Love, Manticore style

Chapter two: Adam and Lisa

Adam Brooks, Prophecy's Warrior, Manticore and Muggleborn Wizard sat in Professor Binns' class with glazed eyes. That in itself didn't make him any different from the rest of the students, but his eyes were not glassy because Professor Binns was talking about the Goblin War of 1215. Adam couldn't have told you what the Professor was talking about today, which was unusual. If you were to ask him what Hangeld had for breakfast on the fifth of December in their first year, he could tell you after a minute's thought. Adam remembered everything, but he wasn't even hearing the Professor today.

His thoughts were on a subject that had begun to occupy a great deal of his thinking recently. Lisa Malfoy was the smartest girl in Hogwarts, beautiful and as far as Adam was concerned, perfect.

The point that concerned Adam right now was the upcoming Ball. This morning, he had happened to overhear a couple of Gryffindors talking, and one of them was intending to ask Lisa to the Ball. The idea of asking a girl to a ball caused very large butterflies to hold their own ball in his stomach, but the idea of Lisa going to the Ball with anyone else was worse. The Gryffindor in question had stated his intention to ask Lisa this Friday, which gave Adam just two days to ask her to the Ball.

Adam's biggest dilemma lay in another overheard conversation. Lisa and Emma had been talking at Chimera's table, and Adam had been studying, so he hadn't really overheard it so much as just heard Lisa talking about the various ways people asked other people to the Ball. Lisa had been bemoaning the stammering approach of the third year boys, most of which went something like this; "WouldyougototheBallwithme?", or "Uh, um, I was um wondering if uh you would uh go to the Ball with um, me?"

Since Adam had discovered that attempting to discuss anything personal with Lisa left him feeling like somebody had cast a Jellylegs spell on his tongue, he was fairly certain that any straight forward attempt of his to ask her to the Ball would result in his being grouped in the second category. Since Adam had a teenaged boy's fear of looking foolish in front of a woman he liked, he was not willing to do that.

Adam had been thinking about this topic all morning without getting anywhere, until a chance heard comment by Professor Binns started him thinking about approaching it a different way. His eyes lost the glassy look, and he began scribbling notes on a sheet of parchment.

Lisa Malfoy came to breakfast Wednesday in a grumpy mood. That was not unusual for the girl that had often and openly stated that mornings should be against the law. Dobby had delivered her morning coffee, and she was feeling human this morning, however. Her grumpiness came from another source altogether.

The Ball was just nine days away, and almost every female Manticore had been asked to the Ball already, but no one had asked her yet. She would have turned down every invitation but one, but not to get any proposals was humiliating. She was still fuming when the Owl Post came in. She looked up in time to see a plain Barn Owl from the School Owlery drop a parchment at her.

She opened the parchment after giving the owl a treat off the table and looked at it. She lost her grumpy mood as she stared at it. She wasn't sure, but it looked like one of the variant Wizard Runic alphabets from the middle ages. It interested her enough that she cut her breakfast short to run down to the library before classes started. She found the Alphabet after a short search, and checked the book out of the library to take with her.

Using the book, she had translated the note in less than an hour, and that left her even more puzzled, because it was a bunch of random groups of letters. She was double-checking the alphabet when she began to see a pattern to the groups, and realized that it had been coded as well as written in runes.

Decoding the message took her the rest of the day, and just before dinner, she was reading it.

DR54872345 but higher than a Giant's leap

The god of thunder and lightning's day

After the passage of Uranus, before the dawn of Mars

Answers the question.

Reading the note was easy. The string of letters and numbers was a Military Grid Reference System thing, which told Lisa that a Manticore had written this. The American Muggle military used the MGRS, and it was what Wolfpack had been teaching the Manticores. Lisa borrowed Jerrick's map of Hogwarts, and plotted the grid. It led her to the Quidditch pitch, and the northern goals. She looked up at the goals, which were definitely higher than a giant could leap, and read the second line.

This line was easy. Thor's day, also called Thursday

Lisa stared at the third line for a few minutes, and went to the Astronomy tower to check on the planets. Uranus would pass out of sight tomorrow behind Saturn at 1532, and Mars would become visible at 1550. Somebody wanted her to be at the goalposts between those two times tomorrow. On a hunch, she checked the Quidditch practice list. Slytherin had the Pitch until 1530, and Hufflepuff had it starting at 1600.

That only left the fourth line, and Lisa had no idea what question would be answered. She started thinking about which Manticore had sent her the note. Whoever it was, he or she could plot a grid, knew obscure trivia about the days of the week and the planets, and either looked up the Quidditch schedules or knew them well enough to know when the Pitch would be empty. In addition, they knew something about Runes and codes.

After some thought, she narrowed the list down to maybe six Manticores. She went to bed without being able to figure out which of the six it was.

Adam had watched Lisa working on the note with a mixture of amusement and worry. It wasn't until she went out to the Quidditch Pitch that he knew he hadn't made the code or clues too hard for her to solve in the time she had. Now, he only had to talk to her, without tripping over his tongue or otherwise humiliating himself.

Thursday morning, Lisa woke up, and her first thought was about the note. The day passed much too slowly for Lisa, who was so curious about the note, that she managed to lose five points in Professor McGonagall's class for not paying attention. After classes, she sat in Manticore Hall, watching the clock. After twenty minutes, she was sure somebody had cast a slowing spell on it. Ten minutes before the time specified in the note, she left the hall.

Flying out to the Pitch, she circled the northern goals twice, before she spotted the small package on top of the goal. She flew over to the goal, and drifted up next to it. She took the package, and landed at the base of the goal. She opened the package to find a single red rose and the final clue she needed to figure out who her note maker was. It was a small drawing of her, and the style told her that Adam had drawn it.

She looked up, as Adam touched the shields over the Chimera link. "So, what question is going to be answered?" she asked. She was hoping for the right question.

Adam drifted out of the sky, dropping the invisibility spell that he'd been hiding under and landed near her. "I wanted to ask you to the Ball."

"You went through all of this, just to ask me to the ball?"

Adam blushed. "I didn't want to be like the boys you were talking about to Emma."

Lisa blinked, and then remembered the conversation he was talking about. She smiled at him. "You would never be like them. Of course I'll go to the Ball with you."

"In that case," Adam said, taking a deep breath, "I was wondering if you would wear this to the Ball." He handed her a small box.

Lisa opened the bow, and her breath caught in her throat. Lying on a velvet cushion was a small pendant, of a white gold knight holding a silver sword. She knew what he was asking, but she had to be sure that he knew what he was getting into.

"What about my family?" Lisa was referring to the fact that her family name was in disgrace and one of the most hated in the Wizard world.

Adam knew what she meant, but pretended not understand. "I didn't make that for them, only for you." He looked at her. "I know all about it, remember? I know, and I don't care."

Lisa started to say something else, but Adam interrupted her. "Lisa, I don't care who your father is, or what he's done. I am interested in you. Your mind, and the way you nibble on your hair when you think about things. I want to know what you're thinking about, and I want to brush your hair back from your face when you're writing."

Adam blushed again, but decided that honesty was the only way to be with Lisa. Coming from a whole family of people that habitually lied and sidestepped any direct truth, she deserved that. "I also want to hold you, and see if we can achieve the rapport James and Tiffany have."

Lisa smiled softly, and gave him his answer.

"You can't do any of that from over there."