As they approached the place where all their Care of Magical Creatures lessons were held, she noticed a cage on the teacher's table. Inside the cage was what looked like a small pile of valuable gems.
"If you would all just gather round the table, please, although do not come any closer than six feet," Professor Kettleburn called out. He was a rather large man with a weathered face and grey hair and beard. He waited for the last stragglers to come and then continued talking.
"Who can tell me what animal this is?" he asked kindly. Lily remembered having seen a picture in her book with an animal that quite resembled the pile of gems, and put up her hand.
"Yes, Miss Evans?" Professor Kettleburn nodded.
"A Fire Crab, if I'm not much mistaken, sir," she replied. The pile of gems in the cage moved a bit.
"Correct. Perhaps you can also tell me why I asked you to keep your distance?" he asked, and all heads turned towards Lily.
"The Fire Crab has, as its name implies, an ability to shoot fire from its rear end," she answered, and at that moment exactly the Crab moved again and also shot a beam of fire towards a Ravenclaw girl. Her robes nearly caught on fire but she managed to take a few steps backwards before that happened. They all instantly took three steps back.
"Correct again. Five points for Gryffindor," the professor said with a smile on his face. "The Fire Crab is in danger of becoming extremely rare, and it isn't the easiest animal to encounter as it is. The reason, as you might have guessed, is because of its shell. It is not unheard of that the Fire Crab is killed and the shell sold for a small fortune, being used as cauldrons by some wizards."
Disgusting, Lily thought. Some people would kill animals for less, she knew, but she was still angry that the Crabs had to suffer just because they had a beautiful shell. Professor Kettleburn continued talking and Lily listened intently, not wanting to miss a word.
"The reason I have brought one here today is that you have to learn how to feed and clean a Fire Crab without sustaining any serious burns. You could very well be asked to do this in your O.W.L. exam. You will practice doing so in groups of three or four, and you will practice on one of the tortoises on the ground over there," he instructed, pointing his finger at a small closed area where ten tortoises were lazily walking around. "At the end of the class one group will demonstrate how to clean this Fire Crab, so be careful. When you practice on the normal tortoises, remember this one can shoot fire," he finished, and they all went over to grab a tortoise.
Half an hour later she was bored stiff with the tortoise. They had already fed and cleaned their tortoise and it was simply lying lazily in the grass, but if the professor thought they weren't doing anything when he came to check on how things were going, they were sure to get a few points docked. This was one of the bad things about these lessons; Professor Kettleburn, even though kind, didn't seem to understand that you would do anything else other than concentrate completely on the magical animals. Lily, Diana and Arietta used the opportunity to talk freely though, and when the Professor was nearing their group, they would hastily start feeding the tortoise again. Arietta was feeding it at the moment, seeing as Diana had just informed them of the fast approaching teacher.
"Ouch! Stop that!" Arietta suddenly whimpered. She turned to Lily and Diana. "It bit me!"
Diana burst out laughing. Lily began laughing as well. It was just too funny.
"The… tortoise… bit you!" Diana gasped between laughing. "And you… didn't see it… coming?" she finished, now laughing so much she was almost rolling around on the ground.
Arietta looked slightly insulted and turned towards the tortoise, but Lily saw she was smiling herself.
"It sneaked up on me… How was I supposed to know that it was actually very quick when it came to tasting something else than salad?" Arietta mumbled.
"That's quite cool, really," Diana exclaimed.
"Do you want me to take care of it?" Lily asked, sitting down on the grass beside Arietta.
"Yeah, thanks Lils," Arietta sighed gratefully and stood up. Lily looked at the tortoise. Then she looked even closer at it before bursting out laughing yet again.
"Hey look, Ari, it's fallen asleep!" she exclaimed. This made Diana have another laughing fit.
"Lucky you," Arietta said sulkily. She turned away from the both of them and found that Professor Kettleburn was standing directly in front of her.
"Doing all right, girls?" he asked as he looked at their tortoise. They nodded.
"Yes, sir, but I think the boys may have some problems," Diana said and pointed toward the Marauders. The Professor turned and walked over to the Marauders, surprised. Diana grinned.
Lily looked over at the marauders and saw what Diana had seen. They were obviously in trouble.
It looked as if Black had been trying to charm their tortoise into eating the food they were supposed to be giving it, which had resulted in the tortoise chewing on his finger instead of the food. In an attempt to get it away from his finger, again with the use of his wand, Black had somehow managed to get the tip of his wand on fire. Remus had put it out in time for it not to be completely damaged, though. As Black tried to get his finger out of the tortoise's mouth, Potter and Remus were trying to see if the wand still worked as it should, while Pettigrew was left caring for his rat, which he seemed reluctant to leave in the dormitory during classes. The rat was struggling desperately trying to escape. It was probably thinking it was next in line to get eaten by the tortoise. The whole situation looked like chaos.
"You're such a snitch!" Lily said with a small smile. She and Diana both started laughing. Arietta had also looked over at the Marauders and lightened up quite a bit at the sight. She was now smiling while eating a sandwich.
"Yeah well, it's just payback for the train ride, they could have just stayed out of our compartment like we told them to last year." Diana shrugged, fighting not to laugh too loudly. The Marauders were by now being told off by the professor.
Lily and her friends were still in a good mood when the lesson ended. Luckily, they were not chosen to demonstrate their newly acquired knowledge on the Fire Crab, and since this had been the last lesson of the week, they now had the rest of the day to do anything they liked.
The spent the rest of the afternoon playing cards. After they had dinner, they went back to the common room. Lily settled down in her favourite chair by the fire and Diana sat down next to her. Arietta had disappeared when they were on their way back to the common room, but that happened quite often and she would always be back within half an hour. Lily had given up on ever finding out what she was doing in that time and had simply accepted it.
"This is a bit boring," Diana yawned. Lily had opened a book she had gotten in the summer holidays. They were both trying to forget the fact that they had to meet the Slytherins later.
"Then figure out something to do," she answered without taking her eyes off the book. She was used to Diana finding relaxing in a chair boring and had learned to ignore that her friend was restless.
"I'll write a letter to my parents, I think… or…" Diana muttered to herself. "Hey, what time is it? We don't want to be late for that damn Truth or Dare!" she exclaimed.
Lily glanced up at Diana as if she had just told her the world was ending.
"Oh, shit," she whispered, laying her book on the table and glanced at her watch. It was twenty to nine, and they didn't know where Arietta was.
Why do these things always happen to me? she thought as she jumped out of her chair and ran straight for the dormitory. Five minutes to change and then find Arietta. They were positively going to be late, not to mention they had to avoid getting caught.
Diana went with her to the dormitories and they changed from the Muggle clothes they had been wearing and into their cloaks. Then they checked they had their wands and sprinted out the door again.
As they ran down the stairs and into the common room, Arietta came stumbling through the portrait hole.
"Are you ready?" Lily asked, and Arietta nodded, so they all started sneaking towards the fourth floor, looking around corners and taking as many shortcuts as possible.
"Want some chocolate?" Arietta offered as they rounded a corner and continued down the corridor.
"Where'd you get chocolate? And yes, please," Diana said, wiping nervous sweat off her forehead.
Arietta ignored the question and passed chocolate out. They were all chewing on their last piece when they finally arrived at the classroom on the fourth floor. The Slytherins were all there. Dennis Crawford was tapping his foot impatiently.
"You're late," he pronounced, irritated.
"Only," Lily looked at her watch, "five minutes, so quit your wining. Shall we?"
Parkinson shrugged, clearly not wanting to use too much time on that particular matter. She tugged some hair behind her ear and started speaking, shooting a mean glance in Lily’s and her friends’ direction before opening her mouth.
"Right, so we suggest doing it like this: individual dares, but if one dare isn't completed then it count as though none of them are. You can't do each other's dares and you have to do your dares on different days or nights. We already know what the losers have to do. Tell McGonagall that the whole scene at lunch was their fault. Agreed?"
She is obviously more intelligent than I give her credit for! Lily thought, impressed that Parkinson had so easily avoided giving the winners more privileges. They all agreed nonetheless, Diana sulking as though she had just been told to eat an entire lemon in less than ten seconds.
"Who'll start giving out dares? Wait, when was Truth even removed as an option?" Diana prompted.
"Oh come on, you seriously don't want to be childish and pick Truth, do you?" Crawson asked, raising his eyebrows in an extremely provoking manner.
"Of course not," Diana mumbled. Crawson smiled cruelly.
Why does he have to look as if Christmas has come early? It gave Lily the chills. She suddenly felt very exposed. If a teacher happened to come by, she would have been fine on her own, seeing as she was a Prefect, but she couldn't think of a story that would explain why all three of them were here past curfew, least of all what they were doing here with three Slytherins.
She also had a sickening feeling that the Slytherins had planned what dares they were going to give her, Arietta and Diana.
"Well, I suggest we get on with it, then. We'll start by giving you your dares," Crawford grinned viciously.
Both Diana and Arietta were about to protest, but Lily stopped them.
"Look, it's fine, then we'll get them over with quickly," she told them quietly. The Parkinson girl smiled.
"Let's see, shall we..." she smirked and began to tell them what their dares were. As Lily listened, her mouth fell open in astonishment. They had to be kidding. No way was she going to do to that.
No way.
No way...
Forbidden Forest? Who Said Forbidden? by Rikku
Chapter Notes: Fast update, for once! Notice how it only took a couple of days for me to submit this chapter..! :) Enjoy!