Gah, the first chapter of this… Hey, if you haven't read the first part, If I Wasn't There, go read that first or else this is going to be really complicated. Review the first part if you've forgotten anything. And I just saw the last episode of Season 4 of Code Lyoko so I'm kind of sad because it ended and yet I can't stop smiling because it's so happy…weird, huh?

And so the story continues…

The wind whipped around me and I shivered, pulling my coat around me tighter. I stood there quietly, in between the large shrubbery, watching. On the other side of the swirling metal gates, a thick, dark mist concealed us and blew in the occasional leaf. It was the first sign of autumn. I couldn't wait. It meant that I could go to school again. After all, after you've lived pretty much your entire life being taught by your father who's a murderer for a living, you'd probably enjoy magical boarding school. But that's just me.

"We get to go to school!" said Cissy in a sing song voice with Luce in tow. Bella followed them, laughing. Sev was apparently still cooped up in his room with his cauldron and potions book. I smiled at them.

"Yeah, just like last year," I said. "Except Cissy'll be old enough to attend school parties on her own and Lionel's not going to be there anymore."

"And," added Luce excitedly, "since we're in Fifth year, we have a chance of becoming Prefects!" I gawked. I had completely forgotten.

"Really? Who's going to be a Prefect this year?"

"Well, we know Lily is," said Bella thoughtfully. "We just received her letter. I wonder if your father will let her go… And so is this Remus Lupin."

"He's one of the Marauders," I said in disgust. Luce wrinkled his nose. "Anyways, I don't think dad will be too happy with letting any of them out. Let's break them out." They looked at me as if I were insane, which I probably was. "What?"

"It's like stealing something from your dad, right?" asked Luce uncertainly. I shrugged.

"So? He'll understand. If he catches us, I'll just say tell him that it's for the greater good." The just stared. "What?"

"Are you insane? The greater good is a motto for those against your father!" I snorted.

"I'm a manipulative little girl," I said sweetly. "Come on…I haven't had any real fun in months." They reluctantly followed me to the dungeons with some food and spell books from the library. It was dark and creepy there, two things I rather enjoyed. Small candles threw flicking shadows everywhere. Speaking of shadows…Fang could have shadow traveled all this time. I wonder why he didn't. Or perhaps he hadn't thought of it.

"Here," murmured Bella, handing Lily some bread. She nibbled it for moment before downing it as fast as she could. I handed her a bottle of water too. The prisoners ate as much as they could without puking which was about, let's see: five dishes of crème brule, two loaves of raisin bread, three bottles of Butterbeer, (A/N: Butterbeer tastes like liquid butterscotch with this sweet foamy froth on top. The only problem? It's cold, not warm) several packs of cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties. So amusing. (Sarcasm…) After they finished, I turned to Fang.

"Can't you shadow travel?" He looked a bit scornful.

"If I could, I wouldn't be here right now. There's some spell on this cage that won't let me." Cages. How had we escaped from them when we were little? Oh, that's right. We didn't. Rather, people had taken us out. Now, we had no idea how to break free. That is, if we didn't have wands and a spell book.

"Hm…which one sounds better? The one that explodes or the one that unlocks doors?" asked Luce, stroking his nonexistent beard and musing over the spell book.

"Do you really have to ask?" I pointed my wand at the door. "Bombarda Maxima!" BOOM! Ouch, my eardrums.

"I see…," he said slowly. "Um, okay. Wasn't that sort of loud?" I cussed under my breath. Ever since Hogwarts, I was really losing my ninja skills. "Come on," I hissed. They all followed me quickly to a large, old fountain which was set into the wall. Without a second thought, I cast Bublio on all of us and dove into the crisp, cold water. This was like the secret passageways of Hogwarts, only wetter. I used my large wings to propel myself through the waters. My siblings, great swimmers through training, were able to follow me easily. Fang tried (and failed) to copy my underwater flying while being hit repeatedly by stray bursts of water. Lily and James were just being tossed around by the waters currents. Pitiful.

Eventually, we emerged, cold and wet, from a moonlit lake near the forest by our Quidditch Pitch. By now, it was already nightfall. Stars littered the sky, looking like glittering diamonds. It was then and only then did I understand the rashness of what I had done.

"I shouldn't have done that," I murmured too soft for anyone else to hear. I turned to Fang. "Take Lily, James, and me out of here through shadow traveling. I'll come back."

"Why do you need to…?"

"It's monitored closely. Dad gets notices whenever someone teleports in and out of the place but it only detects those who are doing the magic," I explained. "And if he gets too many notices, he'll suspect something's going on." He nodded and took hold of me as well and Lily and James. An electric current ran through me, which I ignored. We ran into a shadow and arrived at the Leaky Cauldron. It was practically empty except for Tom, the man at the bar and a few lone customers. "Stay hidden," I warned. "The public doesn't know that you're missing yet. Your parents, for whatever reason, have been keeping quiet on your disappearances, insisting that all of you are safe at home." Whatever reason, my little pony. (Contrary to popular belief, I do NOT have a room with a My Little Pony theme, nor do I play with them when no one's looking. See link on Tarlyn's profile.) Dad had threatened them to keep quiet or else their parents as well as the rest of the world would pay. Sounds fun, huh?

Fang and the others nodded and disappeared through a shadow. I quickly ran into another one, arriving home. Bella, Luce, and Cissy were still there. They smiled nervously at me.

"Max…we have to go," said Luce. "I don't want to get caught." I just looked at him. Okay, let's get this straight: we sneak into the dungeons in broad daylight, explode a door with enough force to blast a good sized hole in bulletproof glass, all the while not remembering that we're supposed to keep quiet, dive into a water way, perilously swim blindly from a fountain with unnaturally strong currents all the way to the lake outside next to the pitch where Lionel was practicing his Quidditch skills so he could infiltrate Quidditch teams and only now, now that we were finished, were they afraid of getting caught. I knew there was something wrong with them.

"Then go," I said. "We've got to pack up for school, don't we? Hey, we're going shopping tomorrow, aren't we?" Cissy nodded. "Great. Let's go." We silently scaled up the walls to our respective rooms. I hopped into mine and flopped down on my bed. The seriousness of what I had done was bugging me immensely. I had just set prisoners free. Oh well. There's a first for everything. I rolled over.

Why did dad want those three in particular anyways? Lily was a mudblood, James was a pureblood, and I had no idea what Fang was. A mutant? True…but why would dad want him in particular? He already had me and the rest of the Ride children. And, you know, Zohra, CaraLena, Dave, etc… There was even Dylan, for the Hell of it. My boyfriend. And they were all going to get hurt. Fang was the only mutant who wouldn't follow me like I was a goddess. And that's why dad wanted him. Dad must have seen what I had seen: the raw potential in him. And in Lily. Adrian must have told him about James. I wouldn't deny it; they were pretty strong.

If dad wanted them, he'd get them, either through me or by force. And in the end, they'd all get hurt. Damn.

I sat up so fast my head spun. Winter and Husky lifted their heads up in surprise. They had started sleeping in my room again. I had to protect them. But how? The Rides would just tell me that my dad's just who he is. CaraLena would brush it off. Zohra probably wouldn't care. Tarlyn would laugh it off. And Dave would spew out some geeky verbal diagram to explain how he wouldn't get hurt. Damn geeks. They wouldn't let me save them even if their lives depended on it. Which it did, as of now. All things considered, there was only one person I could save. And it wasn't me.


"Do you want to get some ice cream, Sev?" I asked convincingly to my brother. He looked away from me, down cast. "Don't make me manipulate and answer out of you," I warned. Three, no, four months later, Severus was still moping over Lily. Oh dear…

"You'll have to get over it eventually," said Bella, tapping at the hard cherry sauce shell on her pistachio ice cream. Her long nail eventually broke through and she poked a straw through the little hole, sucking away at her green milkshake in a cone. Cissy looked at her strangely. Bella shrugged.

"Ew, Bells," said Luce, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "It looks like puke." Bella glared at him.

"You look like puke."

"Hey!" I laughed at them and their immaturity. I love siblings.

"Cut it out, guys. Come on, Sev. Any flavor, as many scoops as you want, any topping, any type of cone, any type of shell, as much as you want. I'm paying." I grinned at him and he sort of smiled back. I've never known him to refuse ice cream when it's free. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone, except for maybe Christiana Rowle and her posse, has ever refused ice cream when it's free and it's just because Christiana's too obsessed about her weight.

"Okay. Two scoops, cookies and cream and cookie dough, chocolate sprinkles, caramel shell, chocolate and sprinkles dipped waffle cone." I grinned again. There were a few things strikingly similar about me and Sev and our choice of ice cream was one of them. The other, obviously, our love of potions. But I've already told you that story so…moving on…

"That'll be…ten Sickles," said the boy at the counter. He was about Laurence's age, give or take a year or two, and his face was covered in pimples. He seemed to be very bored indeed. How about we make this less boring?

"You decide to give it to us for free," I said calmly and sweetly, my manipulation dripping like honey. I utterly beamed at him and he obeyed, handing it over to Severus. It was a pity his boss wasn't here; we could have had even more fun.

"You shouldn't use manipulation on things like this," said Sev ruefully. I smirked.

"Well, honestly, you probably feel more loved knowing that I got that by the means of doing something terribly illegal. I mean, I'm loaded with money so it's not like a few Sickles will put me in the national debt so it's not a money issue."

"It's a manipulative issue," he said, smiling. "Of course, Max and her funny ways of showing how much she loves us." I beamed.

"Why not?" He rolled his eyes and returned to his ice cream. "So, are you finally not in a bad mood anymore?" He sighed.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I would have never thought that Lily…and James…" He trailed off.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I never thought that they'd last. For crying out loud, I didn't think that it would have ever happened at all, period." I shrugged. "Things happen, I guess."

"Say, isn't that Dylan?" I spun around so fast I toppled over. Sev chuckled and I glared at him menacingly. "What? He's here, isn't he?"

"Yes, I know that," I said irritably. "But you didn't have to scare me like that." He laughed.

"I wasn't trying to scare you. You just got…scared." I glared at him again. "What?" I scoffed and went over to talk to my soon to be ex-boyfriend.

"Dylan?"

"Oh, hey Max." He smiled at me in his oh-so-sweet way when he tried to tell me that everything was going to be okay. But it wasn't. Not this time.

"Can I talk to you about something? It's sort of serious." He nodded. I crossed my fingers. Lie. That's all I had to do. Lie to him and set him free. Of course, I could always just manipulate him and get it over with… No, I was brave enough for this. I hope.

"Sure, Max. Anything."

"I…I think that things aren't working out the way I wanted," I said slowly at last. His smile was slowly turning to a look of horror and confusion. Now, the same line that everyone gives: "It's not you, it's me." Now, the line that most people don't give: "And, it's not a matter of 'I think we should just be friends' but a matter of 'I don't think we should be seeing each other at all', period."

"Why, Max?" he asked, sounding anguished. I looked away.

"It's just…it's just that things aren't working out, that's all." I looked away from him. It was too hard to look at the hurt in those ice blue eyes of his. "I don't want you to find this out the hard way. I just want you to know that even though I won't be with you anymore, I still care about you. In a way. But I can't be with you, not now, not ever. Please, Dylan, you have to understand."

"If…if that's how it has to be…I won't be bothering you again," he said sadly. Then he turned around and walked out of my life forever. I just sat down on the cobblestone steps and cried. Soon, I felt a comforting hand stroking me.

"It's going to be okay, Max," Bella said quietly. "It's going to be okay." But she was wrong.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, teach us something please," sang Cissy as she skipped down the front stairs of the mansion. Bella and I laughed and Cissy frowned. "What?"

"Nothing," said Bella with a smiled. "It's just so cute. Keep going."

"Whether we be old and bald, or young with scabby knees…"

"You know," said Luce, "I think the only baldy that's ever entered the school is your dad." I glared at him. "Oh, heh heh, sorry."

"Apology accepted. Fifth year, huh? And prefect!" I said, twirling around happily. From the window, I saw dad smile down at me. He had been so proud when I got my letter. I was a child to be proud of, just like he and mum when they went to Hogwarts. Luce smiled in his own sort of bittersweet way. I had been chosen prefect along with someone else and it wasn't Luce, Sev, or even Dylan. In fact, I had no idea who the other one was.

"We better get going," said Bella, tossing the last of her hair spray and curling irons. How she manages to re-curl her seventy eight locks of ebony every morning, get enough sleep, and finish all her homework is a real mystery to me.


"Okay," chirped Cissy and began singing again. "Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts…"

"Luce, she's your girlfriend. Control her."

"Max, she's your sister. You control her." I glared at him. He glared back. And then we burst into fits of laughter.

"You should have seen you face!" I all but shrieked with laughter. "Oh! I forgot something!" I ran inside quickly with the rest for them yelling at me to come back and explain why my brother and I had just started laughing randomly.

"Lionel!" I yelled. "Lionel!" I collided with him while jumping down the stairs. He caught me before I fell.

"Hey, Max. I had a feeling you wouldn't leave without saying goodbye." I smiled. Last year was the only year that exchanged goodbyes because I was going with him. All the years before that, I would be the last person Lionel said goodbye to before her went to Hogwarts. Now it was my turn.

"Bye, Lionel," I said sadly. "I'll miss you there." He laughed.

"I'll miss you too. We'll see each other winter break, right?" I nodded.

"Right. Bye!" I dashed out again where Cissy, Bella, Luce, and Sev were all impatiently waiting for me.

"What was that for?" asked Bella once we were all packed into the car.

"I had to say goodbye to someone."

"Who? Your dad?" I shook my head.

"No, Lionel." She looked at me strangely. She obviously didn't understand the bond between Lionel and me. But that was okay. I didn't understand it too well either.


"Aw, look at those little schmucks," cooed Bella. Ickle First years were lined up, waiting to be sorted. Adrian was looked around frantically for signs of her little brother. Jaq looked down; Tarlyn was gone yet again in France. At least we knew where she was.

"Hey, did you miss us?" The twins, Halo and Contessa, slid swiftly into their seats without making a single noise other than what they spoke. Jay and Orin were with them. I grinned.

"Not your Siamese-ness, I didn't," said Luce. "You guys still talk like each other." They laughed.

"No, no, we talk with each other," they said in eerie sync. Cissy shuddered; she still wasn't used to them.

"You guys," Adrian whispered excitedly. "You see that little boy over there, the one with the spiky hair and hazel eyes?"

"You mean James?" asked Orin, confused.

"No, the little one." I glanced over and nearly gawked. There was a perfect miniature replica of James Potter, sans glasses. "That's my brother, Dante."

"Aw," cooed Cissy. "He's so cute!"

"I know," Adrian said proudly.

"…this year, we will be inviting back two resident ghosts who haven't been here in quite a while," announced Dumbdork. Yes, you heard right. Dumbdork. "They won't be house ghosts and frankly, one of them isn't a ghost but a poltergeist but let's all welcomes back Peeves and Feylor!" Everyone clapped politely, the Marauders heartily welcoming back Peeves. Feylor drifted off to the side. Unlike the rest of the ghosts here, Peeves was wearing this little clown outfit and he wasn't just a translucent being. Rather, he wasn't really see-through and he was colorful instead of the typical blue-grey tinting the other ghosts here had. And he had this cheeky little look on his face, reminding me terribly of Peter Pettigrew. I turned to Sev.

"Who's Peeves?" I asked.

"He's an awful poltergeist who plays tricks on us and causes mayhem. I can see why he would like the Marauders," Sev said scornfully. I nodded.

"And what about Feylor?" She was strikingly familiar for whatever reason, as if I had seen her before. She was a typical ghost; misty blue-grey and translucent. She had this look of emotionless arrogance on her face which I had defiantly seen before. Despite her washed out color, I could see that her hair was once a dark color, perhaps black or dark brown. Sev glanced over at her and shrugged.

"Never seen her before. Your guess is as good as mine." I nodded.

"Okay." Bella nudged me.

"Where's pretty-boy Dylan?" she teased. I felt the sadness creeping over me. Bella noticed and frowned. "What? Was it something I said?"

"Dylan and I…we broke up." She looked horrified.

"What? When? How? Why?" I shook my head and turned away from her, facing a point far away.

"I would rather not talk about it. It's a touchy subject."

"You know," said a soft, mystical voice, "it is good to talk about the things that hurt you with others. The more pain you feel, the stronger you become." I turned around quickly and came face to face with a translucent, willowy girl. She held out one graceful hand, her long and willowy fingers extended. Her expression was still flat and unchanged. "I am Feylor." I extended my own hand with a similar grace.

"I'm Max." She nodded slowly.

"Alright then. I really should not be telling you about this one reoccurring problem of mine, but, well…" She trailed off. "There is another new ghost here and from the looks of it, he died only very recently. Say, a year ago. Probably less than half a year. And he is very annoying and dreadfully talkative to a fault. In my day, no one ever spoke so much; it was considered impolite." She scoffed arrogantly and pointed over to a terribly familiar ghastly face of a ghost who was approaching us and we all paled like ghosts, no pun intended.

"Damn, he never gets off our nerves, does he?" groaned Selwyn. I nearly cried. CaraLena took one look at him and looked like she was about to start sobbing.

"Hi guys! Did you miss me?"

"No, no, absolutely not!" the twins all but yelled in their appropriately haughty voice.

"He's back!" wailed Adrian miserably, the loudest I had ever heard her.

"Guess what? I can go through walls and stuff. I can even go through people! But I can't go through other ghosts for whatever reason. I keep crashing into them because I'm so used to just going through them if I really need to." I rubbed the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes in annoyance.

"You know, Eron, you were annoying enough when you were alive."


"…cannot believe it," muttered the Sixth years along with some of those in Fifth year and Seventh year. "He's still here."

"Here's another ice pack," Nudge said sympathetically, handing me one out of the box of ice packs she was distributing throughout the common rooms. Anyone old enough to have suffered from Eron was getting one and the ones too young to know were switching between handing out ice packs and listening to what the older kids had to say about him. Needless to say, no one had felt any regret when he had died.

"He's coming!" shouted Andre, dashing in to the common room out of breath. We quickly arranged ourselves so that it looked like a typical night in the Slytherin commons. We were postponing the annual talent show until tomorrow night.

"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!–"

"Leave," growled Zohra, a package of frozen peas in her hands, poised and ready to throw.

"It won't hurt me!" he said cheerfully. Laurence thudded his head on a pillow.

"It just gets worse and worse, huh?" he asked as some of the other student groaned.

CaraLena flipped out her cell phone. "I've got the Ghostbusters on speed dial. You have five seconds to leave. Five…four…" Eron disappeared instantly out a window.

"Yes!" a Fifth year boy cheered. "He's gone!"

"You know, Nudge," I said, "you're lucky that you never really knew him." She smiled at me.

"I know." A ghost drifted in, one with a dark, impassive face. She looked around.

"I see that you have succeeded in getting rid of him," Feylor said in her mystical voice. I nodded. She simply looked out the window, where Eron had gone out of minutes before and. "It's a pity that he had to be so annoying," she said. "I was hoping for a ghost my age a bit more peaceful."

"Speaking of which, exactly how old are you?" She turned to me, eyed me, and then looked away with no change in expression. "I was fifteen when I died. My fortieth death day is in a few months." She began to drift away when I stopped her.

"Wait, what was your last name?" I asked curiously. She paused.

"I do not think I will bother you with trifles like these," she said stiffly. Wow, first semi-change in emotion.

"Please?" She shook her head.

"You are better off not knowing," she said.

"Aw, come on. What's the worst that can happen?" Feylor turned her head to face me and spoke in a voice so soft that only I could hear.

"You will ponder over it, not paying any attention to the things that you should be noticing."

"Just tell. I won't. Much." She sighed.

"It is Riddle. Feylor Riddle."


Dad has, err, had, a sister? It was too hard to comprehend. Feylor, had she not died, would have been only a year younger than dad. She couldn't have been his cousin; grandpa was an only child. And she wasn't my mum since mum's name was Aella and Feylor had died too young at any rate. So she had to be his sister, right?

"Thinking about what I said? Did I not warn you beforehand that you would have been better off not knowing?" Feylor's mystical voice sent chills down my spine. They way she talked, she was worse than dad. Not only was it creepy, it was impossible to decipher and figure out the emotions she felt. Worse, I couldn't figure out if she was pissed or not. Oh, goodie.

"You're kind of creepy, you know that?"

"Yes, yes I do. By now, this, err, creepiness, has become a part of me."

"So, are you my aunt?"

"Are you the daughter of my dear brother Tom?" she asked quietly. I nodded. "Then yes, yes I am your aunt."

"Why are you a ghost?"

"Because I am."

"Ha ha. How about giving me a straight answer, hmm?"

"No."

"Why not?" I whined. She turned away quickly, her ghastly hair fluttering lazily after her.

"Because, too much thinking will not do you good in the end," she said, gliding through a wall. I glared at the spot where she had disappeared. She might have been my aunt but she sure was annoying. Even dad wasn't as bad. Then I realized I hadn't asked her how she had died. Maybe it didn't matter. Ha, who am I kidding? Of course it mattered!

I walked around the castle, trying to enlist the assistance of the resident ghosts and avoiding Eron as much as I could, which turned out to be a failure after he had found me. It didn't matter how fast I could run around the place and spin and dodge behind walls to avoid him because he'd just drift through them. That boy's like spicy Mexican food –he keeps coming back at ya.

"And then Fey's like all –"

"Wait. Did you just call her Fey?"

"Yeah, why not? I mean, it's basically the same thing and –"

"Shut up!" I yelled. "If you weren't a ghost or if I were a ghost, I'd hit you right now!"

"But I am a ghost," said a soft voice. Feylor Riddle, with her face emotionless as ever, appeared on the scene. She approached him slowly and seductively, getting her lips within an inch of his, before flicking her wrist slightly and punching his lights out. He fell straight through the floor. I let out a low whistle and I thought I saw a flash of satisfaction on her face but it disappeared before I could confirm it. I suddenly had a new respect for her.

"Hey, Feylor, err, aunt Fey–"

"It is Feylor," she said musically. "Or Fey-chan. I feel as if 'aunt' makes me seem old, Max-chan."

"What did you call me?"

"Max-chan. It's Japanese. I would have imagined that Tom had you taught Japanese, no? Very amusing language, it is. Besides, I do enjoy reading anime and manga in the library at night when no one is there to bother me; it has become a favorite pastime of mine." I looked at her strangely. An emotionless ghost who enjoyed anime and manga? Uh…

"Okay then… Feylor? Um, Fey-chan? I forgot to ask you this earlier. How did you die?" She, surprisingly, didn't pause or stiffen or have any reaction whatsoever.

"Funny you should ask such a thing so soon after I have nearly killed a ghost. Strange things we are, ghosts. I do hope he does not remain at this castle any longer. But, alas," she sighed, "once ghosts are ghosts, there is not much that can be done to get rid of them."

"How about calling Ghostbusters?" She scoffed, emotionless as ever which was sort of annoying. What person scoffs unemotionally? Ah, yes. Feylor did.

"Naïve muggles; they could not 'bust' a ghost even with all of their eccentric baubles." She scoffed arrogantly.

"So, how did you die?" I asked, bringing us back to the original subject. She sniffed, still emotionless.

"Tom used me as an experiment." I gawked.

"What?"

"Did I not just tell you? Or have you become deaf? Your father wanted to see if I could stand the pain of having my soul ripped into multiple pieces before he tried that himself. I obviously didn't survive that marvelous attempt. He, on the other hand, managed it, surprisingly enough." She sniffed. "I suppose I was the least bit surprised, to tell you the truth. He's strong, yet weak, very weak." She drifted away like last time but then stopped before she hit the wall. "Max, I should warn you not to dwell over my words; the things I have said have caused some to linger over unimportant things forever. And it did them no good in the end."


"So."

"So."

"You broke up with Dylan." I flinched. News got around that fast?

"That I did."

"Why?"

"Because I had to."

"Okay, seems fair."

"It should be."

"I forgot; I never had the chance to thank you for breaking me out of that dungeon. So thanks."

"You're welcome. It wasn't easy. How did you guys manage to escape in the end?"

"I shadow traveled around, dropping everyone off. Why?"

"Oh, no, just curious," I said simply. Fang nodded. "How's life?"

"It's been…good," he finished lamely. "Your friend Laurence was made prefect of Seventh year. So was Bethany." I wrinkled my nose.

"I hate Bethany. She's so full of herself." He chuckled.

"I know the feeling; I hate her too. Do you know who the girl prefect of our year is?" I flashed him a confident grin.

"Me. And I don't suppose you know who the guy prefect is, would you?" He looked smug.

"Me." I gawked.

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Your other friend, Willow-Brook–"

"Willy," I corrected automatically.

"Fine, Willy was made Head Girl." I gaped at him.

"Seriously? That's awesome!" He flashed one of his rare grins.

"I know. Second time in my five years here has a Slytherin been made a Head. Her parents must be proud." Her parents disowned her, I thought sadly to myself. At least she had Sabrina to be her replacement mother or I wouldn't know how she could survive.

"Second? Who was first?" He shrugged.

"I don't know. Some nerdy guy. With glasses. I've just heard the older kids talk about it. From what I've heard of the rumors circulating, Willy had a crush on him when he was still here. She looked up to him or something, I guess. They said his name was Alec or something." I smirked. That's probably the longest length of time he's spoken.

"Ooh, Willy and Alec sitting in a tree, f-u-c-k-i–"

"Don't you dare finish that, Maximum Ride!" shrieked Willy. "Not if you fear for your life!" Good thing Lionel wasn't here to hear those rumors. He'd be in hysterics. Again. Fang chuckled softly as Willy came around the corner.

"Make a run for the shadows," he whispered lightly and disappeared into one himself. I followed suit and ended up in my dorm where Bella was curling one of her last few strands of hair. There must have been dozens of black corkscrew curls protruding from her head already. It bounced lightly as she let go of it and she smiled, satisfied. She continued curling the last few before catching sight of my reflection in the mirror.

"AIEEEEE!" she shrieked, falling of her chair. I burst into laughter. "Maximum Ride, don't you EVER do that again!" she demanded.

"Okay, okay, Bells, I won't go ninja on you again. Today." I smirked. She glared at me.

"This isn't funny!"

"Yes it is…"

"MAX!"

"Whoa, what did you guys do while we were gone?" The twins both had looks of amusement on their faces.

"Okay, Halo, Contessa, so, Bella's curling her hair and I shadow travel into this room because Willy's pissed off at me for saying that she and Alec should have fu–"

"And?"

"So, I shadow travel into this room and Bella's curling her hair. I'm just watching and then when she's done, she realizes that I've been standing there for about fifteen minutes just watching and then she shrieks, falls off her chair and has a panic attack because she's been paying attention to her hair all this time. How is that not funny?" Halo looked perplexed while Contessa looked bemused.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Halo in her trademark reprimanding voice. "Bella could have burned herself with the curling iron." Contessa just laughed.

"Just because you can't figure out how to use a curling iron without giving yourself level three burns, doesn't mean that no one else can. You watch me curl my hair every week and I've never gotten myself burned, branded, set on fire, etc. Not even once," she said, pulling her thick, red curls into a makeshift ponytail so she could comb it easily. "Max, that must have been hilarious. I wish I was here to see it." I grinned.

"Thanks, Tessa." She smiled.

"No problem. Anyways," said she and her sister, resuming their in sync ways again, "I, err, we, were wondering how Effie is. We haven't seen her in so long, you know. Speaking of which, why didn't you help her break free? I mean, you managed to smuggle James, Lily, and your ex out." They flipped their hair over their shoulder and put their hands on their hips in a fake bratty fashion. "Now, really."

"It would have been even harder to sneak her out along with them," I said smoothly. "Their cells were close together but Effie's, if you recall, is down another corridor. We were short on time as it was and we almost didn't make it out."

"So why them and not Effie?" they demanded. "Our little sister's been there longer than they have and you only break them out."

"Effie's not at the top of my father's to-kill list. Actually, she's not on there at all."

"A to-kill list? Your father has a to-kill list?" I nodded.

"It's like a to-do list but gory. You know, like those fruity smelling watermelon and strawberry shaped pads of paper with a bunch of cute matching bullet points? Those. Only it's in the shape of this really cute silver skull with a black outline and it doesn't smell of anything. Okay, it smells just a tiny bit of blood but that's because he might have dropped it once or twice on a battlefield. And that's also the reason why it's kind of reddish in random spots. And it says 'to-kill' at the top. Lily, James, and Fang were on it for whatever reason."

"Really?"

"Believe it. My dad seriously has one of those things."

"Oh, okay." They still looked a little disappointed but at least they weren't pissed at me anymore.

"Think of it this way," I said. "Effie's a werewolf now, whether you like it or not. She'd never be accepted here in Hogwarts; there's no place for a werewolf here. With dad, as soon as she's old enough, she'll begin her training and with any luck, she'll be among his top ranks in a matter of years. He'd never kill her unless she turned traitor or something drastic like that; a werewolf is too precious to waste these days." They nodded in gloomy understanding.

"We guess…" I smiled.

"There's the fake enthusiasm I was looking for."


Life's great. You don't need a genius to tell you that. Unless, of course, you're suddenly forced to relive some of your memories which was exactly what dad wanted me to do, apparently.

"He thinks you're getting soft, Max," said Bella who was scanning through my father's latest letter. Feylor was reading over her shoulder.

"It is not surprising, Max-chan," she said quietly. "He tends to think that of many people, even the strongest of them all. You should know, I would think." She then drifted off a few yards away. Luce made a face and looked at me strangely.

"Max-chan?"

"Not you too!"

"She calls you Max-chan?"

"It's a Japanese honorific."

"Uh…"

"Eh…?"

"Erm…"

"Wha…?

"Err…"

"Huh…?"

"She's into Japanese anime and manga," I said at last.

"Oh," they all said at once, nodding their heads the way someone does when they don't get it but they pretend they do because they don't want to seem stupid. I rolled my eyes.

"What else has dad said?"

"He says that from now on, he'll be sending you a memory once a week to make you stronger." Cissy snorted.

"Who ever heard of a memory making you stronger?" I looked at her bitterly.

"You obviously haven't gone through the horrors I have."

"No, of course not. You, after all, are the great Maximum Ride."

"And here's your first memory," said Luce. He handed me a piece of parchment. I touched it gingerly; it was plain parchment with no charms, curses, or enchantments. I relaxed the slightest; he wouldn't be forcing me into a past memory of mind. I carefully unfolded it and read its contents.

'You're eleven years old. At this time, you should have begun your education at Hogwarts but no, I felt as if you should have stayed educated under my watchful eye. And it is good that I did. Don't you remember what happened that year?' That was all it said but it still brought shivers down my spine. My father, of all people, was the only one who knew where to hit so that it would hurt me without his slightest effort. As my siblings peered curiously at the contents of the parchment, I slipped away into a memory…

Dun dun dun… See, I've been lazy…