Still thunderstruck and trying to imagine the scale of Slick's ordeal, Lily's frown deepened, looking down at the wet bag. "Were they the terrible people you mentioned? Who used something like magic where you come from?"

She had a sneaking suspicion that it would be the case. Magic, or things like it, were a powerful tool of oppression in the wrong hands - fanatical hands especially.

"Not all magic users have the best intentions," she added in a slightly softer voice, shaking her head to rid her thoughts of the war back home and the terrible things that had begun to happen.

Looking back up at him when he asked her about her soggy things, she nodded. "I don't know how it happened. I spent the night in the lake, the thing in it kept me down there until dawn when I could swim free. I'm lucky my wand and all my things made it, I just have to dry them."

And never ever think about that thing in the bottom of the lake again.