Aside from receiving an unsolicited detention, Lucy was having a pretty good day. She herself didn't know what she meant by 'starting a war' but she decided to let the tension build before deciding on anything.

Partnering with Harry for the rest of Herbology turned out to be a poor decision on her part. There were only ten minutes of class left, she figured there was no way they could mess up anything. By the time they were allowed to leave, Harry managed to provoke the most docile magical plant in the world, and Sprout had to restrain the horrible beast as they evacuated the greenhouse.

Harry didn't stick around for long after that. He dodged the smack Lucy aimed at his arm and ran straight for Hagrid's hut with Ron and Hermione. Have fun getting eaten by a dragon, she thought. Sighing, Lucy caught up to her fellow badgers as they headed up to the castle.

"You'd think the Boy-Who-Lived would know how to handle a plant, after defeating You-Know-Who," Hannah said. Her eyes no longer held the awed gleam they usually had when Harry Potter came into discussion. Looks like someone's crush just got crushed.

"You do know he was only a baby, right? No one knows what happened that night," Susan rolled her eyes. "Not even my aunt knows, and she investigated the crime scene."

"She investigated it?" Ernie gaped. "Did she tell you anything?"

"I really don't think I should say..." Susan said skeptically. Lucy half agreed with her— she didn't want Harry's business spread around the school any more than the boy himself would. But she couldn't deny that she was curious. The whole event seemed to be shrouded in mystery.

"Come on, Susan, you can't just leave it at that!" Ernie groaned.

"Yes, she can," Lucy said, rolling her eyes at the boy. "That's Harry's business and Harry's business alone." She looked back at Susan, who looked ashamed at having brought it up. "I'll tell him you know about it and if he wants to know, he'll approach you himself. Until then, let's just get inside— it's boiling out here."

Susan nodded, turning a bit red at the thought of the Boy-Who-Lived approaching her. Noticing this, Justin smirked. "Aw, does someone have a crush on the celebrity?"

"What, you don't?" Megan said as though she was confused. "I thought everyone did. Do you, Hannah?"

"Most definitely. You, Lucy?"

She went to immediately say 'oh god, no', but the still red faced Susan made her stop herself. Instead she smiled tightly and said, "Absolutely. You, Wayne?"

"Madly in love," Wayne said in a flat voice.

Justin frowned. "You lot are no fun."

Hannah flicked his ear. "You'd better behave, Finch, or I'll tell Anthony you're teasing the girls again."

Having seen the way Anthony interacted with Daisy on a daily basis, Lucy doubted that the boy would be disappointed in Justin. She loved her mummy-duck, but she could not believe that Daisy hadn't murdered him already- Cedric too, for that matter.

As they entered the castle, her friends made for the Great Hall while she made for the staircase. Just as she was about to take the first step, Megan grabbed her sleeve and pulled her back. "Hey, where are you going? We were all going get in some studying before our next class."

"And the Great Hall has snacks," Ernie added cheerfully. "'Sides, you really do need to ease up on the 'dark secret' thing."

"I do not have a dark secret!" Lucy huffed. "I just have to ask Professor Snape about some extra credit work, that's all."

"Bugger Snape!"

Suddenly, the doors to the Great Hall swung open, and Anthony stood there crossing his arms with a disapproving look on his face. "What's this I hear about buggering Snape? Don't you know that's one of the ten most venomous creatures to ever slither across this planet?"

Cedric trailed in after him, holding a goblet of pumpkin juice. "It's true," he said casually. "Rickett should know- he's done it himself."

Anthony reflexively laughed, then realized what exactly Cedric was getting at. "Why, you little brat!" he swung his arm out to clock him upside the head, but Cedric only laughed and stepped out of the way.

"Diggory: 1, Rickett: 0," he said smugly.

"That is so not the score!" Anthony called after him as he rounded the corner. Shaking his head, he turned to face the first years. "Now, why are you lot huddled around this fine staircase? You're burning precious break time, my ducklings."

"We're about to drag the mysterious one to spend time with us for once," Hannah tattled. "Would you care to help us?"

"Would I care to help you, do you know who you're talking to? Of course I'd like to drag someone against their will! Honestly, I thought you knew me," Anthony shook his head in mock disappointment. He fixed Lucy with an evil grin. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

"Or, we can do this the mature way, which is you letting me do what I want," she countered, taking a step back toward the staircase.

"Or, we can do this in the good friend way, which is us not letting you work yourself to the bone," he said, taking slow, deliberate step toward her. This was oddly more terrifying than if he had sprinted at her. "You have no say in this matter, Blondie. You will come with us."

Her heart actually started thrumming in her chest at Anthony's tone. Something about him going into Mama Bear mode was utterly terrifying. She stumbled back even further— only to connect with something solid. She watched as her friends' faces contorted into horror.

Carefully, she looked upward, wincing at the unhappy looking Professor Quirrell looming over her.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Is there a problem here, students?" He said in a dark tone.

He might have gotten the idea that her friends had real ill intent, or he just wanted to be a menace for once. Whatever it was, she hoped he would cut it out soon. She was trying her best to be to be a good spy, but she was going to need Quirrell to play his role too if it was going to go undetected.

He had one job. Act like defenseless, stuttering mess. Now he was towering over her like Nosferatu, and judging by the looks of shock from her friends, they noticed the change too.

While her fellow first years looked nervous, Anthony's eyes moved over to the hand resting on her shoulder. He narrowed his eyes at the professor. "I don't know, professor. Is there a problem?"

"There's no problem!" Lucy insisted. She looked between the two nervously. She hoped Anthony wouldn't cause a scene. Could that man behave any more suspiciously? She turned around to look at Quirrell, giving him a forced smile. "Terribly sorry to bump into you, Professor. I was just on my way to see Professor Snape about extra credit."

"W-w-w-what a c-coincidence," the man stammered, finally getting back into character. "I-I needed to speak to S-S-Severus m-myself."

"What a coincidence indeed!" She couldn't bring herself to meet Anthony's intense gaze, so she instead waved at Megan before heading up the staircase, Professor Quirrell following close behind.

Quirrell met Lucy's fast pace easily, and once they were out of sight, he turned to arch his eyebrow at her. "Extra credit?" He questioned. "I doubt such a notion exists in Severus Snape's mind."

She couldn't help but laugh at the slight diss to Snape. "Not my best excuse," she admitted. "But then again, it's more believable than getting extra credit from you."

His lips twitched slightly. She grinned, feeling more confident now that he was in a good mood. "Anyway, poor excuses aside, did you know Hagrid has a dragon?! Ron, the madman, wanted me to watch it hatch during break!"

"Well, why didn't you?" Quirrell asked, looking genuinely curious. "You won't have many opportunities to watch a dragon hatch."

"Actually Ron's brother works in a dragon sanctuary, so my chances are a lot higher than you'd think. But you're not surprised at all?" She was somewhat disappointed by his lack of reaction. She knew the man wasn't the nervous mess that he acted like, but any normal human being would have to be a little put off by a dragon on school grounds.

They finally reached the classroom. Quirrell unlocked the door with a flick of his wand and gestured for her to go in first. Once she was inside the classroom, he closed the door and cast a spell on it. "A silencing charm," he explained at her questioning look. "And I'm not surprised at all, because it was I who gave Mr. Hagrid the dragon in the first place."

Lucy was quiet for a few seconds, taking that all in. Then she burst out, "Where on earth did you get a dragon?!"

He stared blankly at her. "You're not at all curious as to why I gave him such a thing? Never mind, you'll find out soon enough. If you must know, I won the thing off of a drunken fellow in a game of gobstones. Legimency comes quite in handy."

"Gobstones? What's that?"

Quirrell opened his mouth to explain, then closed it. He looked over her calculatingly. "Rochester... that's not a wizarding name, is it?"

Oh, here we go. After a few weeks, he finally decided to get all Pureblood Supremist.

"Depends on what you consider a wizarding name. I'm a wizard—" she glared when he opened his mouth to correct her, "– witch, I know, not the point, Quirrell— and I picked it out myself."

"Picked it out?"

She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. "I grew up in Wool's Orphanage. Whoever dropped me off couldn't be bothered to give me a last name. It was okay, really, I had a whole gimmick and everything."

It must have been the light, but she could have sworn his eyes flickered red. "Wool's... orphanage?"

No, Wool's laundromat.

"Mhm," she nodded. "Lovely place. The gray monotones really set the tone for the institution. It doesn't matter now; I'll be at Hogwarts for most of the year from now on."

He was unaffected by her joke, which she found quite rude. "And no one came to adopt you?"

Lucy frowned. She didn't know why he was interrogating her on this. It'd only been a decade or so since the last wizarding war— there were probably loads of orphans running around. In fact, she could name two off the top of her head: Susan and Harry.

"One guy did, but I didn't like the look of him. Long blonde hair, looked like he'd stepped in something bad when he walked in." She shuddered just thinking about having to live with such a person. She'd hid on the staircase while he asked Mrs. Cole about her— a description, behaviors, et cetera— and all the while he had been very rude to the woman. Mrs. Cole may be grumpy, but she was into her late eighties at this point, so she had to cut her some slack.

"I ran away for a few weeks. Never told anyone where, but I hid in the Orphanage right under everyone's nose," Lucy said proudly. "Right in the crawl space—"

"Hidden inside the kitchen's stores," Quirrell finished.

"Yeah! That's..." Lucy trailed off, feeling shivers run up her back. "That's right... Professor?"

He swished his wand through the air, and she flinched, thinking he'd struck her— but the door to the classroom swung open.

"Well, you've had your curiosity satiated enough for on day, don't you think?" Quirrell asked. The way he said it, it didn't sound like much of a question.

She stared at him. Her face was devoid of emotion but inside her chest, she could feel her heart pounding against her rib cage. How did he know that? He shouldn't know that.

Without another word, she slipped out of the room, struggling to keep a casual pace. As she rounded the corner, she walked faster, and faster, until she was sprinting toward the staircase.

He shouldn't know that, she thought, alarms blaring in her head. What else did he know? Did he know she was deceiving him?

She finally arrived at the Hufflepuff common room. The whole way she felt like she was being watched, but that was more her being paranoid than anything else. She technically had half a day of classes ahead of her, and she couldn't really take much more detention, but the thought of sitting in class made her insides freeze up.

As she lay on her bed staring at the ceiling in the silence of her empty dorm, she felt her heart rate start to settle. There was no way Quirrell knew she was spying. She'd told the Gryffindors the truth about her spying, but they would've have told anyone else— if not because they believed her, then because they didn't want her locked up in a madhouse. Snape, as horrid as he was, knew how to keep a secret.

She turned over on her side, suddenly feeling irritated. "I can't believe I'm intimidated by Quirrell the Squirrel," she huffed. That simply wouldn't do.

This would all be over eventually. The school year was coming to an end, and when Quirrell decided to go for the Stone, she would be right outside Snape's door.

It was just a matter of time.