Chapter 24: - The Daily Prophet again

As the day after Halloween was Saturday the entire school was allowed to sleep in late and it wasn't until nearly 10am that Lily started to wake as Miriam's pet Kneazle, Mac, cried at the dormitory door wanting to be let out.

"I know, I know" Lily heard Miriam say as she climbed out of the bed to the left of lily's "Don't look at me like that young man I'm up aren't I!" Lily stretched and yawned as she heard Miriam cross the stone floor towards the door to unseal it, The first year girls still insisted on keeping the Everlasting seal charm on the door as a prevention, and Miriam being the one who had cast the charm the previous night was able to removed the seal and open the door.

"Don't get lost!" Miriam called as lily could hear the tapping of the little Kneazle's claws on the stone stairs as he shot off down to the common room "And I want you back here before two do you here me!" Lily smiled to herself at the thought that Miriam could hold an entire conversation with an animal that couldn't even understand her. After a few more minutes Alice, Dymphna and Amy began to wake and the five girls washed, changed and headed down for breakfast.

"Look it's snowing!" Amy called to the girls as they passed the huge church like windows on the third floor,

"Brilliant" Dymphna said miserably "If it carries on like that the start of the Quidditch season will be postponed"

"You wish!" Miriam said as Lily watched the two girls squash their faces up against the windows glass so that they could look out onto the grounds "The Wasps are going to beat your Arrows into cider this year!"

"You what?" Amy asked looking utterly bewildered,

"Don't get them started" Lily heard Alice plead as she walked down the stairs beside Lily, but it was too late Miriam and Dymphna insisted on teaching Amy their own biased views of Quidditch from their favourite clubs point of view, the Appleby Arrows from Dymphna and Miriam's team the Wimbourne Wasps. And so it was that Lily and Alice led the first year Gryffindor girls into the almost full Great hall while Amy walked behind them followed by Miriam and Dymphna who were arguing over the finer points of a match that had taken place over three years ago,

"It was an illegal move if the ref-" Miriam managed to say before she was cut off by Dymphna

"The referee allowed it so it couldn't be classed as ill-" Dymphna snapped

"Blagging is illegal it's just that your team knew they couldn't win if they fought fair!" Miriam said getting irritably

"Fair! At least we didn't do any bumphing!" cried Dymphna

"If your team was going to play fair in the first place we wouldn't have resorted to dirty underhanded tricks!" Miriam said as the girls headed towards their usual places at the Gryffindor table and Lily's mind began to filter their conversation out. It wasn't that Lily wasn't interested about Quidditch; on the contrary it sounded really good, sort of a mix between football and netball but on brooms. It was just that Lily didn't find the weather conditions, tactics and players health of a game that had been played years before Lily's introduction to the magical world very riveting. And she wasn't the only one.

"What are they doing?" Alice asked curiously as she gazed around the hall and pointed to Miriam's eldest brother and Lucius Malfoy, both of whom were busily pulling a copy of the a newspaper out of the hands of a protesting second year at the Ravenclaw table before they realised that they had been seen by Miriam and her friends.

"Little git stole my prophet!" Thaddeus said innocently as Miriam quickly changed course followed by Lily and the rest of the girls as they now headed over to Miriam's brother who quickly shoved the paper at Lucius Malfoy who flashed his pearly white smile at the girls before he headed back to the Slytherin table and rejoined Jedidiah and Ludo where they busily hid something under their table.

"Really" Miriam said eyeing her brother suspiciously as she placed her hands on her hips. Thaddeus was a lot taller and seven years older then his sisters and with the memory of Thaddeus's gallant actions of the previous evening during the Halloween feast still fresh in Lily's mind she found it very amusing to see Thaddeus actually flush red around his collar as he struggled to find any words as he scratched at his left hand which lily noticed was unnaturally red. Finally Thaddeus shot a pleading look towards Jedidiah and the rest of his friends at the Slytherin table,

"Hay Sis!" Jedidiah said too over enthusiastically as he jumped to his feet and practically ran to his brother's side and quickly steered Miriam away from Thaddeus as the eldest Artemis sibling quickly headed back to the Slytherin table,

"So....er...how's my baby sister today then?" Jedidiah asked

"Why?" Miriam demanded using the same glare on Jedidiah that she had used on Thaddeus. Lily had to struggle to stop herself laughing as she saw the burly fourth year fluster under his sister's gaze.

"W-What....er...Can't a brother ask about the welfare of his favourite sister?" Jedidiah said raising his hands in a sign of peace, Lily was sure that Miriam was going to retort with a clichéd response to Jedidiah's words but none came, instead Miriam eyes widened as she grabbed hold of Jedidiah's right hand and looked very sorrowful as she slowly shook her head,

"I'm so sorry" Miriam said meekly as lily noticed that Jedidiah had the same nasty looking red mark on his right hand that Thaddeus had on his left,

"Don't fret about it kido" Jedidiah said forcing a smiling as he quickly pulled his hand out of Miriam's grasp and hid it in his robes pocket "I'm used to it! And I'll let you in on a secret Merlap works like a charm!" Lily saw that Jedidiah nervously shot a look towards his brother who quickly shook his head as the he stuffed something into his bag and several of their fourth and final year friends quickly hid more things under their table.

"Anyway" Jedidiah said quickly drawing his sister's attention back towards himself and away from the activities of the Slytherins "It's such a fine day so why are you all inside? Boisterous young adventures like you five should be outside in the fresh air!"

"You're beginning to sound like our Butler!" Miriam said as she raised an eyebrow "And besides it's snowing!"

"Even more reason for you to be out! You should be building Snowelves and having snow ball fights" Jedidiah's face fell as he realised what could happen to his sister if she was injured in a snowball fight "Er - on second thought your right you'd better stay in and get your homework done, head up to the library and be safe!" Jedidiah said enthusiastically as he took hold of his sister's arm and tried to drag her towards the huge oak doors,

"What's gong on?" Miriam said pulling her arm free as Lily, Alice, Dymphna and Amy all stood wondering the exact same thing.

"Nothing!" Jedidiah said far too quickly for all the first years liking and drawing a very suspicious looks from them all,

"Nothing" Jedidiah repeated again "It's .... Well...I bet you've got loads of back logged homework to do having been in the hospital wing for so long?"

"I did it all WHILE I was there!" Miriam said angrily

"Well you can help the others out!" Jedidiah said indicating Lily and the other girls

"What without any breakfast?" Amy said in astonishment

"Why not? You don't need to eat!" Jedidiah said struggling to hide his nervousness at being scrutinized by Miriam and her friends has he kept shooting glances at his brother and Ludo "B-Besides it'll be lunch soon you....well....You could work up an appetite!"

"What's going On!" Miriam demanded has she finally turned to look at Thaddeus sitting at the Slytherin table

"Nothing!" Jedidiah said grabbing hold of his sister's arm once more and spinning her around so that she faced him,

"Nothing? Really? Then let me eat I'm famished!" Miriam said once again pulling her arm free from Jedidiah,

"How about I-" Jedidiah began

"NO!" Miriam said cutting him off

"FINE!" Jedidiah raged

"FINE!" Miriam said still glaring at her brother

"I'll let you go then" Jedidiah said but after a slight pause he continued and lily thought that she could detect a slight nervousness in his voice "But...err...If you... well need anything-" Jedidiah said in earnest before he trailed off realising that his sister's attention lay else where

"Is that the Prophet?" Miriam said as she turned once more to look at her eldest brother and his friends as Lucius sat down opposite Thaddeus and passed him a broadsheet

"Brilliant" Miriam said enthusiastically as she turned to look at Dymphna "Today's the day they release the results of the leagues pre-season friendlys!" Miriam said this as she ducked around Jedidiah who looked utterly horrified and immediately chased after her,

"Tad!" Miriam called as she reached her older brother at the Slytherin table, Lily saw Thaddeus jumped at the sound of his name and he quickly span around in his seat to see his sister heading towards him followed by Jedidiah, Lily, Alice, Dymphna and Amy. The girls still wondering what was going on.

"Can I have your Prophet?" Miriam demanded as she reached out for the newspaper in Thaddeus' hand,

"I - er - haven't finished with it!" Thaddeus said as he quickly moved it out of her reach,

"Well that's ok I don't want to read the rubbish just the sports pages!" Miriam said making another grab for the paper,

"No!" Jedidiah said in alarm as he grabbed Miriam's hand receiving a very stern look from his sister for doing so "I mean Tad said I could read it first!"

"That's just stupid! Dad holds a subscription for you as well, so where's your copy?"

"It didn't come this morning!" Jedidiah said quickly, Lily could tell that he was obviously lying as he smiled and looked slightly amazed at his own cunning

"Then how come the paper Ludo's hiding has J Artemis written on the top corner?" Miriam said as she pointed to the half concealed copy of the prophet that was sticking out from underneath Ludo's plate,

"Well I want to see if it's changed!" Jedidiah immediately said, and he immediately shook his head as soon as the words left his mouth, Lily knew that he had regretted his own words as his sister suddenly intensified the look she gave him. And Lily found it very hard to try and not laugh.

"Here!" Thaddeus said tearing the back pages off the newspaper in his hand making the people in the images rush to the opposite side of the pictures away from the tear,

"Thanks" Miriam said harshly as she took the offered pagers and she and the rest of the first year girls finally headed back over to the Gryffindor table. Lily was sure that nearly everyone in the hall was staring at them, 'Great Lily thought that's all they needed more of the school hating them!'

The girls sat down at the Gryffindor table just as Frank, James, Sirius, Remus and Peter joined them

"Hi ya Remmy" Miriam said happily as she spread the precious pages of the Prophet out in front of herself and Dymphna and the two girls restarted their discussion on their favourite teams as James and Sirius both tried to sneak peeks at the paper from across the table.

"You don't look very well today" Lily informed Remus as he sat in front of her and helped himself to some slices of toast,

"Err...No...I guess I didn't sleep too well" Remus said nervously as he looked around the hall. Lily had noticed it to, it hadn't registered when she had first sat down but now she was sure of it, the third year students that usually set next to the first years had moved away from them slightly and all of them had the same shocked and worried expression playing across their faces.

"Merlin look at this!" Miriam said jabbing one of the pages with her finger "The wasps' star keeper was injured in training and he's going to be out for the rest of the season!" Lily noticed that Miriam looked utterly devastated about the news and Lily wondered weather this was the reason why Miriam's brothers hadn't wanted her to read the newspaper? Maybe Thaddeus and Jedidiah knew how badly Miriam would have reacted to the news? Lily knew that her father didn't take it very well when one of his football team players was injured, and with everything else that Miriam had been through in the pass few weeks maybe Miriam's brothers didn't want to upset Miriam any further?

But for some reason this explanation didn't seem to feel right to Lily, if it was true it didn't explain why many of the other students kept staring at them and why the ones closest to them had tried to move away and also it didn't explain why most of the students were whispering to each other behind their hands and looking towards the first year Gryffindors as though they where diseased and something very vile. Lily looked around at the other students once more hoping that she was being paranoid, but she wasn't the only one that was thinking this Remus was shifting uncomfortably in his seat, his large eyes darting from side to side as he too looked around the hall, his face, if possible, palling even more.

"Are you feeling ok?" Lily asked as she leaned across the table to whisper to Remus.

Remus jumped as Lily spoke to him and he stuttered a reply,

"What!...Oh y-y-yes!" Even though Remus had said that he was fine Lily could tell that he wasn't, He like her, Lily thought was finding the continued glares of the other students unbearable.

"Are we today's freak show?" James asked indignantly as he looked around at the other students,

"You should be used to it" Alice said "You are a freak!"

"Thanks and you're the spitting image of a Grim!" James said as a retorted that made Sirius laugh, Lily couldn't help but grin as Sirius' laugh sounded more like a bark.

"Thanks Jimmy and I wish you would see a Grim!" Alice said in a tone of voice that betrayed no emotions,

"My Uncle saw a Grim once" peter announced to the group as though it was the most wonderful thing in the world, Lily of course had no idea what a Grim was and so she sat listening to the ensuing conversation of her friends,

"Really!" Sirius asked eagerly "When?"

"When he was our age, on a holiday in Devon" Peter said sadly,

"Wow! And he really died?" Frank asked as he joined to fuel the morbid conversation,

"Oh yes" Peter said excitedly as he realised the everyone but Miriam and Dymphna where interested in what he had to say, a very rear thing for Peter Lily thought, "He died last year on his ninetieth birthday"

"You dunce!" Sirius said as he rapped Peter around the head and James and Frank groaned loudly before bursting out laughing,

"Th-Their supposed to die within a shorter time frame then that!" Frank said in between laughs,

"Yeah I've never heard of the effects of a Grim lasting over eighty years!" Sirius said as he made his load barking laugh again,

"Isn't it more likely that your uncle just saw a really big black dog?" Alice said,

"Oh no Allywally," James said mocking his twin "if Peter says his Uncle died because he saw a Grim then that's what happed! Alice opened her mouth to reply to her brother but suddenly she stopped and turned as all the first years heard a passing Ravenclaw third year hiss something as he passed the first years at the Gryffindor table.

"What did he just say?" James said in utter disgusted as he and the other first years watched the Ravenclaw exit the great hall. The first years didn't have long to ponder this as a group of second year Ravenclaws quickened their pace as they passed the part of the table where the first years sat,

"What was that about?" Frank asked his laughing fit suddenly over as he turned to look at his fellow first years, his face very grim. Lily noticed that Frank wasn't the only one that was shocked by the behaviour of the other students James, Alice, Sirius and Amy all noticed that the first year Gryffindors where all being stared at, Lily also noticed that Remus was behaving strangely, he sat in his seat and lowered his head almost like he was ashamed of something.

"Hello you lot" Gryffindor's sixth year prefect Gideon Prewett said cheerfully as he sat down next to Miriam and Remus "So....How are your lessons going?"

"Really good!" Dymphna said eagerly, tearing herself away from the Sports columns of the few pages of the Prophet that Thaddeus had given them. Up until this point Dymphna and Miriam had been enthralled in the pages, carrying on their own conversations that slated each others and rival Quidditch clubs both completely wrapped up in a world of their own. But like always at the appearance of Gideon, Dymphna soon managed to abandon her current activity and was soon staring at Gideon fondly, Quidditch completely forgotten.

"Potions is a bit tough but other then that we're doing fine!" Dymphna told Gideon happily

"Just Potions?" Frank said asked in surprise "You mean that and Transfigurations and Charms and all the rest of them!"

"It's not that bad Longbottom, surly?" Gideon asked smiling, Lily noticed that Dymphna held her breath as she now gazed into Gideon's handsome smiling features as though by doing this she could hold on to his image forever,

"Ignore him he's in a mood today" Alice said, Lily tried to hide a grin as she heard Dymphna sigh as Gideon turned to look towards Alice who was sitting on the opposite side of Dymphna and so therefore could no longer gaze into the sixth former's eyes,

"ME!" Frank said indignantly "He's the one in the mood!" at this Frank pointed to Remus who quickly shot Frank an angry look at being singled out.

"So...er...Remus is it?" Gideon asked tentatively, as Remus nodded slightly to indicate that Gideon had guessed his name correctly "How are you feeling today?"

"He's fine!" Said a voice from behind the first years as Remus was about to open his mouth, turning Lily saw both of Miriam's brothers standing behind her staring at Gideon as though he was something nasty on the soles of their shoes.

"What are you doing here?" Thaddeus demanded of Gideon,

"Unless I'm very much mistaken this is still the Gryffindor table-" Gideon said, his voice calm and even

"And that's our sister!" Jedidiah said bitterly as he pointed to Miriam who had now finally lifted her head from the newspaper pages spread out in front of her

"So?" Miriam said angrily "What do you two want anyway?"

"We want him to push off back to the rest of his perfect prefect friends and to leave you alone" Jedidiah said as he gestured with his thumb to the other end of the Gryffindor table

"He isn't dong anything wrong" Dymphna insisted as she glared at Miriam's brothers with the utmost loathing in her eyes, horrid at the thought that Gideon could leave,

"Besides we like Gideon" Miriam said

"You've no right to do it" Thaddeus said looking at Gideon as though he hadn't heard his sister speak

"She and they have a right to know!" Gideon said to Thaddeus, Lily felt as though she had walked in half way through a conversation, the two eldest boys where talking as though the topic on which they had been talking about had been discussed a hundred times before. Lily also noticed that Remus' eyes widened in what almost looked like fear and panic and his mouth fell open slightly as Thaddeus spoke next,

"Maybe they do but you don't have the right to tell them!"

"What's going on?" Miriam asked as she looked from her brothers to Gideon and back again,

"I think you've a right to see this" Gideon said as his put his hand into his robes pocket and fished out a scrape of news print, as both Thaddeus and Jedidiah protested loudly.

"W-W-What is it?" Remus asked nervously as he, Lily and the rest of the first years stared at the paper

"She's our sister, we know what's best for her" Jedidiah said as he tried to snatch the paper out of Gideon's hand

"It's about me?" Miriam asked in horror as she too made a grab for the paper, but Gideon pulled it away from both of them. Lily heard Remus sigh with relief and Lily assumed that it was because Jedidiah didn't manage to grab hold of the paper. Lily could tell that by the look on Gideon's face he was no longer sure weather giving Miriam the paper was a good idea,

"If it's about me I want to read it!" Miriam said as she held out her hand to Gideon who slowly and despite the deathly looks that Thaddeus and Jedidiah was giving him handed over the slip of paper. Lily and the rest of the first year Gryffindors along with Gideon and Miriam's brothers watched as Miriam unfolded the now crumpled paper to reveal that it was a full page article from a newspaper, but not just any newspaper, Lily could see that on the reverse of the paper it was dated for this morning. Now everything clicked! Miriam's brothers had been acting strangely because they had found out that the Daily Prophet had printed something about Miriam or their family, and what ever it had been they didn't what Miriam to read it, that explained why they had been so reluctant to let Miriam see a copy of the newspaper and why the brothers and the rest of their Slytherin friends had been stealing newspapers from the rest of the school.

Lily now watched as everyone's eyes fell on Miriam as she began to read the article that Gideon had given her, Miriam seemed to take a very long time in reading the article and when she did actually finish she lowered the page and forced a smile on to her face,

"Well...You've got to admire the research" Miriam said cheerfully as she folded the sheet of paper up and put it into her pocket,

"Don't worry about it" Thaddeus said reassuringly as he moved towards his sister and place his hand on her shoulder "Dad's looking into how this all got out he's going to sort it all out for us"

"For me you mean" Miriam corrected her brother her voice cracking slightly as her eyes began to grow moist,

"Yeah" Thaddeus said quietly as he knelt down next to his sister looking very concerned for her as he rubbed her arm,

"Heads are going to roll for this" Jedidiah said happily as though his statement would bring comfort to his sister

"Dad wrote saying he's going to demand that they print a retraction immediately" Thaddeus said in a very low voice "And it's not going to be one of those tiny twentieth page things, Dad wants a proper retraction on the full front page!"

"No" Miriam said her voice sounding strong despite the promise of tears "Why should they it's all the truth it's not like they've lied or anything" and with that Miriam shook her brothers hand off her arm got up from the table and headed out of the great hall leaving Lily and the rest of the first years utterly bewildered.

"Thanks a lot Prewett!" Jedidiah said bitterly, Gideon opened his mouth to answer but Thaddeus replied instead,

"No Jed Prewett was right we should have told her" Thaddeus' voiced sounded flat and sorrowful "It probably hurts more because we were the one that didn't tell her" Jedidiah slowly nodded his agreement at his brothers words and Lily suddenly realised that the first years, Gideon and the two Artemis siblings were being stared at by the entire Great hall, The rest of the students started to whisper again and many shot looks towards the huge oak doors of the great hall which Miriam had disappeared though moments before,

"What's going on here?" said the very stern voice Professor McGonagall as she came to investigate the reason for two brothers appearance at the Gryffindor table, Thaddeus solemnly dug his hand into his robes pocket and pulled out a copy of the same page that Gideon had given to Miriam, this page Thaddeus now handed to McGonagall,

"Oh..... Well.... I see" McGonagall said as she finally read the article "Well this is not no reason to be disturbing the rest of the school!" at the professors words both Thaddeus and Jedidiah shot McGonagall a venomous look before they both headed back to their own table and rejoined their friends.