Hydra at Hogwarts

Chapter Two: Billywigs!

8.50, Monday morning. Lily, in the grip of stomach-twisting nerves, left her office and crossed the hall to the Defence classroom. The room looked very different to the empty, echoing hall of two days ago - now it was filled with shelves of books, parchment posters on the wall with illustrations of various wild beasts and spectres, and a low platform at the far end with a cage covered in a fine, silky fabric. She lifted the fabric briefly and was rewarded by a buzzing sound like a hummingbird. The cage wobbled.

There was the sound of scuffling outside; she wheeled around, smoothed her black robes, and opened the door. 'Come in.'

The students piled into the room in a haphazard manner: confident third years. They shuffled into the seats whilst she watched them from her desk at the front of the room.

'Gryffindor and Slytherin.' They quieted at her words, turning their attention to the new teacher. 'My name is Professor Lily Evans, and I will be your new Defence against the Dark Arts tutor. I will be teaching you about magical beasts and how to defeat them, malicious traps and spells and how to defend yourself, and I will also be teaching you about curses...how to defend yourself, and also how to curse.' There was a rustle of murmuring at this. 'This is not on your curriculum, but I believe we should find time to learn these unpleasant, but useful, defence skills. In my work as an Auror in Europe' - she smiled slightly at the rustle of whispers - 'curses are extremely useful. Just because you know them, it does not mean that you need use them. The emphasis in this classroom will be on defence.' She picked up the textbook, set by the Ministry course outline, and walked slowly between the desks. 'Please turn to chapter three, the Antipodes.' One of the students reached out and started to draw a tail on her back with his wand. She paused, with her back to him, facing the raised dais. She reached around quickly with her wand and tapped the drawing, which immediately turned into a three dimensional snake that leapt at the boy and left chalk dust on his robes. 'It would be advisable for you to refrain from tricks like that, Mr.?'

'Leakworthy.' stuttered the boy, still holding out his wand in a state of shock. The class sniggered.

'Thankyou, Mr. Leakworthy. Gryffindor, I see.' She said with a smile to herself, and continued towards the rear of the room. 'Please read aloud the paragraph under 'billywig'.' The boy read the few sentences, trying to brush the dust off his robes, which stubbornly refused to budge. 'Thankyou. Do any of you have any experience with this creature?' The class looked blank. One student put up his hand.

'We've used billywig stings in Potions, for an Ascension Draught.'

'That doesn't surprise me. Billywigs,' she grasped the fabric on the cage, 'are useful for creating levitation. Their stings create vertical lift but also dizziness, which makes the flight hard to control. An ascension draught will have some stabilising ingredient to cancel this out. The braver of you might like to ask Professor Snape which ingredient he uses.'

She slid the fabric off the cage. A number of extremely small, bright blue insects strained against the mesh lining, their wings whirring furiously. 'The way to deal with billywigs is to rebuff them before they have a chance to sting you as you will be so disorientated that you will be unable to aim your spells properly. I am going to teach you a very useful little spell which bounces away small objects like a billywig, a buzzing fly, or even a golden snitch, should you want to.' She took out her wand again, whipping it through the air. 'Wands out, please. Practise the movement - a short tapping motion - and the incantation, Spretus. Please form a circle.' She released the five billywigs, circling them with her wand and keeping them hovering in the air.

'Ready, Mr. Leakworthy?' and she batted one of them towards him.

'Aiee! Er - Spretus!' and he flicked his wand.

'Very good!' she called, holding the insect in the air in front of her with a hand movement. She flicked it at someone else, sending the little insects flying and catching the returning ones. The class occupied themselves with this until there was a punctured squeak and one unfortunate girl was lifted into the air. Lily spotted two girls looking rather pleased with themselves - so pleased, in fact, that they didn't notice the billywig's return flight in their direction. It stung them both before Lily snapped 'Accio!' and returned all five insects to the cage. 'Dear me. That was clumsy of you, to send both of your billywigs in the wrong direction,' she said, to the two hovering girls, now looking rather wobbly and seasick, 'what are the odds?' She tapped the first girl with her wand, who gently descended into her seat. The rest of the class sat down hurriedly. Lily walked round the room, tidying books that had been knocked off shelves, kicking two large cushions under the remaining two girls, wearing Slytherin colours. 'Please write up the effects of billywig stings for the remainder of the lesson and suggest three ways in which they might be useful to wizards in the field.'

The room was quiet for the next ten minutes, the two girls hovering uselessly in the background. The bell went for break and the students sprang to their feet. 'Please hand those papers in to me on your way out. You two-' the two Slytherins dropped onto the cushions in unison, '-will complete it by next lesson. Thankyou.'

-

Lily's first week as a teacher was exhausting, but great fun. The younger students were gratifyingly impressed by relatively simple magic and had lots of enthusiasm, but the older students asked more questions and got more involved. Rumours of her sixth-year class on the Hypnos curse, where suggestions were implanted into students' minds in a semi-conscious state, spread around the school swiftly - even to the staffroom.

'Really, my dear, I hadn't realised that you would create such a stir in your first week.' Flitwick squeaked, his eyes wide. Tonks, however, split her sides laughing at the Hippogriff impression one student had done during meal time, pawing the floor and bowing to Dumbledore, who had bowed gravely back, his eyes dancing.

'The idea was to emphasise the voluntary aspect of the curse - they willingly cooperated.' Lily explained ruefully that evening in the staffroom.

'I'm sure,' replied Lupin, moving his bishop all the way across the board to take her king.

'Damn!' This was their second game of chess since the start of the year. Lily had always thought that she was pretty good at wizard chess, but now both games had ended in vicious defeat.

'You know you'd despise me if I let you win,' he said. 'Close, though.'

'Closer than I ever got,' added Tonks, who had been refereeing the game.

'You know what would finish the evening off nicely? A firewhisky.'

'You have firewhisky? I haven't tasted that in years. Russians prefer whitegrain - it knocks you out but you don't get a hangover the following morning.'

'Maybe, but firewhisky warms you up. I've got a bottle in my trunk which I haven't unpacked yet.'

Tonks winked at Lily over her shoulder as they wandered off towards Lupin's office. 'Sounds like an invitation you can't refuse.'

They sneaked past Filch like naughty students and retired to Lupin's quarters. Lily made another mental note to buy some furnishings for her room - his was warm, welcoming and full of interesting objects. 'Where did you get all this stuff, Remus?'

'Oh, James sends me things, I picked one or two things up from auctions here and there...'

'Would you take me next time? I never find anything like this at auctions.' Lily exclaimed, tracing the edge of a tall stoppered bottle, filled with colourless liquid.

'Oh that? That's not mine.' He frowned slightly. 'That's from Snape.'

'Snape!' Lily jumped up from her chair. 'I said I'd meet him this evening! I'm sorry, I've got to go.' She put down her empty glass and leapt to the door. 'Another time?'

'Of course.' Lupin said, noncommittally, and turned to Tonks as Lily shut the door.

She ran down the corridor, tapping her foot in impatience as the stairways swung round. She half-ran, half-jumped down them as they aligned. At the next junction she missed the gap by inches. 'Watch your footing, dear,' said a witch in one of the frames as Lily grabbed the banister. She ignored the remark. If she was late, if Snape took it into his head to refuse to work with her -

'Miss Evans. You're late.'

'I'm sorry. I didn't realise-'

He cut her off with a gesture and turned away. This suddenly infuriated Lily.

'I'm not one of your pupils, you know. And you know me well enough to use my first name. You would be doing me a favour if you would help me with some of these potions, but you are by no means essential!'

He paused in the act of stoppering a bottle, his long fingered hands stilled. All Lily heard for a moment was her breathing, still laboured from scaling the stairs. Snape slowly corked the bottle and took down a sheaf of notes.

'If you are ready, we can begin by looking at some of the potions you have used and where they could be improved. I have been doing some work of my own on extenders to increase the life or effect of a serum. Perhaps you would be interested in them?'

-

'Class, there is a change of plan today.' Lily stood up straight from her position resting on her desk as the students trooped in. 'Professor Dumbledore has asked us to investigate rumours of an infestation of Grindylows in the lake. Now, I know that you can handle this - you covered Grindylows two years ago in Defence class - but they can still catch out unwary people, and this will give you a chance to work together in pairs as you would as Aurors. Everyone, pair up - an even number, good - and keep your eyes peeled for any other problems. We have the loan of the boat this afternoon. You may leave your bags in class. Wands out, please!'

Lily was now thoroughly settled in to Hogwarts as a member of staff. She had almost entirely conquered her nerves in the past month and was enjoying the more relaxed, scholarly atmosphere of the castle in comparison to the chaos and pressure of her work abroad. This was as near to a holiday as she had been in the last five years. Planning lessons was more fun than she had expected especially with the challenges and questions that the students brought up constantly. Tonks was rapidly becoming a friend although her haphazard lucky-guess manner was in complete contrast to Lily's quiet competence - a hangover from the rules and caution of the Auror profession, she supposed. Dumbledore seemed very happy with how she was getting on too and had hinted that if she wanted she could try taking on some House duties. Bearing Tonks' warning in mind, she had politely deferred. Snape had deigned to work with her, mainly in silence, but he seemed to be reconciled to her presence. When they were arguing over modern interpretations of old potions or possible effects of additives, it was almost pleasant to be working with him. His expertise and experience was genuinely fascinating and Lily could tell that his precision and scientific technique was making her tighten up her own methods, regaining the accuracy that she had lost through producing potions on her own all this time. He was still abrupt to the point of rudeness but this no longer bothered her. It was like being back at school with him, she thought, recalling the year she had spent as his lab partner for their Newt level Potions. This time, though he was still technically superior to her due to his specialisation, it made all the difference to be collaborating voluntarily, as adults. Occasionally, when they finally agreed on how to proceed with an experiment, she even saw flashes of his dry sarcastic humour. He was an unrewarding friend, never hesitating to point out her mistakes and to berate her for them, but was grimly pleased when their work was rewarded, giving her due. He was still as much of a mystery as he had been to her at school. Lupin, now, he was still the same person as he had been at school, which Lily was glad about. He had always been a friend of hers, even without James. His quiet humour and kindness seemed to be appreciated here as they were not in school - or at least perhaps they had been overshadowed by his air of fearfulness and guilt. Poor Remus.

She urged the boat forward over the lake with a hand on the prow, the class watching the movements under the waves of fish and once or twice the shadowy forms of mermen. As the boat touched down on the shore of the narrow peninsula that crossed the wide expanse of water, she motioned to the students to climb out and start their search.

'Remember to watch for Grindylows or for any similar infestations!' she called, anchoring the boat by its ancient rope around one of the trees on the shore. One of the trees had its bark torn away down one side, and she peered closer. The edges were curled and browned, almost like burnt paper, with without the blackened colour one would expect from fire damage. She tore off a small piece and folded it up in one of the tree's broad leaves, stowing it in her bag.

'Professor!'

She walked off in the direction of the call.

'Professor, Granville's just fallen in the swamp.'

She sighed, and took out her wand.

'Show me the way, please.'