When she reached Slughorn's office, Lily paused and opened her notebook. She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. Her mouth moved slightly as she quickly scanned the page, making sure all of the information that she needed was present. Taking a deep breath, she closed the notebook and rapped on the door.
Scarcely a moment later, the door opened and Lily blinked; no one seemed to be standing in the doorway. My sixth year here, she thought to herself, and I'm still not used to magic. Then she noticed that someone had, in fact, opened the door, and that this someone was far shorter than she had expected.
"Yes, Miss?"
The creature looked up at her politely, its wide, protuberant eyes simply blazing with subservience.
"Are you a house-elf?" Lily knew it was a foolish question; but, though having heard of the creatures, had never before seen one at Hogwarts.
"Yes Miss, I is the house-elf of Master Slughorn," the elf said proudly.
"Oh, er...is the Professor in?"
"I is checking for you, Miss." The elf gave her a knowing look, and then disappeared back behind the door. Lily fought the urge to crane her neck and peer at the thing, so novel was its appearance to her. She was curious, but didn't want to appear rude. Some of the older wizarding families might view house-elves as equal to furniture, but Lily knew better than that. She was a Muggle-born, after all; hadn't she experienced the same condescending view of her own station? Yes, and had lost an old friend to the outrageous prejudice. Lily blinked back angry tears.
At that moment the door was thrown wide open and Professor Slughorn himself appeared.
"Lily Evans! There's only an hour until curfew, you know," he winked and wagged a stubby finger at her.
Lily smiled. "I won't miss it, Professor. I just wanted to ask you a few questions about potion-making. I've been doing some independent research, and-"
"Independent research!" Slughorn waved her inside his office with a chortle. "Of course you are! You wouldn't be Lily Evans, first in her class, if you weren't!"
Lily felt herself flush. "I'm not first, Professor, not at all. Why, Fortescue in Ravenclaw, and Widimore in Hufflepuff, not to mention-"
"Yes, yes my dear, but you are first in Potions, and we all know what an accomplishment that is!" Slughorn beamed at her and stuffed himself into the large armchair behind his desk. "Sit, sit. Tea?"
"No, thank you. I won't be long, I just have a few questions."
"Ask away, my dear, ask away."
"Well..." Lily hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. To give herself more time, she opened her notebook once again and stared briefly at the page. She looked up. Slughorn was looking at her expectantly as the house-elf filled his teacup. Her hand trembling, Lily simply held out the notebook.
Slughorn set down his cup and took it, looking interested. "Muggle paper, eh? Old habits die hard, I suppose." He chuckled and fished a pair of reading glasses out of his jacket pocket.
As he began to read, Lily looked away, feeling ovewhelmingly nervous. Why hadn't she checked her figures again? If she wanted to be taken seriously, if she wanted Slughorn's help, she should have prepared better, she should have-
"Miss?"
Lily jumped, looked around, and then at waist height, realizing that the elf was speaking to her again.
"Is there anything I can be getting for Miss?" The elf waited patiently while she collected herself.
"No, thank you, I'm fine...thank you." Lily felt distinctly uncomfortable as the elf bowed deeply and disappeared into the adjoining room. She couldn't bring herself to look at Slughorn as he scrutinized two years of her life spent in study and research. When he finally spoke, she wrenched her gaze away from the photograph of himself and Bathilda Bagshot sitting prominently on the mantlepiece and forced herself to meet his eyes.
"Miss Evans...Lily...it would take me weeks to check the veracity of this research, but just glancing through it," he paused and flipped to the next page, "you've either discovered some very important information, or you're damned close!"
To her surprise and relief, Lily saw that her professor appeared excited and impressed.
"How in the world...?"
She cleared her throat. "Well...I read that many of the wizarding world's most deadly diseases have been eradicated through eugenics potions, regeneration potions, tissue replacement potions...always potions. I was...interested in the subject, so I decided to learn about diagnosis and treatment of these illnesses. I found out, as I'm sure you already know, that Healers diagnose disease by replicating the patient's exact genetic imprint, and then dissecting it...exactly how you would detect poison in a potion and remove it. And this simple treatment works in hundreds of cases of very severe illnesses...wizarding illnesses. And I thought, well...why not take it a step further? We've given Muggles medical knowledge before, so why did we stop with Polio and influenza? What about cystic fibrosis, and MS?"
Slughorn was frowning. "Yes, I understand the reasoning behind your research perfectly. But what I don't understand is how you've come to the conclusion that Muggles can be cured the same as wizards. You know magical genetic imprinting isn't possible with...people of non-magical origin."
"Yes, you're right," Lily was growing more excited. "Exactly right, however, if there was a way to imprint and dissect their genes, chromosomes, cells, and tissues the way wizards can, we could cure them as well. Our imprinting may not work on their bodies, but our potions do. It would be a simple matter of adjusting them to the separate levels of magical and non-magical chemicals in Muggle blood. I've cited several cases, such as the conversion of our influenza cure into theirs, and our Polio vaccine-"
"I understand that, Miss Evans, and of course you're not the first to conceive of such an idea. But...do you mean to tell me that you've discovered the solution to that rather large 'if'? Are you...are you telling me that you've discovered a way to genetically imprint Muggles?"
Lily hesitated. She was on the edge of her seat now, feeling an amazing rush at finally being able to reveal her years of work to someone who understood it completely, but she didn't want to get ahead of herself. She would feel unendurably foolish if her research turned out to be faulty after all, if she'd made some deadly error.
"Professor Slughorn...I'm only a sixth-year. I've done this research on my own, with only the resources that Hogwarts and various bookstores could provide me, cross-referenced with Muggle medical textbooks. But I believe...I believe that, impossible as it may seem, my information is correct. I believe...I believe that I really have discovered a way to..." her mouth was dry, she couldn't even say it out loud. But she didn't have to.
"A way to genetically imprint Muggles," Slughorn finished the sentence for her in a raspy voice, his eyes glazed with wonder. Jerkily his hand moved to the sleeve of his jacket and he withdrew a silk handkerchief. He swiped his brow with it, grabbed his cup of tea and drained it in a single gulp.
There was silence in the office for a moment. In a crazy, detached part of her brain, Lily heard what sounded like the house-elf whistling faintly in the other room. She stared at Slughorn, and he stared back. Finally, he cleared his throat, his expression grave.
"Dumbledore. He doesn't specialize in potions, but together he and I could verify your research fairly quickly. We would have to submit it to the Ministry of Experimental Science to obtain permission to study on a practical subject...there will be all kinds of red tape in that area...but Dumbledore is the only person, besides myself, that you should trust to do this for you. You're underage, so you can't do it yourself, and you don't want to go waving around information this valuable anyhow. Either do I, for that matter," Slughorn admitted.
"What do you mean?" Lily asked, confused.
"You would be a target. Anyone who claims to have such informaion would be a target. First, because people will want it for themselves, either to claim it as their own, or to destroy it. Purists," he added, seeing her brow crease. "Lily, there are people who will not want us using magic to cure Muggle diseases. I'm sorry to have to tell you that, but it's true."
Lily nodded, understanding. "I know," she said softly. "I wish it wasn't this way, but...you're right. If this is real," she swallowed hard at the implications of that little 'if'. "If my research is correct then...this changes everything. I know."
Slughorn surveyed her over his reading glasses, then removed them. "Dumbledore, then?"
"Yes, but...not tonight," Lily was seized with an impulse that even she did not fully understand. "If I'm wrong then...well..." she looked at Slughorn miserably, and he seemed to understand.
"You don't want anyone to know? Even Dumbledore?"
Lily shook her head, feeling ashamed of her cowardice. "Dumbledore made me Prefect last year while the Purists were protesting Muggle-borns even attending Hogwarts. I don't want...well, I just couldn't stand it if I were embarrassed in front of him."
Slughorn smiled. Lily knew by the knowing look he gave her that he was under the impression that she harbored some sort of school-girl crush on the headmaster. Well, let him think that. The truth was, if Dumbledore knew this research was hers, he would complicate things. Oh, of course he would push it forward and do all he could to make it known; he cared about Muggles. But he would know why she had done it, why she had spent two years sleeping only a few scant hours each night in order to reach this triumph. And he would forebid her to use her own research as she wanted to. And she couldn't have that.