Chapter 25:- Winter at Hogwarts
Lily, Alice, Dymphna and Amy hurried after Miriam they found her slumped flat on her stomach on her bed in their dormitory, MacMikelmouse, Miriam's kitten had obviously sensed something was wrong as he had returned from his wandering and was now brushing himself against Miriam's cheeks and rubbing his cheeks against her face as he purred loudly,
"What did it say?" Alice asked tenderly as she entered the dorm and sat next to Miriam on her bed. Alice was always the one who knew how to deal with situations like this, Lily thought, Miriam sighed as she turned to look at her friends her face slightly red but there were no obvious signs of any tears, not yet any way.
"Please Miriam" Lily said as she too now entered the dormitory followed by Dymphna and Amy "What's happened?" Sighing Miriam handed her friends the page of the Daily Prophet that Gideon had given her. Lily, Alice, Dymphna and Amy all crowed together to read it
Diseased
The header said in huge black print that stretched across the entire length of the page, underneath which was a portrait of Miriam dressed in her Hogwarts robes looking very shy.
The most distressing information has come to the attention of one of our most prized reporters, Rigel Schwarz. (The article read) Miss Miriam Artemis, the only daughter to the current heir of the ancient and most noble Artemis family, has been revealed to be carrying a deadly disease!
Insiders at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Miss Artemis is currently studying in her first year, have been able to reveal yesterday, that due to this impeding sickness Miss Artemis aged 11, was absent from lessons and all other social activities for over four weeks. Sources at the school have also revealed that various members of the schools faculty have been hiding this information from the general student populous and had even devised a cover story that was encouraged by them to be spread amongst the students. This leads this reporter to believe that there maybe something more to Miss Artemis' condition then meets the eye...
The rest of the article described in great detail the various different blood disorders that the reporter believed Miriam could have and also made reference to other articles that Miriam's family had been in in the past. Implying that there maybe was some underlying factors that contributed towards Miriam's condition, such as (as the article said half way down)
"links to impurities in the Artemis bloodline could very well be a factor for the course of such a terrible disease..."
Whatever that meant Lily didn't know, all she knew was that this article was the reason for her fiends current unhappiness, and after only just getting her back after an Lily didn't want to lose her again,
"It'll be alright!" Lily told Miriam trying to sound confident in her own words,
"Yeah you'll see no one will even care about this!" Alice said as she poked a finger at the offending newsprint,
"You know what we should do?" Amy said excitedly "We should burn it!"
"What?" Miriam asked a little stunned as she sat upright on her bed and Mac meowed almost in agreement to what Amy had said,
"Yeah" Dymphna agreed "We should burn it! You know sort of like a good omen!"
"Good omen?" Alice said sceptically her eyebrows raised,
"I don't think it'll work" Miriam said shaking her head as Dymphna and Amy pulled her off the bed and Mac dropped to the floor brushing around Miriam's feet,
"Go on" Dymphna and Amy both said encouragingly as Dymphna shoved the paper back into Miriam's hands. As Amy crossed the room to the small potbellied stove in the corner of the dormitory to stoke the dying embers Miriam looked at Lily,
"What do you think?" Miriam asked but before Lily could reply Dymphna was leading Miriam over to the stove and with one last glance at lily Miriam threw the paper on to the fires.
"I don't think it's going to help" Miriam said as she watched the paper shrivel up and burn,
"Nonsense!" Dymphna said "My mother does it all the time; it's a good omen she says" Lily didn't really want to point out that burning a scrap of paper wouldn't change how any of the other students had been reacting at breakfast, nor would it change the spiteful stares or the whispering. Lily looked towards Miriam who she realised also knew this fact too but Amy and Dymphna seemed very pleased about their contribution and Lily noticed that Miriam was at least smiling slightly.
"Come on" Dymphna said taking Miriam's hand "Frank and Remus are both worried about you"
"Their waiting in the common room" Amy said as she dashed to open the door,
"I...I Don't know about this" Miriam said looking a little worried "I'm not feeling too well maybe I should..."
"Nonsense" Amy and Dymphna said finally pulling Miriam out of the dormitory "It'll be fine!" Lily and Alice followed their friends, but despite the other two girls reassurances Lily could feel a pang in her stomach telling her that this wasn't a good idea.
Unfortunately Lily's gut feeling was right, the common room was uncommonly full as the snow had kept all the students inside, as soon as the first years entered the common room all the students fell silent and everyone's head turned to stare at the five friends.
"Just ignore it" Alice said as she led Miriam towards Frank and Remus who where sitting in one of the darker corners of the common room, The first years slowly crossed the common room as many of the older students began to whisper to their friends, some not even pretending to lower their voices.
"It makes you wonder what the rest of the family is riddled with!" Lily heard one of the sixth form girls say, Lily could have sworn that it was the same voice that she had heard say that they fancied Miriam's brother Jedidiah; the night the first years had sneaked out to visit Miriam in the hospital wing.
"Just ignore it" Alice uttered again but Lily could tell that as the whispers increased Miriam wouldn't be able to ignore it for long, they passed a group of third year boys who had paused in the middle of a game of Gobstones, Lily noticed that as Miriam passed two of the boys shrank against the walls. This Lily guessed was the final straw,
"IT'S NOT CONTAGIOUS!!!!" Miriam yelled at the boys before she turned to address the rest of the common room "YOU CAN'T CATCH ANYTHING! IT DOESN'T GET PASSED ON BY TOUCH OR BY BREATHING THE SAME AIR AS ME!!!" the common room fell into a sudden and awkward silence, even Frank looked shocked at Miriam's out burst but Lily noticed that Remus wore a very strange expression on his face, almost a look of understanding as though he was feeling very deeply for Miriam at that moment.
Over the weekend it was quite easy for the first year girls to avoid the stares and rude comments that where made because they spend most of their time in their dormitory. Frank insisted on joining in on their conversations by shouting strange and pointless comments up the girl's dormitory stairway and receiving yells of anger from Hug-and-kiss, Miriam's new nickname for prefect Amanda Hugh-Genghis, for disturbing the silence of the common room. On the occasional trips that Lily made to the common room over the weekend Lily noticed that Remus was becoming as withdraw as Miriam but Remus had an added misfortune of being slightly jumpy when people spoke to him. As Monday came and Miriam was forced out of her dorm and into lessons She, Lily and the others soon discovered that most students weather they had been friendly in the past or not quickly change their attitudes. People tended to treat Miriam very differently now, some students felt sorry for her and adopted very melancholy attitudes when they where near her, almost as though they believed Miriam wasn't long for this world. These where the types that Lily knew Miriam hated the most, they where students that hadn't even spoken to the first years before and yet they insisted on following the first years around as though Miriam was going to pop her clogs in front of their very eyes,
"I wouldn't give them that satisfaction" Miriam had growled, Then there were the group of students that still believed that Miriam's condition was something to be feared, they would cross to the other side of the corridors when they saw Miriam coming or pretend that they had forgotten something in their dorms and quickly hurry back the way they had come, just to avoid being in the same small space as her. Lily knew that these where the groups that Miriam liked the most, they where always nervous and jittery around Miriam and so very easily scared, and the first years soon discovered that a quick attack of a loud chesty cough soon freed up any queues from the bathrooms. The final group was the worst these included people like Bellatrix Black and many Ravenclaws, these students would go out of their way to make Miriam feel miserable or to even antagonise her. When the first years where in the common room Gideon Prewett always kept a watchful eye on the girls and when Miriam did adventure out of Gryffindor tower her brothers always seemed to be close at hand.
The snow that had begun to fall over the Halloween weekend had started to settle all over the grounds by mid week. Hagrid's hut resembled a snow covered hillock, the forbidden forest looked even more dark and ominous, a thin layer of ice had started to form over the lake and the giant squid hadn't been seen in over a week. Most of the students and teachers had taken the squids absence as a sign that the school was in for a bad winter, Franks answer however was that the Merpeople had eaten it.
"There are no Merpeople in the lake" Alice said irritably as she pulled her thick woollen scarf up around her neck and drew her cape around her "It's just a silly myth!" Lily and the rest of the first years quickly discovered that Hogwarts was not a winter friendly place. The castle itself was constantly cold, Frank had a theory about this too, he clamed that the castle had purposely been designed to ensure that no room was able to stay warm, so that over the winter months the students would have to devote all their free time towards studying in the warmer location of the school such as the library. This theory Lily and the others did agree with, every door had a gap of a few inches that the cruel winter wind would blow through, and most windows in the main corridors didn't contain any glass so the howling wind would carry pockets of snow and rain into the castle itself. Besides the library the only other places that where warm where the common rooms and dormitories, but with only fifteen minutes break between each lesson the Gryffindors never had enough time to climb to the seventh floor, before their next lesson started. Because of this cold weather most of the teachers allowed the students to wear their gloves and scarf's during lessons. For the most part this was good and the students could keep relatively warm. The spells used in charms and Transfigurations were still aptly performed even with the hindrance of thick woollen gloves or mittens but writing was some times difficult and classes like potions and Herbology was completely impossible to do to a satisfactory level but most of the student still stubbornly wore their gloves. During the winter months Madam Pomfrey was constantly kept busy with students who had bad colds and burnt hands.
Including the addition of their gloves and scarfs no student left their dormitories nowadays without a thick woolly jumper under their robes. And in the evenings when all the students could finally retire to their common rooms most students fought for the prime positions. In the Gryffindor common room this was the two large red sofas directly in front of the roaring log fire. This prime location however was always reserved for the older and more popular students of the house, this was because they saw themselves as more important then the younger years. This was never truer then with the members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, who along with the final years insisted on a tight pecking order.
This student hierarchy started with Quidditch captain Calvin Skinner and ended with the first years, it wasn't too much of a surprise that due to this the first years where treated like the lowest of the low. Although Lily preferred to assume that this was manly due to the fact that they had done too much to annoy the rest of the house.
Lily assumed this from the fact that Robert Smithson and David Darcy, who still partnered Lily and Miriam in Herbology had told the girls that the older Hufflepuff students had taken them under their wings and tried to show them the ropes of life at the school. But Lily suspected that life in Hufflepuff house was generally a lot better then any other house every Hufflepuff student seamed to get on very well with each other.
The Snow had finally stopped falling on Tuesday afternoon, a full week after the Halloween feast. After all the students had eaten lunch many of the more adventurous ones could be found out in the castle grounds, making Snowelves and Snow angels and having snowball fights in the larger drifts of snow. Lily, Frank Alice and Miriam could be found inside one of the allotted class rooms where professor McGonagall acting on the orders of Miriam's parents and Grandfather had insisted that Miriam should go to at breaks and dinners so that nothing untoward would happen to her while the rest of the school enjoyed themselves playing and having fun in the snow. Miriam as Lily and the other first years correctly guessed didn't appreciate being singled out like this, but after the release of the article in the Daily Prophet even the prospect of a bit of fun in the snow hadn't seemed to lighten Miriam's spirits, in fact if anything Lily thought that Miriam's spirits had turned foul just like the weather. Most days Miriam could be found in the library sifting through great dusty volumes on curses and enchantments, Miriam's reclusive behaviour had started to worry her friends but Lily would have tried to have shown more concern for Miriam's continued strange behaviour if it hadn't been for Miriam's two older brothers insisting on doing their protective brother routine.
And so, even thought the classroom had been allotted for the sole use of Miriam and the first years Gryffindors both Thaddeus and Jedidiah accompanied as ever by their best friends, Lucius Malfoy and Ludo Bagman, could be found in the room keeping a close eye on their little sister.
Today Lily guessed must have been Thaddeus' turn at looking after his sister as Jedidiah and Ludo could be found out in the grounds with the rest of their fourth year friends and a great majority of the school including Dymphna and Amy. Thaddeus sat next to his sister trying to engage her in conversation but after a while he gave up and turned his attention to his girlfriend Narcissa Black, who was being chatted up by Thaddeus' best mate Lucius Malfoy.
"Push off mate" Thaddeus said as he put his arms around Narcissa, drawing her close and kissing her on the head,
"Fine" Lucius said smiling "but it's your loss Narcs!" Acting as though he was hurt Lucius moved over to a group of girls that always followed Thaddeus, Lucius and Narcissa around. Some of the girls where younger then the final years but all of them where in Slytherin, Lucius smiled at Narcissa as he slipped his hand around the shoulder of one of the younger girls, She was probably in her fourth year lily guessed, as the girl giggled and turned red as Lucius playfully blew into her ear.
"I think I could live with the loss" Narcissa replied to Lucius as she put her arms around Thaddeus' neck and leaned up to kiss him on the chin "I've all I want here" Narcissa said a smile playing across her lips as she gazed into her boyfriends eyes, and Thaddeus smiled.
Despite Lily's dislike of two other members of the Black family, Lily actually liked Narcissa, she was the complete opposite of her youngest sister Bellatrix in more then just appearance. Bellatrix had dark hair and eyes, while Narcissa had white blond hair and light brown eyes and was one of the most attractive girls in the school. She was also quite intelligent and received good grades in all her work, and even though she constantly adopted a look as though there was something rancid nearby, Lily discovered that Narcissa was quite a nice person. Lily had also soon discovered that Thaddeus was classed one of the most eligible and attractive males in the school along with his brother and Lucius, and so Lily thought that Thaddeus and Narcissa made a very apt couple.
"Makes you feel sick" Frank said staring at the couple as they kissed again and Lucius tried out his chat up lines on the other girls now causing a chorus of giggles,
"I think it's romantic" Alice said dreamily,
Lily just nodded and mumbled, she also thought that the affection that Thaddeus and Narcissa had for each other was very romantic but she also found it sickening, Thaddeus was indeed very good looking and Lily always felt a pang of jealousy towards Narcissa because Lily had realised that she actually quite liked Miriam's eldest brother. Lily was quickly pulled from her jealous thoughts by a loud bang from outside in the grounds, she, Frank, Alice and the others in the class raced towards the window only to see Jedidiah, Ludo and the rest of their fellow fourth year Slytherins boys taking their snowball fight against a group of older Gryffindors a little too far.
"Miriam come look!" Frank called as Jedidiah threw his wand aside and dived at Calvin Skinner the Gryffindor Quidditch captain,
"For Merlins sake!" Lily heard Thaddeus' voice say, he was now standing right next to her and suddenly Lily felt very self-conscious,
"You stay here!" Thaddeus said pointing to his sister who hadn't even took her head out of the book she was engrossed in. Miriam completely ignored her brother as he and Lucius headed out of the classroom wands at the ready as the younger Slytherin girls whispered excitedly as they gazed at the two older boy's as they took off down the corridor. More loud bangs could be heard outside and after a few minutes Lily could see Thaddeus and Lucius sprinting across the snow filled grounds to where Jedidiah and Calvin where still fighting. Ludo and the rest of the Slytherins and Gryffindors who that had been shooting coloured flares at each other were now all standing and watching the out come of the fight between the two rivals.
"Why don't the teachers stop it?" Lily asked the room in general as she stood looking at the fight from the classroom window with her friends,
"It's just a simple fracas" Narcissa said "Just the usual sparing match, they always happen before the big game" Lily didn't fully understand what Narcissa had meant by 'Big Game' and she didn't really care, all she knew was that Jedidiah could get hurt and that the teachers were not trying to stop the fight. Thaddeus and Lucius didn't seem too pleased about the fracas as they tried separating the two younger boys, but in doing so Jedidiah spun round and hit his brother in the face making Lily gasp and Lucius double over in laughter. From the window lily could see that Thaddeus looked enraged at his younger brother as he tried to apologise, but as Jedidiah held his hands up to look at his brothers bleeding nose Thaddeus punched Jedidiah and so the fracas started again but this time with a new contender,
"Oh dear" Narcissus said a smile turning up the corner of her lips "I think I best go separate them before they do something they regret" and with that she headed out of the room followed as ever by the entourage of younger Slytherin girls.
"WOW!" Frank exclaimed as Thaddeus punched his brother again and Jedidiah fell to the ground and then dived at his brothers legs, "Well I guess we'll soon see who's the better fighter!" Frank said blissfully remembering the argument that the two brothers had had during the Halloween feast. Lily wasn't really paying attention to Frank she was wondering why Lucius hadn't tried to stop the two boys, but no sooner had the thought formed in Lily's head then Lucius grabbed Jedidiah around his middle and with the help of Ludo the two boys dragged Jedidiah off his older brother.
Both boys where bleeding badly from various cuts, but even from the height of the third floor classroom Lily could see that Thaddeus looked like he wanted nothing more then to kill his brother and so did Jedidiah. But after getting shakily to his feet Thaddeus smiled and held his hand out to his brother, Jedidiah, now free form Lucius and Ludo's grasp shook his brothers hand and they both pulled each other into a massive rib cracking bear hug. Lily saw that Calvin Skinner had by now disappeared into the crowd and the two brothers looked like they where now laughing and joking about what had just happened,
"You've got one screwed up family Mi" Frank said next to lily as they both stared through the window to see Narcissa running across the grounds towards Thaddeus who hugged her and kissed her on the lips and the surrounding Slytherins cheered, Lily turned away from the window,
"It's done Mi" Lily said but Miriam was no longer sitting at the desk "Miriam?" Lily said quickly looking around the class room but apart from herself, Frank and Alice it was completely empty,
"Great!" Frank said hysterically "We've lost the sister of the psycho brothers!"
