Chapter 28: A Minor Curiosity

NOVEMBER 1986, FRESHMAN YEAR AT UNIVERSITY

"So," Andrea said, flopping down on her bed. "Decided what you're doing for the holidays?"

Meli looked mildly at her. "Should I have?" she replied, glancing at the calendar. "It's a month and a half until Christmas."

"But it's only two and a half weeks 'til Thanksgiving," Andrea countered. "What are you doing for that?"

"Thanksgiving?" Meli gave her a blank look.

"Five-day weekend—you've got to go somewhere for turkey."

Meli offered a smile that seemed to indicate indulgence of a mental patient on a rant. "Have I, then?" she asked. "And why is that?"

"It's tradition!" Andrea told her.

"For Americans, perhaps," Meli allowed. "I've survived eighteen years without it. What's one more?"

Andrea looked reproachful. "When in Rome, Meli."

"But I'm not in Rome, am I?" she countered. "Or are you also suggesting that I should go traipsing about in a toga?"

A snort of laughter escaped her roommate, but it was succeeded almost immediately by a disapproving glare. "Come on, Meli—consider it a cultural experience."

"Do you know how much I could get done over five days if I'm not busy eating turkey?" Meli raised her eyebrows. "That's plenty of time to finish off three term papers and several reading assignments."

"But you'll be missing out on Thanksgiving Day!" Andrea protested. "The Macy's parade, the turkey and stuffing—"

"If it's only one day," Meli interrupted, "why do we have a five-day weekend?"

Andrea shrugged. "Well, Thanksgiving's on a Thursday, and no one wants to travel on Thanksgiving Day if they can help it, so we get a travel day on either side, and then Saturday and Sunday we have off anyway."

"Oh, that's the way of it, then." Meli ran some quick calculations. "And it's traditional not to do homework during that time?"

"Well . . . we do as little as possible," Andrea allowed.

"Then I'll be at least two weeks ahead of everyone!" She smiled cheerily, then returned to her typing.

Andrea sighed. "Look, I know you've been certified to apparate," she said, "so it's not like you have to buy a plane ticket. Isn't there someone back home you'd like to visit?"

"The few friends I have will all be in school," Meli pointed out dryly. "And as for my family . . . Well, I haven't seen my grandfather for eight years, and I have no wish ever to see him again. My parents died five years ago, and I haven't anyone else. My only other home is Hogwarts, and I can't very well go there for a visit, can I? They'll be in session, as well."

"So you're just going to stay here, then?"

She sighed. "You make it sound like a tragedy, Andrea, and it's not. I've always been solitary; I don't mind it. So yes, I will stay here for Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's and Lincoln's Birthday and Easter and any other days Americans have invented as an excuse not to study."

"That's Presidents Day," Andrea corrected sardonically. "We don't get a day off for just Lincoln."

Meli stared at her, mystified. "Do you mean to tell me that you take a day off for Martin Luther King, Jr., but not for the man who saw to it that he was a clergyman instead of a slave? What sense does that make?!"

Andrea shrugged again. "Hey, I don't decide the days," she answered. "I just sleep in on 'em."

"What a backward country." Meli shook her head.

"Backward?" Andrea repeated. "Cut me a break! We make all the best movies with all the coolest special effects. America brought you Star Wars, my friend."

"But Britain produced Masterpiece Theatre."

"Yeah? Well who gave the world Pepsi and Coors?"

Meli smirked. "As opposed to the kingdom that gave you Guinness and Glenlivet?"

Andrea was glaring again, but she was obviously amused. "Tom Clancy, Mark Twain, and Henry James are all American."

"But Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Brontës were all British," Meli retorted. "And Henry James expatriated to England."

"Weell . . . your country produced Ozzy Osbourne!"

Meli hadn't the faintest idea who Ozzy Osbourne might be, other than a musician, but she was not about to concede a point on that basis. "I happen to like Ozzy Osbourne," she countered. "And we also produced the Beatles. What do you have—Elvis?" She snorted derisively.

"We've got all the best actors, though!" Andrea persisted. "Harrison Ford, Audrey Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts—"

"Whereas we have Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, John Cleese, Peter Cushing, Dame Judy Dench, and Christopher Lee," Meli cut her off. "Shall I go on? Sir Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart—"

"All right, so stop, already!"

"I'm waiting for your rebuttal."

Andrea paused, her mouth open and ready to pour out the first witty reply that came to mind. Finally: "Well, we still whupped your butts in 1781!"

"Oh, please!" Meli laughed in mock-exasperation. "We let you go, you silly Yank! You don't honestly think we'd want to hold on to a handful of colonies in which people had much rather eat turkey than work, who think the proper use for tea is to pour it into the ocean, and who have to go to the French—the French!—for help in fighting off our token army to win an independence that we wanted you to have anyway! We put up a fight so you'd value your perceived liberty while we could enjoy our superior culture in peace, without your interference, but seeing how that freedom's gone to your head and given you delusions of your own superiority, perhaps we should have held onto you—we might have been able to knock some sense into you at an early, formative stage and prevented the current monstrosity!"

Andrea stared at her, then slowly grinned. "You must've been pretty good at talking your way out of punishments," she said.

"You'll have to ask my teachers about that one," Meli replied. "I'll never tell."

PRESENT: LATE FEBRUARY

Snape was not thrilled when, upon entering the Potions classroom from his office, he discovered Meli's Auror friend waiting for him. He preserved his composure, however, and inclined his head slightly in greeting. "Is there something I can do for you, Agent Hiller?" he inquired.

"Nothing pertaining to official business," she replied, smiling almost sheepishly. "In fact, I hope to be out of your hair in under five minutes. There's only one question I have, and it's just a curiosity thing."

Snape narrowed his eyes in amusement. "Oh?'

"How was Meli at getting out of scrapes when she was a student here?"

He stared at her. It was probably the last question he would have expected an Auror to ask. "Are you suggesting that she's trying to 'get out of a scrape' now?" he countered.

"No!" The Auror looked genuinely shocked at the idea. "This has nothing to do with any of that. But when we were in college together, she had a knack for winning pretty much every argument or debate, even when all the evidence was against her. I asked her if she'd ever made use of that skill for getting out of punishments, and she told me I'd have to ask her teachers because she'd never tell." She shrugged. "So, now that I'm in the neighborhood, I'm asking."

Snape quirked one corner of his mouth. Yes, that did sound like something Meli would say—and even if Agent Hiller was lying, she could investigate Meli Ebony to her heart's content; there was nothing there that she probably didn't already know, and if there was, she had no way of finding it out.

"I have long regretted that Meli was not Sorted into Slytherin," he replied after a moment. "She would have done far more credit to that House than almost everyone since Sorted into it. Yes, Agent Hiller, she was quite adept at avoiding punishment when it suited her. But perhaps you should ask her about the times when it did not suit her to do so."

"When it didn't—" The Auror's eyes had widened to saucers. "Oh, my. I'll do that." She nodded once. "Thank you, Professor Snape," she said. "I won't trouble you further."