Chapter Twelve The Twick
After a while, Lily decided that she was the lucky one. The Sorting Hat had been right. She'd memorized her books- though she had no idea how. As soon as she got out of classes, she had to go and practice Quidditch with the Gryffindor team. Melissa McKenzie, Lily had to admit, was a pretty tough coach. First, she made Lily memorize all the rules and plays until Lily got her broomstick.
It arrived by owl on a Saturday morning, which (Becky told her with a groan) meant that she would be practicing on it for the rest of the day.
By the end of the day, she was ready and well prepared for their first game.
No one knew that Lily was on the Gryffindor team except for Becky, Doug, Soup, and the Gryffindor team. They were saving her as a surprise for the Slytherins. ("Think of it as a birthday present," Melissa had said. "You're going to jump out of the cake and steal the show. Not to mention the game.")
Much to the Slytherins disgust, Lily managed to balance Quidditch and still get good marks on all of her papers and quizes. Most surprised and disgusted of all was James, who didn't bother to read any of their books- unless it was about something particularly gruesome.
Meanwhile, Halloween was getting closer and closer. This was apparently a big event at Hogwarts. The older kids were buzzing about Halloween, filling Lily and the others in. Besides the costume party, the teachers decorated the front hall until it was barely recognizable. The ghosts did a "haunted house," which doubled as Nearly Headless Nick's (the Gryffindor ghost) deathday.
"Deathday?" Lily had asked in shock. "He celebrates a deathday?"
"Of course," Becky had answered her. "Who wants to celebrate the day they were born when they're dead? Besides, a deathday is kind of like a second birthday, into a different kind of life, you know?"
Lily had nodded, still shocked.
No one bothered Chris and Kevin, who were acting more and more secretive.
* * *
Halloween finally came.
The quartet walked together to the Great Hall, joking about their costumes. Doug had finally been talked out of going to the banquet as Tarzan, and was instead dressed as a prince from some fairy tale (although Lily and Becky had told him he didn't look like any handsome prince they'd ever seen). Soup had decided to make a joke with his name, and was going as a can of tomato soup. Becky, however, had planned for usefulness instead of jokes and looks. She was going as a large orange pumpkin that she could stuff candy into for late night snacks later. Lily, surprisingly, was going as a pirate, not as a spider as many people had suspected. She had even drawn a beard and mustache on her face. Brownie and a few of the other spiders had helped to tie her hair under the pirate's hat using their non-sticky webbing. She had borrowed an old pair of Neville's boots, a pair of Doug's black pants, and one of Ron's red shirts, which she had to tuck in or else they hung at her knees like her pajamas.
The Great Hall had definitely been decorated. On the far side, Nearly Headless Nick was standing in a doorway- or at least the wall next to the doorway, stuck half in and half out- jubilantly greeting all the students going to through the haunted house. Countless bats were flying around, though, surprisingly, none of them hit the ceiling once.
Lily had to reintroduce herself often that night. Doug was busy going through the haunted house. Lily lost count around the twelfth time she saw him go through. Becky was busy talking with a friend of hers in Hufflepuff. The other girl and Becky were both busy stuffing Becky's pumpkin shell with candy. Lily could already see that Becky's costume was already bulging. Soup was eating as much of the food at the table as he could.
"Have you tasted this stuff?" he asked Lily in between a large gulp and three more swallows. "It's delicious!" Lily looked around and realized that many other people were also stuffing their faces with the food. It must been good. No one had eaten like this even at the Start of Term Banquet.
Lily went over to the table. She understood that Soup liked the food here. She did too. They had both been raised eating muggle foods and the food at Hogwarts was much better. She tasted a cupcake.
"I don't see what's so different."
Soup shrugged and stuffed the rest of her cupcake in his mouth whole. Lily groaned and walked away.
She found Brownie in a crack in a nearby wall.
What's up? she whispered.
Brownie answered crankily, The bats are up, girl. Are you blind? They eat spiders. The only place we're safe is in the walls and in the Gryffindor common room.
Anything interesting in Harry's office?
Brownie gave a surprisingly human yawn. Boring. Now, then. If you'll excuse me, I can't stay and be your company all night. I have to go meet someone.
Lily raised her eyebrows.
Don't look like that, girl. He's nice. A bit dumb, I'll grant you that, but he's nice.
Good luck, Lily said.
Brownie turned and walked away.
Lily wandered off. Eventually, she caught up with Doug as he was coming out of the exit of the haunted house.
"Lily! Great! Come on," he urged her. And with that, he turned and dragged her off to the entrance.
Lily smiled at Nearly Headless Nick, who was greeting the people going into the haunted house and sometimes giving them warnings to try and scare them, as she passed and shouted an apology as Doug dragged her off before she could have a decent conversation with him.
The first room was completely dark. "You'll love this," Doug whispered to her. Suddenly, a bat squeaked and a ghost appeared beside Lily, touching her arm. She gave a slight shriek and jumped back. Doug and the ghost laughed.
"Sorry about that, dearie," the ghost said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get ready for the next person."
Lily nodded soundlessly as Doug pulled her along, not believing she had been that scared. The next room was well lit. When Doug saw how large her eyes were, he started laughing again. "If you thought that was scary, just-"
Whatever he had been going to tell her was interrupted by thousands of shrieks from above, drawing Lily's eyes upwards. A black cloud of bats seemed to be falling straight for her. She held up her arms so as not to be hit by them. At the last instant, however, the bats veered off their course and flew upwards again.
Doug was laughing at her expense again as well. "Bats don't fly into things," he explained to her. "They have sonar for that. They're nearly blind, so they locate things by sound. They send out a thousand little squeaks that bounce off of things to tell them where they're going."
Lily nodded. She had known all of that, of course, but instinct had made her act like a little child.
And so it went on. They went from room to room, always to be surprised. Lily tried her best to control herself while Doug acted nonchalant about everything he saw. By the time they'd gotten to the last room, Lily found that she had come to admire Doug for his bravery. She was sure that even if she had been through the haunted house as many times as he had that she still would have at least jumped, but Doug didn't even tense up.
They entered the Great Hall again, laughing.
They looked around in surprise. The Great Hall was nearly empty. The few people left were standing around in silent groups, conferring amongst themselves. No one was going near the food. The next thing they saw was Becky, who was emptying her pumpkin suit of the candy. They made their way towards her.
"What happened?" Doug asked.
Becky looked at them, and then looked away. "It's Soup," she said quietly. "And a lot of other people. No one understands it. Everyone seemed to get sick at once. The teachers took them to the infirmary."
* * *
Hermione stroked her chin with her wand. "What could have made them do this, though?" she asked.
Ron and Harry looked at each other helplessly and then back to her. "We don't have any clue," Ron told her.
Harry interjected. "Yes we do. Voldemort."
Madam Pomfrey's mouth dropped open. She hurriedly left to see to the children on the other side of the infirmary while the trio behind her shook their heads pitifully.
"He's the only one who would do this," Harry continued. "I'm just glad Lily and James didn't-"
Now Hermione interrupted. "Harry, if you haven't noticed, Lily and James weren't in danger in any case."
Ron and Harry looked to Hermione beseechingly. She sighed and put her hands on her hips, looking disappointed with them. "Honestly, haven't you noticed that all of these students are muggle-born?"
Ron and Harry looked around.
"She's right," Ron said at last.
Harry nodded. "I told you it was Voldemort."
They looked back to Soup, who was lying on the cot in front of them. The soup can had been removed and he was lying under a number of sheets, all of which were soaked through with sweat. The heavy blanket on top, also soaked in sweat, couldn't stop Soup from shivering.
"Poppy said that if they keep going at this rate, they'll be dead by tomorrow morning," Hermione said quietly.
"Cure?" Ron asked.
"Haven't found one."
Harry cleared his throat. "Right. We'll have to do a freezing spell on them until we can find a cure, then. Hermione, you and Poppy start at that end. Ron, you go get some other teachers to help. I'll start at this end."
By dawn, although all the teachers were all tired, they had frozen everyone in the infirmary. Classes for the next day and Monday would be canceled in order for everyone to try and find a cure.