Returning home, Lys carried a currently fashionable peaked lapel suit and floral shirt from a Muggle shopping center.
Standing before the living room's large mirror, Lys eagerly tried on the suit, forgetting her left arm's armor prevented her from getting it through the sleeve.
She was stuck...
"Dad!"
Noah, wearing glasses with his hair tied back and a measuring tape around his neck, rushed from the first-floor workshop toward his daughter.
Within ten minutes, Noah had tailored the suit's left sleeve appropriately, adding popular wizarding elements to Lys's lapels.
Sparkly but not gaudy.
Lys loved it, checking herself left and right in the mirror.
She recalled Draco complimenting how excellent she looked in suits a few days ago...
Coincidentally, she agreed.
Perhaps she could accept that Muggle company's invitation, wearing this outfit to film that... what was it... music video...
A plump Sphynx hairless cat landed with a "thud" from atop the mirror, stretching before softly "purring" at Lys.
That was a new breed pet cat Lulu had found from Muggles—hairless, somehow occasionally resembling Coco for unknown reasons...
But whenever Lys tried caring for or petting it, Gabon would scheme to drive it away, frightening it into hiding in high, dead-end corners. Eventually Senna took over, keeping it in this house.
Rubbing Lys's boot with its bald head, apparently pricked by the studs, it complained twice before jumping along the wall corner onto the windowsill, pawing open the window. After licking its paw and tilting its head, it ran outside.
Sunlight streamed more brilliantly through the opened window crack, illuminating Lys's face.
Lys squinted at her suited reflection, suddenly smiling.
Turning back to her small building, that room, she hung the clothes properly in her wardrobe, organized desk documents, and placed them on Cerebald's perch for delivery when it returned.
Then Lys went to the kitchen—her cookie supply was nearly exhausted.
Sitting atop her shop sign in the sunshine, Lys read newspaper information about Hogwarts recruiting Muggle Studies and Defense Against the Dark Arts professors.
Glancing sideways at the retired Professor McGonagall's letter delivered by barn owl:
Dear Hogwarts graduate Miss Lam:
I hope my letter doesn't disturb you, knowing you're likely busy. I'll be brief.
First, thank you for solving employment problems for many Hogwarts graduates, removing the biggest excuse from those governors always wanting to control admission notices.
But you've probably heard about the recent anti-Muggle trend among British wizarding upper classes—now this wind has blown to Hogwarts.
Severusrefuses to return, and the new headmaster is too young to suppress the governors' unreasonable demands. I hope you'll accept a position in Defense Against the Dark Arts or Muggle Studies to shut those fools up.
After all, with how far this era has developed, wizards should indeed view things more objectively.
Considering the governors' harsh requirements, I thought of you—pure-blood, noble, powerful, excellent, meeting their demands while being founder of today's largest Muggle-wizard trading company~
I believe besides those old fools, only you could have such effect.
If you agree, during your tenure, the headmaster's office fireplace will provide every convenience.
To: My strange yet lovely student Starlys
Oh yes! I love that strange comb, but in Animagus form I can't find anyone to help me groom—I can only cast spells to fix it in place and rub against it myself. I find that quite amusing.
P.S.: Getting old makes me dislike going out. Does Silver Star Trading plan mail-order services?
Lys retrieved parchment and envelope from her waist bag, considering carefully.
She glanced at Gabon sunbathing beside her, squinting thoughtfully.
Silver Star Trading had Lucius, who'd sworn an Unbreakable Vow to her, plus Lulu and her father managing things.
Frey's ranch had formed its cycle. Though Senna was still a small step from Potions Master, Lys believed in her mother—this small step would soon be crossed.
So essentially, Lys wasn't busy at all now.
The Board of Governors hadn't changed positions in centuries—all old pure-blood nobles. Under increasingly liberal Statute of Secrecy interpretations, they definitely didn't want another Muggle-favoring professor among the teaching staff.
They hoped to cut off unfavorable tendencies from young wizards' source.
This wouldn't do.
This contradicted Lys's interests.
She couldn't let them succeed.
Writing her reply, sealing the envelope, she had Cerebald—that balding bird now rejecting healthy peers—deliver it back to Professor McGonagall.
The boundary between Muggles and wizards had begun loosening under years of benefit chains gradually favoring half-blood wizards. Since she currently had nothing to do daily except sunbathing and reading, perhaps she could use this subject to add another force toward making the Statute of Secrecy nominal.
She wanted to see the moon—perhaps actually stepping on it would reveal the relationship between werewolves and the moon?
Who knew what potion ingredients might exist on the moon... something to drink so werewolves would no longer be werewolves...
But reaching the moon was something only Muggles could achieve.
However, to legitimately accompany Muggles there, the Muggle-wizard boundary needed further blurring.
She didn't want to end up like that previous Animagus wizard—disguised as a stray dog, stuffed into Soviet Muggle rockets. Though indeed closer to the moon, he was also abandoned, dying in his curiosity.
You see... if temptation was sufficient, even without giving, people would find ways to reach for it. The Muggle world was so interesting now—she didn't believe those currently bored young wizards wouldn't be interested...
Lys became a professor again.
Walking into that Hogwarts she'd helped rebuild.
Familiar dungeons... Astronomy Tower... armor... Forbidden Forest, plus the now-aging Hagrid and hippogriffs...
Standing on the podium again, Lys 'gently' smiled at the chattering young wizards below.
Raising her silver-armored left arm, she simply waved hello.
"I am Starlys Lam. You may call me Professor Lam, your new Muggle Studies professor. So for our first lesson, let's have a chat—do you know Gellert Grindelwald?"
Perhaps her mind wasn't sufficient to single-handedly blur that boundary, but among so many young wizards, surely one person, one day, wouldn't there be?
Having achieved her previously pursued freedom, what was wrong with now chasing slightly broader freedom?
She recalled Grindelwald's words again:
"Some say I despise Muggles, but actually I don't hate them. They're simply different people with different values. Magic blooms in few people's blood—so what kind of world shall we create?"
To this day, Lys didn't know whether his "we" meant wizards or the combination of wizards and Muggles.
But no matter—she defaulted to interpreting it as the wizard-Muggle combination. After all... the person who said this was dead. How to understand and explain it was entirely up to the living...
Desires were boundless—only the means of obtaining them differed.
She still had plenty of time to utilize, didn't she...
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