academic curiosity

“Hey,” Frank called to them all happily. “I was getting to wondering about you!” he said with a wink at Lily.

“Well, isn’t that nice of you,” she replied and she stooped down and looked through the shadowy depths of Quidditch pitch stands too. It was surprisingly easy to see to the other side, though you did have to squint through a few layers of moist cobwebs.

“As soon as they get to the center of the pitch, it’s gonna happen... Did anyone bring a camera? This is gonna be beautiful...” Robert Jones sighed from Longbottom’s other side. His slender seeker’s build was good for crouching under stands apparently. Lily had to hitch up her pants and hold onto Frank’s rather blocky shoulder to keep her balance.

Remus nudged her. She turned and saw he was grinning. “In less than a minute there’s going to be a fair bit of sand getting kicked up... Watch your eyes, you’ll need them to watch Shodwick wet himself!” he said gleefully.

Lily nodded with awe and amazement. All she could see so far was the sandy, soft bottom of the pitch. It was pristine and lovely in the partial moonlight. Hagrid lovingly cared for it during the times between matches.

Suddenly a big foot interrupted the smooth surface of the sand. Lily at that same moment heard a trilling, flirty voice shriek from within, “EDWIN! Are you going to LET him speak that way to me?!” This was followed by shrill giggling and male murmurs.

All she could see were the bottoms of legs and sets of trainers through the stands. But Lily knew that voice.

“Is that Sonia Otto!?” a sixth year Hufflepuff named Geraldine Vance hissed with delight. She was crouched by Robert, rubbing her hands together. “Oooh, I’ve been waiting to get her since she tripped me up in the great hall that time...”

“QUIET! It’s gonna happen!” Toggie Booth hissed at them.

As he spoke a silent explosion of sand erupted all around the feet of the people walking through the pitch. Whatever had caused it must have been quite huge to cause such a large tidal wave of sand, Lily knew. She had no clue what was going on, but she already thought it was funny.

There were surprised screaming and then more sand flew under the stands and into the eyes of Lily and her compatriots. Thankful for Remus’ warning she hurtled back and covered her face. She heard the others around her jump up and run for it and she followed them around the stands and into the pitch itself. The others in the group, already knowing what to expect to see, were whooping and waving wands in the air before enough dust had settled to identify the odd melee within ground zero.

The scene that unfolded before Lily moments later was something that was etched clearly into her mind for a long time.

The group of Slytherins that had been walking back from the lake were yelling and kicking in disbelieving horror as the figures of rotting corpses tore at them, tackling them to the ground and covering everything in gory slime.

Lily stared at the ground as a bloody limb was flung aside and came to rest.

“WHAT’S WRONG SONIA?!” Geraldine cried out triumphantly, “I THOUGHT YOU SAID THAT INFERI WERE A GOOD IDEA!” As she darted into the fighting, Lily could hear her additionally muttering, “You cow...”

The inferi incited fear in only the ambushed Slytherins. Lily watched Remus make right for one of the decaying figures and they embraced laughing. A chunk of flesh fell off the face of the inferi and Lily, squinting at this nefarious being, began to cotton on.

“Sirius,” she called out loudly at the walking hunk of rotting flesh, “Lake slime is definitely a good look for you...” He picked up the chunk he had lost off his face and waved at Lily merrily, lake moss flying off his arms.

Another ‘inferi’, which held a uncanny resemblance to James Potter had Osman Shodwick by the neck and was doing a jig, shaking him this way and that. Osman was trying to kick at him while screaming in the high pitch of a small child.

The other ‘inferi’ broke into macabre dance and the Slytherins stopped screaming and looked around furiously as they began to realize that they’d been had.

Osman was the first to yank out his wand, but Lily was the first to hit someone with a carefully aimed hex. Sonia Otto screeched as tentacles shot out of her face.

“And that SAT-TIS-FIES!” Lily cried happily, watching the wretched girl’s face squirm violently.

Geraldine Vance was near tears she was so happy, but rather then burst into tears she blocked a hex from Edwin Hurt and then wrestled him to the ground, reminding Lily strongly of her long lost best friend, Ada. A tiny pang of sadness was within her heart at the memory, but she pushed it away in order to tumble out of Osman’s grappling reach.

Wands out and half of them covered in smelly, rotting slime from the dregs of the lake, a wizard duel free-for-all broke out that had Lily ducking for cover and hexing her way through to the exit on the other side of the pitch. She knew that it wouldn’t take very long for a staff member to come down and investigate the flashing of hexes.

She ran into Peter during her bid for freedom, covered alarmingly enough in real blood that seeped from a gash in his robes. But the most disturbing sight of the night was yet to come...

And it came when she then tumbled into former U.S. President Richard Nixon, bellowing as he was bending Severus Snape’s elbows back, “I’M NOT A CROOK... You confounded bastard!”

Cocking her head at this sight, she wondered if one of the boys had released something hallucinogenic into the air.

James Potter roared laughter. “Mr. President,” he cried in mock surprise. “Thank you for attending Soiree Inferius! You’re too kind, Sir! Too kind!”

“Yes, of course!” Nixon replied stoutly, adding, ”And as this long and difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible!”

“Yes,” Potter agreed loudly as he had Osman Shodwick by the neck again, “It has, hasn’t it?”

“Will you stop doing that!?” Kelly Nuin was yelling at Nixon as the he kept yanking at Snape’s elbows.

Nixon, shaking his rubbery face at her, decried as response, “BY TAKING THIS ACTION, I HOPE THAT I WILL HAVE HASTENED THE START OF THE HEALING!”

James hurled Osman away suddenly. “YOU!” he cried. Lily turned and saw that he was talking to herself. “I had no idea you’d be here! No idea!” he sighed happily as if he was hosting a garden party.

Nixon was now shouting his nonsense into Nuin’s face as she tried to pry Severus out of his surprisingly vice-like grip, “DON'T GET THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU AROUSE MY ANGER. YOU SEE, ONE CAN ONLY BE ANGRY WITH THOSE HE RESPECTS!”

“As you can see,” Potter explained to Lily under her his breath, ducking a red hex with her, “things have gone even more spectacularly then planned!”

“I had no clue this was-” Lily started to say but just then they both were drowned in a huge sand storm conjured by some fed up Slytherin. Lily could hear Nixon bellowing something or other about Watergate.

Remus came hurtling by. “Oof!” he let out as he stumbled roughly into Potter. Righted, he looked around with a dazed expression and shouted at them over the din of the fighting and billowing sand, “Gotta get outta here! I saw a light go on at the castle... Probably McGonagall!”

“Well, I was thinking that this was all getting a bit dull,” Potter said airily, shaking sand off his his slimy arms as they all began to run full tilt across the pitch.

Remus turned towards the rest of the students, cupped his hands round his mouth and let out the warning, “MICK-GON-AH-GULL!!”

People started stampeding in every direction, still brandishing wands and fists angrily. Pedro Spellman ran pele right into Lily’s path and she whipped out her wand fiercely at this foe, but Sirius yanked her away saying, “No time for that now! Can’t have either of our Gryffindor prefects caught in the act can we? It’d be a bloody disgrace!”

He hurled her along several yards ahead and she wrinkled her nose at the place he had touched. “Thanks for sharing!” she bellowed after his retreating back as she flicked mud off her robes.

Former President Nixon, school robes made tatty and torn from the brawling, stuck out a hand of farewell to the fleeing Slytherins shouting, “I HEREBY RESIGN THIS OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!”

Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin alike were hauling biscuits through the sandy pitch, unfortunately not the best surface for making a quick getaway, but Sirius led some of them through the changing rooms, which were darkened and quiet.

Lily hadn’t been here since her very brief tenure on the Quidditch team. She found where her locker had been and reached out to touch it. With a bit of a shock she saw that Potter was using it now. Through the slightly open door she saw his numbered cloak hanging up inside.

“I was right...” Remus was murmuring, “McGonagall!”

They could hear the professor’s voice through the thin walls of the changing room. Hagrid’s voice too was discernible, though he didn’t sound particularly displeased about anything. He would appreciate a trick like this, Lily knew.

Potter, who apparently recognized this as well, said with a smile, “Wonder if we should wait for Hagrid by his cabin? He’d love to hear this story...”

“Nah, I need to get this offa me,” Sirius said, indicating the lake slime he was covered head to toe in. The spell they used to make it look as if their flesh was falling away had worn off by now. “And I don’t think I’m in any shape for his version of tea right now... I nearly broke my teeth last time.”

“Okay, but we have to tell him tomorrow!” Potter demanded, eager to show off his latest triumph.

“Do you think they’ll catch Nixon?” Robert asked with a grin.

“I saw him and Toggie make a clean break back the way we came,” Potter assured Jones.

Sirius put an ear to a side door that led outside the pitch and said, “I’ll go out first... Wormtail and I can get back on our own...” He gave a significant look to Potter and then all three boys grinned.

“Okay, see you,” Potter said, pushing the two boys through the door.

“How are we going to do this?” El Palmer asked Potter. “If any of us players get caught... We can’t afford to risk the match against Ravenclaw next week!”

“Relax Palmer,” Potter replied. “Just follow Remus... And if anyone says anything to you at the castle pretend that he’s caught you misbehaving in the corridors after hours. Bloody damn well make use of this Prefect thing once and while, right mate?” he asked Remus who simply offered a wry smile and motioned for El and Robert to follow him into the night.

As Remus led the Quidditch players out the door covertly, Lily realized that she and Potter were now left to themselves. In a unlit changing room.

“I used to use this one,” she offered Potter politely, pointing at the locker.

“Yeah, well... My old locker was haunted so I changed it...” he muttered. This was quite a lame excuse as there were plenty of other lockers he could have used.

“Haunted? Was it Peeves?” Lily asked curiously, pushing the ridiculous triumph from her mind. So what if he used her old locker?

“No, Steve’s socks...” Potter answered with a frown so earnest that it made her chuckle. “I biffed him on the back of the head with the quaffle during practice...”

“That boy’s socks are serious...” Lily said with a laugh. “Seems like a a bit too harsh of retaliation for a silly accident to me!”

“Accident?” Potter scoffed. “Yeah. Okay.” He bent over and listened at the wall for a moment and then hissed at her, ”We should get out of here now! I saved the best getaway for last!”

“Oh, good,” Lily said lamely, shuffling her feet.

Reminding her rather of a magician, he yanked a bundle from his pocket and with a flick of the wrists unfolded a large, beautiful, old cloak around himself. Just as quickly as he revealed it to her, he disappeared under it. Lily stared at the empty space where he had been standing and laughed. “It’s an invisibility cloak!” she cried.

A image popped into her head at the moment he vanished. Back at the beginning of their second year, as Lily had been boarding one of the horseless carriages, she had seen Potter petting the air in front of the carriage. She wondered immediately if, like herself and reanimating small dead animals, that he had a special touch with invisibility. One day, she would have to ask him.

“Quiet!” she heard him say. A window was cut open as he lifted the cloak away just enough so she could see where he was standing. “And come on...”

She dodged under the cloak, stood next to him and lumbered along underneath the gauzy brilliance of the fabric as they tried to get through the door without tripping and making a racket, certainly a hard thing to avoid when they were determined not to touch each other in any way while huddled together under his magic cloak.

Potter, for a dangerous moment, hesitated, wanting to get a view of McGonagall dragging a disgruntled Severus Snape by the ear, but Lily urged him to move on.

By the time they reached the castle door, they were both out of breath.

Lily cursed faintly and held her side. “Did the others make it, you think?” she asked him.

“Yeah... They’ll all be in the clear by now... You aren’t nearly as fast as I hoped you would be,” he muttered.

“That’s what they all say,” Lily returned, as he pulled the cloak off of them both.

He thought this over for a moment before deciding the best thing to do would be to laugh, though his smile resembled more of a grimace to Lily.

“So...” she went on calmly, “You look a bit like a zombie right now.”

He had suctioned off a lot of the grime in the changing room. But he still looked pretty filthy.

“Well, that was necessary... Would have only been half as frightening if all that popped out of the ground were well-kept Gryffindors, wouldn’t it?” he drawled. Then he looked up with a grin. “You gonna try and control me now? Gonna make me do a show tune?”

“Yes, just like a dead kelpie in a box,” Lily replied rolling her eyes at his cheek. All the reanimated creatures she made had gone on to musical employment and Potter had had the luck of being a witness for nearly all her reanimations. He was fully equipped to tease her on the subject all night if he wanted.

“I was just wondering...” Lily began to say, trying to think how the best way would be to broach the subject, “What your inspiration was for dressing like inferi and pouncing out at people...” The whole thing stunk of the map Sirius had drawn and that, unbeknownst to both boys, Lily had in her keeping thanks to Regulus.

Potter looked a bit ruffled but answered all the same. “Well, it’s a bit of a long story but the way we figure it, that lot look up to the Death Eaters and so it seemed to be a good idea to give ‘em a real taste of You-Know-Who’s work.”

“Oh,” Lily let out. She puffed up her cheeks and sauntered after him as he climbed the first set of stairs they came across.

“So,” she continued, “has He been using inferi then? The rumors are true?”

“Course they are,” he replied without turning.

“But how do you know that?”

“Everybody knows that by now,” was his simple answer.

“But what makes YOU think that He’s using inferi?”

He slowed down and let her catch him up. “I think he is because my father told me it’s true. And he knows because Albus Dumbledore and he are acquaintances and that’s who told him.”

“Did he tell your dad anything else about inferi? Like how he thinks we should fight them?”

“He doesn’t have to,” Potter said. “Fire is the best way to take care of inferius obviously. Though you won’t hear that in Defense Against the Dark Arts class...”

This was surprising information for Lily. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Fire clearly would be no friend to the undead who live in cold, wet, dark places.

“Why not?” she asked Potter.

“Because that class, that class in particular, is censored, isn’t it? By the Ministry.”

“The Ministry doesn’t want us to learn how to fight inferi?” she asked probingly.

“The Ministry doesn’t want us to even know that there is any such thing as inferi, Evans! They’re biding their time, hoping it will be put under wraps before they have to start telling people it’s all true... But you know that anyone worth their salt already knows it is.”

“Well, I didn’t know,” she mumbled ungratefully.

“Oh, don’t give me THAT,” he sighed impatiently. “If you’re so oblivious about inferius then what’s with all this bloody nonsense with dead wild life all these years?”

“I don’t know!” she huffed, stomping after him on yet another staircase. They had to backtrack and take a longer route to the common room as the third floor staircases had all decided to move off in the wrong directions. “I did that just for laughs really. It’s not the same thing as inferi.”

“Well it’s close enough and Dumbledore thinks something of it doesn’t he?” he asked casually.

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly, a bit surprised at this suggestion. Dumbledore had only discussed the ability with her once, just after she had used it to help save herself and her schoolmates when they had locked themselves in a hidden dungeon in their first year.

“You’re full of secrets,” he muttered his disbelief at her reply.

“How should I know what Dumbledore thinks?!” she demanded fretfully. “What I want to know is what gave you the idea to dress as inferi and hide under the earth and then pop out when people came across you!”

“It was just for laughs,” he replied with a smirk, repeating her own excuse back to her.

“Those Slytherins weren’t laughing,” she tried.

“You feeling bad for them?” he asked snidely, his frustration very evident now. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard about those vile morons picking on a first year just because one of their parents isn’t a wizard? And YOU actually are feeling bad for them?”

Even though she herself got riled up at the pureblood attitude, his speech struck her as a bit self-righteous. What did Potter know about being a muggle born? Did he think that taking Muggle Studies made him an authority?

Lily walked on beside him silently for a moment before replying, “I don’t think I’d get anywhere if I went about treating people the way they treated me... And as for the Slytherins picking on first years... Would it be different if they were beating up on them for any other reason? People like that, like them tonight who you tricked, they always find a reason to be awful. If it wasn’t this pure blood issue they’d have just made up something else. So I don’t take it personally as a rule.”

Potter didn’t say anything to this. She wasn’t sure if he had even been listening. Finally he turned and said, “We punished them for being gits. And they weren’t down by the lake just having a snog you know. They meet down there every other week. We’ve seen them at it. At first we were thinking of ambushing them unawares you know, while they were there. But then Padfoot, I mean, Sirius, he had this idea that it would be pretty good if we pretended to be inferi. He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named has these things, see... They call them ’plants.’ And the plants are very hard to see from up close, but from far off you can see that they’re sort of like dirt piles... It’s where he sticks a bunch of inferi and they wake at any vibration above.”

Lily listened to this solemnly. Potter described plants as if he had seen them himself. Putting that together with Sirius’ map, she knew that it must be true.

Potter went on, “You-Know-Who has been using the plants a lot lately, because they’ve been the fastest method of killing he’s found so far... And course, it’s also the most terrifying.”

“They’re remarkably easy too, I bet... He can just leave plants all over and not have to give it another thought,” she remarked cooly. “Sounds a bit like a muggle land mine.”

“Well, yeah, unless he needs to send his henchmen off to pick up the fresh corpses for more plants, which is his practice...” Potter sighed. “He’s taking a page out of Grindelwald’s book and using economy when killing.”

“Imagine,” Lily said quietly, “if you saw an inferi that had been someone you knew.”

“That’s happened.”

“Disgusting.”

“My mum’s brother... He was seen coming out of a plant this summer. He’d been missing for weeks and we weren’t a bit worried. He was getting on and often took to wandering off without letting anyone know when he’d be back.” Potter said this matter-of-factly. “Bit
amazed he was recognizable...” he added. It seemed to be a stiff attempt to push away any sympathy.

“Who recognized him?” she asked.

To this he didn’t give an answer right away. Lily saw that he hadn’t been expecting the question and hadn’t been expecting to tell her all that he had just now.

He said, “One of my cousins.” It sounded like a invented answer. She figured that it was pretty likely that he had seen it for himself.

Lily wasn’t sure what to say, it was all too horrifying. As a so-called ‘mudblood,’ nothing that bad had ever happened to her.

“Here we are,” Potter interrupted her troubled thoughts as they came upon the Fat Lady who was snoozing away. He cleared his throat and she opened her painted eyes barely a millimeter before pretending not to hear him and snoring loudly for dramatic effect.

“Amor Sempre,” Lily said the password loudly.

The Fat Lady finally started and peered at them as if she had never seen them before. “And what’s all this?” she inquired haughtily, rubbing her eyes.

“Open up already,” Potter moaned impatiently. “I don’t have time for your games!”

“No need to get vicious!” the figure in the portrait cried at him, clutching her throat.

“I believe the password was given,” he replied stiffly, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath. “So anytime you’re ready to do your job will be fine with us.”

“I’m sorry,” Lily said to the ruffled portrait. “He’s cross at other people, not you... You’re just easy to yell at seeing as how you’re stuck in that frame and all.”

“I,” the Fat Lady seethed at Lily, “am certainly NOT stuck, thanks! I can go to any other portrait I want to! The rudeness of such a suggestion!” she bellowed as she finally opened for them to go through. Her bellowing attracted Peeves and he began pelting what felt to be screws at the backs of their heads as they climbed inside the common room.

“Well, thanks for a lovely evening,” Lily joked at Potter.

“Don’t thank me,” he muttered, taking off his trainers and siphoning off lake goo from the insides.

“I’m sorry about your uncle,” she said cautiously. “If you ask me... You have every reason to want revenge. So don’t think I’m saying you were wrong pulling that trick tonight.”

He looked up at her from vacuuming his shoes with his wand.

“I just like to give you a difficult time...” she continued by way of apology.

“I know you do,” he said in agreement, pulling his trainers back on. “Is there a reason?” he asked, looking at his shoes.

“Yes,” she said and walked away to her dorm room. It was very late. Undoubtedly all her dorm mates were fast asleep.

“Are you gonna tell me what it is?” he called softly, so not to waken everyone.

“Maybe later,” she offered with a shrug and shut the door.

******

She had a dream about the lake again.

She was on the shore, sitting with her arms around her knees and somewhere just behind her was Dale Percy. He changed into a raven and flew away over the lake. Ada was on a boat on the lake, not too far out. Nearly lost in the fog coating the water, Lily couldn’t make out the row boat she was driving.

Ada waved an oar at her. “You going to come out?” she called to Lily.

Lily shook her head but Ada started rowing towards the shore to get her. At first it was funny, because it looked as if she were riding a cloud.

But as Ada approached a feeling of terror filled Lily and she wanted violently to run before the girl could reach the shore and give chase.

But Ada suddenly vanished in the fog and did not reappear, much to Lily’s disgruntled confusion. She got up to look on the water. She stood so that the lake lapped at her bare toes. She looked down and saw a bluish hand drifting on the water.

She reached down to touch it, but a voice from a few yards down the shore interrupted this.

“Wouldn’t try it if I were you.”

Lily turned and stared at James Potter. He stepped sideways towards her, he had all the appearance of Potter but that it was not him was more then a little evident. His eyes were all black for one thing.

“Did you just say something?” she asked suspiciously of this Potter-thing.

“When I retire I'm going to spend my evenings by the fireplace going through those boxes. There are things in there that ought to be burned,” he said by way of reply. He made another few crab-like steps along the shore in her direction.

“I like your hat,” she said, examining his attire up and down. A top hat and a very old-fashioned muggle suit. The clothing was so fine and intricate that she was tempted to come closer to see it, but the Potter-thing kept twitching on his feet back and forth, making her wary to go too close.

Lily turned back to the lapping water and to the hand, which had become bloated as well as blue.

“Got tricked,” the Potter-thing was muttering to itself with growing irritation.

Lily leaned over the hand and began to reach down to poke it.

“Was all a lie, didn’t do it!” The thing a couple yards down the shore was hissing.

Lily gave the hand a poke. It was surprisingly hard and icy cold. It didn’t move.

“Ah, well,” the Potter-thing rasped right over Lily’s shoulder. She screamed and jumped away, landing on wet sand.

Without blinking it’s pure black eyes it said in her face, “Next time.”

Lily woke up with the feeling that she had only put her head on the pillow only a few minutes ago.

But the other girls had already gotten out of bed. Alia was showing a dance move to Marva Sequim in her pajamas. It was this small racket that had probably woken her up.

“What’s all this?” Lily mumbled at the girls irritably.

“This you mean?” Alia said, turning to do the goofy-looking dance for Lily.

“Looks like your patting a dog on one end and stirring a cauldron on the other...” Lily observed with scientific seriousness she only had in the first few minutes of being awake.

Alia and Marva giggled.

“What was your dream about?” Marva asked with a mischievous smile.

“What do you mean?” Lily asked warily.

“You were talking,” Alia explained. ”You woke us both in the dead of night, going on about watering the plants or something...”

“Plants?” Lily replied with surprise. Potter had been telling her about Voldemort’s plants just before she had fallen asleep. It seemed that talking about anything with James Potter before bed was bad for her psyche. She always ended up having some sort of traumatic nightmare... And now that she thought of it, he was in them as well. This was only maybe one of five or six of these sorts of dreams she had like this. All near the lake and always him in a suit more suited to a Victorian muggle then a wizard of any age.

“Are you okay?” Alia asked her as she changed into her school robes. “We have a exam in Transfiguration, so if you’re having a personal crisis you should hold off until after two o’clock.”

Lily swung the blankets off herself and went to find her own robes, looking away to hide her embarrassment of having a dream about Potter. She had the strong desire to share the contents of her dream, but how to avoid telling that he was in it?

“Do you know what?” she cautioned, fixing her voice with perfect innocence. “Ada was in my dream last night.”

“Oh?” Alia replied, tying her trainers.

“Yes, she was rowing on the lake. And there was a weird man on the shore with me...”

At this Alia looked up with a smile. “What sort of man?”

Lily thought carefully of what to say. Alia was good at interpretations and it seemed to her that it would be important to include as much of the truth as she could without mentioning that the man looked exactly like Potter.

“He was tall and dark...”

Alia’s smile grew wider.

“He uh, his eyes were all blackened and he was wearing a very old suit. And a top hat too. He walked like a crab and he talked nonsense.”

Alia’s scowled at this nasty turn, but after a few moments of silence Lily saw that the other girl’s face was lighting up with a wicked grin. “Did he look like that man in the photograph Dale sent you ages ago?” she asked.

Lily turned slowly and gaped at the photo of the Victorian muggle’s portrait. The clothing was identical to what the Potter-thing had worn! And it had been what Potter wore in every dream she had of him!

“I’ll take the horrified silence as a yes,” Alia said with a self-satisfied smile. “I’m not getting top grades in Divination for nothing!”

“But you didn’t divine anything!” Lily retorted with a bit of annoyance that she hadn’t seen the obvious connection of the photo and her dreams herself.

“Well... Was it the same man as in the photo?” Alia asked, obviously intending to ignore the morning moodiness Lily was seething.

“No.”

“Did you know who was wearing the suit in your dream?”

“Yes... Let’s say it was a specific person. What do you think it means?”

“I think...” Alia began slowly, “That you should tell me what that photo means to you.”

Lily replied simply, “I think that the man is arrogant but attractive.” It was true of both the man in the photo and of the young man who captained their Quidditch team.

“You’re so easy to do dream interpretations for!” Alia sighed. “You should HEAR the bilge that Marva or Debra come out with when I try and do theirs...”

“Sort of looks like He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named,” came Marva suddenly. She had reentered without them noticing. “I mean, I only know what He looks like because of all the photos of Him that Ada had hanging up on her end of the room... But if I didn’t know better, I’d think that your photo was just a part of the collection Ada had.”

Lily and Alia exchanged bewildered glances and then the three girls turned and stared at the photo.