Lily Potter and the Uppas of Declome
Chapter Three
After a week, Lily felt boggled down with work. Charms was still her favorite class, though Professor Sootboro occasionally made comments about Drefflis Splinter, who wrote the book Codfish Simple Charmwork in 1406, or Elkias Wimple, the master of the Re-Enaction Charm.
Defense Against the Dark Arts was an interesting spectacle. Uvburn showed them Bulgarian glowworms in a jar one day. These glowworms could seep into your skin and sap your mental ability slowly. The only way to become oblivious to this power is to eat bananas for twenty-four hours straight before letting the glowworms get into you.
"Why would you want the glowworms in you?" Susan Azzos had asked.
"Because if you enter a wizarding duel with the Bulgarian glowworms in your body, you will be impervious to most minor jinxes," said the Professor.
"How do we get them out once the duel is over?"
"Think of cute things. Butterflies, bunnies, Easter eggs, a kitten wearing a bow, or even a smiling rainbow. The Bulgarian glowworm can't stand cuteness, so it will pop right out."
Most of the boys in the class grimaced. They did not like the idea of thinking of cute things.
Lily did not like Astronomy at all. It was taught by a witch named Ogliothorpe, and she treated the first years as if they were fifth years. On the second Thursday night after school commenced, Professor Ogliothorpe gave them all a quiz which required them to name the eighty-eight constellations.
One day, in History of Magic, about a fortnight after the first day, a girl who shared Lily's dormitories raised her hand. She had never spoken before, not in all that time, even when a teacher called on her. Bethany and Susan had tried to elicit a word out of her, but to no avail.
"Uh…Miss Vadersky?" Professor Binns asked, his eyes wide as if a student never interrupted him before.
"I don't believe that Gonwon the Greedy really wore a crown made of antelope bones."
"It is historical fact, Miss Vadersky. I advise you to check Goblins in Power by Janet Oblong, published 1933. Now, as I was saying—"
"I don't believe what is written in books are facts," the girl continued.
Professor Binns stared. "That's the most inane remark I ever heard. I suggest you leave the classroom until someone can add some corks to your brain that appear to be missing."
"Glad to," the girl said. She grabbed her things and left. The other Hufflepuffs stared after her, until Professor Binns' voice lulled them into a stupor.
When the class left, they saw that the strange and hitherto silent girl had stood outside the classroom the whole time. But now her witch's hat was red with white stripes. One of the Muggle-borns in the group remarked that it resembled a candy-cane. The kids with wizards for parents didn't know what candy-canes were.
The rest of the Hufflepuffs returned to the dormitory. The odd girl did not follow them, and neither did Lily.
"Hi," said Lily.
"Oh, hello," said the other girl.
"I'm Lily Potter."
"Lorna Veedle."
"Didn't Professor Binns call you something else?"
"Yes, well, he's not very attuned to the world. After all, he teaches History of Magic, doesn't he?"
"I suppose you're right. So, are your parents upset that you're a Hufflepuff?"
Lorna smiled. "My parents are Muggles. They could care less."
"Oh. I fear that my parents will hate it. This House is almost as bad as being in Slytherin."
"I wouldn't say that around any of our consorts."
"Consorts?" Lily asked.
"I don't know what it means either. I just like the way it sounds. I'm that way. Just be mum about this in front of the other Hufflepuffs."
"I will. Hey, how'd you get your hat like that?"
Lorna broke into a broad grin. "A sixth-year did it for me. I really like candy-canes." Then she walked off.
At dinner that night, Lily sat next to Lorna in the Great Hall. Susan crunched up her nose; for the last two weeks she had been trying to get Lily to be her friend. But no, Lily had to go for the oddest person in their year.
"So, how was life in a Muggle household?" Lily asked Lorna. "My dad grew up in one, but so did my Aunt Hermione, and their experiences are so different. Dad lived with his aunt and uncle who hated him, and Auntie had both her parents, dentists."
"My parents are historians," said Lorna. "I have one older brother, and when he saw my letter to Hogwarts, he complained that he wasn't invited to. He's always been a fan of magic tricks. 'Legerdemain,' he calls them, but I'm not sure he knows that means."
"Magic tricks?"
"Oh, pulling rabbits out of hats, sawing a woman in half and putting her back together again, et cetera."
"Do those really work?" Lily said, pulling a bowl of mashed potatoes toward her.
"Well, yes, though one time he pulled a jaguar out of his hat and it ate my uncle."
Lily's eyes bulged in fright.
"Kidding, I'm kidding."
"I knew that," Lily said, though Lorna wasn't convinced.
"It's so odd here," Lorna said.
"Odd in what way?"
"Well, for starters, we use quills and parchment instead of pen and paper. I feel like I stepped back into medieval times."
A boy overhearing them, turned to them and said, "Hogwarts was built in medieval times, so it makes sense that we'd keep things the same. Are you Muggle-born?"
"Yes," said Lorna. "What's it to you?"
"Nothing. I'm Jeremy Spencer. I read a lot. Learning is my sanctuary."
"That's a peculiar sentence."
"Good, I hoped it was. I'm full of them."
"What about you?" Lily asked Jeremy. "Are your parents Muggles or wizards?"
"My mum's a stenographer. My pap works in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic."
"Ah," said Lily.
"Come on, let's go back to the common room," Lorna said. "I've got to finish that essay for Uvburn."
"Me too."
"I'll join you," said Jeremy. "I already know everything there is to know about Bulgarian glowworms. I finished my essay only an hour after the assignment was given."
Neither of the girls protested, though they weren't sure they liked Jeremy. He read some of their paragraphs as they were writing their essays and made comments like, "No, no, the first Bulgarian glowworm wasn't found in Bulgaria; it was actually in the Sahara desert," or "Mint chocolate is not an adequate substitute for bananas when a glowworm enters you. Try cold spaghetti or peanut butter waffles."
They were happy to return to the dormitories when they finished, both hoping that Jeremy would leave them alone if they ignored him.
But Jeremy wouldn't leave them alone. He ate all his meals with them. He walked to class beside them, and always read their essays while they were composing them. When they practiced the Mourning Syrup Potion for Professor Hamflox, Jeremy would force them to use his cauldron. (He also told them that he preferred the name, "Draught of Tears," for the potion they were making, but he didn't have the courage to tell that to Professor Hamflox, for fear she'd make some rude remark about Jeremy travelling back in time and telling the Potion Naming Council that he would decide the names of all the potions, and they were fired from duty.) He even followed them into the bathroom once.
"Jeremy! This is a girl's bathroom!"
"Oh, sorry." He blushed and walked out, going to the boy's room across the hall.
"How can we get rid of him?" Lily asked one night, about a week after they met Jeremy.
"We could hire a Heffalump to scare him silly," Lorna suggested.
"What's a Heffalump?"
"You don't know that? Oh, of course not, silly me. Of course kids born from wizard families wouldn't know anything about Winnie-the-Pooh."
"I wonder if my father does. As I told you before, he was raised by Muggles."
"Yes, well, about our Jeremy problem. We could stick in large groups. You know, crowd him out."
"I don't like the idea of that. We wouldn't be able to talk to one another in a large group."
"I suppose not. Maybe if we simply tell him we're sincerely vexed?"
"Boys are too subtle for that."
"Well, I can't think of anything, besides plans that would be dubbed 'Ludicrity.' Like painting him red and white like a candy cane."
"Hey, that's a great idea!" Lily exclaimed.
"No, it's ridiculous. And even if we did do it, he wouldn't know it was us."
"Unless we leave a note."
"Lily, you're crazy. We'll get in big trouble."
"I'm a Potter. We live for trouble. Except Albus. He's always a goody two-shoes." Lily's bitterness at her House placement now shifted to bitterness towards her siblings.
"Well, I guess I'm game if you are."
"I'm game."
"Then let's do it!"
They waited until the next night, because they wanted to ask Jeremy if he knew how to make a color-altering potion. It turned out he did.
"Does it work on human flesh?" Lily asked innocently.
"Certainly," Jeremy said. "But please don't use that f-word around me. It gives me the creeps." He then proceeded to show them how to create the different hues. "Tomorrow we can work on more complex ones, like orange-yellow and beige, but I think the primary and secondary colors are enough for today."
"What about white and black?" Lorna queried.
"That requires sand from a desert lizard's belly. I have a jar of it in a duffel bag upstairs. Would you like me to bring it?"
The girls said they would. Jeremy ran to fetch the jar. Lily had never seen black sand before. "This makes it white as well?"
"Sure, as long as you concentrate on the word albistoria. It's quite simple really."
But it wasn't simple at all. It took Lorna three hours to learn it. Lily barely got it. Lorna would have to do the white parts, while Lily did the red.
They waited until two in the morning, when they figured all the Hufflepuff first years would be sound asleep. They headed to the boys' dormitories with their materials, including the black sand which had once been in a desert lizard's gastronomic tract. They listened briefly outside the door and heard nothing. Opening the door very slowly, they saw that most of the beds were encased in curtains. Only one wasn't, and that was Midley Hooton's. He was a scrawny boy with dark hair, and he had a stuffed rabbit in his hands.
"I wonder which bed is Jeremy's," Lily whispered.
"Probably that one," whispered Lorna, pointing to a bed in the far corner of the room, with books on both sides and piled high at the end of the bed. If Lily had cared to look at them, she would've seen that they ranged in scope from trashy American novels to Encyclopedias of particle physics to Advanced Spellwork and How to Raise a Squib in Fifteen Years.
They approached the bed and pulled the curtains back as silently as possible. Lily mixed some melted glass with a crimson dye Jeremy had showed them how to make, and applied it in a line across Jeremy's forehead. Lorna then applied a line of white beneath that, after whispering, "Albistoria," and holding her wand to the black sand. Lily painted another red one beneath that, and they continued in this way till his face was colored (avoiding the eyes and lips). Then they did this to his arms, making the lines a little thicker than they were on his face. When Lily had finished painting the bottom half of Jeremy's hand red, he stirred, and they feared he would awaken. But he remained still.
Lily placed a note on his chest, and Lorna replaced the curtains with an eerie silence. They both struggled hard to keep from giggling as they ambled out of the room.
The next morning, Jeremy got dressed without realizing that his hand was painted. It wasn't until Midley pointed at him and said, "What on earth has happened to you?" that he noticed anything.
The note had slipped off his chest and landed in the sea of books he had knocked over when he got out of his bed. He rebuilt the wall of books, but the note was gone under the bed.
He took a bath instead of going to Herbology that day, and stopped Lily and Lorna before they entered Professor Uvburn's classroom. "Guys, I didn't miss anything important during Herbology, did I? Oh, what am I saying, of course I didn't. I already know more than Professor Longbottom. The strangest thing happened to me this morning—"
"It's time for class, Mr. Spencer," said Professor Uvburn. "You can continue your story afterward."
Lily looked at Lorna. Apparently their ploy had been a failure.