academic curiosity

October and November came and went quickly, and with it went Lily´s sixteenth birthday. Alia Bashir got her a record of some sort of Hindi music, with a very promising cover. Debra and a few of the other Gryffindor fifth year girls chipped in for a a few bottles of butter beer. Dale sent her a pocket-sized model of the galaxy and a old black and white photograph he found of a suited man in a expensive looking hat. It didn´t move at all, so Lily guessed that it was meant to represent a muggle present. Remus Lupin even gave her a gift and that was a pocket knife that could cut through all kinds of locks.

"Sirius gave me one last Christmas and I use it all the time," he said shyly. "Look, it also opens cans!"

Her parents had sent her a red portable turntable, so Lily´s wild ravings about their assignments in Muggle Studies had paid off handsomely. Petunia had included a wrapped gift from herself that ended up being a box of toothpicks.

Lily and her dorm mates spent most evenings spinning around the small red box that played records.

Everyone was letting loose more than usual for a few reasons, one might have been that they all were finally cracking under the pressure of O.W.L.S. studies. Another reason could have been that Christmas was fast approaching and with it holiday from school and delicious foods and decorations. But still another reason could have been the threat of the Winter Ball...

The full ramifications didn´t sink in for Lily until a week prior to the event, when in Professor McGonagall´s Transfiguration class, they were scolded for nearly a quarter of an hour on why they would regret making Gryffindor house look bad at the dance and what horrors would await them if they were caught misbehaving or acting anything less than model witches and wizards.

Throughout the entire tirade half the class was trying very hard not to giggle and the other half was trying hard not to puke. Lily was one of the latter half. She didn´t know why, but the idea of the Ball suddenly made her want to run and hide. And she did just this three or four times in the ladies room when boys who she never normally spoke to seemed to be walking towards her in the corridor.

"Lily," Alia hissed through a stall door. "You don´t have to actually go into the toilet, they won´t follow you this far..."

"Better safe than sorry!" Lily replied sagely, flushing the pot for effect.

"Now that´s just a waste of water!" Alia sighed. "Conserve nature´s resources, Lily. Conserve."

"If you walk with me batting your hair around, you can distract them from me," Lily began hopefully.

"Oh, Lily... I don´t even think anyone is planning on asking you if that helps!" Alia sighed as she smoothed down her black hair.

"Wait! What do you mean by that? How would you know if someone was going to ask me or not?"

"Well, I know everyone and I always hear about these things first."

"Okay, so you can verify that no one; is going to ask me to the Winter Ball?" Lily asked tersely. She was starting to get a little annoyed, which was only natural at this point.

"Oh, yeah. I mean, maybe some random bloke."

"Some random bloke?"

"Yes, maybe he´ll ask you!" Alia offered with a charitable smile.

"But why doesn´t anyone want to ask me?" Lily said, entertaining the notion that Alia really knew what she was talking about.

"I don´t know... It´s weird about that, actually..."

Lily stopped running the water in the sink and stared at Alia for a long time until the other girl stopped primping in the ancient mirror and turned. "Is this something I should be worried about?" Lily demanded.

"Worried? Well..." Alia began thoughtfully, "do you mean besides the fact you hide out in the ladies any time a boy happens to look in your direction?"

"Yes, besides that!"

"I don´t know. I mean, I´m not used to not knowing everything; so you have to understand my confusion about all this. See, I always hear what´s happening around this school-"

"It´s your main pride and joy in life!" Lily sniped.

"Yes!" Alia smiled, happy that Lily was understanding. "So, anyway, you can imagine my feelings of impotency and helplessness when I came across the knowledge that no one had their sights set on my very best friend at Hogwarts..."

Alia went on but Lily was so impressed by this flippant statement that she almost stopped being annoyed for a few seconds.

"...I even ended up asking a few point blank and they all started mumbling about having to go write letters to their grandmothers and would run off scared!"

"Wait!" Lily cried, feeling horrified. "Are you saying that you asked people about why they didn´t want to ask me to the dance?!"

"Of course! You don´t have to thank me. Anyway, like I was saying Adam Symes literally turned tail and ran and it got me thinking about the whole affair. Why wouldn´t even one Gryffindor want to ask you? You´re reasonably attractive and you don´t have a obnoxious laugh or anything like Henrietta Borg does and she already had four boys ask her... So, I started thinking that maybe there´s a conspiracy.

Lily continued to stare at Alia as the final bell rang. She couldn´t quite pick whether she was happy to have a chum who would consider it a vastly organized scheme that no one had asked her out, or ashamed that the same friend had inquired about it to numerous people.

"Conspiracy?" Lily said. "Are you telling me that not only did no one want to ask me to the dance but that there is actually a conspiracy by higher powers to prevent me from going with anyone at all?"

"Oh, no!" Alia corrected immediately. "Not by higher powers! I was thinking more along the lines of some girl who hated you and wanted to get revenge... Or a boy who-"

"Wait!" Lily gasped, now starting to laugh as this conversation had crossed the line from mortifying to hysterical. "That would be the stupidest way to try and have a go at me! It would be doing me a favor not having these slimy gits trying to climb all over me in frilly dress robes!"

"Yes, well, I thought of that too, but either this person doesn´t know you well or like I was trying to say before, it could be-"

"We should go to class!" Lily suddenly screamed. They must be at least ten minutes late and what were they doing? Standing in the lavatory discussing Lily´s love life!

They lost Gryffindor ten points.

"You two did all right, coming in together," Marva Sequim offered helpfully. "Sprig usually tacks ten on each person whose late if they come in independently!"

"Thanks,we´ll try and remember that," Alia replied. "Gosh, I haven´t lost so many house points since that year Ada Mac Fusty kept getting us into all those wizarding duels!"

They took up work trays and started in on caring for the shrivelfig bushes that Sprig had set out for them. They had finished her exam yesterday so today was simply a study break.

Listen, I was thinking of what you were saying... You know," Lily muttered looking slightly embarrassed, "in the Ladies earlier... And I have to say that there is no possible way of it being true."

"What? Do you mean about The Conspiracy?" asked Alia, grabbing two pairs of shears and handing one to Lily as they made themselves a work space at the end opposite all of the hubbub.

"Yes, about that. How could any one student at Hogwarts control all the others? Did they put something in the water or what? And even if that were possible, wouldn´t I know of someone who hated me that much to go to all the trouble?"

"Lily," Alia began with a air of talking to a very naive child, "You need to start looking at this whole thing in a different light."

"Oh?"

"Yes! You´re trying to think of someone who hates you enough to scare all the boy´s in your house against trying to ask you out."

"Well, it is your fault. I would have never come up with such a egotistical, ridiculous suggestion-"

"Yes, yes! All wrong. You need to think of someone who would..." Alia peered around the greenhouse warily and then leaned very close until their faces were just inches apart, "love you enough to do it."

Lily´s mouth hung open and Alia was apparently satisfied with the effect because she stood up straight again and tried to go back to butchering the poor bush.

Lily smacked her.

"Ow! Okay, okay. Lily, I think you should entertain the notion that there is a boy, definitely in our house who wants to go with you and went through his counterparts systematically scaring them off from asking you themselves and I think that I have a fairly good idea who it is..."

Lily suddenly dropped her cutting shears and gasped.

Alia turned excitedly and grinned.

"Do you think it´s Longbottom? He could be punishing me for landing him detention last month-" Lily cried.

"Lily!" Alia groaned, genuinely vexed. "Here!" She reached into her pocket and then pressed a sickel into Lily´s palm. "Buy yourself a damn clue!"

This garnered a few looks throughout the greenhouse. Now that she was being publicly laughed at Lily felt that she couldn´t feel any lower. "Okay, so could you maybe tell me what sort of clue to buy? Throw me a rope here, I´m completely lost."

"That´s evident Lily. Evident!"Alia said in hushed tone, rolling her eyes at the ceiling dramatically. "Can you think of a boy in our house who would be able to convince the entire student body to do any one thing, no matter how silly?"

Lily was very confused but she did know the answer and it was most certainly not happy-go-lucky Frank Longbottom.

"Potter."

That would be the sort of thing that he would think would be funny. But why would he bother for her? She had never gotten him in trouble with her prefect badge and she generally stayed out of his way because he could be a bit of a jerk and he had a habit of publicly humiliating people who weren´t as fast as he was. In fact every time she saw him he was whipping out his wand and jumping off or on to things, making loud noises and/or making things explode...

Alia went back to her abused botanical subject.

"Wait..." Lily let out as it dawned on her. "Wait..."

"I love this!" Alia cried, beaming at her little bush.

"Potter wants to go to the Ball with me?" Lily whispered more softly than was necessary.

Alia nodded. "The only thing I can´t figure out is why he hasn´t asked you yet..."

"Hi!" came a voice from just behind them.

The two girls turned and screamed screams that came from the depths of their souls.

Potter looked taken aback, but not much. When you were friends with a werewolf sudden scares were probably so five years ago. He looked at them both with narrowed eyes. "Jumpy? All I did was say `hi´."

Lily didn´t have the power of speech, due to severe and acute humiliation. Alia, clutching her shears as if they were a weapon said, "Lily was just telling a ghost story and you had came in right at the climax!"

"Sorry about that," he said looking highly amused. "Well... Go ahead. I want to hear this climax if you don´t mind."

Lily looked at him and quickly back to Alia. She was absolutely wishing that she knew how to disapparate herself from the greenhouse. Or better yet, disapparate Potter.

"I forgot it..." Lily said.

"Oh! Damn!" Alia added for effect.

Lily was feeling her cheeks flush under what she interpreted as his scrutiny. In an attempt to cover up her discomfort she set her shears down and tucked her hair behind her ear, but then she smudged her face with a bit of dirt and rather then start wiping at it like a mad woman, she threw her arms down and stared at her tray with a resigned face.

There was a long pause from Potter. "I´m uh, sorry" he repeated in a low voice, he looked suddenly flustered himself. "I didn´t realize... Er. Look, IwaswonderingifIcouldask- Talk! Talk. To. You forasecond?"

Lily looked back up at him and to her surprise he wasn´t looking back at her, but at Alia!

Alia was looking very confused and the castaway glance she shot at Lily was pure gold.

"Oh, well, I..." Alia had no choice but to agree to this and they both walked to a distant corner of the greenhouse to pretend to examine a pair of Venus Fly Traps from Florida that Sprig had procured recently through owl order.

"That was a close call," Lily said to her bush.

"Eh, I´ve seen closer with you and those big scissors," the bush replied.

Lily stopped and looked at her shears and then back at the bush.

"Heh, heh!" Remus Lupin took Alia´s place at the tray and grinned. "You should´ve seen the look on your face! That was great..."

"It actually wouldn´t have been the worst thing that happened today!" Lily said smiling. Her mood was lifted now that she wasn´t the center of a torrid, romantic conspiracy in which possibly half the student body was privy to.

"Is that so?" he asked looking concerned.

She looked at him and shrugged. "Eh." She took shears to bush and began trimming again. "So what brings you to this end of the greenhouse? Not that I mind the company of course."

"Nothing much. Just wondering how things were going over here." he said waving his hand around.

"They´re fine now," she said and suddenly a light bulb appeared over her head, or at least, it felt like one did because she turned to Remus and said eagerly, "Hey! Are you going to the Ball with anyone yet?"

"Yeah," Remus answered.

"Oh," Lily replied feeling disappointed. "Who are you going with?"

"Betty Shacklebolt. Why?"

"Oh,I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me. How silly!" she said feeling her face turn pink again.

"Yeah!" came Remus, looking at the tray with what was a sort of look of horror. Like he had just witnessed a murder.

It would have ended the stress straight off if she could have gotten someone like Remus for a date. He was a pretty nice sort of fellow and a prefect so he would be too busy and she would be too busy and neither would have to worry about paying abnormal amounts of attention to the other.

Lily decided to not let him leave feeling badly for her, so she smiled and patted him on the shoulder jovially. "The best boys are always taken!"

"Yeah," he said and wandered away to where his friends were throwing hunks of soil into each other´s neck holes.

Not entirely satisfied that his mind was eased, she watched Alia stumble back to her tray looking as if she had just been told she had won the lottery.

"So? Are you the future Mrs. Potter?" Lily joked. She wanted to drag Alia through the mud a bit to make up for winding her up so much before with `The Conspiracy.´

"Huh?" Alia said sweetly.

"Are the nuptials going to be made by the sea? If so, let´s have them on a very big cliff so I can push you both off of it..."

"Don´t get your knickers in a twist, Lily," Alia sighed. "He didn´t ask me, or you for that matter, out to the Hogshead let alone the Winter Ball. He just wanted to find out if I would either say yes to his mate Robert or let him down easy when he asks me to go later today."

"Say what?"

Alia batted her eyelashes a few times and petted her shears lovingly. "Robert Jones. He´s planning on asking me and James just wanted to watch out for him. Says that he´s sort of taken him on and likes him a lot and seeing as how both Jones and I are on the team that it´s in everyone´s best interests that I don´t crush his poor little fourth year heart..."

`Wow," Lily muttered, impressed. "Fourth years can´t even go to the Ball-"

"Unless they´re accompanied by a elder student!" Alia said with a flickering smile.

"Yeah, so he´s gotta be a brave sort of dude, asking you out to a Ball he isn´t even allowed to go to!"

"I agree, which is why I´m going to say yes."

Lily returned to pruning, feeling charmed. "I think that´s the best decision I´ve seen you make in ages!"

"The best informed decision?" Alia queried in a suggestive voice that Lily didn´t get so ignored.

"Yeah. So is there going to be food at this thing?"

*    *    *

"Hello Evans," Eddie Carmichael said as he caught up to her in the corridor. The bell ending the final lesson of the term had just sounded.

"Carmichael, how do you do?"

"Just smashing. Are you going to stay for the Ball?"

"Yes."

"You like that sort of thing then?"

"Not at all but it´s that or my sister Petunia."

"With a name like Petunia it has to be good, can I sell you something to put her out over the holiday?"

"Nah, my parents seem to like her conscious. They don´t want the neighbours getting ideas."

"Well then did you want to go to the Ball with me? I heard from your little Indian friend that you didn´t have a date for it yet."

"How sweet of her to let everyone know, but Alia´s not from India incidentally. She´s-"

"And the Ball? Are you going with someone yet?" he prodded.

"Oh, that. No, I suppose we should go together if that´s what you´re aiming at."

"It is. So let´s meet here just before, sound okay?"

"It sounds okay."

He set off to sell illegal substances to some third years and Lily never used the word "okay" to describe anything above substandard conditions again. Well... At least she wouldn´t have to search very hard to find illicit behavior at the dance. Her prefect duties would be taken care of!

*    *    *

The dance turned out to be quite the shindig.

When you cut out the lower classes and a chunk of the upper classes as well you were left with only a couple hundred students. The Great Hall was decorated beautifully and everyone was dancing, Dumbledore was taking a turn with Professor Sprig. The music was provided by a group of elderly warlocks that Lily had seen playing a few times in Hogsmeade. They were okay. They would be better if someone hadn´t given them so much of the punch, which Lily figured someone like Sirius Black had sauced by now.

"That´s some fancy footwork," Lily heard Lupin comment with a straight face as he and his friends stared at the teachers.

Potter took a very large gulp of Butter beer as Lily joined them.

"Oy, Lily!" Remus cried merrily. He had holly pinned to his dress robes. His date, Betty was standing by him watching the dancers wistfully.

"All right Evans?" Sirius said.

She stared at his dress robes for a very long time and the boys laughed.

"Sorry, I´ve just never seen a man with long hair dressed up before," Lily explained.

"It´s going to be big in 1975," Sirius joked. "So who was the courageous fellow who came with you to this thing?"

"Eddie Carmichael," Lily replied. Judging by his expression, Sirius must have expected her to say that she didn´t have a date at all. Not everyone had bothered. It was after all, almost `75 and girls didn´t always have to have a date in order to have a good time!

"Carmichael?!" Potter laughed.

"Yep."

"Eddie Carmichael?" Lupin repeated, looking politely aghast. Over his shoulder Betty looked supremely bored.

"That is," Potter said with a huge grin, "the most ridiculous thing I´ve ever heard of Evans. What´s got in your head to go to the Ball with that ragingly stupid git?"

Lily objected to the term `stupid.´ But she didn´t want to take their bait. "I´m friends with Eddie and he´s a Slytherin and I felt it would be diplomatic to encourage good relations!" she offered them with a cheery smile.

Betty thought this was funny.

"Speaking of my date..." Lily said looking around. "I should keep a close eye on him. He´ll be stealing the silverware if I don´t." She turned and gazed at Sirius. "And have you bringing it down to `Dung´ to sell to tourists."

"That could be true," Sirius admitted. "But when you put it like that it seems a bit absurd."

"Oh, it would be absurd no matter what," she offered before she slid away to find some of her friends.

Alia was dancing with Robert.

"Hi Alia. Hi Robert."

"Hi."

"Yes, hi."

Lily saw that Debra was being spun in circles by some Hufflepuff. Marva was hovering over the punch with a flask. Lily made a mental note to keep the geezers in the band away from it or else she´d have to help pour them back to Hogsmeade later. She didn´t see Eddie but Flavia Ire was leading another Slytherin that was mates with Eddie through the song `Blue Moon.´

She sat on one of the house tables that had been shoved against the wall.

Potter came over a few minutes later and sat next to her but didn´t say anything.

"Have you been dancing?" Lily asked ten minutes later.

"Uh, a little," he replied and she figured that was boy speak for `No.´ "So where did you date go anyway?" he asked with a disapproving tone she found funny. Especially with his wild hair and the delinquent look in his eyes.

"Maybe to the lavatory?" she offered. She really didn´t mind one way or the other.

"Been gone a while."

"Less work for me," she explained. "I´m not sure why he even asked me. I would have been fine going on my own."

"That´s cool," he said.

"Thanks. So... I wonder how many times the punch has been enhanced? I´m worried about our old boys here. Especially the drummer..."

The squat old guy on the drum kit was starting to fall asleep.

"Poor old man," Potter laughed. "Look at that!" he gasped with glee as the drummer began slamming his drum stick into the little old xylophone-player´s head. The Xylophonist began looking around, bewildered about where the beatings were coming from. But soon he stopped caring.

"This is either funny or sad," Lily suggested.

"Have you ever noticed that the funniest things are usually pretty sad too?" Potter asked.

Lily thinking about it for a minute realized that this point had merit. "You know... I might agree with that, but I´ve had a few cups of the punch so it may not matter."

She was starting to get pretty sleepy. She saw that Potter was looking at her in a peculiar manner.

"Am I starting to wilt?" she asked plaintively, resting her chin in her hands.

"That´s sort of funny because your name is a flower," Potter pointed out and Lily agreed that it was funny.

He watched her for a little while longer and then turned back to the dancers, of which there were only a hand full now that things were starting to wind down.

Dumbledore was still keeping a lively beat with Professor McGonagall.

"They´ll outlive us all," Potter muttered as the pair spun past with wide smiles.

The punch and probably the cumulating of stress over the past couple months had caught up with Lily. She leaned forward and then leaned to the side where Potter was sitting.

She opened her eyes and found that she had fallen asleep and was resting on Potter, who bore the whole thing with a good deal of patience.

"There, there," he joked patting her arm in a false sort of way.

"Sorry Potter, I did have all that punch..."

"Ah, it´s okay."

"Where is everyone?"

"I think some people called it a night. Padfoot and Moony just took off."

"Already? I would think that Sirius would be howling at the moon and dancing on tables still."

"Hmm... That´s more of Moony´s thing really. And I own the table dancing. Padfoot basically stands in the corner and looks good."

Lily laughed at this last part. It was almost mean. "And what about Peter?"

"Wormtail. He does his thing. Wow, you´re about to drop... Would you like to go back up to the Tower?"

"Uh, yeah..." she mumbled, her eyes fighting to stay closed.

He stood up and she followed him out the doors. She was a bit surprised that he was going to walk her up.

"Is your date going to be completely irate?" she asked.

"I don´t know... I forgot all about her... I think she went to bed."

"Mine is raiding the..." but what exactly she couldn´t fathom so she let the sentence trail off. Potter didn´t seem to be concerned about her finishing it. They walked up the many flights in silence.

There were a few Gryffindors seated by the dying fire. Potter went to go sit with them, waving at Lily as she stumbled up the stairs to her dorm.

She thought she heard him ask about her being okay, or something and she muttered something to assure him of whatever he needed and felt around for her bed and had a very nice time sleeping after that.

She had a dream that she was sitting in one of the row boats with Potter and there were beautiful stars and it was night. It was so real that she could feel a light breeze coming off the lake. She was wearing her dress robes but he wasn´t in his, though he was dressed up. It was a muggle dress suit. It looked like something she had seen being worn before somewhere. He was sitting up straight and stared at her accusingly.

"You´re going to get me killed," he said to her and the way he said it upset her so badly she was crying.

She tried to argue but he kept shaking his head. The boat spun gently in the center of the lake.

And all he would say was, "You are positively going to be the end of me."