Ch22: Slytherin Friend

Lilly and her friends were surprised when a Slytherin approached them – a second year boy. Lilly looked at him suspiciously but could sense no malice.

"Hi, I'm Robert Armstrong. Do you mind if I join you?"

Lilly looked at Dianna before replying. "You're welcome to sit with us, Mr. Armstrong."

"You can call me Bob, that's how my friends call me."

Lilly seemed surprised, but shrugged it away. "Well Bob, I'm Lilly and..."

"Oh, I know who you all are. I wouldn't be a Slytherin if I didn't check everything thoroughly before acting," the boy said with a smile.

"So – why do you want to join us?" asked Andrew.

"Well... First – I'm a muggleborn. This makes me not very popular in my house." The others nodded understandingly.

"Then, I just wanted to congratulate you on a well done prank, the first day in school." This time he could only see blank stares. He smiled at the group again. "Nobody else could prank those girls so hard without leaving any trace, just like last year's feast."

"What do you mean?" Dianna didn't like his accusations, especially since they were spot on.

Bob leaned back and smiled once more, as if content he was getting the expected responses. "I'm not as powerful as you two are, but I have a certain ability most wizards lack: I can see auras." If he expected a gasp or disbelief he was due for a surprise.

"What can you tell me about my aura?" Andrew asked him.

Bob hid his surprise at the unexpected reaction, but not before Lillian noticed it. "Your aura has changed a lot during last year. It was quite dull to start with, showing only medium power and no special abilities. It started changing during the winter. Now you have a much stronger aura. It's light blue with many color bands, indicating you are more powerful than most and you have many talents."

He noted Lilly nodding. "Can you also see auras?"

"She can, and so can I," Dianna answered.

Bob seemed surprised for a moment, and then he smiled again. "I should have expected it, considering you have the brightest and widest auras I've ever seen."

Lilly was unfazed. "I still don't understand why you wanted to join us."

"Well, as a Slytherin I should recognize power and seek to be in good terms with those who yield it," he answered, yet his smile indicated that it was not the real reason, "And then – I've found out we may just be related."

"How?" was all Lilly managed to say. She thought she already knew all her relatives. Discovering new ones was quite a surprise.

"My great-great-grandmother was an Evans, which makes us distant cousins."

"Why should we believe you?" Lilly asked. While the question was harsh, her tone was friendly. She didn't want to scare him off, she only wanted to understand.

"You don't have to, but I can offer you to check your ancestry using the Goblins' method." He paused for a moment, recalling the facts, before continuing.

"You see, I was first fascinated when I found you had such a bright aura. I then heard your name at the sorting, but I didn't know anything about my ancestry or yours at the time. I then found out about Harry Potter and I made the connection to you. Being the only muggleborn in Slytherin left me with no friends, so I had a lot of time to research. I was fascinated by the Harry Potter tales and tried to find everything about him. I found the family tree and discovered that his mother was Evans. I vaguely remembered this name from my father's tales. I spent most of our summer vacation researching my family and I was still unsure."

Bob paused and took a small bundle out of his pocket. "When at Gringotts, I asked the Goblins if they had any way to find one's ancestry. They were almost offended and I had to apologize and explain that I was muggleborn. They helped me find my ancestry. It wasn't anything special, except for that name 'Evans' appearing in the list. I then asked to buy such a kit. I was sure you won't be satisfied with just me telling this story. I ended up buying several kits. This is one of them." He pointed at the bundle on the table.

"Will you do the test for us?" Lilly asked.

He looked nervously around. "Yes, but I'd rather do it in a more private place."

"Fine! We'll do it after lunch. Now, what can you tell me about those girls?" Lilly said, pointing at another table, where the group of girls was sitting, not quite so proud anymore.

He smirked. "These are the most haughty girls in Slytherin. Even most of the purebloods find them unbearable. I've heard that they felt uneasy during the morning after they met you, like having to rush to the toilet all the time, but with nothing for real. This went on all through the day and the night. Then the humiliation at next morning breakfast was probably also part of this."

Dianna giggled. "Oh, that's awful, having to run to the loo the whole day..."

They ate breakfast together and then separated for their classes. Bob rejoined the group at lunch and then walked with them to an empty classroom. He took the test kit and opened it on a table. The kit only contained a folded piece of parchment and a small stone. He also took a small folding knife from his pocket.

"This is quite simple, really. In order to find one's ancestry, one only needs to put a drop of blood on the marked corner of the parchment. The stone is then used to heal the cut," Bob explained and proceeded to make a small cut in his finger, smear some of the blood on the parchment and heal the cut with the stone. By the time the cut was healed, the parchment showed a detailed family-tree.

Lillian followed the lines until she found "Evans" written as the maiden name of the ancestor.

"May I do the same?" she asked.

"Be my guest," he said, taking another kit from his pocket.

They could soon see the Potter family tree, as well as several generations of Evans and Granger. There could be no doubt about Bob and Lilly being related.

"Don't you like to do the test as well?" he asked Dianna. "I have another kit here,if you want."

Dianna just shook her head and Lilly knew the reason.

The boys were still examining the two parchments. Julius noted some names on the Potter tree of which he had heard in History lessons, people who advanced the wizarding folk and made just laws. The tree only went back about ten generations before running out of parchment, though.

Dianna also examined Bob's ancestry. It didn't take her long to find a side-branch which was wiped the year before she was born. It was too much like the story in Malfoy's diary to be just a coincidence. When nobody was looking, she waved her hand over the parchment, creating an exact copy which she hurriedly hid in her robes. She was very glad that Lilly had taught her the trick.

It took her a few days to come to terms with what she had found. She was not sure what to do about the new information or even if it was advisable to do anything at all. She would have to speak with her mother alone sometime, she thought.

Bob proved himself a nice person and a good friend. He easily befriended Brenda Weasley. He didn't appreciate her wisdom very much, but the girl was clearly friendly and unprejudiced, which was a welcome change comparing to the Slytherins. She was also very interested in muggle ways of life and besides, she was also quite pretty.

He also had another welcome benefit from befriending Lilly and Dianna – doing homework with them gave him a serious boost in his grades. He convinced Brenda to join the group as well, which turned beneficial in more ways than one. Brenda seemed to become more interested in her studies, now that she could really get good grades and she seemed to enjoys Bob's company even without her other friends, just as he was enjoying her company.

Neither Lilly nor Dianna told their parents about their new friend. They considered raising two babies at once burden enough and didn't want to add any other for awhile.

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