Chapter Three

Soap Bubbles and Rock'n'Roll

About a week and a half after the start of the school year and two days after the duel with Professor Snape, Associate Professor Undead rightly decided that she had neglected her hygiene. She had bathed for the last time the day before she came to Hogwarts, in her aunt Charlotte's makeshift bathroom somewhere in Yorkshire, which was holding itself together more by magic than by the boards it was made of. A map of the castle would be of great use to her, but Professor McGonagall had mentioned something about the teacher's bathroom at lunch the day before so Jane hoped to find it easily. After putting on her navy blue bathrobe and shoving a bottle of shampoo in one of its pockets, she left her room and headed for the stairs. Several of the older students gave her strange looks as they passed her by, but she just smiled at them and kept walking. She met one of the teachers on the stairs and greeted her, and when she reached the third floor, there was already a sound of running water, which she recognized unmistakably. At the entrance, she hesitated and stared disapprovingly at her legs, which she seemed to have noticed for the first time in a long time. There were many scratches, she noted critically, some almost healed, others with a very fresh light red tinge, and just above the knee of her right leg, there was a brand new blue spot that hurt when she touched it. It must have been from the recent duel when she was hit by the curse sent to her by Professor Snape.

'Calm down already,' she said to herself, 'hardly any of your female colleagues will be looking at your feet. Besides, you can always lie that you've hit yourself on some table.' However, it was more difficult for her to adapt to the social part. The thought that she was not alone, as well as the fact that she had no idea what the order in the bathroom was, confused her.

A few minutes later, more thanks to her starting to freeze than to her courage, Jane was already opening the bathroom door. As soon as she stepped into the small antechamber, she was startled for a moment but then hurried inside. In the twilight, several torches hung against the walls, which were painted a light colour, difficult to identify. The ceiling was much higher than that of most classrooms. Several towels and bathrobes were left on low marble benches and chairs, neatly arranged against the walls and inside the room. So there were already several women in the bathroom. Sensing the warm waves coming from the next room, she quickly chose one of the chairs away from the front door to leave her robe on and with a mild reluctance headed for the main bathroom. Holding the shampoo bottle in her hand, Jane looked around nervously. It was much brighter and more spacious here than the antechamber, the light coming in from several tall matte windows. So the scratches on her legs would be clearly visible to anyone who would bother to look at her. 'Not good,' she cursed in her mind, looking around feverishly for a darker spot. She lurked in a small alcove with two showers and finally began looking around more calmly.

There were many things to be seen in the bathroom. First, she looked up at the vaulted ceiling. It was all white and streaked with beautiful plaster ornaments. The walls were bright orange from top to bottom, and inside there were the most luxurious bathing fixtures. There were showers, small and large bathtubs with beautiful gilded legs, and in the midst of it all was a strange crossbreed between a small pool and a huge bathtub, in which there were two witches immersed up to their necks in the multicoloured foam. There were a total of three women in the showers and in the other bathtubs, who, ignoring her presence, performed their routine hygiene activities.

Slowly, Jane calmed down completely and without staring much at the others, set her shampoo on a small shelf next to two moulds of blood-red soap, and began studying the shower in front of her. She hadn't used anything like that in a long time, and she had to get the job done fast before she embarrassed in front of her colleagues. However, the objects around her seemed to have their own opinion on the matter, because just a second after she finally turned the shower on, the shampoo bottle fell on the tiles and everyone turned to her. She could only wish for a worse performance without clothes. The teacher closed her eyes and began shampooing her hair with trembling hands. A few more seconds and they would stop watching, she gritted her teeth, when she heard someone call her by name.

'Hey, Jane, why don't you come here?'

Only then did she notice one of the women in the pool waving her hand cheerfully as she held a cocktail glass with an umbrella in it with the other. Jane almost slipped and fell to the floor. 'Professor McGonagall!', she shouted in surprise, narrowing her eyes to pick out the voice's source. 'I didn't recognize you without my glasses on.'

The other witch smiled politely. 'Yes, it is difficult for me to focus, too. Especially after the second glass,' she said, giggling. 'Are you coming already?'

'If you'll wait me wash myself a bit,' Jane muttered in response. 'I'm not very clean right now.'

'Isn't that what the bathroom's for!', exclaimed the second witch from the pool, bursting out laughing. Apparently, the teachers had a good time here.

Without wasting any more time, Jane somehow controlled the trembling of her hands, washed her hair, and scrubbed the rest of her body as well as she could. Her legs still looked as badly as before the washing, so all she could do was sigh and join the others. She tried to slip in as fast as she could among the multicoloured bubbles, but as she swung her legs across the ledge, Professor McGonagall noticed the blue spot just above her knee.

'Where did you hit yourself like that?', she asked, even coming closer to examine it.

'Ah, I think I hit the edge of the bed the other day,' Jane feigned a casual tone. 'The cat tripped me.'

It sounded pretty pathetic as an explanation, but the two women seemed to accept it.

'You can put some calendula and chamomile ointment on it,' Professor McGonagall suggested, leaning back in the tub. 'I always carry a tube of it in my purse, remind me to give it to you.'

'Thank you very much, Professor McGonagall.' Jane instinctively curled up in the tub. She didn't like being paid that much attention.

'We don't have professors here.' The witch hiccuped loudly. 'Professor McGonagall is with my formal robe in the office upstairs. In the ladies' club, I'm Minerva.'

'Sounds good.' Jane didn't know what else to say as she rubbed the sore spot under the water.

'And this is Aurora Sinistra. You should definitely know her.'

'Hello,' Aurora said enthusiastically. 'We're having a gin cocktail. Helps against tension. Do you want some? You look like a woman who would have one.'

'Yes, please.'

'The kitchen staff said they wouldn't mind.' Minerva reached for her wand, which she had left on the ledge next to her cocktail, and a second later a small conical glass with a blue umbrella materialized next to Jane's head.

'It's very nice,' Jane said sincerely, after taking a long sip.

'We agree. Right, Aurora?'

'Definitely. If Pomona had stayed a little longer, we could have played a bit of whist or bridge…'

'...but she said she had to look after her plants.'

'And since the stars won't escape us, nor the transfiguration, we decided it wouldn't be a problem to stay a little longer.'

'So what do you think about the school, Jane? Do you like it here?'

Jane swallowed half the glass. Drinking always helped against stress, and the cocktail was really good.

'I find it very pleasant,' she answered the surprising question. 'It is quite different from my school years. At least we didn't drink cocktails while soaking in a marble tub full of coloured bubbles.' Everybody laughed. 'I focused on certain things back then – homework, the boys, my band.'

'Jane used to play the guitar,' Minerva explained. 'She and the boy from her band often gave concerts. I went to listen to them several times.'

Jane froze for a moment, but then forced herself not to think about it. At least the alcohol and the hot water had already begun relaxing her. Aurora, the astronomy teacher, said she would love to listen to her perform.

'I sing terribly,' Jane said fidgety. 'Besides, I don't have a guitar.'

'Don't worry, I know a music store in London,' Minerva continued. She had become surprisingly talkative. 'It's close to Diagon Alley. My students buy their instruments from there. I can take you at the weekend.'

'I'll be glad,' Jane said in a slightly louder voice than she had planned.

The three witches spent about an hour in the tub, which was apparently enchanted to keep the water warm. During this time, Jane began feeling much better and even laughed heartily at a few funny stories about the school's students told by her two colleagues. When they finally decided to leave, they came out of the tub from three different sides. As Jane took a long shower to rinse off the bubbles and applied ointment to her leg, Professor Sinistra managed to return the glasses to the kitchen and Professor McGonagall emptied the tub.

'Jane, we may have given you the impression that we do nothing but drink here,' Minerva said earnestly. 'But I hope you'll see our good sides at some point, too.'

'You don't have to worry about that.' Jane grinned. 'Because you don't know what we did with the boys after a concert. In short, we didn't sober up for at least three days after each appearance on stage. I mean after we left school.'

'Then let's repeat the exercise next week at the same time, what do you say? Professor Sinistra is very nervous on Thursday afternoons because she has classes only with Hufflepuffs every Wednesday night.' Imperceptibly, Aurora had begun speaking in a third person about herself, maybe because she was trying to distance herself from the unpleasant details of her work, Jane thought. Or she was just tipsy.

Minerva nodded, and Jane, without thinking too much, smiled and agreed. If she wanted to fit into the team, she had to start somewhere.

The guitar Jane bought next Saturday was more than magnificent. It had to be because all her salary went to buy it, a well as the advance for the next month. It was of the type "electric guitar", which, for some reason, even wizards called that way, although it did not use Muggle electricity to work, but magic. Its body was made of shiny dark purple plastic, the fretboard was black and very thin, and the strings stood out on the surface in shades of silver. When she saw it, Jane immediately fell in love with it, and when she heard it play, she decided she had to buy it.

Professor McGonagall, who had only seen such musical instruments, spent her time in the music store reading "Transfiguration Today" magazine. From time to time she raised her head from her reading and gave an opinion on the sound of the guitars Jane was trying. Finally, when she liked the violet "Magicaster" guitar, she asked Jane to play a whole song, which made a huge impression on the salesman.

'You have to play in a band!', exclaimed the plump gentleman with his sleeves rolled up. 'Do you want to look at the advertisements behind the door? Many bands are looking for a guitarist now.'

'No, thank you,' Jane said quickly. 'I'm an amateur, I play for pleasure. I also have a job that consumes a lot of my time.'

'Associate Professor Undead is a very valuable teacher at Hogwarts,' her companion added.

'Look at that,' the salesman clicked his tongue approvingly. 'A teacher and a musician. Well, if you change your mind, you can come at any time to look at the advertisements. I will personally write to them with a recommendation to take you.'

'Thank you,' Jane said, pouring a large pile of shiny galleons on the table. 'I'll think about that.'

The two women left the store.

'Well, Jane, if you want to pay it off faster, you can stand on the corner and play,' Professor McGonagall joked. 'I can lend you my hat.'

'I'd rather sit in the little patisserie across from the bank. After such a purchase, I want something sweet. Except I got a little broke.'

'If you promise me a song when we get back, I'll treat you.'

'Sure,' Jane said, clutching her guitar case tightly for fear of it suddenly escaping. 'Which song?'

'"To My Beloved", if you can.'

'That I can, I can. Except the song is disgusting. The worst of them all. I'm serious, Minerva. And I sing the whole solo. I'm going to need earplug magic. You too.'

'I like the song,' said Professor McGonagall, jumping over a paving stone that came out of the blue.

'All right, fine by me,' Jane grinned. 'With this beauty, I can play even "To My Beloved". But only once.'

The Ravenclaw students turned out to be much more capable than they had initially shown. As the school year progressed, more and more of them learned the protective spells taught to them by Associate Professor Undead, and she kept praising them in front of her colleagues. From the first, third and sixth grade there were several children with whom it was a real pleasure to work. Jane had a hard time remembering names, but theirs definitely stood out in her mind only a month after the start of the school year. One of them, and perhaps the best, was Lily Smith. As Jane had learned, the girl was of more than humble origins, and her story was reminiscent of that of Rowena Ravenclaw herself, at least according to the Gray Lady. Like Madam Ravenclaw, Lily Smith was born in a small village in the Scottish Highlands, where she lived with her widowed mother and young sister.

As a good student, Lily came to see Jane regularly, sometimes in the most unusual hours – waiting for Jane in front of her room in the morning before breakfast with a question or knocking softly on her door late at night. She found her at lunch or after dinner in front of the Great Hall, where Associate Professor Undead explained to her at length about the kinds of illusions and offensive spells. But the teacher didn't feel unpleasant. She even went to the Great Library at the Ministry of Magic in London, just to check on something Miss Smith had asked her about. The two had soon become such friends that Lily would let her teacher listen to recordings of the "Weird Sisters", enchanted in a shell, or show her her new metal chain, which hung proudly under her cloak.

That's why the day Jane had just hung the large, slightly crumpled "Black Witches" poster, taken back from her aunt's house, and was about to play in front of her friends, there was another knock on the door. There was no doubt that it was Lily Smith, so she quickly left her guitar pick next to a few pushpins on the desk by the window and went to open it.

'Hello, Associate Professor Undead,' Lily said cheerfully. 'I invented a little spell for the illusion of water dripping into the fireplace. It's a lot of fun. I wanted to show it to you to help me modify it because it's a bit stiff now, and I really wanted to show it to the boys in the club.'

'Hello to you, too, Lily,' Jane smiled. 'Come in. Can you wait a bit with the magic? You see, I just bought a new guitar and this is its first try.'

'You play the guitar?!', Lily exclaimed and entered the room where Professors McGonagall, Sinistra, Sprout, and even Professor Vector, who had been teaching Lily Arithmancy since the third grade, sat in several chairs and an armchair.

'Hello!' Lily greeted a little stiffly. 'I hope I'm not intruding on you.'

'Sit down, sit down,' Professor McGonagall said, pointing to one of the chairs. 'We had just coaxed Jane to play for us, she was trying to be modest.'

'Just a few songs,' Jane said quickly. 'I won't take much of your time. Until the cat runs away or your ears start hurting, as we agreed.'

'Looking at her, Murray has no intention of running away yet,' said the astronomy teacher, in whose lap the purring colourful cat had settled.

'Good afternoon, Your Majesty!' Jane bowed to the blinking ball of fur, which made the audience laugh. 'Well, is everyone ready?'

The other witches just nodded, and Jane took her place right in front of the closed bedroom door, cleared her throat, and pulled the strings. She had exercised for a few hours the day before, but she still felt tense and nervous. The first song didn't go very well, which disappointed her, but failed to make her give up. True, her voice wasn't good in some places, but it wasn't easy to sing the songs that weren't meant for her. After the third song, however, she felt more confident and continued playing and singing, occasionally checking the condition of her audience. There were no signs of boredom, though; Professor McGonagall smiled slightly and shook her head to the tune, Professor Sinistra looked fascinated, and Lily Smith listened as if hypnotized with her mouth open. Only Murray the Cat seemed to ignore what was happening, as she jumped calmly to the ground from Aurora's lap and, without haste, headed for her plate of cat food, which stood by the fireplace.

'So what do you say?' Jane asked, almost out of breath, after the sixth song, leaning securely against the doorframe. 'Am I still any good?'

'Even beyond that.' Minerva smiled.

'I didn't know we had such a talent at school.' Professor Vector shook her head.

'Have you ever done this professionally?,' asked Professor Sprout, who was sitting in Jane's blue armchair.

'Oh, yeah. After I left school. For a few years.' Jane took a breath after each sentence. 'With this, I have lost my time, my voice and every chance to enter the scientific community.'

'I think you sing wonderfully, Associate Professor Undead,' Lily spoke for the first time since she sat down.

'Thank you, Lily.' But unlike my voice, my ears are still in place. I can't be wrong. So, does anyone want something special? Otherwise, I'll close the meeting.'

'I'd like to ask for something by the "Weird Sister"',' Lily said softly.

'And you've already promised me something.' Minerva smiled.

'Okay, but it'll be just those two. And then someone will take Murray out from under the armchair, where she will lurk after the second song. Let me warn you, Minerva, it turns out she doesn't like it at all.'

'No problem.'

Jane pushed herself away from the wall and closed her eyes for a moment. She knew which of the "Weird Sisters" songs she would play, so he just turned the pick in her hand and began. The song was sad and brought a lot of tears to the audience's eyes, as did the next one, "To My Beloved", which she had promised Professor McGonagall. As she sang the last verse, Jane heard the irritation of the cat, which began meowing plaintively and after a while hid under the armchair, from where her cries for help could be heard.

'That was all.' Jane removed the guitar strap from her shoulders and set the instrument carefully in the corner. Then she silently tucked the pick in her jeans pocket and sat on the floor. The others applauded as if on command, to which she smiled and nodded with her head instead of bowing. 'And now someone has to get my cat out from under the armchair and if possible, without using magic, so as not to scare the poor animal.'

'I'll get her out in no time. Just back off for a while, Pomona.' Professor McGonagall knelt in front of the now-empty chair and spoke softly. 'Puss, tch-tch. Come here, Murray, your older sister has already stopped playing. Tch-tch-tch.'

'I'm not her sister. By cat standards, I'm old enough to be her grandmother,' Jane commented from her place on the floor as she watched the operation of removing the animal from under the furniture.

'Puss-tch-tch,' Professor McGonagall continued, ignoring her words. There was a long meow from under one end of the chair, but even then the professor did not resign speaking to her. Murray objected once more, but in a moment her black-and-orange snout was already sticking out.

'Here's your cat, Jane,' Professor McGonagall handed it carefully.

'But she even purrs!', Jane exclaimed as she picked her up.

'Let's say I have a talent for animals.'

'Indeed,' Jane agreed. 'My aunt, my mother and I have raised whole armies of cats, but they rarely listen to any of us.'

Professor McGonagall just smiled and sat back down. Shortly afterwards, the four teachers apologized for having things to do and went home, so Jane and Lily were left alone in the office.

'You were going to show me your spell,' Jane reminded, rising from the ground to move to one of the chairs, muttering, 'Don't forget to return them later.'

'Oh, yeah. Of course. I completely forgot. But after your performance, it will look a little simple. As Professor Dumbledore says, there is no other magic like music.'

'Don't worry and sit in the armchair. In my opinion, magic is magic, music is music, and they often have very little to do with each other. So you can show me what you came up with without worrying.'

Lily crossed the room, sat hesitantly at the end of the chair, and stared at the flames. 'Perhaps you are right, Associate Professor Undead. Still, I think you performed very well a while ago. I wish I could do the same. But no, I can play the guitar just a little and that's it.'

'Don't despair like that. You need more practice and maybe a teacher to guide you.'

'And who would agree to teach me? I'm completely talentless.'

'I deeply doubt that. Take the guitar and play something.'

Lily staggered to her feet and headed for the corner where the guitar stood. She twisted it around her arms a little, as if she didn't know what to do with it, then propped it on her knee and played a few notes.

'It wasn't bad, but it's very slow. Try faster. Don't think about it for too long, the music should be felt. Let me show you.'

The girl silently handed the guitar and Jane placed it on her knees, right in front of the cat. Then she played the same notes. 'It's your turn.'

This time, with more determination, the girl grabbed the fretboard, examined the guitar from top to bottom, and began playing. She managed to play a part of the song without stumbling and then stopped.

'That's so much better,' Jane shouted enthusiastically. 'If you want, we can work on this song today, and then I'll show you another one. Or maybe more than one. As long as you want.'

'Thank you, Associate Professor Undead.'

'Don't mention it. I think it will be a lot of fun.'

The rest of the afternoon, the two of them played different songs on the new guitar. Most of the time Lily played and Jane sipped hot tea from a tall ceramic cup, but they changed from time to time. When it got dark outside, the girl finally showed her magic, which began to look more real with just a slight correction.

'Very well, indeed.' Jane took a sip of tea and leaned back in her chair. 'You remind me of myself when I was still studying at Hogwarts. I just hope you're smart enough to pay attention to your education.'

'I won't abandon it, don't worry.' Lily reached for her cup.

'That's the spirit. By the way, if you know someone else who is interested in music, you can send him to me. I hadn't had so much fun in a long time.'

'This is easy. I have two friends, and they have two other friends, with whom we often talked that we would like to play in a band.'

'Fantastic. Bring them here soon.'

That's how Lily and her friends' rock band was born.