Paragraph 4 - 22 : Miss Milpense

The name of Snape came up again shortly after. A Gryffindor student claimed he had seen Peeves zooming away from Professor Snape's office, carrying a few vials and parchments he had obviously stolen there. According to the student's account of the story, Peeves had noticed him, and cackled :

You won't believe me, but I needed a good lesson

Then, he had flown towards the student, thrown in his direction the content of one of the vials, missing him by a few inches, and changing course, propelled himself away from the crime scene at high speed, allowing unwillingly a part of the magical liquids held in the vials to spill over in his airborne tracks. At around the same time, Judith overheard in Hufflepuff's Common Room a discussion that had initially not come across as sensational to her, but the end of which had caught her attention. The discussion involved a dozen of students, and was very much like a campfire chat : the students were talking mainly so as to have a reason to evade homework. A girl had recounted that Akinori Milpense, who was well-known there since she was also in Hufflepuff, had commented on her haircut, saying something along the lines :

Kawaii, this suits you very well !

Then she had taken out of her pocket some kind of silvery bracelet with one hand, waved her wand held in the other hand towards the bracelet, put her wand back in her pocket, and handed the now probably enchanted bracelet over to the girl with both hands extended. This was routine in Hufflepuff, which explains why Judith at first hadn't thought much of it. Yet, probably due to the significant amount of students taking part in the discussion, it evolved into a gathering of everything special related to Miss Milpense. The students first made a list of all the Japanese exclamations they remembered her using : 'Yabai', 'Kakkoi', 'Kimoi', 'Sugoi'. Since they had run out of exclamations, the next part of the exchange was devoted to the most extraordinary anecdotes they had about Miss Milpense. It emerged that a number of Professors had been on the receiving side of Miss Milpense's Charms. The Hufflepuffs had a good laugh reenacting the situations in which Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape had had the opportunity to obtain their Milpense Object. Professor McGonagall, on being offered a gift by Miss Milpense, had briefly reacted as if she had been dumbfounded, then had recovered and replied in a definitely assured tone

Sorry Miss Milpense, Professors cannot accept gifts

Miss Milpense had in response just smiled, and put her object back in her pocket. The consensus was that Professor McGonagall had done the right thing, but that her immediate reaction was that of a person who sadly wasn't accustomed to being thanked, and that was a shame. This led some of the debaters to attempt to steer the discussion towards a tried and tested topic : Professor McGonagall would have done great at Hufflepuff or at Ravenclaw. However, other students got the conversation back on track, since it was of course entertaining to imagine Professor Snape getting a gift from a student. When Miss Milpense had put her hands forward with a pink ribbon in them, to give it to Professor Snape, the latter had uttered in his sinister and articulate voice, the following words :

Put this away. Now. Before I decide to give you detention

Miss Milpense had smiled, though, withdrawn her hands, and said

Gomen ne

These were the words she would also use when somebody asked her what her spell was doing. Then, she would turn around, and leave. One of the Hufflepuffs reminded the others of an occasion on which he had been summoned to Dumbledore's office. On the desk, among the magical objects, was a Muggle snowball containing skiers moving around Big Ben. When the student asked Dumbledore what this object was doing there, Dumbledore answered :

It is a gift by Miss Milpense. I do not know what it does. I shall research one day its properties

One of the participants of the discussion expressed his concerns :

If even Dumbledore doesn't know what these objects do, they may as well rely on dark magic

The conversation went on, but nothing special came after this sombre assessment. Judith hadn't heard before the story of Professor Snape being presented with something by Akinori Milpense. She smiled again while picturing once more Professor Snape being handed a pink ribbon, and thought it was something she would definitely share with the three others.