"Guys!" Lucy whisper yelled as she got close to her friends in the library. Even at the softer volume, Madam Pince still sent a stink eye her way.
Blaise and Hermione both glanced up at her. Blaine's straight nose scrunched up as he took in the look on her face.
"What are you planning?" he demanded.
"Listen, I'm about to go do something semi stupid, and I might get hurt. I need you guys to cover for me. Wait for me by the lake. When I come back, you can't tell anyone anything. I'll explain tonight, I promise!" She called as she turned and left before they could gather their whits.
They gaped at each before jumping up. Even though they left maybe 30 seconds after her, they had lost her.
"How does she do that?" Hermione asked as she tugged on a wayward curl.
"Lucy knows more secret passageways than anyone except those gryffindor twins," Blaise said. His face remained smooth, but Hermione recognized the anxious look in his eyes.
"What do we do now then?" Hermione demanded.
"I guess we have to figure out what's going on for ourselves. Come on," Blaise replied.
Meanwhile, Lucy was racing through the corridors. Today was the day. The big showdown between Harry and Voldemort.
At least, it was supposed to be.
It was a beautiful spring day with bright sunshine and a moderate temperature that lured many students and staff outside. She'd checked, and Dumbledore was gone for the castle.
This was the day it had happened the first time around, but what would happen this time?
Quirrel wasn't possessed but the events with the bitten unicorn proved that Voldemort was definitely around possessing someone. Who was it?
And, without Hermione as a friend, how would Harry ever get through the traps?
Upon reaching the third floor corridor, she pulled a harp from her pocket and enlarged it. It would've been nice to just be able to conjure one, but even with all her extra practice, she was only back to about a third grade level. Impressive for a first year, but not enough. So shrinking and enlarging items was her current method.
The harp was a simple plastic kid's toy. As she unlocked the door to the corridor, she pressed the button and set it to play.
Fluffy gave a low growl, but his eyes were already starting to droop from the toys music.
Once all six eyes were closed and a deep snoring sound came from the wet nostrils, she edged her way around the animal.
A blue blaze of flames were already lit from her focus stone before she even hit the plant. The tendrils stopped in midair and backed away from its previous decision to reach toward her.
Now came the tricky part. Harry (and probably Ron) would die if they jumped down like last time. There would be no reminding Hermione of her abilities as a witch and trademark flames.
Lucy used some pruning charms that Neville had once taught her. They were ridiculously easy, but also highly specialized because they were designed to cut magical plants. They easily cut back the vines until no pieces were long enough to ensnare Harry. Plus, since it was a first year level spell, Dumbledore may wonder how Harry learned it, but he wouldn't be suspicious of whether or not Harry or Ron performed the spell. It was critical that Dumbledore not learn about her.
Before going any further, Lucy pulled a full face mask from a different pocket and slipped it over her face. She'd gotten the idea from some of the video games Dudley used to play. It wouldn't do for Voldemort to realize who she was yet.
The next several traps she slipped through without adjusting.
Then it was Snape's logic puzzle.
"Snape might just be around Hermione level thinking," she said out loud as she considered the potions. "But way meaner than her."
It made her pause for one second, then, because what would have happened to Hermione if she had never become friends with Harry and Ron the first time around? Could the isolation have made her as bitter as Snape?
Still, not the right time for such philosophical thinking.
Continuing on, Lucy drank a version of the antidote she had brewed herself and brought along so that Harry would have some. Then she switched all of the bottles contents with more of the antidote. That way Harry could get through regardless of which one he picked, plus, he wouldn't get poisoned. It might take him longer than it had Hermione, but Lucy felt fairly confident that Harry would eventually pick one of the bottles to try.
Slipping into the final room, she took in the mirror standing in the middle of the room and carefully avoided it before taking up a position along the side with her back to the wall. Eventually, she hoped to be able to use Angel magic to cloak herself from view of most, but she'd had basically no time to try to learn such a thing. Unfortunately, Harry had the invisibility cloak.
So she settled for a disillusionment charm and a cheap invisibility cloak over top of that. It wouldn't work against a well trained Auror or Death Eater, but hopefully it would against a professor as long as Voldemort was hidden.
Which was a whole different concern. None of the other staff wore any sort of hat or turban. How was Voldemort hidden?
Then, she waited, just like her friends were several floors above her.
Her heart seemed to beat loud enough to lead a band when the flames flickered out for a minute and a figure stepped through.
A fist shoved into her mouth is all that stopped Lucy from gasping out loud.
She hadn't known who Voldemort was possessing, certainly someone in the school, but she had never expected this.
Stepping through the doorway was not a staff member, instead, it was a student.
But maybe she should have, afterall in second year, Voldemort had possessed Ginny, only a second year.
The tall sixth year stepped fully into the room, and frowned at the mirror in annoyance. Her eyes scanned the room quickly, but they didn't even pause on Lucy. She was taller than the average woman with thick dark hair done in a mess of braids wrapped around her head like a crown.
Lucy nearly gasped again when she realized that the updo must be what was hiding Voldemort's face. It was so perfect, who would suspect a thick hairdo of hiding a second face? Many of the female students wore their hair in buns and different styles. Even McGonagall always had her hair up in that strict bun.
"A mirror, really?" the girl complained. Her blue tie and badge claimed her as a Ravenclaw; though Lucy was cursing herself for not even knowing the girl's name.
"The stone must be in the mirror," a raspy voiced hissed from somewhere on the girl's body.
"Yes, master," the girl replied, her voice instantly changing from the whiny tone to a high pitched simper reminding Lucy of Aunt Petunia's voice during one of Vernon's business dinners.
The unknown student stepped up to the mirror and gazed in it. She even pulled out her wand and tried a number of revealing spells but nothing happened. Her motions became tenser and sharper as she tried more spells with no avail.
By the time the flames to the doorway turned blue and Harry Potter stepped through, Lucy could see how little patience remained in the female student.
"Harry Potter," the girl said, "I've been waiting for you."
"Scarlett?" Harry asked.
Lucy silently snapped her fingers, right, Scarlett Courseling. A brilliant student. If she remembered correctly, she had originally graduated Hogwarts and stayed true to her family's neutral leaning. What had changed?
"Yes, yes, Scarlett, what are you doing here? I thought you were just my magical theory tutor," Scarlett's voice became a bad imitation of a prepubescent boy before switching back to her regular voice, "It's been so annoying all term trying to act like I actually cared about you. I've even been sabotaging your tutoring so that it would be even harder for you to defeat my master."
While Lucy winced at the sabotage that seemed so similar to what Snape had done with Occlumency training, Harry seemed to be focused on Scarlett's wording.
"Your master? So, but, does that mean you're working for Voldemort?" he asked.
"Of course! Now, help me get the stone out of this mirror for him," she snapped and a wave of her wand had Harry completely immobilized and scraping along the floor in front of the mirror. Lucy rolled her eyes when she realized that Harry hadn't even pulled out his wand.
"What are you doing? Stop! If he's making you help him, you don't have to. Dumbledore can-" Harry started to say.
She interrupted him with a cold laugh, "The Dark Lord is not making me do anything. He came to me over the summer, offering me greatness. He knew that you were coming to school this year, and he needed a way in. At first, he thought of using a staff member, but they all stayed ensconced in the school. Luckily for me, that opened the opportunity for me to be used."
"Why would you want to?" Harry asked.
"Why would I want greatness? The opportunity to train under a magical genius? Who wouldn't want that? Even you, with the Potter sightings and the publicity. You could be so much more famous under Voldemort. Isn't that what you like? All you have to do is look in the mirror and pull out the stone for me. We will do the rest, but you will be greatly rewarded," she crooned in his ear.
Lucy tensed, ready to jump out if he made the wrong choice. She didn't know about this version of herself. Perhaps Harry did desire that.
Instead, Harry squared his shoulders, "I don't want greatness and I certainly don't want to be rewarded by the man who killed my parents. I don't see the stone."
Smack!
His head was whipped to the side and a red line went across his cheek from one of her nails.
"The boy lies," the hissy voice said. "Let me see him."
"But master? Is that wise?" Scarlett asked.
"I said, show me to him!" the voice insisted.
Scarlett's hands reached up as she stared Harry in the eyes. Her fingers deftly pulled out pins and let down sections until her hair fell in two thick braids on either shoulder. Finally, her eyes were forced to leave Harry's as she slowly turned around.
Harry's face drained of any remaining color, leaving the red handprint and blood line to stick out sharply on his face. Lucy understood, she felt rather sick herself at seeing the disgusting appearance.
In the middle of the back of the head, the dark brown hair suddenly fell away to reveal a disfigured imitation of a human was like a child was given a mound of clay and told to model a human face. The features were somehow flat and less than completely human. Even in the thick brown sections, Lucy could see places where the rest of the hair was starting to fall away and big sores festering. The unicorn blood seemed to be rotting Scarlett from the inside out.
Lucy's nose wrinkled as the smell drifted across and hit her. It was somehow so much worse than just Quirrel's turban, the stench of unwashed hair and rotting flesh.
"Harry Potter," the voice hissed, more snake like than human.
"Voldemort," Harry replied.
"You may show me respect and call me the Dark Lord. Now, look into the mirror," Voldemort ordered.
A wave of Scarlett's wand had Harry facing the mirror, his eyes seemingly unable to look away.
Voldemort leaned closer to him, "What do you see Potter? Are you getting the stone and then greatness?"
Lucy knew the instant that the stone was moved into Harry's pocket. Unfortunately, it seemed that Voldemort knew too.
"He has it now! The stone!" he started to laugh as Scarlett turned around to grab the stone.
That was the moment that Lucy jumped out, her wand moving as the focus bracelet froze Scarlett's hand.
"Who are you?" Scarlett yelled in surprise.
"What is happening?" Voldemort cried and seemed to force Scarlett's head to turn in an unnatural way until he could see too.
"I've seen your past and your future Tom, and it is not good," Lucy said, trying to use her best creepy voice like one of the fortune tellers on TV.
It seemed to work because Voldemort's face twisted in anger, "No more seers! Use your wand on her!"
The fumble as Scarlett tried to turn back around was enough as Lucy sent a flame spell their way.
It caught hold of the ends of her robes, and the older girl tried to turn her wand to put out the flames.
"No, the seer!" Voldemort cried.
"But master," Scarlett cried as the flames spread up.
"Fool!" He yelled, "put out the flames."
But the girl was confused. In the struggle, Harry was freed.
Lucy was surprised to see him grab at Scarlett as though to stop her and then for both of them to scream as the protective magic burned.
Scarlett started to scream as her body went up in magical flames that were too progressed for her to put out.
The smell and heat scorched themselves into Lucy's nostrils, and she let it. The sound echoed in her mind, and she knew they would one day echo in her nightmares too. It was a small price to pay for potentially taking a life.
At the last second, Voldemort's soul slipped from Scarlett's body, and Lucy immediately did the counter curse to stop the flames. It was a specific spell, that could only be put out with a specific countercourse.
Leaning over the burnt body, Lucy poured the same magic she had used on the unicorn into healing the girls burnt body. It was slow, but the burns started to recede slightly on Scarletts chest and face. The rest of her body may be scarred for life, but Lucy thought she would live.
Looking over, she saw that Harry had passed out. No surprise there, it was a lot of magic used.
As she stood up, Lucy felt weak like she would pass out too. Regardless, she pushed herself forward; she had to get out before Dumbledore got here and found her.
She knew the old man must have a back door, and she had asked a couple older students about the third floor corridor. They had mentioned a maintenance corridor that had been a good make out spot. She went back to the chess room and found the old corridor almost completely hidden in an alcove like described.
Slipping through it, she stumbled her way back to a different part of the third floor.
As quickly as her aching limbs could manage, she made her way to the front lawn where she could see Blaise and Hermione waiting by the lake.
"Hey," she managed a bright smile at them before falling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~break~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lucy woke up in the hospital wing with the soft sound of talking only a bed over. It seemed that Dumbledore was talking with Harry.
"-ling was transferred to St Mungos. She will be fine Harry. I know it was a scary thing that happened, but your mother's sacrifice is still protecting you," Dumbledore said, then paused, "But did you cast a spell as well?"
" Yes, when I realized that touching her was burning her, I tried to set her on fire too. It didn't work very well, only the hems caught, and I felt so bad that I ended the spell right away," Harry said, and Lucy knew that he was covering for her. The thing she wasn't sure about was his reasoning, such as why he was covering for her.
Something in Dumbledore's voice sounded satisfied then, as though he had been concerned about something and now the mystery was solved, "My boy, what you did was done in self defense. There is no shame in that. Though the memories will stay with you forever, you must use those memories to help you do good rather than pushing you toward bad."
There was silence for a moment, and then Dumbledore said, "I will leave you to enjoy some treats then."
A sound of rustling told her that Dumbledore had left the curtained section around the bed. Silence filled the hospital wing before a shuffling sound hit her ears. She opened her eyes a crack as the shuffling grew closer to her. Harry's signature black hair slipped through the curtains between their beds, and his bright green eyes met her own blue.
"I know it was you," he said.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she wished she knew what story that Blaise and Hermione had given when they brought her here.
"Listen, you wore a mask, but you didn't do anything about your hair. You are the only person that small in the entire school with white hair," Harry said.
Lucy stared at him with her mouth open, before snapping it shut with a click. She let out several strongly worded phrases while Harry stared at her.
"If it makes you feel better, I'd be willing to bet that Voldemort thought the white hair was a disguise or that you're really really old," he told her.
She peered at him, "So if you suspected it was me, why didn't you tell Dumbledore?"
Harry paused, and their eyes met. Even though they were in different bodies, it felt like a connection passed between them. Finally looking into those eyes with peace around them, no immediate hurry, it felt like she was looking into her own eyes. A trust so deep filled her that she wondered if this was what Fred and George felt when they looked into each others eyes.
"You feel it too!" Harry said in surprise. "Every time I've even been slightly close to you this term, I feel that peace like I know you. Is it because you're a Seer? Have you seen my past and future?"
This time, she was the one to hesitate. She debated in her mind how much to tell him.
"Why didn't you tell Dumbledore?" She eventually compromised by asking.
"Because I don't completely trust him," Harry said. "He's very focused on the greater good, and I'd like someone focused on me."
She nodded, "I have seen your past and your future, but I want to change that. I want to make it better."
"Why even bother with me?" He asked her.
"Because a kid shouldn't have to go through that," she said.
His eyebrows furrowed as he frowned at her, "You're just a kid too."
She looked away. He watched as she swallowed once.
"But when I see those visions, it's like I'm living through them already. If I've already lived through it once, what does it matter if I live through it again?"
They both shared a look when they heard a door open.
"We are going to talk later," Harry said before he slipped back into his own hospital bed.
Madam Pomfrey opened the curtains on the other side of Lucy's bed, "Ms Ogden, it is good to finally see you awake!"
She puttered around, checking Lucy's pulse and plumping the pillows.
"How do you feel? Your friends said that you had exhausted yourself practicing for finals. Then I checked and your magical levels were almost completely depleted. I've talked with your head of house about having a discussion with you about age appropriate spells. You may have a large magical core, but you can't just try any spell you like, especially without supervision."
"I had supervision! Blaise and Hermione were watching out, and they got me here, didn't they?" Lucy replied.
"Blind leading the blind. In the future, it needs to be a professor or prefect, understood?" Pomfrey asked.
Lucy nodded.
Harry was released before Lucy to her annoyance. That evening, she made her way to the Great Hall. Students were still filtering in, so she was able to slip in with the crowd. She took the moment of anonymousness to look around. Harry's eyes met hers, and she nodded once to know she remembered he said they would talk later. Despite that, she planned on avoiding him as much as was possible.
At the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables, Blaise and Hermione were staring her down. She smiled sheepishly at each one.
The meal was a bit awkward for her, being stared down by her two friends. They caught up to her at the doors of the great hall.
Each one grabbed a different arm and dragged towards an empty classroom in the castle.
"Have you guys been planning this?" She accused them.
"Not much else to do for the last three days," Blaise told her.
"Three days? I slept for three days straight!" Lucy cried.
Hermione nodded as they deposited her into an empty chair and stood across from her with their arms crossed over their chests.
"Didn't anyone tell you? Both you and Potter have been in the hospital wing for days," Blaise complained.
"No, they just said I had been sleeping for a while," she said in surprise.
"Yeah you got out of final exams. We asked the professors, and they said since we were only first years that they would just use their class scores. Several of them seemed concerned that you would practice to the point of magical exhaustion. Not even Hermione did that," Blaise said. Hermione sent a side eye at Blaise while Lucy threw up her arms in frustration.
"I wanted to take the exams and prove where I was at in class rank!" She said.
"So what happened?" Hermione demanded.
"Better sit down, it's a bit of a story," Lucy told them wearily and watched as they each grabbed an empty chair and pulled it up to hers. She cast a couple of privacy charms just in case, then gave her attention to her friends.
"First of all, the unicorns blessing was some sort of purifying ritual, but it purified me to enable a magical creature inheritance to become active," she swung right into it. Carver and her had finally decided that they had to tell her friends something. Claiming a magical creature inheritance was basically true, they just weren't gonna go with Angel's.
Blaise seemed to understand more than Hermione if his widened eyes were any give away, "What other features did you get?"
"Mainly just the white hair and changed eye color. There are two other things," she told them. She let Carvers appearance spell slip off her for a second, and the glowing skin showed for a few seconds before she pulled the magic back over her like a tight wetsuit.
Finally, she focused on the drawing the wings from her back. She hissed slightly from the pain as the wings split her skin, but it hurt less each time she did it.
Across from her, both Hermione and Blaise gaped at her as the wings wider than her height spread out.
"I'm not positive, but I'm thinking maybe a sylph," Lucy told them.
She was definitely not a sylph, just an angel, but sylph would be a lot easier to explain. Perhaps one day she could tell them the truth.
"Are...aren't those the air elementals?" Hermione asked after thinking for a second.
Lucy nodded, "Yeah it would explain my natural affinity for flying. I'm guessing it must've been several generations back to prevent inbreeding, and the unicorns thought they were doing me a favor by unlocking additional abilities to help. Mostly, it's just annoying trying to keep it hidden."
"But how did you end up in the hospital wing?" Blaise asked.
Lucy double checked that the privacy charms were in place before leaning closer to her two friends. Her face had shifted to a serious look, the one they recognized as her thinking face.
"I have a secret to tell you guys, I'm actually a Seer," she whispered.
Hermione pulled back and started laughing, relief spreading over her face, "Good one, you had me going for a second there."
It took a moment, but her laughter faded off as the two stared at her without any humor. She ducked her head back close to theirs.
"Come-on guys, a Seer, really? This is a joke right?" Hermione asked them.
Lucy shook her head, "Unfortunately, no, it's not."
Hermione huffed, "Every book I've read says that Divination is a highly speculative art at best. People just make hypotheses vague enough that it could be true."
Blaise shook his head, "That's not what Lucy is talking about. She's not talking about crystal balls or reading tea leaves. She's saying that she physically sees visions of the future. It's super rare, but most wizards recognize that it is a magical talent. There is an entire hall at the ministry filled with true prophecies that have been spoken."
"Yeah, it's not something that can be learned; I was born like this, but it didn't really start until I almost died at seven. It runs in my mum's family, and they think the event triggered a dormant skill," Lucy explained.
Hermione still seemed skeptical, "What's your point?"
"Well, I saw that Voldemort was going to attack Harry, and I decided to intervene," Lucy said all of this very quickly while looking at the ground, but the other two still seemed to understand.
Blaise was concerned in a slightly different manner, "You decided to intervene!"
"Yep, so I was in the forbidden third floor corridor trying to help out Harry Potter. Voldemort was possessing a sixth year student Scarlet Courseling, I kind of set her on fire and Voldemort's spirit escaped," Lucy said.
"How do you kind of set someone on fire?" Hermione asked, then held up her hand, "Nevermind, I remember clearly what you did to the troll. That is not the part that I'm confused about."
"Why didn't you just get a teacher?" Blaise demanded.
"Harry tried that and none of them would listen. I could see that it would be pointless to even try. My only option was to protect Harry myself," Lucy said.
Blaise rolled his eyes, "You are a Hufflepuff, not a Gryffindor, you shouldn't have a saving people complex."
Hermione interjected, "We kind of have a confession to make ourselves, right Blaise?"
"Yeah, we kind of maybe tried to figure out what was going on. Potter and Weasley were running around asking where Dumbledore was and generally freaking out. We figured they might know something so we followed them."
"Straight to the third floor corridor," Hermione continued.
Lucy gaped at her two friends, not expecting this at all.
"They didn't notice us at all. We followed them part of the way through the traps, until Ron was knocked unconscious during that chess game. Can't believe you managed to get through, you're horrible at chess," Blaise threw in a jab at Lucy who couldn't even manage a retort.
"They had been saying stuff about stopping Voldemort, but they kept saying about Professor Snape too. So we decided to head back for help. We went to Professor Snape to make sure he wasn't involved. He was grading papers in his office, CLEARLY not involved. Honestly, he is a professor, so he's not evil," Hermione took a second to roll her eyes at Ron and Harry.
Blaise continued, "I went in and just said that I saw Weasley and Potter enter the forbidden third floor corridor. I couldn't believe how quickly Professor Snape moved after that, flooing for Dumbledore though still being vague because I was there before taking off for the third floor. He told me to stay behind."
"That's when we went to the lake to wait for you. Only took another like ten minutes before you collapsed in front of us smelling like something burnt," Hermione said. "We dragged you to the hospital wing and gave that story about you trying some high level spell while practicing for exams. It explained the low levels of magic and slight burnt smell as though the spell just backfired."
Lucy finally shut her mouth and tried to process that, "You guys are the best friends a girl could ask for."
Hermione grabbed Lucy in a hug, "Yes, and don't you ever scare us like that again or we'll turn our genius on punishing you."
"No saving people's complex," Blaise complained as Lucy turned and gave him a hug too.
The three friends smiled at each other. Lucy couldn't believe that they had done all that.
I can't believe he was possessing Scarlett. That must've been horrible," Hermione said.
Lucy shrugged, "Apparently he promised her greatness."
Hermione shivered, "Still, isn't Voldemort really old? Why would he even want to possess a teenage girl? Was he always there? Like during showers and stuff?"
All three took a collective moment to shiver.
"Now we need to go to the library. I need to look up Sylphs!" Hermione said, and the other two shared a smile that things were getting back to normal.
The rest of term passed quickly. Lucy managed to avoid Harry and the conversation that would eventually have to happen. For now, she wasn't sure what she was going to say to him.
She did have a rather interesting conversation with Professor Vector, the arithmancy professor.
"I heard that you dye your hair the muggle method," Professor Vector said as she stared down at the small first year she had stopped in the deserted hallway.
"Uhm, yeah, that's the rumor going around?" Lucy said, not really saying if she did or didn't.
"I'm not sure how you get the muggle potion into the school, but I do know the muggle solution works better. So many magic spells cancel illusions plus the constant drain on magic. Next time you receive the muggle potion, could you perhaps...order an extra box for me?" Professor Vector asked.
Lucy paused, that was unexpected, "Uh, yeah, I guess. What color would you like?"
"188 London Luxe by the VS brand," Professor Vector replied.
"I probably won't get any until next year," she warned the professor.
"That will be fine. I have an appointment to get my hair done this summer, but getting some at the school would be helpful in covering, if you understand what I mean?" Professor Vector said.
Lucy didn't, but she nodded anyway.
She pulled a small notepad from her pocket that she had taken to carrying around and added a note to find a way to get hair dye sent to her next school year. Otherwise, that rumor might unravel, and she would have to find a new reason why her hair was white.
Another interesting conversation with professors happened when Lucy cornered Professor Quirrell in his office.
"Ms. Ogden, c-c-can I help you?" he asked as he continued grading papers.
"I know the stutter is fake," she said.
Quirrell paused in his grading before looking up at her, "Ahh, you are the first to tell me that."
"Why are you faking a stutter?" she demanded.
He met her eyes, no stutter present when he started to talk, "I was the Muggle Studies Professor for four years, and no one noticed me. I was no one's favorite teacher. None of the staff were particularly fond of me. I could've gone away for an entire year and no one would even have noticed. I was going to take a year off too, but then I went into Muggle London for some research. I saw this group of street performers. Their acting grabbed my attention. I watched how everyone else stopped and stared at them too. That's how I came up with my plan."
Lucy furrowed her eyebrows, "What plan?"
"It took an entire year to convince Dumbledore to give me the defense position. Honestly, I think he was just so desperate to get someone in the position that he finally gave in and let me. Then, I came up with this story about an accident over the summer, falling and hitting my head, getting attacked. Boom, reason for the stuttering."
"Ok?" Lucy asked, not seeing where this was going.
"It gave me a school year to practice my acting. Don't you see, I've had to stay in character for this entire year without giving it away? That gave me the confidence I needed to apply to the English Wizarding Academy of Arts. I knew I could play any character given. I just received the notice back that I was offered a job!" Quirrell finished, holding up the acceptance letter and beaming.
Lucy snatched the letter from it and read over it.
Dear Quirrell,
Based on your audition, we are pleased to offer you a position with our company as the character, Pongo in our upcoming play season next fall. We will need….
And it went on, explaining details.
"You are the only one to figure it out. I always thought you were an actor too. Takes one to know one, am I right? That's why I tried to offer you acting lessons when you ended up in the hospital wing. Without me around, Hogwarts will need a quality actor around. Just send me an owl if you do decide you want lessons," Quirrell told her.
"Right, thanks," Lucy said, her mind whirling at how differently things were turning out because of her interventions over the years.
Professor Quirrell, an actor?
"I didn't even know we had a wizarding theater," Lucy finally mumbled.
Quirrell gasped, waving a hand, "How could you not? Wizards invented acting after all, though Shakespeare did almost get beheaded because so many of his plays were revealing magical lores to muggles. The only reason he wasn't killed was because the muggles all thought the plays were just make believe. Different times then."
"Right, I'll just...uhm...go then. Thanks again for the offer!" Lucy booked it down the hallway away from Quirrell. That was one guy who was crazy no matter the timeline.
Finally, the last week of term had arrived. Lucy prepared to pack Akai away in the school box for the train ride home, impressed that she had kept her snake hidden from her Hufflepuff yearmates for an entire school year. She packed everything back into her trunk and ran her hands over the quilt done in reds, yellows, and golds of the sunset. It would be strange to spend the next several months not sleeping under that quilt.
At breakfast, Lucy sat at the Slytherin table with Blaise eating some toast when Theodore Nott spit his drink all over her.
"Gross," she complained as Goyle smacked Nott on the back.
"Look at this!" he told the table as he spread the newspaper across the table.
In giant letters across the top, the paper declared:
SIRIUS BLACK, INNOCENT?
She grinned as the uproar started around her.
It had been a good first year.