Chapter 10: Never Steal a Book from a Bookworm

Words: 2,618

Recap: We managed to discover the secret-but-not-secret-anymore-founder's tower. Confirming by Gryffindor's himself (Okay, his painting if you want to be technical) the existence and the clue for his key by his unnecessary horrid singing. Either somebody must never tell him how awful he was or he just doesn't care.

Once we were done with our Nightly Excursion, Lily and Sev went back to their respective dorm, while I had to dash back upstairs, pulled James out of the closet, and threw cold water at. Jolting him awake. He glared at me but I went on chastising him for sleeping in the job as if I wasn't in any way responsible for his sleepiness. But...well...let's keep that bit buried indefinitely.

The next day, I had DADA on my first period and had a hard time concentrating when the object of scrutiny was right in front of me. Teaching the class with his hissing talk. A few times, he called my name only for me to draw blanks from the lesson and had to flap out nonsense or had Doc mouthed a given help. Heckler looked non impressed by my lack of attention. Giving me a warning or two.

Still, other than the usual mishaps spells I made in the next few periods. I thought after the discovery we made last night and the end of my detention, I wouldn't need to encounter trouble so soon.

Clearly, I was wrong.

I barely got out of the classroom when Sev literally barreled down at me. Surprising me enough to topple me down.

"Sev, what the hell?"

"Sorry," he said as he got up from being tangled up with me.

That got me looking him up in concern. No offense to Sev, but he was never one to willingly apologize first without prompting except to Lily, and he was sweating while looking more distraught than usual and Sev is usually the epitome of calm and calculated. Something obviously was wrong here. I didn't even get to ask him before he began dragging me off, and I didn't fight him off.

"What happened?"

He only answered with one word, "Lily."

That was all it took for me fasten my pace, and out walk Severus though he still guided me where we were going so I had to slow down at some points. We were back at Heckler's office, the door was quite ajar (there were signs that the handle had been roughly mistreated) so we didn't need to stick our ears to the door to hear what's been said in there.

"DO NOT LIE AND ANSWER ME! WHERE IS THE BOOK?!" Heckler yelled out and had made me jumped by the loud coherent words I've ever heard him use.

Lily whimpered and I couldn't blame her doing so, being the target of his fury.

"Calm your voice down Heckler, she's a child for Pete's sake. Be mindful of your tone," McGonagall's stern but calming voice resounded.

"I understand your distressed that you just be feeling Professor Heckler," Professor Dumbledore added, sounding like someone who was chiding a child, "but I suggest it's best for you to reign in your anger and to approach this in a respectful way."

"I'll bloody talk "respectful" but not to a little thief!"

"Bu...but I told you. I didn't do it. I swear I didn't, please believe me."

"I'll believe you when you give me my book back!"

"I don't have it."

"Give me my book back!" Professor Heckler said while gritting his teeth. Had it not been for the presence of the other two Professors in the room, I think he would growl at her.

Sev and I exchanged look, his eyes were worried and lost. Confused at the sudden turn of event that we most definitely weren't expecting. From what I could tell from the conversation, basically Professor Heckler lost his precious book regarding the Lost Treasure and he suspected Lily of stealing it. Which is a ridiculous idea since not only doesn't have a Hermes' bone in her body, she would have told us if she had taken the book. Which also begs the question of why he would make her the first suspect.

"I have never gone a day without my book by my side and the last time I saw it was when we had our "conversation", ring any bellssssh?"

I didn't know what Lily had looked like, but I could guess that her face was as pale as we are when his words began to sink in on us.

"That wasn't me-I didn't-someone else came after me, it's-"

"Already trying to blame someone else are you Miss Evans? Honestly, you're making your case worse and you've already lost much credibility with you disappearing from my room at the same time as my book."

"ENOUGH!" McGonagall called him out and I could imagine her glaring disapprovingly at him, "Professor Heckler, control yourself!"

"I will not!" Wow, that's a shocker. This is a first time someone went against McGonagall upright, "Now see here Miss, you're going to tell me where you hide my precious book or I'll use my authority as Professor to give you detention. I hear the Forbidden Forest is short of watchmen tonight and that Mister Rubeus is short of friends."

My eyes widen at his implication, "Is he serious?" I hissed at Sev, "That's basically telling Lily to die in a ditch, we barely survived the last time we went there!"

Sev just shook his head solemnly, "Oh he's dead serious Percy. Remember that Hogwarts isn't a muggle school, we don't do things as normal and safe here. Shouldn't you know this by now?"

Oh, I do know this, but this school teaches to control magic not to fight. There's a difference. Dumbledore even confirmed it himself. So why the hell isn't the other two professors saying anything?! Or is this part of their contract that you could punish student however they want?

"What are we going to do? We can't stand around and do nothing!"

Agreeing with Sev's sentiment, I wasn't sure what we should or how to help her so I just did the first thing that came to mind without properly thinking. Or to put it in one word that's becoming a favorite of mine, improvise.

I burst in without care of disturbing their talk, ignoring their surprise at my sudden arrival, and blurting out a bombshell, "It was me. I stole the book." There was an audible slapped from behind me but I didn't need to turn to know what and who prompt it.

I looked over to see how the occupant of the room was reacting more or less how I imagined they would react; Lily was evidently gobsmacked at my daring proclamation, McGonagall had briefly looked up to the ceiling followed with soft exasperated words of "Of course it's you" that I could tell from my amateur lip-reading. Dumbledore's only clue of surprise was by his widening eyes and slightly parted lips but kept his calm mask in place, then there was Professor Heckler who was surprisingly had nothing to say after all that shouting and growling he made, and instead looked down at me pensively. I wasn't sure what he was thinking, but either he was trying to discern if I was telling the truth or if he could Jedi mind me into killing me.

Heckler opened his mouth, ready to respond to my impromptu claim.

"It was me!"

Until it was cut off short by another exclamation that got all of us to whipped our head. Even me. Especially me actually.

"You're right, it was me," my red-haired friend said, "I did it, I stole the book when I came to talk with the Professor."

There was another banging sound from behind me, but one that sounded like skin-to-wood contact I had to choose to ignore since I was busy gaping at Lily. Before I could so much as say a word, Professor Dumbledore has cut me off.

"Well, this is quite a dilemma we're in. It would seem while one book of Professor Heckler was stolen, two students are claiming to have stolen it." I know I might be talking crazy, but I could have sworn Dumbledore had sounded amused. I wouldn't be surprised if he was smirking underneath all that bushy white beard of his.

"And you suspected me of it, right? Then I confessed, you were right that I stole it yesterday."

"Don't listen to her! She's only saying that because she's trying to protect me."

"Oh that's rich coming from you," Lily said as she bared her teeth at me, "I'm not the one eavesdropping and burst in while pretending to even know what we had been talking about from the start."

"Seeing as you were swearing up and down that you didn't steal it. It's a bit late for you to claim that now, don't you think?"

We were stuck between a glaring match, both of us had a stubborn pleading glint to have the other stand down while the other took the blame. Lily opened her mouth, about to shot back another retort but was stopped short.

"ENOUGH!" Heckler bellowed that got the two of us to shut up. He sent the two of us one last glare before asking, "Now I don't care which one of you stole my books and I'm willing to forget all this ever happened if one of you decides to return that book."

Our faces simultaneously paled since the truth of the matter was that we don't have it and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"I dropped it in the lake," Lily said.

"I accidentally tossed it into the hearth," I said as well at the same time.

Heckler's eyebrow twitched before he closed his eyes and sunk his head down that the shadow hid half his face. The silent was discerning, way in contrast to his angry outburst before. Unnerving Lily to the point she was slightly backing away and even the two Professors by his side was eyeing him worriedly.

Until…

"β§# #!$$μ¥※-"

...uuh, whatever that is. I didn't know what he was saying, but I think I caught a few Latin words somewhere. He was speaking fast and his nasal voice was back making it more gibberish than hearing proper words but I was sure I had heard him saying "Head sucker", "Dementing dog nutsack" and "Merlin's weathered ass," though whether he meant the cursing or the donkey, I wasn't quite sure. Even the two Professors were too bewildered by his sudden exclamation to do anything.

"FINE!" Heckler practically roared out, "If you two are so eager to be the thief and aren't going to return my book anytime soon then so be it! Have fun spending the night at the Forbidden Forest because that's where your detention will be."

Jeez, not even Annabeth was this upset about her book. And I'd seen what she does to the poor sod who had rip only a page of her architecture book. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

"Now get out of my office before I could think of a worse punishment!"

We didn't need any more prompting before we dashed out of the office. I heard the snippets of conversation between the three professors and I wasn't going to be around to hear the impending verbal fight that was coming so the three of us got the heck out of here.

Once we were at a safe distance where the lack of people provided us with calm reassurance. It was then that Sev switched flat looks between the two of us before sighing, "Lily, I'm sorry to say this, but both of you are idiots."

"Hey, we're not that bad!" I complained.

"You especially Percy," his flat look turned more into his signature glare while pointing at me, "How in the name of Merlin's Beard did you think that claiming to be the thief was a good idea?"

"What was I supposed to do? I couldn't sit still and watch Lily be accused as a thief when she's obviously not."

"Fat a lot of good it did," he grumbled, "The only reason it works is that because you tick him enough. I doubt he actually believes you."

"Well, he would have if one of us hadn't tried to play the hero." I leveled a glare to him.

That caused Lily to make indignant gawk, "Excuse me? You are the last person I want to hear that from Percy Jackson! Your help was the last thing I need when Heckler had threatened to sent me detention to The Forest!"

"How am I making it worse? That doesn't make sense."

Lily buried her face to her hand and groaned, "Per-cy-," she said my name in gritted teeth, "Have you forgotten what exactly rest in The God-Forbid-Forest?"

I furrowed my brows, "Of course I do. There's the Hodags, the Unicorns, the Cent-Ah." I couldn't help the last word escape from me.

I could tell Lily barely restrained a growl, "Yes, "Ah" indeed."

Sev, for once, was clueless while looking back and forth between us, "What do you mean "Ah"? What the hell is "Ah"?"

Lily volunteered to explain, her scathing glare still trained to me, "Ah," as in remember when we told you last year why Percy was banned from the Forest?"

"Oh, that "Ah"" Sev let out in realization. He then cocked his head to the side, clearly musing something in mind, "You know...to be fair...seeing as the forest is supposed to be forbidden in the first place, making it banned for Percy is kind of a moot point now that I think about it."

Lily had her brows twitched and made aggravated groaned while I grinned from his words, "Sev does have a point there Lily," I tried to lighten the air only to whimpered when two pair of eyes shot me a look that says to keep my mouth shut. "Shutting up now."

The anger and fight in Lily's eyes dwindled, and she tucked her head down in defeat, "Look, there's nothing we could do at this point. We just have to get through tonight and hope nothing bad happens. Even if things turned out we have to run for our lives, I'm sure Hagrid will be with us to keep us from getting mauled. After all, what's the worst that could happen?"

. . .

"Lily. Next time, kindly try not to goad The Fates and asked them to bite on our ass."

"I will remember that," Lily gulped as she scanned the area of an all-out massive brawl of every kind of monsters you could think off; Centaurs, Wolves, a mass army of spiders that would make Annabeth faint, a black edition of Wookiees, even Deers and Stags. And let me tell you now that by no means they are normal if one of the stags managed to flip a wolf-like a bag of sack in the way, nor the glittering crystal-like antlers they had, or the snarl that showed their canine teeth no herbivores should have. "In my defense, this is all James' fault," she said while pointing at the boy next to her.

Said person, who had been gaping at the scene whipped his head at her with a squawk, "How the bloody hell is this my-" he was cut off by the pair of glaring green eyes at him that made him scratched the back of his neck sheepishly as his face began to flushed, "Uuh, well...that is...oh give me a break, it was an accident!"

"ACCIDENT MY FOOT. YOU CAUSED A FREAKING TURF WAR!"

I'm sure all of you have some questions. So to recap what happened that resulted in this insane situation and why. Well, you'll have to find that out in the next chapter because it's going to be a long one.