"Wake up!" said the angry face of the bedside clock. "That's TWICE I've had to tell you, Miss McGonagall. I see that the others are already up and bumping elbows at the sinks in the lavatory. THEIR clocks have a much easier time than I do. Don't make me wake you again."
"Oh shush," said Giselle, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "I was up all hours last night with Auntie."
"Make whatever excuses you like. Just get up. Breakfast will be served in fifteen minutes. Cream puffs with strawberries, sausage links, and cantaloupe cubes with sugared raisins and almonds. Plenty of energy there! And you'll need it for your mad dash to the greenhouses, since I'm quite sure you'll be late for first period, if I know you."
"Oh. Well, since you know so much about me, what's my class schedule for today?"
"I'll tell you as soon as you're out of bed."
"I AM out of bed," Giselle said, shivering in the breeze from an open window. She reached for her quilted bathrobe and towel.
"Herbology first, then Divination, Charms, and after lunch Arithmancy, Transfiguration, and Care of Magical Creatures. There, you see, I ticked off the list for you. Get in the shower before Deidre and Lori finish brushing their teeth or you WILL have a long wait."
"Anything special in any of the classes?" she asked, turning to look back at the nuisance.
"According to Grandfather Clock, a teacher from Jaadoo ka Ghar will be substituting for Trelawney in Divination. What? Never heard of it? It means 'House Of Magic' in Hindi. She's from India. And she's the great-grandmother of Parvati, that Gryffindor friend of yours who played gobstones with you and Bea the other night."
"How interesting. And you're very nosey for an alarm clock."
It made a face at her. "Too much time on my hands."
Giselle brought a healthy appetite with her to the Hufflepuff table in a noisy Great Hall that crisp September morning.
She noticed that Cedric was still getting congratulations for being named the Hogwarts champion. Such an honor for their house! And there was a lot of grumbling, too, about Harry getting the nod as well. No one knew how that could possibly happen. Not even Auntie, not even Dumbledore, could think what to make of it.
"How did your visit with Charlie Weasley go last night?" asked Felix, shoving the dish of sausages toward Giselle when he saw what big helpings she was taking from all the other dishes.
"He was with the workers who are building the arena and bleachers for the tournament," she replied, careful to say only what Auntie had advised. (She could feel Aunt Minerva's eyes on her.) "So I didn't get to see him. But he's all right," she added with a genuine smile and a joyful lift of her heart. "I had feared that he was ill, but it's just that he's very busy. I'll see him tonight, Auntie told me. Come along, if you like. Harry and Hermione are coming, and Bea and Deidre. Lori has library duty tonight."
"And I have detention with Snape," Felix said, consoling himself with a big spoonful of strawberries.
With her burst of happiness still radiating through her, Giselle was curious how others were feeling.
She glanced over at Draco and noticed the cold-shoulder look that Pansy was giving him, for some reason. And Cho Chang at the Ravenclaw table seemed depressed over something. Did she and Cedric have a falling out? Surely not, with him the Hogwarts champion who would certainly want all the moral support he could get. And there was Luna Lovegood across from Cho, looking very whimsical, as usual, pointing to a picture in Cho's scrapbook that appeared to be trying to jump off the page.
The funny bow that Luna was wearing in her hair reminded Giselle of the Bloodwort Bird-of-Hades leaf that had become a feather; or so Bea liked to think. She was just then taping it onto her Herbology homework with a dubious expression.
Giselle's ray of sunshine turned dark as she recalled the strange creature in the wicker cage.
When she, Ron, and Hermione had followed Snape back to the lower chamber, she saw that the cage was no longer there. The stool was bare except for what looked like a drop of blood. Someone had walked off with the cage, and who could be the guilty one if not Professor Moody?
Could it have been that terrible witch whom Giselle had caught just a glimpse of before losing consciousness?
Snape had refused to tell them anything about her, except to say that she was a fugitive, and that the Headmaster would take action... whatever that means, thought Giselle, looking up at the faculty board.
Snape was sedately cutting a slice of ham, while Mrs Dursley, sitting next to him, leaned away and darted nervous looks at him. What sort of misinformed thoughts were going through her mind? He paid her no attention. And Auntie was just as secretive about the witch in the forest as Snape was about virtually everything.
Auntie had brought Giselle to her office late last night and told her, in her strictest manner, that her neice was not to get wrapped up in intrigues like those that kept Harry Potter in the gossip pages of the Daily Prophet.
Harry was apparently the main interest of that poison-pen columnist, Rita Skeeter. "And I don't want you getting the same treatment," Auntie had said to a meek, blushing Giselle. "Consider that your grade average last term was only an 'Acceptable,' and a 'Poor' in Charms! Gee, you must concentrate on your classes if you're to have any hope of getting a good job with Faerie Ministries. I see I'll have to tutor you in Charms during Christmas break, and keep your nose to the grindstone this summer recess. No going to the Fair, not until you show some real improvement."
It was a sober Giselle who suddenly realized that her remembrances were making her late for first period, just as predicted!
She grabbed her bookbag and trotted out into the Hall and down a side passage that led to an inner courtyard.
Here she recognized a salesman from Quality Quidditch Supplies, examining the school broomsticks with a critical eye, as Madame Hooch looked on. "Wouldn't wanna ride THAT one," Giselle heard him say as she ran past, "too many splinters."
She just made it into Greenhouse Number Two as the bell tolled dolefully. She squeezed in between Bea and Cass at the long table where mounds of Snitch peas lay on a line of wax papers.
Professor Sprout was explaining that the peas were compared to a Snitch because they tried to avoid being picked up. As soon as you reached for one it would start rolling around in various directions. Not even Harry could catch one without using both hands.
Hufflepuff was sharing the class with Gryffindor. Giselle was surprised to see that Ron was several places away from Harry and Hermione. Something was bothering him. He looked very disgruntled about whatever it was.
The class spent the hour potting the peas and discussing the uses of the mature plants in potions and magic menus.
Herbology was Bea's favorite subject. But when Sprout said, "Class, time to pass in your homework assignments from yesterday," Bea looked as if she wished she had never heard of the subject.
While Giselle put her report on 'The 5 Curses Associated With Dingleberries' on the top of the stack of papers passed along on their side of the table, Bea slipped hers in the middle somewhere, then looked horrified when she saw that the feather was sticking out from the stack.
Thankfully Sprout was distracted by Parvati, who rushed in and asked for "the little green things for Divination."
Sprout gave her a bag of Snitch peas. "Let Aditi know that if she needs more, I'll send them up to her next period."
"Yes, ma'am," Parvati said and rushed back out.
Giselle had to laugh. Were they going to be using Snitch peas for Divination? She couldn't imagine what manner of use the peas could have. But she soon found out.
After the dizzying climb up spiral stairwells and that horrible ladder, the clouds of incense floating about the circular classroom was oddly rejuvenating in a relaxed sort of way.
Giselle, Bea, Lori, and Deidre sat at their usual table near the windows that lent a view of the Owlery. On the table were thick sheets of cardboard that resembled placemats. But these had rows of words written on them in different colors, words such as Yes, No, Safe, Dangerous, Brother, Uncle, Bride, and so on. In the center of the table was a ceramic bowl in which several Snitch peas were behaving themselves.
"Maybe it's like an Ouija Board," Lori said. Bea, who wasn't taking Muggle Studies, asked her to please explain.
But the substitute teacher, Aditi Jiva, resplendent in a gold macrame sari, did the explaining.
"The object of this exercise is the discerning of meaning in the intuitive thought processes as concerns the present and the future," said the elderly wise woman. "You will begin as a group. That is, all those at a table will first practice together. Decide amongst yourselves which questions you should ask. Then hold your hands above the chart. The single Snitch pea you have placed in the small circle will move around erratically until it finds what your deep subconscious minds already know. It is your unified spirits that direct it. Afterwards each one of you will discern by yourselves, and you need not ask your questions out loud."
"What should we ask it?" wondered Deidre, setting a pea in the circle of one of the boards.
"Let's ask if Cedric is going to win the Tournament Cup!" said Lori excitedly.
They held their hands above the board, and sure enough the Snitch pea began to roll around aimlessly. But after a minute or so it stopped on the word 'Yes.'
"Oh my God how awesome!" said Bea. "But let's ask if HARRY is going to win. It should say 'No.' If it doesn't, well then, something's messed up."
The pea took longer this time, but finally it rolled to a stop on... 'Yes.'
"That's that then," Deidre said with a sigh. "It doesn't work. You can't have TWO winners. We're right back where we started from. For all we know, neither one of them will win."
They asked more questions, though no one was convinced that the answers were right.
But Giselle had an idea.
When Aditi announced that it was now time for individual practice, Giselle scooted her chair over toward the window and sat facing away from her friends. They decided that she was taking this nonsense all too seriously, and, giggling at themselves, they took turns watching each other look foolish.
Giselle's first question was one she knew the answer to. The pea got it right. She did this several times, and the pea was never wrong. She still wasn't sure that this proved anything, because, after all, it apparently got the winner of the Cup wrong. Or did it? Couldn't the Tournament end in a tie between Cedric and Harry?
Encouraged, she took a nervous breath and asked herself, 'Is Charlie a vampire?'
She closed her eyes, afraid to watch. When at last she peeked between her fingers, the pea was resting on the word 'No.'
For awhile Giselle luxuriated in the sure knowledge that Charlie was perfectly okay. The giggling and mocking going on behind her was just background noise.
Then she remembered the strong feeling she had that Mrs Dursley was hoping to find a particular thing at Hogwarts.
'What is Petunia Dursley wanting to find here?' she asked. And to her astonishment the pea wriggled its way straight to the word 'Sister.'
Her sister? But that's Harry's mother, Lily Potter, and Lily's dead, killed by You-Know-Who when Harry was just a baby! How could Mrs Dursley hope to find her dead sister?
It occurred to Giselle that just maybe...
'Is Lily Potter a ghost at Hogwarts?'
The Snitch pea rolled slowly, indecisively, to the words 'Yes' and 'No.' It seemed to be trying to make up its mind, but couldn't decide whether the answer was an absolute yes or an absolute no. It trembled between the two answers as if frightened by the prospect of getting it wrong.
Giselle thought, 'Hmm,' and wondered how to get to the truth of the matter. Another idea came to her. It was worth a try.
'Does one of the teachers have contact with Lily Potter?'
This time the pea rolled decisively to the word 'Potion.' And as Giselle wrinkled her brow over this, the pea went unerringly to the word 'Master.'
The Potions Master!
Giselle could not imagine why Professor Snape would be in contact with Lily's ghost, or whatever it was that she had become. Although Giselle knew that Snape and Harry despised each other, she had no understanding as to why this should be so, except that Harry had sometimes talked about how his father and Snape were students together at Hogwarts, and neither liked the other.
Giselle pondered this. She kept going back to the question of whether Lily was a ghost, or something else. But WHAT else?
It was when Argus Filch came huffing and puffing into the classroom and took down a portrait of Nicodemus, lugging it over to the top of the ladder, that the mystery solved itself.
Lily Potter's living portrait was somewhere in Hogwarts. And Severus Snape knew where.
Giselle looked at Harry sitting with Neville and Seamus. They were grinning at their boards and trying to give their Snitch peas a knudge, though the peas were quick to avoid any help.
Giselle recalled the times that Harry would talk about seeing his parents in the Mirror of Erised.
That was nothing compared to what Snape could talk to. But why would he want to? Was Lily free to visit the other paintings? How was it that Harry hadn't encountered her? Does his mother know he's here? How could she not know?
"Oh, Gee, give it up," laughed Deidre.
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