academic curiosity

"It's called dallying, Lily, it's what boys do! So get over it!" Sharon snapped.

Lily mouthed the word `Dallying' at Alia Bashir and took a bite of cake. For someone who had been threatening to throw up not an hour earlier, she had certainly built up a good appetite since.

"So does that mean I'm terribly important now?" she asked the other girls. "I've been dallied with by a Quidditch star. Quite possibly the stupidest, most belligerent of them all!"

"Shut up," Debra replied. "I can't eat when you say these sorts of things."

"Well, I'll take that as a no, then," Lily said with pretended melancholy.

"I think you're important!" Alice Milton offered, not picking up on her sarcasm.

Lily smiled at her with a sting of pleasure. Alice had a pretty round face and even her voice sounded naive.

"Who are your prospects for the Ball?" Debra asked Sharon conversationally. None of them cared much about the topic, since it had been canvassed endlessly since the start of the fifth year, this being the first year that they were able to attend the Winter Ball without having to depend on being asked by a older student to go. Lily had never gone before.

"I honestly don't care," Sharon muttered. "It's a freak show."

They all turned and watched the mass of fifth year boys slam the ends of their spoons on the table so that lumps of food were flung at the poor Hufflepuffs.

"Way to add insult to injury there," Lily called down to Remus Lupin. He ignored it. God forbid he has to do his job, Lily thought to herself. You would think that werewolves would be a bit more on edge about things.

"Hey, are you going to go with Lupin?" Alia Bashir suddenly asked Lily. "You both are prefects."

"Yeah, well, I do like scars," Lily said with a smile.

"Yes, me as well," Alia turned and stared at Remus until he noticed and began becoming interested in his bowl of soup.

"Most people do," Lily mused.

"Hey, I know..." Sharon said. "I bet it would be pretty funny if we all went with someone in another house."

"How would that be funny?" Laurel Jones asked.

"I don't know... But there's got to be someone who can groom themselves in this school, if not in Gryffindor!"

"Let's make a list," Debra suggested.

"Yes, there's a brilliant idea!" Alice sounded scandalized. "How would you lot feel if boys made a list about us?"

"I'd want to read it straight away," Debra replied simply.

"Even if it was written by that slimy git over there?" Alia pointed out Severus Snape.

"Yuck," Debra sighed wearily.

"You can depend on him having already made lists about us," Lily said quickly. "But about our blood lines, not our grooming habits."

"Yes, he doesn't seem too interested in grooming habits in general," Alice said with a frown.

Lily finished up and left the table early, with intentions of heading to the library to check out a book on anti-jinxes and then to see if the prefect's bathroom had emptied out.

She was able to find the copy of her book but the prefect's bathroom was populated by several Slytherin girls so she was forced to give up the dream, at least for the night.

She ran into Remus coming down the stairs outside the portrait hole, with a towel wrapped around his neck.

"It's full," Lily forewarned.

"That's okay, I'm not shy," he said.

"With Snakes."

"Ew, never mind."

Lily laughed as he made a wide swooping turn and followed her up the stairs.

"That's a nice towel Lupin."

"Thanks, I like the little heart pattern myself . It brings out my sensitive side."

"Ah, you don't need little heart patterns for that," Lily cooed.

"You're such a dear," he replied dryly. "Have you ever wondered," he suddenly said, "what would happen if I walked in while you were in the bath?" He wasn't being provocative, simply asking a question that she herself had naturally thought about.

"You know, I wonder why that doesn't happen," Lily replied.

"I was thinking that it must be some sort of spell, like the stairs to the girl's dormitories."

"Must be," Lily agreed.

"But I've never even seen a girl in the prefect bathroom before..."

"You've been looking out for them I wager," she said with a big smile.

"Yes, I have!" he admitted freely. She laughed as he shook his head. "You're letting the appearance of my towel throw you, Lily. You must remember that I'm dangerous. And the little hearts are the most deadly of my devices."

"ES-PER-RAN-TOW," Remus recited the new pasword carefully to the Fat Lady, making Lily giggle.

She was still chuckling as she followed him through the hole.

"Let me see your towel, Remus," she asked.

He shrugged and slid it off his shoulders. She wrapped it around her own, like a boa and strutted a few feet. "Yes, I feel powerful now."

"Yes, well try not and hog it all. My mum is threatening to send me a daisy pattern next if I don't get top scores in Potions this term, and I just don't know if flora will have the same affect on the mermaids."

This was all Lily needed to set into a gale of laughter.

Remus took his towel back, spun it around his neck as if it he was a World War II Flying Ace about to go on his mission.

As the towel snapped around he grinned. "That was just for you, I hope you appreciated it."

"Well, I did. I'm going to do the same trick as soon as possible and not let on that I stole it off of you."

"Well, imitation is a form of compliment."

"Even when it's a imitation of someone's imitation?"

Before he could reply his name was called.

"Hey, mate." Potter came by. The exhaustion of the match that evening must have finally caught up to him, he looked like he was in the mood to sulk.

"Well, hopefully I won't be seeing you in the bath anytime soon!" Lily called waving a farewell.

"Yes, we wouldn't want to compromise anything," Remus said back clutching the ends of his heart-patterned towel.

*    *    *

"Muggles," Professor Tonks recited with unusual severity and somberness, "like us, have had their conflicts. Unlike wizards however, they must resort to much more... er, less clean methods to off each other. Today we start our lesson on Muggle Arms."

She made a pause, a challenge to anyone who wanted to make a snide comment or a joke. But for once, everyone had the sense to keep their mouths shut.

"I am going to say only one time, so you best listen to me carefully now... That this is a very serious lesson. The most serious lesson I will have the pleasure of teaching you daffy lot. If anyone steps a toe out of line in the next two weeks during Arms lessons, I will go to the Headmaster and recommend your immediate expulsion from this school."

This speech was very impressive and a few chins dropped. Mike Dravus, the kid in the back corner who often slept was now wide awake.

"Good," Tonks muttered smartly and spun on her heel.

"Professor?" a hand and voice raised from the center of the room.

"Cogswell?" Tonks replied in a bored tone, as if she expected him to say something completely worthless.

"Can I go to the lavatory?"

Potter let his head fall onto the table at this, making a smacking noise.

Lily was glad that Tonks ignored the question. Instead she laid out a series of very familiar objects, though Lily hadn't seen many of them in person before.

"I expect you to take notes while I talk, so get out your stems already!" she said as most of the class stared at the various objects in respectful awe. The item on the far left made Lily's palms itch. It was some sort of hand gun.

Lily's fingers burned painfully after the hours worth of frantic notes she made during class. She doubted whether even Muggle students learned half as much as she had just done about non-magical weaponry.

Tonks was seated behind her desk, both feet kicked up on top, reading from some very ancient and tatty book during their last half hour of class. Since no one was looking forward to their next classes (most of them were doomed to either double Potions or Care of Magical Creatures and it was currently hailing ice rocks the size of small kneazles outside), they all made the most of their last moments of relative happiness.

James Potter and Remus Lupin were doing a crossword puzzle out of the Daily Prophet. Rusty Cogswell, denied the opportunity to take a leak was scowling out a window and trying to ignore Henrietta Borg's attempts to educate him on Niagra Falls. Sirius was leaning back in his chair and gazing up into the high rafters of the ceiling. A Hufflepuff sixth year by the name of Lydia Westwood was applying a fresh coat of cosmetics to her face and listening patiently to her friend's long pointless story. Nodding she murmured, "Yes, yes. That is awful. Go on..." The Gryffindor Seeker, Robert Jones was standing over the items on the table, looking at them with a troubled expression.

Lily's gaze suddenly turned toward the table where Remus and Potter were sitting across from each other and she caught Potter watching her. He didn't quite look away when she saw him.

"Are you any good at these?" he asked in a bored tone, gesturing to the crossword.

"Not so much," she said, rubbing her writing hand.

"Oh," he replied a bit lamely.

Remus looked up at Potter and then turned to Lily. "Do you know a four letter word for feeble-minded?" he asked her.

Lily shrugged, looking back and forth at each boy with her eyes.

"That's okay," Remus replied. "How did you like the lesson today?"

Lily looked over at Tonks. The Professor wasn't within ear shot, but Lily didn't have anything bad to say anyway. "It was okay."

"Do you think she'll make us try and use any of them?" Remus asked, gesturing at the table of weapons with his chin.

"Ick..." Lily mumbled. "I hope not."

"What's the big deal?" Potter asked them. He was a pure blood so he naturally had little to no experience with things like guns. Nor did he have any use for them.

"Nothing, mate," Remus replied with a faint trace of weariness that Potter either didn't notice or chose to ignore.

"Hey!" Potter suddenly said. "Where does it ask for a four letter word for feeble-minded?"

Lily coughed and had to cover the bottom half of her face with her hand.

"Oh? My mistake," Remus muttered, filling the crossword.

"Hey, I forgot to take notes today, can I copy yours later?" Potter asked Lupin suddenly, patting his robe pockets for something inside.

Remus looked up at his friend. "How did you forget to take notes? What else have you got to do in here?"

"Now there's the stupidest bloody question I've heard all day, man. Do you not know me at all?" Potter questioned impatiently. He finally found a chocolate frog and unwrapped it greedily.

"Sometimes I wish I didn't!" Remus said with a grin.

"I didn't get much sleep last night you know... I can't be bothered with all this Muggle Weapon nonsense. It seems pretty pathetic if you ask me. A load of damn rubbish..."

Remus shook his head with a faint smile.

"It's a good thing the Muggles don't have access to any magic or else they'd blow up the entire bloody planet," Potter went on, biting the leg off the frog with a thoughtful espression.

"We could do that without magic probably," Lily said suddenly.

Potter turned and stared. "WE?"

"Muggles can, I mean," Lily corrected herself.

"I doubt that Evans," Potter replied.

"Ever hear of Albert Einstein?" she countered quickly, getting a bit angry.

"That mad wizard with all the hair?" Potter asked with confusion. "Yeh. What about him?"

Lily opened her mouth and then shut it. She looked at Remus and found that he was nodding sympathetically.

"Well, then," Lily let out with a breath.

"These are good," Potter sighed, sucking on the last bit of frog.

The boys turned away and began talking amongst themselves, Lily sat by the window and doodled, keeping her ears tuned to them.

"I wouldn't know," Remus said pointedly.

"That's a shame," Potter replied nonchalantly.

"Hey Prongs, what's a five letter word for git?"

"What's a five letter word for Get-Bent-Moony?"

"What's a five letter word for Chicken?" Remus asked and then they both were quiet, though they were eyeing each other with smug smiles.

"Once I'm done copying your notes I am going to make you sorry for that, mate," Potter joked, looking to the side, obviously making sure Lily wasn't listening in. She continued with her drawing.

"Oh, and will that be before or after you stop being such a chicken?" Remus whispered back.

"I resent that remark," Potter replied in a low voice, with good humour. "Anyway, I'd like to see you have a go at it, man. It's not as easy as it looks. Always in the bloody lavatory... They use them like it's going out of style. How many toilets can one castle have?"

"One for every one of them?" Remus suggested quietly.

Potter snorted. "If that were the case, then why do they have to travel in packs? It's demented and depraved."