The letter

She didn't know how long she had been there by the lakeside. When she finally got up on her wobbly knees it was too dark to see and a grumbling sound in the distance told her of an upcoming thunderstorm. Feeling drained and befuddled she took her wand. "Lumos..." she muttered and the tip of her wand lit up. She dragged herself up to the castle entrance while the thunderstorm was rolling closer. When she entered the entrance hall a bright lightning crawled over the sky lighting up the entrance hall for seconds, not long afterwards a loud thunder followed. She closed the portal and hurried up the marble staircase. The weather actually underlined her state of mind perfectly. When she closed the door of her room behind her it started to rain. She closed the windows and the curtains, undressed and crawled into her bed without putting on her pyjama. She fell into a restless sleep full of odd dreams.

When she woke up the next morning she felt as if she hadn't slept all night. Weary and worn out she dragged herself out of bed, opened the curtains and got dressed. The clock on the mantelpiece told her that she had still plenty of time to get down into the Great Hall for breakfast. She shuffled over to her desk and saw that someone had placed a schedule on her desk onto her "A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration" book. She noticed that the first two lessons were blank. Afterwards she had double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs then lunch and in the afternoon double Transfiguration and Defence Against the Dark Arts. When she wondered how to transport her course books and other equipment she noticed a bag hanging down from the door handle. She either hadn't noticed it when she had entered her room last night or it was put there over night. She took the bag and placed everything she would need today neatly inside. Actually she wasn't very hungry. The bewildered feeling hadn't yet vanished but though she took her wand and the bag and left the room.

When she arrived in the entrance hall and walked towards the Great Hall she immediately spotted Snape sitting on his chair at the staff table. Their eyes met and instantly both of them looked away but her heart had already climbed into her throat. Not really being fully present with her mind she sat down between Harry and Fred.

"Hi Lillian" said Fred cheerfully.

"Morning..." gave Lillian back absently and tried to spread butter on an apple. She was so lost in thoughts that she accidently grabbed an apple instead of a roll.

Fred handed her a roll. "You aren't quite all by yourself this morning."

"Mhh..." she muttered and cut the roll open to then scrape the butter down from the apple onto the roll.

"Not quite a morning person, are you?" Harry handed her a jar of strawberry jam.

"I didn't sleep well..."

"Then what you need is a good coffee" said George with a smile and asked Lee Jordan to hand him the coffee pot. He then handed it over to Lillian who grabbed it and poured some coffee into her mug. She added some milk and sugar and emptied the mug without interruption.

"Blimey! Lillian!" Fred and George sure seemed to be impressed.

"Hmm?"

"Do you always drink coffee that way?" asked Ron who Lillian just yet recognized as he spoke.

"Actually not" answered Lillian and finally spread strawberry jam on her two half's of the roll.

"You should get a bit more awake until potions class" said Harry sounding a bit concerned. "Otherwise Snape will take points from Gryffindor for being so miserable, or who knows what."

As he said the name Lillian twitched a bit hoping that nobody had recognized.

"I'm not going to have potions class – I already mentioned that, didn't I?"

"Oh – ah yes I remember but that can't be true can it?" said Harry and raised an eyebrow.

Lillian fumbled unfastening her bag and pulled out her schedule to show it to Harry.

"Fair enough" he said when viewing the schedule and seeing that wherever should be potions was a blank field. He handed it back and Lillian slid it in her bag again before she went on eating though she wasn't hungry at all. For some reason she even decided to have a bowl of cereals when the owls arrived. She didn't pay much attention and began spooning in her cereals as she didn't expect to get a letter. Therefore she was surprised when an owl landed on her shoulder a minute later handing her a small letter with its beak.

"For...for me?" she asked unbelievingly and the owl dropped the letter into her lap, fluttered onto the table to batten on Lillian's cereals before flying off with the other owls. Slowly she took the letter. 'To Miss Lillian Block" was written upon it.

"Who could be writing you?" asked Ron and Fred and George tried to peer over her shoulder as she was about to open it.

"Would you please keep up the privacy of correspondence you two?" she said to Fred and George who smirked and went back starting to talk to Lee Jordan. Then she shrugged in order to answer Ron's question. Harry shuffled and turned into the other direction and distracted Ron so Lillian was finally able to open her letter without anyone gawping. She pulled a short note from the envelope but those few words made her face go pale:

Meet me in my office tonight after dinner.

S. Snape

Ron who had noticed Lillian's face to go pale and her fingers clutching to the note from the corners of his eyes turned his head towards her with a concerned look in his face. "Bad news?" he asked and went on as Lillian didn't answer. "Lillian? Are you alright? You look sick."

"Ron. That isn't something a lady wants to hear" said Fred who was only listening with one ear.

"But she looks sick." Ron shrugged.

Fred turned his head towards her and nudged her shoulder. "Lillian?"

She didn't reply. Her face still pale and her heart beating elsewhere but in her chest she tried to fumble back the note into the envelope but her hands were trembling terribly so the only thing that happened was, that note and envelope fell down under the table floating over to where Ron's feet were. He bowed down to pick it up and, not that he wanted, his eyes fell upon the message.

His eyes widened and all he said was "Oh shit!"

"What's the matter?" asked Harry as Ron stuffed the note into the envelope and handed it back to Lillian.

"Snape wants to meet her in his office after dinner."

Harry gulped.

"Blimey!" said Neville and gave her the most pitiful look he could. "I'd drop dead if I got such a note" he added.

"Hey where do you go?" asked Harry when Lillian stuffed the envelope into her bag and left the table hurrying out of the Great Hall without saying a word.

She directly went out of the castle and made her way towards the green houses even though she didn't directly go there. She felt so unsettled and restless that she only tried to keep herself moving and busy in whatever way – mostly by just walking around the grounds close to the green houses. When the bells rang, telling that the ten minute break between Potions and Herbology had started, Lillian walked straight over to the greenhouses waiting for the Hufflepuff first years and the other Gryffindors to show up.

Herbology was interesting and took Lillian's thoughts away from the letter for a while. When walking back into the Great Hall for lunch she noticed that the hour glass of Gryffindor lost a great lot of points during the morning hours. Harry and Ron followed her eyes.

"Snape was really furious today" they told Lillian who now that she didn't have to pay attention to class unfortunately was brought back to that unfortunate letter. Her mind went a bit blank as she tried to eat her soup with a fork and only heard half of what they told about Potions class.

"Lillian?" Harry nudged her.

"Err...uhm yes?"

"Did you even listen?"

"To be honest – no."

"You are ashen pale again. You are really worried about tonight aren't you?" Ron made a grimace.

"Somewhat" she replied vaguely and finally grabbed a spoon.

"Anyways, maybe there is all reason to worry."

"Ron!" exclaimed Harry to make him fall silent pointing at Lillian but Ron went on.

"No seriously. I mean we are used to losing points in Potions but today was a mess. We even got taken points for breathing loudly."

"Aha" replied Lillian with a rather croaky voice and saw how Harry threw a disapproving look over to Ron.

After lunch they headed off to Transfiguration. McGonagall was strict and once again Lillian found herself distracted from Snape because she had to gather all concentration to be able to participate in class. Since she hadn't been able to catch up with last week's contents she had a few issues even though she was doing far better than Neville or Ron. Of course she wasn't even half as good as Hermione and so she resolved to catch up with everything during the week and the upcoming weekend.

Unfortunately Defence against the Dark Arts was such a joke of a lesson that she had real issues not to dwell on what would happen if she went to the meeting with Snape after dinner. She perfectly knew what was hidden under Quirrell's turban and didn't join into the laughter and giggles about his stuttering.