Lily Evans was an amazing witch. Everyone told her so. Her talents in Charms were unparalleled. Her potions amazed the Potions Master so much that he welcomed her into his special club for the best and brightest of the school. All of her friends asked for her help, and she had never turned them down. The Headmaster called her by name last week, so yes, Lily Evans was sure she was an amazing witch.

And she was furious. Someone, somehow, was flipping the letters 'c' and 'k' on her Transfiguration homework. The first time, Professor McGonagall had given back her assignment with a big E on top and a small comment on the bottom about minor spelling errors. Lily had never been so embarrassed, believing she had actually misspelled the word 'cat'. But now she was positive that it wasn't her fault. It was too frequent, too evil, to be an accident.

So in between writing her assignments without the letters 'c' or 'k', Lily was on the hunt for the perpetrator. There were many suspects, too many, really. Between her flawless academic performance and outstanding social standing, there were no small number of jealous students. Good old fashioned muggle detective work would be her only recourse.

The facts were thus: of the past six assignments, five had been altered. The first two were only noticed after the fact, when Professor McGonagall handed them back with a frown and slight shake of the head. The third had been rigorously proofread, several times, by several people, and yet it too had fallen victim to the evil design of the mysterious perpetrator. Lily hadn't kept the fourth assignment out of her sight until the moment she placed it in the pile on top McGonagall's desk. For three days she agonized over its return; surely it would be safe in the possession of an adult. What mad creature would dare break into a professor's office? It was returned with a bright, big O.

Thinking herself safe in the arms of repetition, Lily's fifth assignment would have had her in tears if crying weren't so beneath her. A disgusting, filthy A marred the parchment,

On her sixth homework, Lily didn't use a single 'c' or 'k'. It was quite the feat, one that ordinarily might have made her proud. Right before she walked up to the front to hand it in, inspiration struck, and she wrote the letter 'c' at the edge of the parchment. Classes ended, as classes do, and for a few days Lily excelled at life, as Lily's do. But at the next lesson, at the very bottom of her Outstanding assignment, she saw the letter 'k' tucked in the corner.

But why? Who would steal a parchment from a professor, especially the notoriously strict McGonagall, just to change a single letter? Why leave the others untouched? What sick pleasure were they getting out of this?

Lily was caught up in her brilliant thinking, so she only heard the tail-end of a nearby conversation.

"- still can't believe you spelled your own name wrong."

" I was up late with Robert. Don't look at me like that, we -"

It took Lily a moment, because she was so over Katharine's drama, but then it clicked. There were others! A break in the case! Lily rushed over to the nearby girls, and she tripped. The laces of her shoes had magically turned to jelly.

One day in class, Harry raised his hand. Defense Against the Dark Arts was hardly the place for curious children, though, as Mary Hopkiss - age 16, pureblood - had found out months ago. Her father, a famous and brilliant magizoologist if Mary was to be believed, had recently published a book on non-corporeal, sentient creatures that ("could, perhaps, maybe," she said) disagreed with Professor Carrow's theory of Dementor Intangibility. Slytherin lost over thirty points before she finally stormed out of the classroom, ending the increasingly heated exchange between teacher and pupil.

The day after, twelve Ravenclaws spent the entire class time asking questions, talking over each other, never letting Carrow a second to deduct points. By the end of class, however, twelve Ravenclaws had been admitted to the Hospital Wing.

So to see a second-year Hufflepuff with his pale, spindly fingers in the air was a most unusual thing indeed. His classmates barely paid attention to Carrow listing the clever ways Cornish Pixies could kill buffoon-headed school children, so distracted were they by Harry and his hand. But Harry was not used to much physical effort, and his arm grew tired, and so he held up his elbow with his other hand, and then soon even that wasn't enough. His hand fell to the table with an unspectacular thump.

Carrow smiled and kept on lecturing.

"Professor," Harry said. "When are we going to learn about werewolves?"

Immediately, but discreetly, a half dozen Hufflepuffs took out their wands and pointed them at Harry, ready to Curse him silent.

"Waters," said Professor Carrow, "see me after class."

For the remainder of the hour, no one made a noise. And as the other students rushed out, a few of Harry's friends gave some reassuring words.

"Don't say anything too stupid," Carol whispered.

"Just don't say anything at all," added Sean.

The door closed, and then Harry was alone with Professor Carrow.

"Werewolves? Explain yourself."

"They're these wolf monsters," Harry said. "But only during the full moon -"

"Explain your interest in werewolves."

"Well, I suppose I'm having trouble figuring out how dangerous they are. The books can't decide if they can tear through magic with their claws or if they're nothing but twisted, skeleton dogs. And how easy is it for werewolves to hide what they are? How often do they have to shave their bushy beards and file down their huge teeth? When do children werewolves start getting their super strength, because in this one book, this man was squashing baby werewolves - "

Throughout the speech, which was quite long and thus Harry would be treating himself to seconds at dinner, Professor Carrow strummed his fingers on his desk.

"Stop talking."

Carrow stood up, and walked over to the window, staring outside as if he were talking to the sky and not the student behind him.

"Do you know why it's called the Forbidden Forest?"

"I reckon because it's forbidden, sir."

"It's filled with some of the most horrible creatures," said Professor Carrow. "There is no beast or being in all of Britain that can't be found in that forest. And do you know what the most dangerous creature of them all is, Waters?"

"No." Harry never had found out the correct answer to that question.

"Man."

Pure, unadulterated fury ran through Harry.

"Consider the hippogriff. So powerful it can crush stone with a kick, and claws so sharp it can tear through bone. But bow your head for a few seconds, and it's as docile as a Krup. What does that mean?"

"That kindness is its only kind of magic?"

"That no matter violent, how strong, how wild, anything can be dominated by man."

Harry wondered where this was going.

"You're probably wondering where this is going."

"No, sir."

"I consider myself first and foremost a magizoologist," said Professor Carrow. "And here at Hogwarts, I have been given a chance, one that I do not intend to squander. You will help me."

"What?"

"One point from Hufflepuff. You do not speak unless spoken to. Do you understand?"

The room was too cold for this. Harry wanted to yell and whip out his wand and burn the room to a crisp, but he found that he couldn't move his arms and his legs were heavy. His fingers were a bit too damp and he had trouble getting a firm grip on his books and his heartbeat was distracting him, since when did it beat so fast?

"I said," Professor Carrow said. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"So, how many books disagree with each other? How many experts are there in Dementors who haven't even seen one? But here at Hogwarts, here, I'm the foot of knowledge. You seem quite interested in Magical Creatures. That's good. Too many people are content to let them live around us, in the unknown. "

"Yes, sir."

"There are terrible, terrible things out there, Waters. And together, we will find them, we still study them. And we will know them so well, that soon, even the youngest of our kind could destroy them in a single spell."

And at that moment, when a shiver ran down Harry's back, a messy haired girl ran into the room, the sound of her shoes on the stone floor echoing in the room.

"Professor, sir, the err, the Headmaster wants to see you. Professor."

She half-curtsied and ran out the room. Without a word, Carrow followed her, his cloak billowing behind him.

It billowed pretty hard, apparently, because it caused a parchment to fall from the professor's desk. Curiosity seized him, and after all, it would only be polite to pick it up. He was all alone in the classroom, so it wasn't like anyone else could do it. Harry picked it up and tried very hard not to read it; he brought it to the desk and tried very hard not to read it; he placed it down next to a pile of other parchments and - wasn't that curious, they all had names on them.

There were only a dozen or so names, most scratched out. The handwriting was extremely messy. This sort of penmanship would usually warrant an automatic T and a stern talking to, but it would hypocritical of Harry to judge. Still, Harry was upset, and the impromptu cleaning up didn't help matters.

So before he left the classroom, Harry grabbed something off of Carrow's desk. Not like Carrow would miss it. Besides, Carrow was being a real berk, he deserved this. And that business with the papers? Awfully suspicious . And why was his name on one?

But he forgot all about his questions and concerns when he ran into Remus in the Library hours later.

"Look what I found!" Harry said.

Harry waved a silver candlestick in the air, a goofy smile on his face.

"Harry," said Remus, "is that yours?"

"No, it was on Professor Carrow's desk."

"Stop! What are you doing? You show that to everyone, and you'll get detentions for years!"

"What do I do?"

"Give it here. At least let me Transfigure it a bit."

Remus took out his wand and muttered a spell. The candlestick quickly melted down into a silver puddle on the table before bouncing back up and coalescing into a silver marble.

"There. Now what are you going to do with that?" said Remus.

"Who's that?" said Harry.

Harry pointed to the only other person nearby, a tall Gryffindor carrying an even taller pile of books.

"Melinda Hotchner," said Remus.

"Oy Melinda! Catch!"

A black haired girl apparently named Melinda caught the marble that had been so rudely thrown at her, scowled at the two boys who were suspiciously reading books, and walked out the Library with the marble safely tucked away in her pocket.

"How many candlesticks do you plan on stealing?" Remus said. "Because you might want to find a spoon set next, it'd be more convenient."

"Relax."

Harry revealed the silver marble in his hand.

"Switching Spells. And don't worry Remus, we'll do whatever we need to catch the werewolf, especially after what he did to what's his name."

"Merlin, Harry, his name is Charles."

"Great. And we can eliminate Melinda from our list of suspects."

"You're still serious about this."

"Serious? You saw what they did to Charles!"

Harry worried that he had pushed Remus too hard. Not everyone was cut out for sleuthing.

"You really want to find whoever did that?" said Remus.

"You want to let that thing go around the school willy-nilly?"

"Dumbledore knows what he's doing. He's the most powerful wizard in the world."

"Tell that to Charles."

"Well," Remus said, "what if it wasn't a werewolf?"

"It was a full moon that night, Remus. And we know there's a werewolf at Hogwarts."

"Over a month has passed, and the full moon was a few days ago, and Charles was in detention with Filch all night."

"Good for him?" said Harry.

"And he didn't turn into a werewolf. He isn't infected. That means it wasn't a werewolf."

"How do you know he was with Filch?"

"Err- I, that's to say, a friend, more of a classmate of mine, followed him ."

"You followed him? That's brilliant, I should have thought of that!"

"I didn't follow him."

"But that doesn't change anything. You heard what Pomfrey said. What Dumbledore said. He was attacked, so what if he wasn't infected? No one knows how werewolves work, how it spreads."

Remus sighed. Harry sighed, too.

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"Fine," said Remus. "I'll do what I can."