[open] I'm here to help

Lilith wasn't stupid. She knew what the teachers liked. They liked suck-ups, but only a certain type of suck-up. You had to suck up without looking like you were sucking up. It was a fine line to tread, but she felt she was woman enough to walk it.

That's why she was in the Entrance Hall this morning, conforming to uniform code completely for once; even her skirt was regulation length. And she had a poster with her. Not one of those lame flyers, like Alice Longbottom had tried to get everyone fired up with last year (yeah, she knew she hated to be called Alice - that's why she did it, even in her head). It was a proper poster. With pretty illustrations and everything.


Much as the idea of being near muggleborns at all, let alone muggleborns en masse, disgusted her, Lilith was no Pavo Hitchens. He could curse individuals all he liked, and see how long it took him to come up with a solution to the whole muggle problem. She, meanwhile, would be over here luring them into a false sense of security.

"I like the pictures."

Gretel Elkin was holding her Potions book against her back, elbows bowed out a bit as she rocked from heel to toe, looking up thoughtfully at the poster on the board. She felt like most students ignored the bulletin board, especially after Alice's little flyer war, preferring to ignore any and all school news so they could plead ignorance as an alibi. But she liked it. To put the effort into a flyer meant someone had a particular intention. And she liked people with real intentions.

She cocked her head thoughtfully. "Peer Support. Your idea or your detention?"

Lilith gave Gretel A Look. Gretel thought she was pretty great, and Lilith disliked that about her on principle.

"I don't get detentions," she answered.

Only idiots got detentions. The teachers in this school barely paid the students any attention at all. You'd have to be pretty stupid to get a detention.

That made it her idea, but she wasn't about to expand on that idea to the likes of Gretel Elkin. Not without Gretel doing something to make it worth her while first, anyway.

Gretel's large eyes passed over the words again, that gentle smile that always occupied her face remaining comfortably in place despite the crisp in her housemate's tone. "Good thing then. No one would show up if it was mandated."

Her eyes traveled towards the other flyers, all of which were old remnants of past feuds and unread flyers for clubs the students already knew too much about. It might draw attention just in that someone seemed intentional in placing it.

"Is magical privilege a well-known concept in this country?"

In this country? Hadn't Gretel been living here long enough to know? Lilith snorted.

"I don't think magical privilege is a well known concept anywhere," she replied airily. "Doesn't matter, though."

"Half the reason muggleborns are so irritating is because they know nothing, and half the reason they know nothing because nobody ever bothers to teach them anything. Best to teach them all the right things instead of them getting the wrong end of the wand from someone else, don't you think?"

She imagined Gretel knew which someone else she was talking about.