EXPECTO PATWHATTA

BY MUNSJE

Chapter two – Chills, they're multiplying

The Quidditch try-outs were being held and the outcome was none too surprising, though a few spots were open (they needed one seeker and one chaser), the team was much the same as it had been the past few years.

According to many, last years team (that had gotten the Quidditch cup, ranking far above all the other houses, which all the players boasted about whenever they got and did not get the opportunity) was the best since Wood's reign.

That was some compliment.

Lily managed to reclaim her spot as beater, though she had a hard time doing it. Raewyn's fears that someone better might have popped up turned out not to be so extremely wrong as a very talented third year tried out for Beater. Thankfully he misdirected one Bludger, sending it at Creevey's head, who (once he woke up in the hospital wing) told Lily that she needn't worry, she was still on the team. The third year burst into tears.

Of course, Raewyn had her spot already written down as chaser before she even started. Creevey was not dissapointed, she flew as well as any other day.

Creevey set the first practice for upcoming Wednesday, at four o'clock, which meant that Lily had to hurry out of Ancient Runes at top speed if she wanted to make it. Eventually it was rescheduled to five o'clock as some pointed out they still had classes around this hour and that no, Creevey, they could not just skip it.

Unless he was willing to take over all of their detentions. Having no time for that himself (he had N.E.W.T.'s to study for this year, alongside of being captain which held more responsibility than one would originally think) he conceded.

New additions to the team were a second year as seeker, called Anser Harry Longbottom. Lily knew Anser vaguely, she knew he was the son of Luna and Neville Longbottom, two friends of her parents that they'd known since Hogwarts.x1 She'd never been quite sure about the two of them. Luna was absolutely insane, though she wasn't allowed to say this because according to both her mother and her father Luna might be a little different, but she was braver than most and had stood by their side through many perilous situations. Of course they both refused to explain what 'perilous situations' this might have been. For alls he knew, dad had been referring to her mum's cooking. Neville was nice, but equally weird in his own way. And she still remembered the one time that he had tried magic to clean up the mess he'd made when he'd dropped Ginny's ever-famous (only famous for being so absolutely vile) chicken soup. He nearly burned the house down.

Now one might expect, if one had never met Anser, that he'd be much like his parents. Strange, unable to perform any bit of magic without it going absolutely haywire and at times a bit embarrassing, but Lily knew better than to think that. According to his great-grandmother Anser took after his grandparents, who were still lying in St. Mungo's after having been attacked by Death-Eaters and going insane after that.

Of course, there were some things that belied his heritage, like his fondness for the Quibbler. He was absolutely convinced that everything published in the Quibbler was true and he considered the Daily Prophet to be what many others thought of the Quibbler: a story-telling magazine that only wanted to entertain the public.

He had about (or so Lily had heard) a dozen plants in his room, all as strange as the next, which he cared for like it were his own children.

And she had also heard the rumors about his performance in Transfiguration, where – after being asked to turn his toad into a teacup – he managed to turn the teacher a lovely shade of green and give her enough warts to ensure a couple of weeks at St. Mungo's.

'Hey, Lil,' Anser said cheerfully, 'how's your summer been?'

'Oh, great. What've you been up to?'

'Mine was brilliant,' Anser said, his eyes shining madly, 'I went to Romania, as it turns out there's a man there that is the son of a dragon and a pygmy puff!'

'A dragon and a pygmy puff,' Lily repeated slowly.

'Yeah,' Anser said, 'it's really weird. I met his parents and everything.'

'But isn't it illegal to keep a dragon in Romania?'

'Well, yeah... but I mean, if it's your dad surely there must be an exception to the rule.'

'Right.' Lily was pretty sure that something must have gotten lost in translation as Anser spoke to the wizard who was born from a pygmy puff, but she decided to let this one slide. 'Who would've thought such a thing was possible,' she said conversationally.

'I certainly wouldn't,' Merlin said breathlessly next to her. 'That's so cool! Did you take any pictures?'

Once again, Lily was not surprised that Merlin had only managed to scrape three O.W.L.'s together.

The next morning they set off for transfiguration, which had finally started up again after their professor had been released from the hospital. It turned out she was still recovering. There was still a rather large wart on the middle of her nose and Lily found it hard to stare at anything else, so that in her imagination it grew larger by the second.

'Goodmorning everyone,' she said in her honey-sweet voice. 'I am so happy to be back among my students and my wonderful colleagues. Anything important happen while I was gone? No? No strange misfortunes, teachers turning out to be werewolves, a chamber of secrets being opened? No? Oh well. Always knew Hogwarts wouldn't be as interesting after Harry left. And Miss Potter, are you about ready for that interview?'

Lily heaved a heavy sigh, Transfiguration was her favorite and best subject, but the teacher would get on her nerves.

'Never you mind,' the professor continued, undisturbed. 'I'm sure I will get it one day. Now... as you may understand, we won't be trying any magic today. I think it's best if we read the directions properly first, before just waving our wands around and sending our teacher to the hospital! So if you would all open your books to page 213... miss Mackneal, would you do the honors?'

Raewyn began reading the instructions of page 213 aloud, while Lily thought sadly, 'even professor Skeeter has gotten boring.'

'Fred, George!' Lily called out, waving at her uncles, who were just informing a third year old about the effect of the nougat nosebleed. It was the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year, and she was standing in the loud and noisy shop that also belonged to the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes-branch.x2

'Hey, Lil,' Fred said, grinning. 'You do have permission this year don't you?'

Lily stuck her tongue out at him, before passing him the permission slip. 'It took a lot of persuading,' she said with a heavy sigh, 'but I've got it.'

To say that Ginny and Harry were protective of their children was an understatement, as far as Lily was concerned. When her third year had started and she'd finally been allowed to visit Hogsmeade, her parents refused to let her go, saying it was 'too dangerous to leave the safety of Hogwarts.'

'Oh come on!' she'd protested, 'You-Know-Who-'

'Voldemort,' her father had corrected her.

'Yeah, him,' Lily had said, trying to stop herself from shuddering at the mention of his name, 'he's been dead for at least twenty years! What d'you possibly think he can do to me now!'

'I'm not worried about Voldemort, I am worried about those that were loyal to him and those that will still use my daughter as a way to get to me.'

And that was the end of the discussion, or so her mother and father had thought. It had been Fred who had tipped her off about a certain map that Dad still had in his possession and after looking for a couple of days she found it in one of his old schoolbooks. Without him knowing, she smuggled it into Hogwarts and managed to visit Hogsmeade a couple of times, until her father noticed the map was missing and had guessed what she'd been up to. He'd set up this entire scheme to catch her at it. She'd been grounded for the first two weeks of the summer break. But it did get her what she wanted: her parents permission. In the end they decided it was best to let her go with the teachers knowing where she was, instead of her sneaking out of the castle. At least this way the teachers would notice sooner if she turned out missing or if something else had happened.

And much to her surprise, Lily was allowed to keep the map (unbeknown to her mother, of course). 'I haven't got much use for it,' dad had said with a shrug. 'This map belongs at Hogwarts.' She hadn't had much use of it yet, but she was sure one day it would prove its worth.

'Thank Merlin,' George said, bringing her back to present time, 'I still haven't recovered from the Bat Bogey Hex she set on us when she found out we were the ones that told you about the map.'

'Honestly,' Fred said, nodding vigorously, 'you'd almost think she was a Saint during her time at Hogwarts, depriving her daughter of a good bit of fun if you ask me, acting the way she does.'

'Naturally, you haven't heard us say that,' George said swiftly. Shuddering again as he thought about her mum's infamous Bat Bogey Hex. 'Hello Raewyn, didn't see you there.' Raewyn had been standing behind one of the shelves and gave them a grin, blushed furiously and knocked over a few fake wands while she was at it.

'Hey! I think that third year just took one of your Nougat Nosebleed's without paying!' Lily called out loudly, pointing at the boy that Fred had been talking to early.

'Why that little...' Fred said and muttered an incomprehensible word under his breath. 'Come on George.' The two brothers set out of the shop, after giving one of the employees instructions to manage it while they were gone.

Raewyn and Lily exchanged a glance, before bursting into laughter. When Fred and George came back, with smug looks on their faces ('I didn't do anything, I swear!' the boy had said, near to tears), Lily was already gone. It was then that something seemed a little bit odd to George and Fred seemed to be thinking the same thing.

'You don't think that she's done anything wrong, do you?' Fred said nervously, wondering what the retributions would be for them if she'd taken anything that might cause damage from their shop.

'Nah,' George said, but his heart wasn't really in it. 'She wouldn't.'

Lily and Raewyn, in the meantime, met up with Brogan in The Three Broomsticks, he had refused to come with them to George's and Fred's after hearing their plan. As a moaning and whimpering thirdyear from Ravenclaw came in, with his hands glued together, he applauded himself on taking such a wise decision.

'Did you get it?' he asked nervously.

'We did,' Raewyn said grinning, slid her hand in her pocket and showed him a package for just the briefest second, before it disappeared into her pockets again, afraid that someone might see. 'I almost thought he knew what we were up too,' she said, 'when I knocked over those fake wands he gave me this funny look, y'know, as if wondering if I was up to something.'

'But luckily we had plan B,' Lily knew she should feel sorry for the Ravenclaw, but she knew her uncles hadn't done anything serious to him, only scared him a little. Besides, she was still feeling a huge adrenaline rush from the entire adventure.

'And you're sure this is going to work?'

'Brogan,' Lily said conspiratorially 'Dwight won't know what hit him.'

'Yeah OK, but the last time you said that...'

'I know what happened the last time I said that and I know this what I said afterwards the last time you said that.' Lily said slightly exasperated.

'I'm telling you,' Raewyn said, 'it's going to work out perfectly. At least for us.'

The next morning, Lily set to work. After a long and heated discussion, they chose Lily to be the one to do it. She was cursing her friends under her breath as she caried the box under her arm, setting towards the Slytherin common room. 'Just how am I supposed to give him these?' She'd asked, just before she had left.

'You'll find a way,' Raewyn said, smirking.

Alright then.

She stared at the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room and contemplated the next course of action. Maybe she should just try shouting some passwords at random, she was pretty sure it was something like 'evil', 'morons' or 'ugly dragons feet' or whatnot. But, this would probably attract a lot of attention and that was the last thing she needed.

How was she going to deliver Dwight's 'present' without him finding out that she was up to it? She needed a way to conceal her identity. If only she now had her father's old cloak, but he would rather tear of his left arm than give it to her. Especially if she was going to use it for something like this. Polyjuice Potion, transfiguration, invisibility charms all sprang to her head and all were not available at the moment.

She wouldn't dare to turn herself invisible, not without having practiced it first. What if she accidentally made it permanent?
Perhaps if she would just leave the box lying here, with a note 'for Dwight' on it. But than it would probably fall into the wrong hands. She didn't trust a Slytherin if her life depended on it and she seriously doubted that they would actually give it to Dwight, most likely they would just keep it for themselves.

How about a memory charm?

No, far too serious. If they ever found out about that she'd be expelled, if not send off to Azkaban. Giving Dwight his due was one thing, but to stake her future career on it was another.

Gloomily, she left for the Great hall, thinking that a good hearty breakfast might give her the answer that she needed. And as ever, Lily was very right.

As she entered, she found that most had already left for Hogsmeade. She overheard some Slytherins talking about 'waiting for Dwight'. Using a hovering charm as she sat at the Gryffindor table, she waited until Dwight finally appeared. With a flick of her wand the box landed right in front of Dwight, who blinked at it for a few seconds.

'Is this yours?' he asked the girl that sat closest to him. The girl shook her head. He then opened the box and examined it. 'Well, I don't know from who these chocolate cauldrons were, but they're mine now.'

Lily sniggered into her hand, Dwight was always so thick.

She ate her breakfast at leisure, waiting for Dwight to leave before setting off herself, she did not want him to remember she'd been present in the Hall when he'd found the chocolate cauldrons.

Well, if any plan was ever going to work, than this would've been it, she thought proudly to herself. Whistling and sometimes humming she went back up the common room, where Raewyn and Brogan were waiting for her, so they could all go to Hogsmeade together.

'Now all that's left is to wait and see,' she said cheerfully. 'Let's go, shall we?'

The three of them went to the Three Broomsticks, expecting that whatever was going to happen, would most likely occur there. The weather was horrible and they doubted that anyone would be braving it, so most of the school would gather themselves there. Plus, they knew their other objective would be there too. 'This was an absolutely brilliant idea, if I may say so myself,' Raewyn said.

'You may,' Lily said.

It didn't take long before the whole scene evolved. They had just managed to order there second Butterbeer when Dwight came burging through the doors, his cloak billowing behind him. His eyes were shining madly and there was a stupid grin on his face. He stared at the other side of the room, where professor Granger was zipping on her mead while talking to Hagrid.

Dwight didn't move for a few minutes and a little drool began to appear at the corner of his mouth. Raewyn, Brogan and Lilly all exchanged looks, they wondered how many of those chocolate cauldrons Dwight had actually eating. But they didn't have a lot of time to feel guilty, as he shouted loudly, 'PROFESSOR GRANGER!'

Hermione looked up, a bit dazed.

'Professor!' Dwight pushed his way through the crowd, accidentally knocking a few of their chairs. Not that he cared. Lily seriously doubted if he would have cared even if he wasn't suffering from the effect of a love potion.

'Yes?' Hermione asked.

'MARRY ME!' Dwight roared.

'Keep your voice down, lad,' Hagrid said, shaking his head. 'The whole world can hear yeh.'

'I don't care,' the boy proclaimed and he fell on his knees. 'I've never loved anyone more than I have loved you, professor. And I am sure that you feel the same way.'

Hermione looked absolutely flabbergasted. Brogan nearly choked on his butterbeer just seeing the expression on her face.

'I have written a sonnet for you.'

By now some of Dwight's friends had come in and tried to move towards him, but Raewyn managed to hold them up by using a leglock hex.

'Hermioneeeeeee,' Dwight began, stretching her name until his breath ran out,
'sometimes you can be really winy!
Buy you're teeth are very shiny
Professor Granger I love you
Like my favorite shoeeee-'

'He really is a lousy poet,' Lily said, raising her eyebrows.

'And he sings even worse.'

'Give him some credit, he's hardly had any time to write it.' Brogan said.

'You can tell,' Raewyn said dryly.

'So I would like to ask,
if to you it is not such a big task,
If you would marry me
Yippee'

'Yippee?' Brogan said.

'It rhymes with me, I guess.'

'Oh Merlin, I think he's going to break into a second chorus,' Lily groaned, now seriously wondering how much cauldrons he'd eaten. But Hermione had clearly had enough of it too. 'Dwight, shut it.'

'For you anything, my dear, my love, my sunshine, my...' His lips were glued together and though he frantically tried to continue his tirade about the wonder that was called Hermione Granger, his lips simply refused to move. The explanation was given when several people saw Hagrid shove a large pink umbrella under the table. (though some just simply wondered what a large pink umbrella was doing in the Three Broomsticks in the first place) Hagrid swiftly grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. 'I'll get 'm back ter Hogwarts for yeh, Hermione,' he said, 'I'm thinkin' he might have swallowed a love potion or sumthin'. Nuthin' that professor Tackabury can't fix.'

Dwight tried to fight Hagrid all the way out of the Leaky Cauldron, obviously having forgotten that Hagrid was a half-giant and had dealed with much worse than a lovesick fourteen year old.

After the effects had worn off, Dwight went into a rampage. He wanted to know who did it, how they did it and why they did it, and more importantly, he wanted to give them a one way ticket to St. Mungo's.
He immediately accused Brogan, but was forced to retract this after Brogan turned out to have a very solid alibi. Of course it did not take him very long to find out that Lily was the only one who didn't seem to have such a solid alibi and just happened to be a close friend of Brogan's.

'I'm sure he's planning something very nasty right now,' Brogan said, his nerves getting the best of him. 'I told you that this was too risky.'

'Come on, he hasn't got any solid proof that Lily did it, now does he?' Raewyn countered.

'Since when does Dwight ever need solid proof to take out his revenge on someone?'

Lily hated it when Brogan made a good point. Whenever he made a point it meant that something bad was about to happen and she hated it when something bad was about to happen, mostly when it involved her and meant that she was going to get the worst end of it.

But Dwight wasn't the only one smart enough to figure out that Lily might have played a part in the disaster of this afternoon. A supremely peeved Hermione had a feeling she might have too. It wouldn't be the first time.

'She takes far too much after her uncles,' she said to Hagrid and pursed her lips. 'The two of them have had a bad influence on her.'

'Now don't yeh go blamin' her immediately, Hermione,' Hagrid said, shaking his head. 'She might've had nuthin' ter do with it.'

Hermione gave him a look, 'you believe that yourself?'

Hagrid only managed to splutter in return.

In the meanwhile, several versions of Dwight's performance were being sung throughout the school and became nearly as popular as the Hogwarts school song. Several teachers found themselves driven into a corner by hooded students who sang about their shining teeth.

Oddly enough, Dwight's retribution never came. It may have been that someone talked him out of it, or that he'd gotten a warning from the teachers that if anything happened to Lily (or any other student for that matter) and that there was just a hint of his involvement, that he would face expulsion.

Brogan said that it was more likely that neither had never occurred and that Dwight was simply waiting for the right time and right opportunity to get her back in a way that she had never dreamed of. Lily thanked him for always managing to bring her into a good mood, the sarcasm was almost literally dripping off her voice.

'Did you really do it?' Sirius asked one night, glancing up from his Potions book. 'But I heard that love potions are real tough to make.'

'Who said I made it myself?' Lily said, and then hurriedly added, 'in the case that I had anything to do with it, of course.'

'You're just like grandfather Potter sometimes,' Sirius said with a sigh.

'What do you know about grandfather Potter,' Lily said sharply, 'you've never even met him.'

'No, but Remus Lupin's told me stories about them and their time at Hogwarts, and I heard a thing or two from dad. You would've too if you'd just asked,' Sirius said, giving her a look.

'Yeah, whatever,' Lily mumbled.

'Did you write mum and dad yet?'

'Did I write... what kind of question is that?'

'I was just wondering,' Sirius shrugged. 'It's just that you hardly wrote these past three years, specially to mum and dad.'

'We've only been here a couple of months,' Lily defended herself. 'And it's not like anything interesting happened to tell them about.'

'I told them about what happened to Dwight, they found it very funny,' Sirius said.

'Yeah, that's what they say. But come on. They've already done and seen almost everything. How could they possibly be interested in your normal, average teenage Hogwarts-adventure. It's not like I battled some big bad dark wizard, or have been chased by a flobberworm for that matter.'

Sirius just rolled his eyes, which looked very strange on him. He must've picked up the habit from Lily. He said nothing further about it, but she could guess all too well what he was thinking. 'Mum and dad don't care about that, blablabla', yeah. Whatever. When dad was in his fourth year he'd entered the Triwizard Tournament. All she'd done so far was failing to turn her watch into a rat.

'I'll promise to write them this weekend, OK?' she said, when she couldn't stand Sirius' silence any longer. He smiled at her, obviously satisfied and than continued chatting happily for another hour about Tibus, one of his classmates, who's eyes had nearly been poked out by the Whomping Willow after he dared to come to close to the tree.

'Makes you wonder why it's even there, doesn't it?'

'Dad'll probably know a thing or more about that,' she said glumly. She turned back to her homework, drowning out her brother's voice as she did so.

A/N

x1 I'm a huge fan of both Luna and Neville and I am positive that they would make a fantastic couple :D

x2 In Halfblood Prince Fred & George mentioned that they were thinking about buying Zonko's, but decided against it after the students were no longer allowed to go to Hogsmeade. I think it's safe to presume that they would renew their idea as soon as Voldemort was finished off.

On another note: because in the last chapter I addressed Hermione as 'professor Granger', I will continue to do so, it was kind of stupid of me, because (naturally) Hermione is already married to Ron. I'm still contemplating on whether or not they've already had children, but that's another story. I don't think it's very strange to believe that Hermione's kept her maiden name, though. After all, she's a very strong and independent individual and might not like the idea of being called 'Hermione Weasley'. Or at least, that's my excuse ;).

quiero qeso: You are very right! Where is Hagrid! I actually forgot to mention him during the last chapter, I thought I had, but I may have cut him out because I didn't like what I'd written, I can't remember. In any case, don't you worry, there will be enough of Hagrid to go around throughout this story :)

GP: My many thanks for the wonderful compliments :)