.

"Is he coming over HERE?" Alia sighed.

"Are you daft?" Lily questioned Alia with amusement. "You share almost every class with Black. Yet you can´t even sit on the same beach with him without losing your head?"

"Oh, I know!" Alia cried. "But, I wasn´t expecting him and I just decided to be in love with him fifteen minutes ago when I was bored in class, and it´s too soon..."

"I´m going to call him over!" Lily said, turning and pretending to raise a hand towards the tall black haired boy.

Alia snatched at her arm. "NOT FUNNY!" she hissed.

"Oh, that´s attractive-" Lily started cracking up.

"SHUT. UP!" Alia hissed even lower and then suddenly turned and sang out loudly, "Hi Sirius! What are you up to, then?"

Lily turned and fought hard not to burst into laughter. Sirius had come right over to Alia, completely oblivious and at total random.

"Bashir," Sirius said without interest. He merely glanced at Lily. He then stared out onto the lake in a very contemplative way and Lily couldn´t stop her laughter from pouring out of her throat. He glanced down at her again from where he was standing and giving her the same look he would have likely given a fly he waltzed off to sit under a tree and look rebellious and bored.

"You scared him off," Alia complained.

"Sorry, I couldn´t stop laughing. You chose the worst possible candidate to love. Why don´t you pick someone nicer like... Like..."

She was going to pick someone to say amongst the crowd of boys gathering farther from the bank where Sirius had retreated, but something caught her eye.

"Hey... Look at all those birds!" Lily cried as a flock of thousands of birds flew over the trees in the forest and then towards them at the lake. When they got directly overhead, Lily saw that they´re were every kind of bird she had ever seen in Scotland in the sky.

Everyone else at the lake was gawking and pointing.

"Wooow..." Alia shaded her eyes and followed the black curtain of birds as it blocked out the sun and then moved in one unit over and past the castle. Though it was probably impossible, Lily thought she perceived a window high up in the school open and a long white beard blew in the wind as it´s owner looked into the sky. When she looked again though, the windows looked shut.

As the birds passed out of sight a overwhelming silence descended from the forest. She could hear clearly what some of the boys far away on the hill were saying.

"Did you see that? What the-" a Slytherin was saying.

And then from another group, Remus Lupin was muttering, "I feel something weird."

Lily saw that Alia had frozen and was staring at the forest edge with suspicion.

"Alia, what is-"

Suddenly a huge flash of green stained the sky and for half a second it seemed to Lily that it outshined the sun even, before it receded and then a huge cloud pillowed up from the earth on the opposite side of the Forbidden Forest, and from far off in the distance a huge KA-BOOM sounded.

Lily had never heard such a thing outside of the pictures, or in her worst dreams. It took her a full minute to realize that everyone else had heard the noise and that it was really happening.

Most of the other students ran in circles, confused and frightened. But several, Lily among them stood up and stared in awe and horror. And unfortunately, in recognition. They had all seen a sight like it on flickering televisions, in film reels and had heard it described by their parent´s. The cloud was starting to resemble a mushroom and a hot sulfuric smell was suddenly filling the air...

Lily said to herself, " ...But the Atom Bomb isn´t GREEN. Those bloody-" she said a word that would have made her mother furious, then- "bastards!" She thought of Ada Mac Fusty then.

Everyone stood staring, though some people had started running after the strange smelly warmth had pervaded the air.

As if to affirm the cause of Lily´s cursing, a huge skull shot into the day lit sky above the explosion. It turned and faced them and it´s rolling snake tongue shot out and made to snap, even though it must have been at least six or seven miles away. It looked like green and red fire, like it was tearing a hole in the ozone.

That´s when everyone ran.

Lily saw that almost the entire staff was running out to them from the castle.

"Get inside, get inside, you there POTTER! Where do you think you´re going?! THIS WAY EVERYONE!" McGonagall bellowed, wand out and hairs out of place as if she had been caught in the middle of a nap.

Little Professor Flitwick was hurtling all over waving and blowing at his wand tip so that the air became cool around them as they ran forward. Lily wondered if they were all breathing poison. If so, it was too late, too late...

A boy named Stebbins ran smack into Lily and they both were knocked to the ground, Lily winded. She gazed around stupidly for a second before someone snatched her by the collar and yanked her towards the castle. She saw Corky Puggler, prefect badge hooked on to the rim of his glasses, his robes billowing up over himself, exposing his skinny white legs as they kicked towards the steps of the school. She lost Alia, but then she saw a flash of glossy black hair on a girl holding hands with Joe Leary slightly behind the crowd. She saw some of the vicious Slytherins from the corridor that day looking as if they had walked in on a surprise party. They were jogging more or less to the castle, but watching the horizon eagerly. Trailing after them was a Slytherin she knew a little, Severus Snape. He tripped on his robes and stumbled wildly. Alice Milton, a round faced fifth year from Gryffindor, dropped to help him but he shoved her away...

Lily fell to the back and turned to stare again at the green mushroom cloud with the skull above it, but the cloud had enveloped it and now it was just barely visible.

She caught the words- "It´ll take a months worth of memory erasing for any muggles who-" then "Let´s hope that´s all!" and then "Not bloody likely!"

There was much confusion while getting ushered into the Great Hall with all the rest of the castle occupants.

Lily would later remember that this was the last day she had ever heard the Lord Voldemort´s name spoken, except from Dumbledore and much later, James Potter and Sirius Black.

(End of Fourth Year.)