Lily sat in the library, her hand cramping from writing a particularly cruel History of Magic essay that had to be at least three rolls of parchment long. In Lily's opinion, that was two and a half rolls too many. She sighed, putting down her quill, and rubbing her sore hand. Lily had no idea where Rory and Sam had run off to, so for now, she was alone.
It had been two days since her run-in with the Erkling, and thankfully, the only people that had made a big deal out of it were the kids her Potions class, and, naturally, Cepheus was a right prat about it. Every time he saw them, especially when Lily was around, he made horrified faces and pretended to scream and cower. Then he'd smirk.
Suddenly, there was a clamor behind her, and she whirled around to face her brothers Albus and James, cousin Rose, and Albus's and Rose's best friend, Scorpius Malfoy, the prat's brother. Scorpius was the opposite of Cepheus. Scorpius was nice, funny, and mischievous, something he no doubt picked up from James.
"How ya doin', Lilster?" James grinned, and ruffled his sister's hair.
"Fine," Lily smoothed her locks. "Is Professor Binns always this cruel?" She gestured to her final roll of parchment, which she was halfway finished with.
Rose rolled her eyes. "You know, Lily, he's only doing that so you'll be more prepared for exams."
James grinned again. "Don't listen to her, Lily. Binns is a monster."
Rose smiled and shook her head. "Whatever. We're just dropping in to say hi."
"Actually, we're dropping in so Rose can take out another five hundred books," Scorpius smirked good-naturedly.
Rose went red. "Fine, I'm checking out a book or two."
"Two hundred, that is," Albus whispered to Scorpius, and they burst out laughing. Rose shook her head and smiled again, walking off to find her tomes. With a wave and a wink, the boys followed.
Lily didn't even have time to resume her work on the essay, because Sam came bursting towards her table out of nowhere. Rory was close behind.
He was breathing hard. "Erkling…only…when thing…looked for…" Sam gasped, slamming a huge, dusty book on the table.
"What?" Lily cocked her head, assessing the strange situation.
Rory leaned on his elbows against the table. "Erklings are often sent when someone wants something found," Rory said, breathing hard.
"What does this have to do with anything?" Asked Lily, who was slightly confused and very much annoyed, because she desperately wanted to finish her essay, and the last thing she wanted was to have another distraction.
"Don't you see what this means?" Sam said excitedly, his eyes wide. "The Erkling was sent to find something. Something inside Hogwarts."
Lily bit back a laugh of disbelief. "You think there's something hidden here? And we're going to go on some great big adventure to find it? Then we're going to be heroes?"
"That's sort of the plan," Rory grinned.
"Sorry to disappoint you," Lily said coldly, turning back to her essay. "But I'm not my father."
"Fine," said Rory stiffly. He and Sam walked off, leaving Lily to stew.
Lily was fighting an internal battle. One part of her resented the fact that her father was famous, because everyone expected her to be a hero, too. All they saw was her last name, they didn't even care about the "Lily" in Lily Potter. Of course, even if people noticed it, all they'd see was a mother who died for her son; another hero. What Lily wanted more than anything was to be normal, have people have the same expectations for her as they had for everybody else, to have that stupid Malfoy boy and his thuggish friends stop being so cruel to her and her friends. She resented her parents' fame. All people ever saw was the last name; all she was, was the daughter of the best chaser the Holyhead Harpies had ever had and the Boy-Who-Lived. If she was going to be famous at all, Lily Potter wanted to make her name famous in her own way, without her parents' help.
But at the same time, she wanted to be just like both her parents. Lily wanted to be a brilliant Chaser, and a hero. She wanted to follow in both her parents' footsteps. She felt it was her duty to live up to the precedent her parents had set. The thing was, she wanted to do it on her own terms. But she wanted to do it, nonetheless.
Lily Potter was utterly conflicted.
She wanted this idea of adventure, but rejected it for two reasons. One: she wasn't her father, and she didn't just go on adventures; these things just didn't happen to her, and she wanted people to stop thinking they did. And two: what in the world could Hogwarts possibly be hiding? Harry had discovered all the school's secrets long ago. There couldn't be anything more to explore.
"And anyway," thought Lily, "why did the Erkling only come now? If there was something hidden here, why wasn't it sent earlier?"
About a week after Lily's encounter with Sam and Rory was the first Quidditch game of the season, Ravenclaw versus Slytherin. Throughout the week, the boys had been a slightly annoyed at her immediate shutdown of their plan, though it hadn't really stopped from spending time together. Nevertheless, Rory and Sam often went off by themselves to talk or work or do whatever else it was that boys did.
It'd been particularly wet and rainy on the day of the match, and upon stepping out of the castle to head down to the Quidditch pitch, a third year boy pelted Lily square in the chest with a particularly large clump mud.
"Sorry!" He called. "I was aiming for Cato!"
But that didn't change the fact that Lily was covered in sludge and, being a first year, she had yet to learn the Scourgify spell, which was so coveted by both her mother and grandmother.
So, Lily trudged back up to the Gryffindor tower for a change of clothes, and by the time she had changed and made her way back down the spiraling steps of the tower, the castle was empty. Well, almost empty. As Lily was about to turn the corner to head down the last corridor to get to the Entrance Hall, she heard something rather peculiar.
"We have to get rid of it!" said a hushed voice.
"No! We are under strict orders to keep it locked away," replied a second whisper.
"Horace, you know as well as I do that Peeves didn't let that Erkling into the castle. This is serious, students could get hurt. Those three first years could have died!" The first voice retaliated.
Lily held her breath. They were talking about her. There was something in the castle that the Erkling was trying to find. She had to tell Rory and Sam; they had been right all along!
Lily rounded the corner in a sprint, and ran straight into Professor Slughorn, who was standing next to McGonagall. Lily realized they must've been the ones talking.
"Sorry, Professor," Lily mumbled, scooting away.
"No harm done!" Professor Slughorn replied jovially, and before Lily could reply, she felt her feet carrying her quickly towards the Quidditch pitch.
Lily hastily made her way down to the stands, her lungs burning. She trekked up to where most of the first years were seated, hoping she would find Rory and Sam. Luckily, her wish was granted. The two boys were laughing at the far end of the section.
Lily skirted through the throngs of students, before reaching the boys with whom she had recently quarreled. When they noticed her presence, they were surprised, but then glared, remembering the argument.
Lily was still breathing hard. "Sorry I didn't believe you earlier," said Lily. "I think you two may be on to something. I just heard Slughorn and McGonagall talking."
Rory and Sam's faces softened a bit, and they were slowly becoming less bristled.
"What'd they say?" asked Sam, who was shifting on the bench to face her.
"Not much," Lily said. "Just something about needing to get rid of something the Erkling was sent to look for."
"Did you hear anything about what the thing might be?" Sam said.
"No, nothing," Lily shook her head.
Sam looked disgruntled for a moment, before Lily spoke up again, her words surprising even her.
"So," she said. "You guys still up for that great big adventure?"
Rory finally gave in, and looked at Lily with his familiar smile. "Are you serious?"
Lily just looked at him, and said, "Go team."
Fifteen minutes later, the trio had managed to get through the mass of people in the stands of the Quidditch match and retreat once more into the castle. Currently, they were situated at one of the many tables in the library, where Madam Pince was their only company, and she was rows and rows of books away.
"So," Lily said, looking at her two friends. "What exactly are we looking for?"
"Well, er, we don't really know," said Sam, rather sheepishly.
"Do you even know that there is something that someone wants found?" Lily said this more harshly than she had meant to. "What I mean is," she said more gently. "Do we know that there's anything hidden here?"
"Well, no," answered. "Not for sure."
Lily sighed, annoyed. "What do we know, exactly?"
"We know that Erklings usually are creatures sent by witches and wizards who want to find something." Sam said. "They don't stop until they are either killed or they find what they're looking for. There's more, I just can't remember what it is. Rory, will you pass me the book?"
Rory reached into his cluttered, disorganized schoolbag and pulled out the volume that Sam had been carrying during their last encounter. Sam opened the book and flipped through the pages until he found the one he was looking for.
"The Erkling is a generally neutral creature, though Dark witches and wizards have been known to persuade them to do the said witch or wizard's bidding. Most often, they are sent to find something and bring it back to their master because of the Erkling's silence and intelligence. Erklings can do magic, such as making themselves or other objects vanish, and they can perform minor curses, jinxes, and hexes. If sent to find a particular object or artifact, the Erkling will do everything in its power to get the job done. There are few ways to stop the Erkling from completing the task: death, a powerful Confundus charm, or an order to stop the search given by he or she who initially assigned the task. Stunning spells and imprisonment or capture will temporarily stop the Erkling, but the spell will wear off and it will find a way out of its capture." Sam read all this from the fine print of the book.
"Wow," Lily said, eyes wide. "Where did you even find that thing, anyway?"
"In here," Sam shrugged. "I was looking for that book that Professor Binns assigned us to read, and I found this one. I opened it to see if it had anything useful in it, and it turns out it did!"
"I'll say," Rory said. "Blimey, look at this!" He grinned, pointing to a spot in the book, and began to read.
"Spinderpoofs will typically insert themselves in between the buttocks-"
"Let's stay on task," Lily smiled nervously.
"Right," Sam grinned. "So, we know that Erklings are basically Dark creatures and that someone wants something found."
"Now, all we have to do is find out what. Should be easy," Rory said sarcastically.
"Anybody have any ideas?" Lily looked at Rory and Sam hopefully. She couldn't ignore the sinking suspicion that she probably hadn't been supposed to enter the room in the empty corridor, and that she definitely hadn't been supposed to find what was in there.
"Maybe it's another Sorcerer's Stone?" Rory suggested. "I mean, your dad did find the original one when he was our age."
Lily ignored the cry of annoyance that was begging to escape her. "Maybe, but I doubt it." Lily said. "The original took forever to make, and I doubt any copy would be as good. And besides, who'd want to steal it, anyway?"
"I dunno," Rory shrugged. "It was just an idea."
"Well…" Lily rested her chin in her hand. "I have no idea. Sam?"
Sam shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "It's probably Dark, because Erklings are Dark creatures, but we knew that already. There's not really much else we know."
Rory rubbed his eyes. "This is wearing my brain out, and I still have piles of homework. Let's take a break."
Lily and Sam agreed, and used the rest of the Quidditch match to do work, because it had started to rain and none of them fancied going back outside.
None of them brought up the topic for the rest of the weekend, but by the time Monday rolled around, the room and the glowing trunk were still floating across Lily's thoughts.
Lily purposefully stayed behind after Transfiguration to talk to Professor Lanset. She figured that if anyone could offer words of wisdom, it'd be the young, funny Quidditch-player-turned-teacher.
After talking herself out of leaving the classroom with the question unanswered for the umpteenth time, Lily figured it was now or never.
"Um…Professor?" Lily looked up from her bag, which she was packing up very, very slowly. "Could I ask you a question?"
"Fire away," Professor Lanset said.
"The other day, I took some directions from Peeves, something I'll never do again because they got me totally lost. Where they got me, though, was in a corridor I've never seen before. I don't know where it was exactly, but it was somewhere I've never been. All the doors were locked except one, which was open, and I went in because I thought it might be the classroom I was looking for," Lily said, fudging the truth on the last part, because she had known it was most certainly not a classroom. "The only thing in the room was a trunk. Something was inside it, I could see light coming from the keyhole. When I stepped inside, the room threw me back to the Entrance Hall."
Lily realized this wasn't a question shortly after she said it, but let it go, her point having been made.
Professor Lanset looked at her curiously for a moment before saying, "This school has many corridors that even teachers have not fully explored. Hogwarts is protected by old Charms and there are quite a few curious things hidden in these walls. I wouldn't worry if I were you; after all, magic will be found in a school of magic."
Lily considered this for a moment, before deciding it made sense. She thanked her professor, and hurried off to her next class.
