"Lily, Lily!"
At the whisper, Pomona looked up at the window. A fluffy-haired girl was pressed against the outside of it, gesturing for Lily to open it.
"What is it?" Lily asked, baffled.
"My mum's looking for me," the girl outside said in a lowered voice.
Though she had no idea what was going on, Lily opened the window anyway. The girl climbed in through it and, with practised ease, hid beneath Lily's bed.
"Jessica!"
Once the girl had hidden herself, a woman's voice came from outside.
Pomona looked up and saw a woman in an apron, apparently searching for something.
During her stay at Lily's house, she had learned that the old lady next door occasionally lost her dog, after which her grandson would call out its name.
But clearly, that dog was not named "Jessica."
Pomona looked down at the Chocolate Frog Cards spread across the carpet. Normally, she should have put them away to keep Muggles from seeing them, but she and Lily had sorted them this far, and putting them away would mix everything up again...
In the brief moment she hesitated, the apron-clad woman marched furiously toward Lily's room.
"Don't panic." Lily sat back down where she had been. "Just act like nothing happened."
Then she calmly went on sorting the Chocolate Frog Cards.
Pomona pretended to do the same, but her heart was hammering so hard that she could not make out what was on the cards at all.
"Have you seen Jessica, Lily?" Mrs. Vincent asked from the window Jessica had just been at.
"No, Mrs. Vincent," Lily said casually. "I've been playing cards with my friend the whole time."
Mrs. Vincent leaned her head through the window and swept her gaze around Lily's room twice, as though she still suspected Jessica was