Chapter Nine: November Rain
Of course, there is nothing like the burning fire of discovery and invention to drive away thoughts of pain. Lucy brought most of her schoolbooks into Asriel's workroom, so she could easily use breaks from her homework and studying to pour over journal after journal, and to analyze the Sumerian translation.
From what she had discovered, everything confirmed the revelation that the void was an energy free zone. But Lucy was not about to give up upon gating; it was the best chance they had for an exodus of the proportions necessary in the time span they were planning on. Further conversations and letters decided that Diego's resources were best put to use finding out a way to pinpoint the location of the exiles in the void; Lucy's job was to dig up a way to get them out once found.
She was positive that it had to be a gate. But there was no such thing as an energy-less gate; it couldn't be done. What had to be discovered was a way to funnel energy to the person forming the gate inside the void from an outside source. But all conventional scenarios left Lucy with the same result; the forces inside the void would steal the energy before it ever got to the sanctuary where, if all stars were aligned, the Espiritu exiles had gated into.
It was a royal headache that kept her scribbling on her napkins at meals and writing keywords in the margins of her transfiguration notes. After Seamus leaned forward to try and sneak a glance at a potions ingredient he had forgotten, and instead saw Lucy furiously scribbling notes in Spanish, he pulled her aside in the hall as soon as Snape released them.
"What is going on now?"
Lucy looked up, surprised and irritated. "I beg your pardon?"
"Don't act cute with me Luce. I hardly see you anymore."
"I told you, the BA has become.complicated. This is taking a lot more time than I had expected."
"And you can't take a day off? You said they could conceivably run that thing without you."
"Yes, but then I wouldn't get a chance to learn anything, would I?"
"What are they teaching you?"
Lucy silently cursed herself, Seamus would have kittens if he knew Lynx was hurling books at her to get her angry enough to work on control.
"I.I don't think you would understand."
"Why not?"
"It's hard to explain. You didn't want to join Seamus, remember? It's hardly fair to them now that you won't let them see you but expect to be privy to their very personal learning process."
"Lucy." he groaned and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, then shook his head and headed off with Dean. Lucy sighed, he was going to have to get used to the fact that he couldn't be on the inside of everything going on in her life, she didn't have time.
She hurried off for a quick trip to the workroom to check something and promised herself she would explain everything some other time.
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It was later that week when an announcement went up for a Hogsmeade weekend. Gryffindors rejoiced, as did the BA since they had all agreed to take a few days off. Saturday dawned grey and nasty, and thunder was heard all during breakfast under a stormy and threatening enchanted ceiling.
That did nothing to stop the students from grabbing umbrellas and rain slickers and pouring out of the castle toward town. As the boys ducked into Zonko's Lucy decided it might be a good time to let Seamus in on a little of what she and Diego were planning. She was about to interrupt his debate with Dean over what he should buy when someone pulled on her arm.
She turned around to see Nicholas Kornakovitch.
"Hi," he said, looking nervous.
"Hello," Lucy smiled, wondering what on earth he needed.
"Listen, you need to come back to Hogwarts. Now."
"What? Why? Is something wrong?"
"No, and yes. Listen, we really wanted to discuss it in private."
"Discuss what? Who?"
"You're fellow captives," he waggled his eyebrows. "But we can't do it until we're safely back at school. So come on!"
Seamus was still absorbed in making his selection, and didn't notice Lucy slip out the door. Once they were on the street Nicholas turned to her.
"I'm afraid you're on your own from here."
"What?"
"Listen, I'm not the mastermind, I'm just a lackey, and I have more people to round up. Just head back to the common room and someone will tell you where to go from there. They'll explain it all later, but we are trying to keep this discreet."
Lucy shrugged, nodded, and headed back to the castle as Nicholas disappeared into the busy street.
When she returned to the common room, which was full of bored first and second years, she saw Maria Moray by the window, looking intently in her direction. She wandered over.
"I'm the lookout," she piped up proudly.
Lucy grinned. "Congratulations, now could you explain anything?"
"Not really here, too many people. I am supposed to tell you to head for the library. Back wall near the windows."
Lucy groaned, "Anything else?"
"Nope, you better get going, you're one of the last ones."
Lucy nodded and headed out.
At the back of the library she found Sergei, the seventh year Ravenclaw. He smiled at her and she followed as he weaved his way deep into the stacks. In the corner he ran his fingers along the spines of the books, pulled on one so quickly she couldn't see the title, and stood back as the case swung out, revealing a passage.
"First door on the right." was all he said as the case swung back and she was alone in the dark. She saw a light ahead and walked towards it, and on her right she turned to look into a room crowded with people. She spied a knot of Gryffindors seated on a sofa and joined them.
Gazing around she noticed almost everyone she had seen that Halloween day of the interrogation. Almost.
"Where's Marguerite Ducasse?"
Audrey Su was sitting nearby with her sister, and turned towards Lucy.
"Oh, she's the lookout in the Ravenclaw common room. All the lookouts are second or first years, they were the only ones that would be hanging around the castle. She'll be down with the others in a few minutes."
Lucy nodded, shrugged, and leaned on the arm of the sofa trying to figure out what in the hell she was doing here.
About fifteen minutes later she saw Marguerite slip through the door, followed by Maria Moray, Sasha, and a Hufflepuff Lucy wasn't familiar with. Sergei followed them and closed the doors. It seemed everyone was here, but Lucy felt like several people were missing.
Aysha got up from her chair and leaned over the back.
"We'll get things started, hopefully you all recognize each other. Everyone who was kept in that nasty little room on Halloween, less three people, is here now. We called you all together again because we don't think we've been let off the hook as they want us to believe."
She turned to Misha, who stood up.
"The fact is, we're being followed, spied upon, almost constantly. For various reasons, some of us, perhaps being a little more paranoid than most, noticed it before others. But we began to realize that others were being tailed in the same manner."
"And," Audrey Su stood up, "we realized that at some point in the last few weeks every one of us has been tailed and followed. We don't know how many people are doing this, so far it looks like just one, but we decided the best way to figure out what to do was to get everyone together."
Marguerite shook her head. "What if whomever is doing this followed us here? What if they are listening?"
Misha grinned. "Good point. Right now we are going on a little faith that this is just one person. We're all betting on that ministry chap Dumbledore never really explained, one of the guys that interrogated us. And for the past half an hour the Lane boys have volunteered to lead him on a wild goose chase all over Hogsmeade. They purposely acted suspicious and conspiratorial, and they have been leading their tail unwillingly all over the village. Their plan was to slip away in about five minutes, once they were sure we were all gathered, and then come join us. Warren dated a Ravenclaw I believe, so he knows how to get into their study room."
Audrey blushed and stepped hard on Misha's foot.
"That's a good point. Listen, we took a risk by using this place, but, under the circumstances, we decided it was a safer place than any room that was more public, where a spy could get in, and definitely much better than a common room, since house rivalries being what they are."
Katya snorted, "So you didn't want to be beaten to death for showing a Slytherin the way to your common room?"
Misha shot her a look and Dimitri placed a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged off, mumbling something and turning a sullen gaze back to the older students.
There was a moment or two of silence, which was broken by laughter as Warren, Wesley, and William Lane stepped through the door.
"Who died?" William looked around at the quiet group, and sat down on the arm of the sofa, winking at Lucy.
"We were just explaining why they are here," Audry looked relieved to hand the floor over to Warren.
Warren nodded and sat down on a high stool. "Yeah, well, I dunno what exactly has been said, but we were taking a little trip to the kitchens when we first realized we were being followed. We thought it was Filch, but it wasn't. It took us a couple of instances like that, pretty close together, to realize we were really being followed. It wasn't till we started talking to people from other houses, like Audrey, that we realized others were being tailed as well. We had a hunch they were targeting us foreigners, so we tailed the tail, so to speak. Whether or not you knew it was happening, everyone in here has been followed at least once in the past two weeks."
This caused an eruption of questions and muttering. Misha stood up again and silenced everyone with a look.
"The problem is, we have no evidence. We could go to Dumbledore, but we have nothing to give him but our words. And that still probably won't get us the answer of why we are being followed like this."
Ginger Chao spoke up, "Well, someone must think we are up to something. I mean, why else would they follow us?"
Aysha shook her head, "So by being foreigners now we're dangerous?"
"I didn't say it was a correct assumption."
"Something must have happened," interrupted Lucy, "something must have happened to make them act like this."
Lesley Arong timidly piped up, "They say that something DID happen last year involving some foreign magic."
"And they asked all of us about strange people in the school, people with strange abilities."
"And they didn't seem satisfied at all. so now they are assuming WE are the people with strange abilities, just because we didn't identify anyone else." Marguerite's eyes were large, and angry.
Again an eruption of angry shouts and denials rang out and had to be silenced by Misha and Warren.
"What we need is proof. Evidence that we are being followed, by the man from the ministry. Dumbledore can't know about this or he would have stopped it. We need to get evidence, solid evidence, and present it to him."
"Doesn't that mean we'll need outside help?" Piped up Wesley.
"What?" Warren stared at his brother, but Lucy understood his meaning.
"He's right. If we want someone with a camera or something, we don't want them to be followed or scrutinized, we don't want the tail to know what we are up to. We are going to need someone he won't look at to document this. We're going to need someone from outside this group."
"Several someones," said Aysha, "We'd have a better chance of getting clear pictures if we had more than one person trying to track this guy down. He moves fast."
Misha nodded, "How about one from each house? With a camera that can get good shots of this guy following us."
Warren nodded, "Sounds good. And I've already got someone in mind. Who here knows the youngest Creevy?"
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"And now they think this creepy guy from the Ministry is following us, trying to see if we are up to anything suspicious."
"But Lucy, you are up to something suspicious."
"Oh don't be paranoid, if he had been following ME, I would have known it."
"Are you sure, you've been awfully busy lately?"
"I would have known."
Seamus shook his head and turned back to his broomstick, carefully clipping broken twigs and sanding down a few new splinters in the handle.
Lucy turned back to her proof. She was trying to prove the existence of two different types of energy systems, using the training methods as a guide. But somewhere in the middle she was getting mixed up. Not to mention the added aggravation she had discovered when a notice from the Circle came today. At first she had been excited, and thought it had brought news. All it had been was a printed slip saying that her first thesis would be evaluated at Macchu Piccu. This wasn't unusual for first thesis. What was annoying was that tradition demanded a copy of the thesis be presented in the residing language of the school, in addition to one in the student's strongest language. And the presiding language of Maccu Piccu, was Quechua.
Lucy could speak Quechua fine, it was the written part which was going to be a royal pain. She sighed and went back to her definitions of magical and natural energy lines and the differences between them. She was well along when students began to lumber down towards supper.
Seamus was never one to be late to a meal; he quickly packed up his broomstick repair kit and trotted up the stairs to stow it under his bed. When he came back down Lucy hadn't moved.
"Well, aren't you hungry?"
"Ravenous," she didn't look up from her notes.
"Well?"
"Go along Seamus, I'm not coming to dinner."
"Why not!"
"I'm busy, I'll be fine. Trust me."
Seamus shook his head, muttering, and followed Dean and Neville out the portrait hole.
Lucy checked her watch.any minute now. She stacked her books and went to the window. Sure enough, at the exact time Diego had ordered, an albatross pounded up to the glass, a package dangling from its talons.
Lucy opened the shutters and took the package, and gave the bird a handful of kippers she had saved on ice since lunch. The bird ate them greedily, and after a quick scratch on the chin was off again.
She closed the window, shutting out the icy, biting wind, and opened her package. It was warm. Inside the brown packaging was a silver insulated bag, and inside of that was a boxed Thanksgiving dinner. There was turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed onions, corn bread, stuffing, milk, and the all-important cranberry sauce, with ridges in it proving it came from a can. There was even silverware and flatware included. Lucy pulled a table near the window alcove, and carefully set out the single placemat, single napkin, the fork, knife, and spoon, and finally, her plate with all of the food arranged. She smiled when she found that the box had even included a tacky, crepe paper turkey table decoration, and she set it next to her glass, the only sign of festivity in the room.
It did seem a rather pathetic sight, one lonely American trying so hard to have the perfect Thanksgiving feast alone, and in England of all places. Lucy was sure the Puritans would accuse her of some serious backsliding. Still, she bit her lip and refused to allow herself to cry; it was undoubtedly the worst Thanksgiving she had ever had, she much preferred last year, when life had been so chaotic she had forgotten about the holiday all together.
She was just finishing the single slice of pumpkin pie when the rest of the tower returned from dinner. Most people didn't notice her away by the window, but she knew she couldn't avoid her friends. Hermione and Seamus came over, followed by Harry. Dean gave her a wave and a wink, and followed Ron up the stairs.
Seamus was prepared to be angry at Lucy for acting strange and then not eating, but his anger, and the questions on the tip of Hermione's tongue vanished at the sight of the remnants of dinner and the lonely little paper turkey sitting on the table.
"THIS was it?" Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Why didn't you explain?"
"Explain what? 'Oh, by the way, I won't be down to dinner so I can observe the remembrance of my forefathers' triumph through a winter in the wilderness after escaping tyranny and persecution in this country?' Yeah, that would have gone over well."
"You didn't think we would have wanted to join you?" Harry looked confused.
"After all Lucy, food is food is food. Not really much to think about."
"And besides," Seamus added, "You shouldn't have had Thanksgiving dinner alone."
Lucy could have retorted with a comment about how he knew absolutely nothing about Thanksgiving dinner, but she didn't. And she couldn't really explain that she hadn't been alone during the meal, not really. Lonely, yes. Alone, never. So she smiled and nodded.
"Maybe you're right, thanks, but I'm fine, really. I just wanted my cranberry sauce the way it's supposed to be served. Besides, Diego only sent enough for a single serving."
They knew a dismissal when they heard it. Hermione headed back up to her room to study for the Herbology test they had tomorrow, and Harry headed back to his room as well.
Seamus lingered there for a moment, nervously. It was just so bloody hard to tell when you could push Lucy and when she just needed her space. No matter how hard he tried sometimes he felt like he just couldn't win.
"I'm really ok, you know." His thoughts were interrupted as he looked down to see Lucy studying him. "I didn't want to make a big deal about it, because its not. I mean last year I forgot about it completely."
He nodded.
"You'd better go study."
"What about you?"
"I've had Hermione grilling me all week, trust me, I'm going to do fine for a change."
He grinned and went upstairs. Lucy cleaned up her dinner and headed back to her room to be grilled once again.
Of course, there is nothing like the burning fire of discovery and invention to drive away thoughts of pain. Lucy brought most of her schoolbooks into Asriel's workroom, so she could easily use breaks from her homework and studying to pour over journal after journal, and to analyze the Sumerian translation.
From what she had discovered, everything confirmed the revelation that the void was an energy free zone. But Lucy was not about to give up upon gating; it was the best chance they had for an exodus of the proportions necessary in the time span they were planning on. Further conversations and letters decided that Diego's resources were best put to use finding out a way to pinpoint the location of the exiles in the void; Lucy's job was to dig up a way to get them out once found.
She was positive that it had to be a gate. But there was no such thing as an energy-less gate; it couldn't be done. What had to be discovered was a way to funnel energy to the person forming the gate inside the void from an outside source. But all conventional scenarios left Lucy with the same result; the forces inside the void would steal the energy before it ever got to the sanctuary where, if all stars were aligned, the Espiritu exiles had gated into.
It was a royal headache that kept her scribbling on her napkins at meals and writing keywords in the margins of her transfiguration notes. After Seamus leaned forward to try and sneak a glance at a potions ingredient he had forgotten, and instead saw Lucy furiously scribbling notes in Spanish, he pulled her aside in the hall as soon as Snape released them.
"What is going on now?"
Lucy looked up, surprised and irritated. "I beg your pardon?"
"Don't act cute with me Luce. I hardly see you anymore."
"I told you, the BA has become.complicated. This is taking a lot more time than I had expected."
"And you can't take a day off? You said they could conceivably run that thing without you."
"Yes, but then I wouldn't get a chance to learn anything, would I?"
"What are they teaching you?"
Lucy silently cursed herself, Seamus would have kittens if he knew Lynx was hurling books at her to get her angry enough to work on control.
"I.I don't think you would understand."
"Why not?"
"It's hard to explain. You didn't want to join Seamus, remember? It's hardly fair to them now that you won't let them see you but expect to be privy to their very personal learning process."
"Lucy." he groaned and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, then shook his head and headed off with Dean. Lucy sighed, he was going to have to get used to the fact that he couldn't be on the inside of everything going on in her life, she didn't have time.
She hurried off for a quick trip to the workroom to check something and promised herself she would explain everything some other time.
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It was later that week when an announcement went up for a Hogsmeade weekend. Gryffindors rejoiced, as did the BA since they had all agreed to take a few days off. Saturday dawned grey and nasty, and thunder was heard all during breakfast under a stormy and threatening enchanted ceiling.
That did nothing to stop the students from grabbing umbrellas and rain slickers and pouring out of the castle toward town. As the boys ducked into Zonko's Lucy decided it might be a good time to let Seamus in on a little of what she and Diego were planning. She was about to interrupt his debate with Dean over what he should buy when someone pulled on her arm.
She turned around to see Nicholas Kornakovitch.
"Hi," he said, looking nervous.
"Hello," Lucy smiled, wondering what on earth he needed.
"Listen, you need to come back to Hogwarts. Now."
"What? Why? Is something wrong?"
"No, and yes. Listen, we really wanted to discuss it in private."
"Discuss what? Who?"
"You're fellow captives," he waggled his eyebrows. "But we can't do it until we're safely back at school. So come on!"
Seamus was still absorbed in making his selection, and didn't notice Lucy slip out the door. Once they were on the street Nicholas turned to her.
"I'm afraid you're on your own from here."
"What?"
"Listen, I'm not the mastermind, I'm just a lackey, and I have more people to round up. Just head back to the common room and someone will tell you where to go from there. They'll explain it all later, but we are trying to keep this discreet."
Lucy shrugged, nodded, and headed back to the castle as Nicholas disappeared into the busy street.
When she returned to the common room, which was full of bored first and second years, she saw Maria Moray by the window, looking intently in her direction. She wandered over.
"I'm the lookout," she piped up proudly.
Lucy grinned. "Congratulations, now could you explain anything?"
"Not really here, too many people. I am supposed to tell you to head for the library. Back wall near the windows."
Lucy groaned, "Anything else?"
"Nope, you better get going, you're one of the last ones."
Lucy nodded and headed out.
At the back of the library she found Sergei, the seventh year Ravenclaw. He smiled at her and she followed as he weaved his way deep into the stacks. In the corner he ran his fingers along the spines of the books, pulled on one so quickly she couldn't see the title, and stood back as the case swung out, revealing a passage.
"First door on the right." was all he said as the case swung back and she was alone in the dark. She saw a light ahead and walked towards it, and on her right she turned to look into a room crowded with people. She spied a knot of Gryffindors seated on a sofa and joined them.
Gazing around she noticed almost everyone she had seen that Halloween day of the interrogation. Almost.
"Where's Marguerite Ducasse?"
Audrey Su was sitting nearby with her sister, and turned towards Lucy.
"Oh, she's the lookout in the Ravenclaw common room. All the lookouts are second or first years, they were the only ones that would be hanging around the castle. She'll be down with the others in a few minutes."
Lucy nodded, shrugged, and leaned on the arm of the sofa trying to figure out what in the hell she was doing here.
About fifteen minutes later she saw Marguerite slip through the door, followed by Maria Moray, Sasha, and a Hufflepuff Lucy wasn't familiar with. Sergei followed them and closed the doors. It seemed everyone was here, but Lucy felt like several people were missing.
Aysha got up from her chair and leaned over the back.
"We'll get things started, hopefully you all recognize each other. Everyone who was kept in that nasty little room on Halloween, less three people, is here now. We called you all together again because we don't think we've been let off the hook as they want us to believe."
She turned to Misha, who stood up.
"The fact is, we're being followed, spied upon, almost constantly. For various reasons, some of us, perhaps being a little more paranoid than most, noticed it before others. But we began to realize that others were being tailed in the same manner."
"And," Audrey Su stood up, "we realized that at some point in the last few weeks every one of us has been tailed and followed. We don't know how many people are doing this, so far it looks like just one, but we decided the best way to figure out what to do was to get everyone together."
Marguerite shook her head. "What if whomever is doing this followed us here? What if they are listening?"
Misha grinned. "Good point. Right now we are going on a little faith that this is just one person. We're all betting on that ministry chap Dumbledore never really explained, one of the guys that interrogated us. And for the past half an hour the Lane boys have volunteered to lead him on a wild goose chase all over Hogsmeade. They purposely acted suspicious and conspiratorial, and they have been leading their tail unwillingly all over the village. Their plan was to slip away in about five minutes, once they were sure we were all gathered, and then come join us. Warren dated a Ravenclaw I believe, so he knows how to get into their study room."
Audrey blushed and stepped hard on Misha's foot.
"That's a good point. Listen, we took a risk by using this place, but, under the circumstances, we decided it was a safer place than any room that was more public, where a spy could get in, and definitely much better than a common room, since house rivalries being what they are."
Katya snorted, "So you didn't want to be beaten to death for showing a Slytherin the way to your common room?"
Misha shot her a look and Dimitri placed a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged off, mumbling something and turning a sullen gaze back to the older students.
There was a moment or two of silence, which was broken by laughter as Warren, Wesley, and William Lane stepped through the door.
"Who died?" William looked around at the quiet group, and sat down on the arm of the sofa, winking at Lucy.
"We were just explaining why they are here," Audry looked relieved to hand the floor over to Warren.
Warren nodded and sat down on a high stool. "Yeah, well, I dunno what exactly has been said, but we were taking a little trip to the kitchens when we first realized we were being followed. We thought it was Filch, but it wasn't. It took us a couple of instances like that, pretty close together, to realize we were really being followed. It wasn't till we started talking to people from other houses, like Audrey, that we realized others were being tailed as well. We had a hunch they were targeting us foreigners, so we tailed the tail, so to speak. Whether or not you knew it was happening, everyone in here has been followed at least once in the past two weeks."
This caused an eruption of questions and muttering. Misha stood up again and silenced everyone with a look.
"The problem is, we have no evidence. We could go to Dumbledore, but we have nothing to give him but our words. And that still probably won't get us the answer of why we are being followed like this."
Ginger Chao spoke up, "Well, someone must think we are up to something. I mean, why else would they follow us?"
Aysha shook her head, "So by being foreigners now we're dangerous?"
"I didn't say it was a correct assumption."
"Something must have happened," interrupted Lucy, "something must have happened to make them act like this."
Lesley Arong timidly piped up, "They say that something DID happen last year involving some foreign magic."
"And they asked all of us about strange people in the school, people with strange abilities."
"And they didn't seem satisfied at all. so now they are assuming WE are the people with strange abilities, just because we didn't identify anyone else." Marguerite's eyes were large, and angry.
Again an eruption of angry shouts and denials rang out and had to be silenced by Misha and Warren.
"What we need is proof. Evidence that we are being followed, by the man from the ministry. Dumbledore can't know about this or he would have stopped it. We need to get evidence, solid evidence, and present it to him."
"Doesn't that mean we'll need outside help?" Piped up Wesley.
"What?" Warren stared at his brother, but Lucy understood his meaning.
"He's right. If we want someone with a camera or something, we don't want them to be followed or scrutinized, we don't want the tail to know what we are up to. We are going to need someone he won't look at to document this. We're going to need someone from outside this group."
"Several someones," said Aysha, "We'd have a better chance of getting clear pictures if we had more than one person trying to track this guy down. He moves fast."
Misha nodded, "How about one from each house? With a camera that can get good shots of this guy following us."
Warren nodded, "Sounds good. And I've already got someone in mind. Who here knows the youngest Creevy?"
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"And now they think this creepy guy from the Ministry is following us, trying to see if we are up to anything suspicious."
"But Lucy, you are up to something suspicious."
"Oh don't be paranoid, if he had been following ME, I would have known it."
"Are you sure, you've been awfully busy lately?"
"I would have known."
Seamus shook his head and turned back to his broomstick, carefully clipping broken twigs and sanding down a few new splinters in the handle.
Lucy turned back to her proof. She was trying to prove the existence of two different types of energy systems, using the training methods as a guide. But somewhere in the middle she was getting mixed up. Not to mention the added aggravation she had discovered when a notice from the Circle came today. At first she had been excited, and thought it had brought news. All it had been was a printed slip saying that her first thesis would be evaluated at Macchu Piccu. This wasn't unusual for first thesis. What was annoying was that tradition demanded a copy of the thesis be presented in the residing language of the school, in addition to one in the student's strongest language. And the presiding language of Maccu Piccu, was Quechua.
Lucy could speak Quechua fine, it was the written part which was going to be a royal pain. She sighed and went back to her definitions of magical and natural energy lines and the differences between them. She was well along when students began to lumber down towards supper.
Seamus was never one to be late to a meal; he quickly packed up his broomstick repair kit and trotted up the stairs to stow it under his bed. When he came back down Lucy hadn't moved.
"Well, aren't you hungry?"
"Ravenous," she didn't look up from her notes.
"Well?"
"Go along Seamus, I'm not coming to dinner."
"Why not!"
"I'm busy, I'll be fine. Trust me."
Seamus shook his head, muttering, and followed Dean and Neville out the portrait hole.
Lucy checked her watch.any minute now. She stacked her books and went to the window. Sure enough, at the exact time Diego had ordered, an albatross pounded up to the glass, a package dangling from its talons.
Lucy opened the shutters and took the package, and gave the bird a handful of kippers she had saved on ice since lunch. The bird ate them greedily, and after a quick scratch on the chin was off again.
She closed the window, shutting out the icy, biting wind, and opened her package. It was warm. Inside the brown packaging was a silver insulated bag, and inside of that was a boxed Thanksgiving dinner. There was turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed onions, corn bread, stuffing, milk, and the all-important cranberry sauce, with ridges in it proving it came from a can. There was even silverware and flatware included. Lucy pulled a table near the window alcove, and carefully set out the single placemat, single napkin, the fork, knife, and spoon, and finally, her plate with all of the food arranged. She smiled when she found that the box had even included a tacky, crepe paper turkey table decoration, and she set it next to her glass, the only sign of festivity in the room.
It did seem a rather pathetic sight, one lonely American trying so hard to have the perfect Thanksgiving feast alone, and in England of all places. Lucy was sure the Puritans would accuse her of some serious backsliding. Still, she bit her lip and refused to allow herself to cry; it was undoubtedly the worst Thanksgiving she had ever had, she much preferred last year, when life had been so chaotic she had forgotten about the holiday all together.
She was just finishing the single slice of pumpkin pie when the rest of the tower returned from dinner. Most people didn't notice her away by the window, but she knew she couldn't avoid her friends. Hermione and Seamus came over, followed by Harry. Dean gave her a wave and a wink, and followed Ron up the stairs.
Seamus was prepared to be angry at Lucy for acting strange and then not eating, but his anger, and the questions on the tip of Hermione's tongue vanished at the sight of the remnants of dinner and the lonely little paper turkey sitting on the table.
"THIS was it?" Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Why didn't you explain?"
"Explain what? 'Oh, by the way, I won't be down to dinner so I can observe the remembrance of my forefathers' triumph through a winter in the wilderness after escaping tyranny and persecution in this country?' Yeah, that would have gone over well."
"You didn't think we would have wanted to join you?" Harry looked confused.
"After all Lucy, food is food is food. Not really much to think about."
"And besides," Seamus added, "You shouldn't have had Thanksgiving dinner alone."
Lucy could have retorted with a comment about how he knew absolutely nothing about Thanksgiving dinner, but she didn't. And she couldn't really explain that she hadn't been alone during the meal, not really. Lonely, yes. Alone, never. So she smiled and nodded.
"Maybe you're right, thanks, but I'm fine, really. I just wanted my cranberry sauce the way it's supposed to be served. Besides, Diego only sent enough for a single serving."
They knew a dismissal when they heard it. Hermione headed back up to her room to study for the Herbology test they had tomorrow, and Harry headed back to his room as well.
Seamus lingered there for a moment, nervously. It was just so bloody hard to tell when you could push Lucy and when she just needed her space. No matter how hard he tried sometimes he felt like he just couldn't win.
"I'm really ok, you know." His thoughts were interrupted as he looked down to see Lucy studying him. "I didn't want to make a big deal about it, because its not. I mean last year I forgot about it completely."
He nodded.
"You'd better go study."
"What about you?"
"I've had Hermione grilling me all week, trust me, I'm going to do fine for a change."
He grinned and went upstairs. Lucy cleaned up her dinner and headed back to her room to be grilled once again.