In the morning, Ene heard Lil rumble in the side room and went over.
"Mo'ning, how far have you come with the books?" she asked.
Lil was pulling up black leggings and sighed: "Not too bad. Should be enough to get a general idea but if one of the profs asks me to recite some spells then I have drawn the golden looser card."
Ene looked out of the window and said: "Same goes for me. Tell me, when you woke up this morning, was there something unusual?"
Lil grimaced: "Yeah, the room was gone. I was lying in a bed standing in the midst of ruins of a castle. Only when I bounced up wide awake, the walls and lock, stock, and barrel reappeared."
Ene nodded: "I experienced the same thing. Obviously, we always have to realize time and again that everything here is real, otherwise this anti-muggel spell shows effect and we'll see what we should see. Right now, I'm more horrified by what I see anyway and that is I won't have enough tabac for the next two weeks. Crude!"
Lil had finally slipped into her shoes and asked: "Are you going without make-up today?"
Ene turned around: "What? No, but we still have time till breakfast. You wanna go to the hall, already?"
"Yes," Lil replied, "Maybe I'll meet Hermione or some other Gryffindor who can notify her. She wanted to know where we're lodged."
"Yeah, go, then," Ene said, "and I'll put some vampire look onto my face."
As Lil entered the hall, about ten students were already busy with their breakfast, Hermione and Ron being among them. They greeted each other, Lil told them about the rooms Ene and she lived in, and Hermione promised to make a visit after the lessons. Little by little, all the students came in and the communal breakfast dragged on.
Finally, Hermione said: "O.K., Neville, now we'll go through the things you didn't understand in the last potion lesson, again, for otherwise Snape will get a fit of rage. Till then, you!"
She and Neville left, but Ron and Harry stayed.
"And, Ron, is the sun shining again between you and Hermione?" Ene asked.
"Naturally!" grinned Ronn, "at least I know my cutie. I'm just a little careless with my words, sometimes."
Now Harry grinned: "Sometimes? As much as you both are quarreling you're doing it all the time."
Ron looked deep into Harry's eyes: "You're plainly too feeble to stand it. Besides, you as a perpetual single have not the faintest idea of these things. Why is our hero still going solo? You have acieved so much, and the fear of You-know-who would surely not prevent girls from dating you. Think about it."
And with this, Ron stood up and left. Harry watched him leave. Ene and Lil felt just left over.
"Hooah, my contact lense!" Ene cried suddenly and reached for her right eye. "Lil, I have to find a mirror and put the beast back into place. I'll be right back!" Gone she was.
Lil looked at Harry: "We shrews are difficult to handle, aren't we?"
Harry sighed: "Nay, not more difficult than a best friend who is given to exaggeration."
Lil knitted her brow: "Did he exaggerate? Are you no perpetual single?"
Harry silently looked at her for a moment, then he said: "Surely not perpetual. For a short time I had a girlfriend once. Hmmm. Well, there was a problem, see, the boyfriend she had before me had died. It wasn't my fault but I was somehow involved and she had to think about it all the time. We just didn't have a good start and so it didn't work out for long. But that was some years ago."
Lil nodded: "Sounds deeply depressing. But if it was years ago, why don't you start something new? Here are crowds of female beings – or male, as the case may be."
Harry pouted his lips: "No boys, thanks! Right now, I concentrate on my exams. It's only a few months and after that I still have years to... do something else. Besides, it doesn't only depend on me; the girl should like me, too."
Lil lifted her brows: "Well, that shouldn't be a problem. How could anybody not like you?"
Now Harry lifted his brows: "Do you like me, then?"
"Sure," Lil said casually.
Ene sat down besides Lil, again. "So, contact lense fixed. Did I miss anything?"
Lil threw her an enervated glance: "What could you possibly have missed here? The seventeenth course of breakfast?"
Professor McGoangall made her way towards them: "Follow me to the teachers' room, Ladies, there's a lot of work to be done."
They went out, only Harry stayed put and seemed to think hard.
Ene and Lil entered the teachers' room after McGonagall. The whole room was panelled with dark wood and in the middle stood a mighty table around which the teachers of Hogwarts had taken their seats. Ene and Lil were assigned to seats at the end of the table. The sun shone directly into the room so that some teachers already squinted their eyes.
"Ms Ceslas, please close the blinds!" McGonagall ordered and Lil walked over to the windows' side. Every window had a blind of wood matching the panelling of the walls. Lil began to let down the blinds.
Professor McGonagall was already talking to the other teachers: "We will now decide when the trainees will go to whom. The trainees are to learn how a lesson is planned, how it actually turns out, and what reflections on the lesson are to be done. Does anyone consider him- or herself unable to impart this in the next two weeks? Nobody? Very good! Who of you could..." A loud crack interrupted her.
"What happened now?" she asked reproachfully and looked at Lil who stood besides the last bright window; a faint cloud of mortar dust hovering in front of her, and at her feet laid the blind.
Lil still held the draw-string in her hand and looked absolutely haggard: "The wood-curtain surrendered to gravity..."
"Pardon?" McGonagall asked irritated.
And then they all heard a giggle that turned into a soft singsong: "Heeheeheeheehee, here a screwy and there a screwy, whoopsie, what's there you see?" Peeves the ghost hovered leisurely in the corner and grinned while looking at the mishap.
McGonagall's eyes narrowed to very small slits glued on Peeves and she hissed in murderous tone: "Clear off or Professor Snape and I will have a serious conversation with the Bloody Baron! He recently mentioned something about a ghost deadfall..."
Peeve's face became almost shapeless. Something in McGonagall's words or tone must really have struck him because he disappeared through the wall without further ado. Lil took her seat besides Ene and now the teachers agreed on who should take the trainees on which days. This first Monday they should both stay with Professor McGonagall, from Tuesday on they should attend other teachers' lessons for two days each, Saturdays and Sundays were kept free for further studies in the library and working on their own notes. During the first week, Ene was assigned to Professor Binns and Madam Hooch, the second week Hagrid and Professor Snape should be responsible for her. Lil had the Professors Flitwick and Trelawney for the first week and in the second week Madam Pomfrey and Professor Sprout. Madam Pomfrey wasn't really a teacher but Lil had shown interest in medical topics and Madam Pomfrey had asked for assistance because she was brewing some indian medicinal potion called Kalidasania, which needed a lot of attention.
After all was settled the teachers went to their classrooms, McGonagall instructed Mr Filch, the caretaker, to repair the demolished blind, and then she led Ene and Lil to a classroom where she would soon teach transformation. There were another countless preachings for the trainees and McGonagall really asked for details out of the ancient books before the students arrived.
When it was time for lunch, Mc Gonagall dismissed the students and expressed a trifling praise: "Well, you haven't stepped beside the row as often as I thought. Maybe you will make it through these two weeks. Come back here after the lunch."
Trifling, really.