Dragons and trapdoors

After the holidays she tried to not hang out with Harry, Ron and Hermione too much as she wasn't keen on getting overly involved with the actual adventure. Though the three friends somewhat introduced her to their plans and thoughts she tried to avoid it as good as possible. The afternoon they would learn about Snape's desire to be a Quidditch referee and finally find out who Nicholas Flamel was, she was watching the chess game between Ron and Hermione, when Harry entered the common room after a Quidditch practice. After he told them that Snape was apparently going to be referee in the next match Hermione and Ron gave him worried advice. Lillian only vaguely shook her head.

"What? He shouldn't play. Seriously Snape already tried to knock him of the broom last time." Hermione snapped at Lillian.

"You don't really still believe that, do you?"

"Indeed."

"Codswallop!"

"We saw he was mumbling curses."

"You saw he was 'mumbling' rather applies in this case."

"Do you know more than us?"

"I'm just not wildly accusing people to have dishonest motives only because they behave a bit antisocial."

"Antisocial?" Harry raised an eyebrow. "You call Snape 'antisocial'?"

"Indeed. He most likely has his reasons to behave the way he does." Lillian shrugged.

"He hates Gryffindor Students – especially Harry!" exclaimed Ron angrily.

"Well he might have his reasons to hate this house. I mean you have your Reasons to dislike Slytherin as well – aside from Snape being the Head of the House."

"One could think you favour him." said Hermione suspiciously.

"Why would I?"

"You defend him."

"Nonsense. I just happened to have learned about psychology on high school."

"So you are just being smart ass about something you learned on a muggle school?" Ron asked though he actually had no idea what she had just said.

"So to speak."

"Sounds reasonable." The suspicious tone in Hermione's voice had vanished.

"After all. Wizards and witches are humans with special abilities. We are all human – Muggle or not. So while magic can do things normal humans can't do we all have the same basic set of emotions. That is why I guess Snape possibly has his reasons of being the way he is."

Before anyone could say anything Neville hopped through the portrait hole. After Hermione had performed the counter-curse they forgot about Lillian for a moment and as Harry discovered the name 'Nicholas Flamel' on the Chocolate Frog Card Neville handed him. Lillian left while Hermione was fetching the Alchemy book from the girl's dormitory. She had no desire to get into more trouble. She was lucky that Hermione was Muggle-born otherwise the psychology-excuse might not have worked.

On the day of the match she seemed to be the only one who stayed calm aside from cheering for the Gryffindor team of course. When Malfoy appeared and started to bully Ron and Neville she withdrew from the scene a bit not to get involved. She guessed that it was her sheer age that kept Malfoy from bullying her around though the way he looked at her at times was enough to tell her that he apparently despised her for being muggle-born and additionally in the House of Gryffindor. Most likely also, because she was friends with Harry. But she didn't give a damn on what Malfoy thought about her and it was only his luck that he didn't seem to have the guts to take her on.

After Gryffindor had won she didn't join the masses that streamed back to the castle. She knew that Snape would meet with Quirrell in the Forbidden Forest this evening. When she saw Harry walking to the broom shed she decided it was about time to return to the castle as she didn't want to be tempted to follow Snape to his meeting. He didn't know that she knew about his duties and the stone and it was better that way. When she entered the castle she met him in the Entrance Hall. She greeted him politely but he didn't even look at her. He only marched through the gate . She sighed and joined the others in the Great Hall.

"Did you see Harry, Lillian?" Hermione asked.

Lillian nodded. "After the turbulences of the match I decided to walk around a little. When I went in I saw him heading over to the broom shed. I guess he wanted to lock away his broom." She grabbed a sandwich.

"I see. I guess he'll be joining us soon then."

Lillian knew that he wouldn't join them all too soon. She joined Fred and George to prepare the Party in the common room when Harry finally appeared and had to talk to Hermione and Ron. Despite their guesses about how long Quirrell would possibly be able to stand up against Snape nothing was happening during the upcoming weeks. Luckily the exams were coming closer and along with Hermione she drove Ron and Harry almost crazy about repeating content and practising wand movements. So there wasn't much time to dwell on Snape and the stone. Aside from the private lessons, she hadn't met Snape since Christmas, mostly due to her decision of not bothering him overly, and also because of the immense workload. One afternoon when they were studying in the library they spotted Hagrid. Lillian instantly knew he was borrowing books about dragon breeding though she of course didn't say it. She didn't need to do so anyways because they figured it out on their own. When they went to visit Hagrid later she was quite fascinated with the baby dragon but also supported the view, that he couldn't keep it, especially after Draco had found out about it.

Lillian tried to stay out of the plans how to get rid of Norbert as she had no desire to get detention. Also because she knew that she would have to attend the search for the wounded unicorn. While she was curious about the Forbidden Forest she was also determined not to get overly involved with the actual adventure. So she kept Ron company in the common room while he was waiting for Harry and Hermione to return from their detention. They played chess and when Ron was too tired to wait any longer he went to bed and Lillian left.

There was still a lot to do for the exams so she mainly focused on studying. While she found magic and everything related to it to be far more interesting than Muggle school contents she had hard times remembering everything. So she was quite delighted when the exams were finally over. She and Hermione seemed to be the only ones who were interested in talking about the tests and assignments. Similar to Hermione Lillian realized that she had learned far too much despite knowing that several things were actually unnecessary. All in all she had the impression that her results would be at least adequate. She joined the three friends when they walked over to the lake but didn't quite interfere with their conversation. She pretended to be fully occupied with watching the twins and Lee Jordan nettling the Giant Squid or other students as they were lounging around. She didn't follow when Harry and the other hurried to Hagrid's cabin. Tonight would be the night. Tonight the three of them would enter the trapdoor. Lillian only knew too well what would wait for them and what would happen.

No student knew where her room was, so it wasn't very hard for her to monitor the happenings. She had no invisibility cloak but she could always hide herself behind the corner to her room and in case Filch saw her she could just say she was going to the toilet as she hadn't one in her room. So she roamed the third corridor between her room and the stone gargoyle rather excitedly waiting for Hermione and Ron to appear. When they did she offered to take Ron to the hospital wing and she thankfully accepted while she hurried off to the owlery to send Dumbledore a letter.

Madam Pomfrey sure asked her a lot of questions about what she was doing out of bed at night and why Ron was knocked out but Lillian only said that she found him like that while she had been on her way to the toilet and luckily Madam Pomfrey seemed to believe her. Lillian stayed with Ron until Hermione joined the hospital wing herself to see how Ron was. It didn't take long until Dumbledore arrived, transporting Harry who was unconscious. Madam Pomfrey immediately took care of him and Ron, who was conscious again and healed, Hermione and Lillian were sent to bed.

It happened that she had passed all her exams even though History of Magic had been a close shave. She had never overly liked history and while magic history was a tad more interesting than Muggle history it was history nevertheless. But she passed so she was allowed to attend the second year. And then it hit her. She had never wasted a thought about how and where she was going to spend the summer holidays.

She met Dumbledore when he returned from the hospital wing after he had visited Harry.

"Oh hello Ms. Block. I've heard from Poppy that you brought Mr. Weasley to the hospital wing three nights ago." He seemed to be in a good mood.

"Indeed I did. But we possibly shouldn't talk about these matters on the corridor."

"I'm sure at least half the school already knows about the happenings of that night. These kinds of things make bad secrets."

"Mhh yes but well as far as I'm aware they don't know about my special knowledge."

"Ah of course." He walked towards the stone gargoyle, said the password and entered the stone steps.

Lillian followed him. "I was actually on my way to see Professor McGonagall." They entered his office and she closed the door.

"Ah well I guess that will have time."

"Well basically it's possibly better I talk to you instead of her. But about the thing with the stone..."

"Did everything happen the way you expected?"

She nodded slowly. "More or less. I can't really estimate some of the happenings as I tried to stay out of it as good as possible. But I was monitoring the corridor in the night they went through the trapdoor and was able to support Ms. Granger when she was on her way to the owlery. I offered her to take care of Mr. Weasley so I did. End of story."

"I see. I heard that you passed your exams with flying colours?"

"Ah yeah I guess you could put it like that, though I've always had my issues with history." She giggled a little before clearing her throat. "My passed exams are actually the reason I wanted to talk to Professor McGonagall."

"Do you want to confess to have cheated?" He raised an eyebrow and smiled when she shook her head.

"No. I didn't cheat. It's more that passing the exams made me aware of the summer holidays."

Dumbledore sighed. "Ah yes. Since you came from another world there is no place for you to go over the holidays."

"Exactly. Though I know, that Tom Riddle used to stay in Hogwarts during holidays as he had no place to return to either."

"Indeed he did. A few other students from other houses also stay here over the holidays so you could do so as well if you wanted."

She shrugged. "Only, if it isn't too much of trouble."

"Well you'd have to obey the same rules of not using magic. While you are too old to have the trace on you it would just be fair. You may however use a tiny amount within the walls of this school in order to practice or do homework."

"I'm aware of that Professor."

"Good. Then I don't see a reason why you shouldn't just stay." He smiled and then added: "Since you aren't underage anymore you can also decide to visit the village though you aren't yet in the third grade. The other students who stay over are going to be in the fourth grade after summer."

"I see. I will take it into consideration."

"Then everything is set I assume?"

"Yes. Thank you. I will meet you at the end-of-year feast."

"Indeed." Dumbledore smirked. Lillian knew that he would be giving Harry and the others extra points.