"Oh sure!" Lainey slid the whole bucket Sana's way. "Have at it." She tossed the name around in her head a few times. It wasn't striking any bells. "I don't believe I am familiar with that one. Why do you ask?"

Jade had been looking for the History of Magic teacher's office for almost an hour without success. She was ready to give up when she spotted a door with a sign on it that read "Prof. Anjelica Lainey, History of Magic". She sighed with relief and knocked on the door. She needed to see the Professor urgently.

"It's open," Lainey called, once more. "Come on in before all the muffins are gone!" Lainey laughed and waited the answer to all the girls in her office.

Sana smiled widely, "Thank you, prof." she grabbed two mints and tossed one into her mouth. It was yummy and tempting to come to her office quite often.
"Nothing prof. I'd like to give that book to you if you wish.." she replied.

"Ohhh... yeah? Would you? Maya, didn't you give me books once before?" Lainey smiled and took a long sip of her coffee. "I'd love to have the story, Sana. Absolutely love it."

As soon as she heard the History of Magic Professor's response, Jade entered her office quietly. She came face to face with Professor Lainey and said shyly "Good afternoon, Professor. I'm very sorry to disturb you but I really need to talk to you. I've made a terrible mistake."

Sana nodded and got up. She took the heavy book from her bag which looked well maintained but changed in color due to the long time. She handed over the book to her, and now the mint did make her mind even brisk.

"All of them are good stories, Prof." she paused "Could you take some of the story for our next class?" she asked in curiosity.

"Not for the next lesson, but maybe the third one of this term. I'll look into. Thank you so much, Sana!" Lainey rubbed her hand over the worn book. Worn books were her favorite, really.

She looked up to young Miss Jade. "What's wrong, honey?"

Sana smiled back, "Okay prof. I'm glad you like the book and willing to take the stories for our lesson" she seemed so happy now. And dont want to waste Professor's precious time since other students are waiting to meet her.
"Thank you so much for spending time with me Prof., I dont want to take your time....We'll see soon" she got up and walked out of the door.

"Professor, when I handed you my homework, instead of labelling it "HoM Homework", I labelled it "MoM Homework"... it was so foolish of me! Please tell me you haven't thrown it away because of that mistake of mine!" she pleaded with an embarrassed look on her face. She had spent a lot of time writing her homework and doing research on the topic and the last thing she wanted was to have all her work thrown away because of a wrong title. She was very angry with herself and took a mental note to slap herself later because of her absend-mindedness which resulted in confusing the word "History" with the word "Ministry"... what was she thinking when she wrote the title???

Lainey stared at poor Jade for an uncomfortable moment and then burst out laughing. "Oh sweetheart! No, no, if you sent it to me, I still have it." Lainey patted the ever-growing stack of papers beside her. "Just a slip-up, no reason for me to throw it out!" Lainey gave poor Jade a sympathetic look and passed her the peppermint jar. "The Ministry on your mind for any particular reason?"

Jade looked to the Professor with gratitude. "Thank you so much, Professor," she said relieved. She then took a peppermint from the jar Professor Lainey had passed her and thanked her again, this time for the peppermint. "Well, Professor... the Ministry is where both my parents work and the reason I have barely got to see them since my birth so it has always been in my mind... though I can't explain why I wrote "MoM" instead of "HoM" in this particular occasion... probably because I was more familiar with the Ministry of Magic's abbreviation than with the History of Magic's abbreviation... and by the way, thank you for your lessons! They are very exciting! I had always thought that History of Magic's lessons would be boring and require a lot of memorization but you proved me wrong!" Jade said. History of Magic was one of her favorite lessons because of the way it was taught and she wanted to thank the Professor for being so good at her work.

"Oh, I do believe so! I mean, I got them back. Now, they're in a private library, in a vault in London. Once I figured out the price of them, well, I couldn't risk having them stolen. I do believe the original copy that I had was about 20 galleons." Maya said nonchalantly. "Well, break was hectic- I had to shoot a television show in America and record some songs. Of course, I'm very exited about 5th year. I mean, OWLS scare me, obviously, but I'm hoping that there will be some kind of miracle in which case that the exams get cancelled." Maya snorted too, but had learned how to not spill crumbs. "Oh, it was no trouble. They were quite easy to make." And it was easy to get them sent from America, Maya thought to herself.

"I'll just pretend that your homework is just your practicing for your job in the Ministry one day," Lainey smiled, assuming that she would follow her parents into that field of work." She paused to soak in the compliment. "You have no idea how pleasing that is to hear. Really, it makes it all worthwhile to hear it. So, thank you. I'm glad you learned a little."




"Oh goodness. Am I in the presence of an American celebrity? Can I sell your homework for money?" Lainey laughed, though she was serious about the first question. "And don't be silly about your OWLs. Please, you're a Ravenclaw and a brilliant one at that. You'll blow them out of the water!" Lainey paused to lick her fingers and was distracted again by the muffins. "You can make these...," Lainey stuffed her mouth the last bite, "anytime."

"I don't think my manager would let you. She'd murder you before you did that." Maya joked. Well, it was half true. Lara was crazy about properterial (was that even a word?) thingies. "Oh, you're too kind." Maya said graciously. "Oh, of course. I'll make sure to fatten you up." She chuckled at her own joke and helped herself to another muffin. She had to watch her weight, though.

"Oh.. so you're really a star overseas then? What sort of show did you do? A juicy soap opera? Do they use real soap?" Lainey wasn't the best at muggle stuff.

Maya chuckled. "No, I don't do day-time television. I don't know why they're called soap operas but they are very popular." Maya replied. "I do a reality show with some other spoiled celebrity girls. They get very annoying though, I was glad to get away from them. The whole point was to get through a road-trip across America without telephones, American money, or credit cards, which are used as a form of money in the muggle world." She said. "It was terrible. Nicole got sick during the middle of the trip and we had to go to the emergency room and then Paris got bucked off by a horse while we were horseback riding." She rattled off.

"But that's not important. How was your break, Professor Lainey?" She asked. This was a very good way of getting on good sides with other people. People loved it when you asked questions about the opposing side. They would think that you were caring AND awesome.

"Thank you too, Professor. I'm looking forward to your next lesson. Have a nice day," Jade said with a broad smile on her face and left the office in a slow pace, full of gratitude for the Professor's understanding.

Ray walked to the History of Magic office and knocked on the door. He was now determined to figure out what happened to his friends. He opened the door and entered the office.
"Sorry professor,I'm Ray James Hufflepuff, I don't mean to disturb but I need to ask a couple of questions, may I?" Ray asked hoping that the professor would have time for him.

Lainey was fresh out of the staff meeting and had just got settled in her office when the knock at the door came. "Oh.. Hi. Come on in, Ray. Have a seat."

Ray nodded and took a seat when the professor asked him to.
"Sorry professor, but I wanted to ask you if you knew what had happened to a dozen students and Professor Dresden?" Ray asked.

Lainey shook her head at Ray. "We don't know, hun. The Staff just had a meeting - and we just don't know. Some sort of ... illness. Or runaways. Or... do you know anything about it?"

Rae knocked on Lainey's office door. "Anj? Are you... may I speak with you?"

"Oh... excuse me, Ray. It's... Rae..," Lainey giggled at the names and hurried out to greet Rae in the corridor. "I have a student..," so Lainey shut her office door after she stepped out. "You need me to babysit?"

"What happened with Doyle?" She knew she sounded impatient, but she wanted to go and find him as soon as she could.