"It's a sine[,] Severus[,]' Igor said[,] showing him his arm." –jacquisup, "Put Two Twins Together, Book 4"

"No, it isn't," Snape replied, after a cursory glance at the tattooed graph. "A sine curve would intersect the y-axis at the origin. That's a cosine that you have there."

Karkaroff blinked. "Really?"

"Certainly."

"Well, damn," said Karkaroff, scowling down at his arm. "See if I ever recommend that tattooist to anyone. I asked him for a sine quite clearly; you'd think he might have bothered to get it right, for what he charged."

Snape smirked. "Evidently trigonometry isn't his area of expertise," he remarked. "If you'd asked for an equilateral hyperbola across your chest, I can personally attest that you'd have had no such troubles."

"Shaking those thoughts from his head, he turned over in his bud upstairs." –Anonamous Elephent, "Hexexus"

Lily Potter flitted up the stairwell of the abandoned manor house; reaching the bedroom where her son's polyanthus sat adorning the windowsill, she rapped her tiny knuckles lightly against the door. "Harry?" she called. "Time to get up, darling."

"Five more minutes, Mum," came the groggy voice from inside.

Lily rolled her eyes, and put her hands on her hips. "Nice try, sweetie," she said, "but I happen to know that that bud you sleep in has already been open for fifteen minutes as it is. And I warn you, if I don't see you out here, bright and tidy and ready to properly edify the local human children, by the time the big clock strikes the quarter-hour, I'm going to come through that keyhole and drag you out."

She heard Harry groan defeatedly. "Oh, Mum, you're no fun at all," he said. "I should go run away and live with Sirius; he's not nearly this strict."

"I daresay," said Lily. "River spirits are entitled to be a bit free-flowing in their habits – but we flower fairies have to be a bit more grounded." She clapped her hands briskly. "Come on, now, upsy-daisy."

"I didn't exactly tell him that I'd be helping him out by sneaking around in shady places like Nocturne Alley." –Blonde Shadowcat, "Spoken For"

"You have the stuff?" Hermione whispered.

Caractacus Burke, leering knowingly at her, reached under the counter and withdrew a grimy sheaf of sheet music. Hermione cast a quick glance at the scrawled title – G. Fauré, Op. 119 – and then hastily stashed the sheets in her robes and dropped three Galleons in Burke's waiting hand. "Remember, now," she said sternly, "if anyone asks, I didn't come here, and you didn't sell me this."

"Naturally, miss," said Burke. "Wouldn't want to embroil the brightest witch of her year in a nocturne-buying scandal, now would we?" He leaned forward and murmured suggestively, "You know, for only ten Sickles extra, I'll throw in a nice barcarolle in A-flat major…"

"Don't mock at me, Mr Burke," Hermione said sharply. "Appearances may be against me, but I'm a decent young woman for all that." And she turned on her heel and swept from the shop – taking care, of course, to draw the hood of her cloak over her face before she went out into the street.

This had better be the Horcrux you think it is, Harry, she thought, striding briskly toward the side alley that would take her out of Nocturne Alley. It had just better.

"With baited breath the page is turned." –Hawki, "The Girl Who Read"

"Tum-te-tum-tum-tum," Luna Lovegood hummed to herself. "Here I am, alone and totally vulnerable in the middle of a werewolf-infested forest, obliviously reading Witch Weekly by the light of the full moon while exhaling raw-hamburger fumes. I wonder if anything's going to happen to me?"

She idly flipped a page, and noted with interest that Celestina Warbeck was getting married yet again; then a sound as of heavy paw-pads caught her ear, and she perked up expectantly. Sure enough, mere moments later, a huge, slavering wolf came bounding into the clearing and sprang for her throat – only to be struck with sudden paralysis as its muzzle came into contact with her protective magical shield, and to fall heavily to the ground with a faint, agonised whimper.

"Oh, there you are, Mr Greyback," said Luna brightly. "So Mr Shacklebolt was right, after all; you were prowling about these parts, and you did find my conspicuous helplessness and baited breath irresistible. Such a clever gentleman, he is."

She rose, and brushed off her robes. "Well, the Ministry people should be along in about half an hour to pick you up and cart you off to Azkaban. In the meantime, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go home and brush my teeth."