Lily Potter and the Shadows' Misfortune

Chapter Thirty

A few days had passed since Lily and her friends had seen Douglas and Ike scuttling out of the classroom near Gryffindor Tower. Although the friends tried to hypothesize about the two Slytherins' doings, all of them had come up emptyhanded with anything in regards to Douglas and Ike. The other mysteries weren't looking any closer to being solved either. No one had found the items stolen from the Headmistress's office, and Lily had no new leads on the Sanger twins.

"We are officially getting nowhere," Hugo said one day while walking down to the Potions dungeon.

"Thanks for pointing that out," Eli said. "I thought we had been really making progress."

"What progress are you talking about, McGonagall?" Hugo asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That was a joke, Hugo," Eli said. "Unless Lily's made some sort of progress that she hasn't shared with us."

Lily shook her head, "Nothing. Nora, have you found out anything about Douglas and Ike, seeing as you're in the same house?"

"Nothing," Nora said. "I followed them a few times, but I've gotten nothing. They only go to the Great Hall and to class. Nowhere else that I've caught."

"And in short, we have found nothing," Hugo said. "No progress. Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"Thanks for the progress report, Mr. Pessimistic," Lily said.

"I'm not being pessimistic," Hugo said, crossing his arms. "I'm just giving you the facts, dear cousin, and the facts say that we have nothing."

Lily rolled her eyes, like she had found herself doing many times before at her cousin, "You are simply impossible, Hugo Weasley."

"I'm simply irresistible," he said.

"What?" Lily, Eli, and Nora asked together.

"That's a Muggle song, right, Rudy?" Hugo asked, looking to their Muggle-born friend.

"Yes," Rudy said plainly. "Although I don't think that song holds any truth when it comes to you."

"Oh, harsh," Lily said, looking to her cousin. "How did that one feel, Hugo?"

"Like a knife as hot as white coals has been shoved through my heart by the strongest man on earth," he said, deadpanning as the five friends walked into the dungeon, following the flow of Slytherins.

"Quite the use of similes, my friend," Rudy said.

"I don't know what a simile is," he said simply, shaking his head and placing his bag down on the table next to Eli.

"It's a figure of speech," Lily said, taking her seat next to Eli.

Lily sent an empathetic smile Nora's way as her friend had to sit with Slytherins. The majority of the Slytherin house wasn't a fan of Nora, and Nora returned that feeling to her own house. It was unfortunate that Cassie had Herbology during that period.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," Professor Slughorn greeted as the clock stuck eight in the morning. "Today, we will continue our study of the Wiggenweld Potion."

"Will we finally get to make it today, Professor?" a curious Slytherin asked from the opposite side of the room.

"Not yet, Miss Lyons," he said. "But five points to Slytherin for your inquiring mind!"

Lily was readying her quill when a note landed on her desk. She turned to her cousin and Eli with scolding eyes.

"We're going to get in trouble," she mouthed to them while Slughorn wrote on the chalkboard at the front of the room.