Author's Note: I haven't written anything for this site in what feels like forever. I originally started this story 5 years ago, so some things are dated… I don't try very hard to follow J.K. Rowling's plot.

As you'll see, this story is about a girl named Jaguar, who goes to school to learn magic. But it's not really about that. Not anymore. My story is about people. I'm mature enough to write it now… Five years ago, I couldn't communicate my ideas thoroughly. Which is why there have been 18 versions of this story posted on This will be the last version. I'm sure if anyone reads this, they will like it well enough. And as a writer and poet, I know that no one is ever fully satisfied with their work. And if they are, then they are not truly a writer. Ah, but I'm blathering. Read on.

Disclaimer: I've spent years on this story. I don't own the original ideas which inspired it, but by now nearly everything in it is mine. Or my interpretation of the person, or place, or event, etc.

Chapter One: Nivea Cortez

Jaguar awoke with a start, and lay panting on her bed, sheets tangled around her feet and her blanket on the floor. The sun was shining brightly through the window, and she was soaking wet as though someone had dumped water on her. She slowly sat up, rubbing her eyes, and her neck, but only because she couldn't very well rub her throat, which was sore from the screaming she had done almost every night for the past two months. Her nightmares seemed to get worse, but she was only afraid when she was sleeping. They were warning her of something. In every dream, there was the same woman wearing all white, with white hair and silver eyes calling her, but she never found out what the woman wanted, because she always woke up too soon.

Her younger sister, Katrine Brazil, was standing next to her holding an empty bucket and grinning. "I don't know why we didn't think of it before!" she exclaimed. "Those kids outside were playing kickball, but they wouldn't come over here to get the ball when it hit our yard. Then they decided to go to the pool, which is where I got the idea from." Her expression darkened slightly. "I don't like them."

Jaguar sometimes thought that her sister might do something to the neighborhood kids who teased her sometimes, but mostly were afraid of her. She also thought it would do them good. She would have hurt all of them if they were her age. After all, it wasn't their fault that their family was different. The town children were terrified of the Brazil sisters.

Jaguar Brazil lived with her sister most of the time, because they had no father, and their mother was the head of the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic. They were witches, and they did magic and made potions, and yes, they sometimes rode around on broomsticks. Since Jaguar and her sister were alone so much of the time, they were allowed limited usage of magic, although they were underage, which made doing any sort of magic illegal. The Ministry assented to making allowances for them, since no one was ever around to watch over them.

Monica Brazil's work took her all over the world, to do secret things that no one was supposed to know about, although many of the things she did, everyone speculated on. And although she regretted the fact that she was unable to spend much time with her children, her job paid very well, and besides that was extremely important. If one were to say that Monica loved her job more than she loved her children, it would have been false. She would have ascertained that she loved the both equally as much. And if that were not true, it would not have mattered, because she treated it as though it were true.

Jaguar didn't know what exactly what her mother did at the Ministry of Magic; it was quite clandestine, even to the adults with whom she worked. Well, Jaguar knew a lot more than she let on, except to her best friend and sometimes her sister. And there were some things that she knew that will never be mentioned because she locked them in the deepest part of her mind, not wanting to know. Curiosity was a fragile friend, most certainly, to a young girl who poked her nose where it didn't belong. She knew things about her mother that made it incapable of ever feeling love for her.

Jag's best friend, Sirius Black had always lived in the mansion next door. As far as she was concerned, that was the way the world was. She lived in Brazil Manor, and he lived close enough to yell over. It was just supposed to be that way. She saw him every day, as there was really no reason not to. The two children were so close they were almost like one person. They were mistaken for twins at times, for the way they spoke together, and seemed to instinctively know what was wrong with the other one. Their relationship, being hard to explain, will explain itself presently.

Sirius had a younger sister, who was best friends with Jag's younger sister. It all worked out well, and kept the children from killing each other. Sirius' older sister, who was often set to babysitting them all, was a terrible snob. The sort of girl who's ego blocked out the sun at times. Sirius would come over later this afternoon, Jaguar remembered. He would want to know if-- "Nivea's coming today!" Jaguar exclaimed, leaping out of bed with energy not well known for a person with her attitude on the usual morning.

"Oh yeah!" Katrine said. "She told me this morning that she's bringing a surprise with her. And mum will be back in a few hours to greet her. She had business. 'Top secret', she said."

"Excellent. I hope she brought me a new camera," Jaguar exclaimed eagerly.

Katrine looked at her. "I thought you loved your camera?"

"Well," said Jaguar, "I do, but you're too young to understand these matters." Katrine scowled, and Jag laughed. "Besides, I want a recording camera." She, of course, could have bought ten of them, but it was much more fun to receive a present. And besides, she wanted a muggle model, and hadn't the first idea of where to find it.

Jaguar was an avid photographer. Not a good one, mind you. But she fervently loved to take pictures. Especially of people. And though she was quite able to afford any camera in the world, she refrained from buying them. Her family had an extreme surplus of money, but there was no reason for her to flaunt it. She had relatives who bragged enough about their bloodline. And even at a young age, she did not want to associate herself with them.

Half an hour later, Jaguar was showered and dressed in a black spaghetti strap shirt, and white Capri pants. She brushed her nearly waist length black hair, which had purple highlights that really were natural, even though most people didn't believe that. And if not natural, they had at least been in her hair for as long as she could remember. Jaguar had dyed her hair in the past, and the highlights had vanished, but when the colour faded, they had always come back. Then she put on her red sunglasses, because she wanted to look more like her Aunt Nivea, who was the coolest person in the world, in Jaguar's opinion. And Nivea almost always wore sunglasses during the summer, and a lot of the other seasons. Jag glanced at herself in the mirror, and lowered the sunglasses to the edge of the nose. She looked like a librarian that way. She put them on top of her head, holding her hair back, smiled. She looked nothing like Nivea, especially without anything up top to hold her shirt in the right place. Oh well, she thought. I'll grow.

To anyone who had seen both Jaguar and her Aunt Nivea, they looked almost exactly alike. However, neither of them thought so.

Jaguar and Katrine hadn't seen Nivea for over six months, since Christmas. She had the most important job in the whole world, but even Sirius' father, the Minister of Magic (which sounds important, but isn't really for the most part), didn't know exactly what she did. So she wasn't anywhere a lot of the time. Meaning she was as good as dead, and no one talked about her. Ari, Sirius' older sister said once, and Monica Brazil had also said that Nivea probably went to other worlds. Jaguar thought that was kind of stupid, but she certainly wouldn't put it past Aunt Nivea, who always had something weird and exotic in her house, on the rare occasion that they went there. Jaguar wasn't sure if her aunt was that important, especially if she carefully avoided the subject.

Jaguar ran down the stairs from the hallway outside of her bedroom, down another corridor, and slid down the banister to the living room, where Katrine was now watching muggle television. She went into the kitchen, and put the glasses on the top of her head, for they had fallen across her face, as a house elf handed her a pack of cherry Trident gum. Then she looked out the front door, and saw the newspaper on the porch, and brought it in.

As she turned to go back into the house, she saw the ball the kids from across the street had kicked over and been afraid to retrieve, and grabbed a knife, to the protest of the house elf, and popped it. Then she wrote a note, attached it to the ball, and returned it to the porch of the address written in marker on the ball, chuckling.

When she came back, Sirius and his sister Ari were in the kitchen, and Sirius was eating everything, as usual.

"Hello, Jaguar," Ari said in her fake American accent, that sounded really convincing. It was, nonetheless, fake and pretentious. Natural coming from Ari. "Katrine said that Aunt Nivea will be here in half an hour."

She nodded. "Hey Siri."

"Mph uum," Sirius replied, putting a scoop of pudding in his mouth. The house elf, Betty, stared at him apprehensively. "What?" he asked. "Keep the food coming'."

"SIRIUS BLACK!" his sister yelled. "They are not your slaves." She turned to the elf, which was looking back and forth between the two of them. "Ignore him, honey. Why don't you see if there is laundry to be done or something?"

"I thought they weren't servants!" Sirius said in protest.

"I said slave. There is a difference." Ari rolled her eyes and flipped her hair back dramatically, heaving a huge sigh.

Jag shook her head and went off to make a call to their friend Remus, and Sirius followed her, leaving a huge mess for the elves to clean up. She sat down in front of the fireplace in one of the living rooms, as Sirius lay down on the couch.

"Who're you calling?" he asked, even though he probably already knew and was simply confirming it.

"Remus," she replied, without turning to look at him. "I want to know if he and James got their letters yet." He nodded.

They, along with their friends James and Remus, and a girl whom they didn't see very often, named Jasmine, were all waiting for their acceptance letters for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A few days before, Jasmine had told Jaguar that they were starting to send out the letters for Hogwarts, and Jag wanted to know if she had gotten in. There was a small possibility that she would get into another magic school instead, but Monica had said that she and Jaguar's father had gone to Hogwarts. Well, of course. They were of the Brazil lineage. Everyone recently had gone to Hogwarts. Even when they had still lived primarily in France, Italy, and Spain. Jasmine knew things like that, because she was the Assistant Minister of Magic's daughter, and she was close to him. Sirius didn't talk to his dad so often and he didn't care about governmental things.

And in their magical world, everything had to do with the government. In fact, all of their parents did something involving making a ton of money and spending it on very expensive but worthless trinkets and alcohol, which they would never drink. Money didn't matter much to Jaguar, until she thought about what she would do without it. She wouldn't be able to buy her cameras and clothes and go on long trips every few months whenever Monica Brazil had a while off from work. All any of the friends knew about their money was that they would never have to work a day in their lives if they didn't want to. Remus was the exception. His parents made good money at the Ministry, but they were by no means wealthy.

"Calling" someone meant that you threw a handful of bad smelling green powder, which could transport you places, but was used by teenagers to get high, into the fire, waited until it turned green, and stuck your head inside. Then, after you called out an address, or fireplace number, you waited until someone answered your call.

Jag leaned forward into the fire, even though it was too warm, and hard to balance on the palms of her hands without getting soot all over her white pants, and called, "Lupin Residence, Liverpool." which was where Remus lived.

"Who is it?" a pleasant voice answered. It was Remus' mother, who always had the fireplace blocked until she knew who it was.

"Can I talk to Remus?" Jag asked, peering at the wall in the back of her fireplace. She wished there was a secret passage there. And she often suspected her mother had something hidden behind it, but she had never been able to figure out a way in, and Monica was of no help at all, telling Jaguar she was being immature and such.

"Oh. Hello Jaguar." By the sound of her voice it was quite obvious that his mother didn't really like her. The not quite cheery, but nonetheless polite voice had taken on a sneering tone, and Jaguar imagined that Mrs. Lupin's upper lip was probably curled. "Let me get him."

Jag shook back her hair, which was floating around her head from the flames, and stared at the back of her fireplace. After a minute, it lifted away, revealing Remus Lupin, and their friend James Potter, sitting on the floor on the other side of the fireplace. He had pressed the button that removed the spell preventing anyone from spying on them.

"Hi Jaguar," James said.

"Mum just said it was 'That one girl. You know...'" said Remus. "Oh, and guess what?"

Sirius had moved down to the floor. He could hardly hear what Remus was saying from where he had sat, as his friend was a quiet speaker, normally. "What?"

"You guys didn't--" Jag began.

James and Remus held up envelopes, and yelled, "We got our letters!"

"No way!" Jaguar whined, clasping her hands together in front of her chest. "Not fair!"

"Ours had better be coming," Sirius said.

Jaguar was scowling, because she had wanted to get her letter first. "Hmph. Thanks for telling us, Remus! Well, we have to go wait for Nivea now bye," she said quickly, pulling her head out of the fireplace and looking at Sirius. "That is not fair."

"I know," the boy replied, pushing his hair back.

"Siri," said Jag. "You aren't going to walk around all day like that, are you?"

"What?"

"You have food all over your face, and pudding behind your ear. How do you eat so much?"

He glared at her. "I'm fine. And I did not eat that much."

"Whatever." She shook her head and laughed. "Come on."

"Where?"

"I said, come on, Sirius Black." She grabbed his arm, and even though he was fighting her, she still managed to drag him into one of the bathrooms, and wiped his face with a wet towel, as he screamed for her to stop.

Ari appeared at the door of the bathroom, and laughed delicately. "Oh! Now this is priceless!" She was holding one of Jaguar's camera's, which she snapped a picture with, and set it on the counter. "But you might want to hurry up. Nivea's car is in the driveway."

Jaguar abandoned Sirius, as he growled at her, and ran down the stairs and outside, grabbing the camera along the way. Danika, Sirius' younger sister, and Katrine were standing outside as Nivea got out of her new red car.

Jaguar ran over and took a picture of her, before hugging her dashing into her arms.

"Jaggie!" Nivea exclaimed. "How have you been?"

Opening her mouth, Jaguar was about to speak, when she noticed something. She leaned to one side and looked past Nivea then, at the two girls standing behind her. She stood back and took a picture of them, as the looked back at her. There was one girl with shoulder length blond hair, and a slightly upturned nose, making her look stuck up. The other girl was younger, and almost as short as Jaguar. She had bright green eyes and red gold hair. Both of them looked nervous.

"Who are you?" Jag asked, not impolitely. She was just startled.

The blonde girl looked absolutely affronted, as though she were supposed to be recognized. Seeing this, the other girl said, "I'm Lily Evans," walking forward to shake Jaguar's hand.

Jaguar looked at her hand, then at Nivea. "Nivea?"

Nivea Cortez, who looked exactly like Jaguar, said, "Jaggie! Don't be rude. These are your cousins, Lily and Petunia." She looked at the two girls. "These are Jaguar and Katrine; they're your cousins, and this is Sirius, Danika, and Ari, who're their neighbors." She paused and smiled at all of them. "Now. Where is my sister?"

"She's not here yet, Nivea," Katrine replied. Jaguar stood with her mouth slightly open. She hadn't known she had any cousins. Nivea hadn't any children; they weren't hers. But Jaguar did recall seeing pictures of Iris, Monica and Nivea's sister, who had died a long time ago. They must have been hers. Could this be Nivea's surprise?

Ari and Petunia were now talking loudly and excitedly with a speech punctuated by 'oh my gods' and 'whatever's'. It seemed as though Ari had introduced herself and the two girls had immediately clicked.

Katrine glared at her sister, whom she thought was being very rude, and walked over to Lily.

"Hi Lily. I'm Katrine. This is my sister Jaguar. You guys look like you're the same age. Oh. That's Sirius. He's an idiot."

"Hey! At least my name doesn't sound like Katrina!" Sirius retorted, making Lily laugh, and Jag, who was used to his lame jokes, roll her eyes. Katrine shoved him, scowling.

"Hi Lily," Jag said.

"Hey," the girl said, looking at her perhaps a bit apprehensively.

Jaguar looked at her cousin, who didn't look related to her. She resembled Monica a little, though.

Sirius said, "You guys look like sisters."

Both girls looked at him as if he was stupid, and Jaguar laughed.

"No we don't," said Lily. "I have blondish hair." And that was the end of it, as she and Jaguar walked down the driveway, talking.

Sirius sighed and went to pick on Katrine. He thought he would never understand girls.

Lily and Jaguar walked around the neighborhood, chattering about their friends and things they liked to do. Jag told Lily about her vacations, since Lily had rarely been let out of the house, and she had had a babysitter when Petunia and Richard left.

Neither of them was poor, but Jaguar's family had more than Lily's. Or the family with Richard Evans, which she had once belonged to. Not just money, either. More things in general. When Lily's mother Iris passed on, most of her money and one of her two properties had been given to her sisters, whom she loved more than her husband. She had been an independent person, who resented her arranged marriage. She left a bit to her husband, who also kept the first property.

Later that day, they would find out from Nivea that Iris had left a large sum of money in the bank for her daughters when they started school. When Petunia protested, Nivea smiled.

"I started school, like, a million years ago! That is so not fair!"

Katrine stared at her funny. "She doesn't mean grade school. She means Hog--" She shut up and looked around wide eyed as Nivea and Monica, who had just arrived, shook their heads. "I mean Ho--Ho…" She mumbled something. "Yeah! Homeroom! That's what I meant! You don't get homeroom until you get to second school!"

"What?" Petunia asked. "I'm in Junior High! I don't have any money!"

"Oh." Katrine looked away sheepishly. Luckily, she was a good enough actress to make it seem as though she were embarrassed by pointing out Petunia's lack of money. Jaguar fought not to laugh.

The children had been raised not to mention their ability to do magic to non-magic people. Katrine should have been more wary. Jaguar supposed her sister had assumed that since Petunia was related to them, she was also magical. She nearly scoffed. Only a child could make that mistake.

"What?" Petunia asked again.

Nivea told them, "She only left money to your father because he had the rights to you."

"She planned to have you given to me when she found out that if she had Lily, she would probably die," Monica Brazil continued. "She didn't think of him as a good father, no matter how much he loved her. Alas, you ended up with him, and I have Jaguar and Katrine now for daughters."

Jaguar blew her hair back from where it was falling over her face, and wondered if she was the only one who had noticed anything strange about that statement.

Monica glanced at Jaguar, and laughed. "I mean, I was pregnant with Jag, but well... okay."

They were all seated in the parlor, at the tea table. It was in the muggle front of the house where any muggle guests would sit. The house elves came in with food and drinks, then left, because they weren't supposed to be in that area.

"Well?" Jag said while they ate the food. She looked at her aunt questioningly.

Nivea stared at her. Or it appeared that she did. One could never tell with her sunglasses. "Hmm..."

"Where are our presents?" Jaguar asked.

Nivea laughed, and replied, "Presents? Oh Jaguar! You expect too much of me. I've been busy all year! And you assume I have time to find you presents?"

Katrine laughed, and Jaguar pursed her lips and sighed. "Well, if you don't care about us..."

"I can't help what I care about, you guys..." Then she laughed and waved her hand, and watched a pile of presents appear in the corner of the room. "But you can't open them now. Wait until later." She glanced down at her plate, and her sunny laughter stopped. "Oh no. I've run out of food. Hmm... I'm too fat to eat much anyway."

Although Jag shared Nivea's opinion that it was awful for people to be overweight except for medical problems and such, she knew Nivea was not fat. No one in the Brazil/Cortez family was fat. Never had been. That might have been because they had always been rich and stuck up. They also didn't have the genes to be fat. That was their joke. Secret magic sped up metabolism so no matter how much they ate they wouldn't gain weight (although, in truth, none of them took it anymore, and still almost everyone of them was underweight).

For the rest of the day, Jaguar, Sirius and Lily walked around the mansion, showing Lily rooms, and talking about general things, like favorite colors, and favorite normal foods. They were forbidden to tell her about Hogwarts, or to reveal the fact that they had magic. By telling her, Nivea had said. So, Sirius reckoned, they couldn't mention anything about magic, but it didn't mean they could scare Lily by using it.

Neither of them had attended magic school to learn magic yet. All they knew were things like History and foreign studies, and they really didn't care about either of those. So they could only do very basic tricks like move things with their minds, or put out lights at will. Jaguar, who had seemed to inherit the trait from Nivea, could do magic without a wand, which was unusual. She had studied her Ari's magic books, and could perform very simply spells.

What is that?" Lily asked as they walked into Katrine's bedroom to find a multicolored cat stretched out across the bed.

The cat looked up and began purring.

"Woof," it said. Or appeared to say. Really, Sirius had thrown his voice.

Lily who had been about to pet it, jumped back, and laughed. "Oh wow!" She glanced up at Jag. "Was that... the cat?"

"Yeah," said Sirius. "What else meows?"

"It barked," said Lily standing up and staring at him. "I heard it, and I don't know what kind of tricks you guys are up to, but I think I'm starting to get it. Aunt Nivea told me I should probably not try to bring up the subject. Oh! How sly she thinks she is. I am not insane, Sirius Black. You two are magical, aren't you? Along with the cat."

Jag stared at her. "Why didn't you tell us! We were trying to scare you with magic this whole--"

"I know! I was pretending I didn't notice. And I was laughing inside when your sister was talking about Hogwarts, but Nivea wouldn't let her say it. She told me that was her old school to teach her magic after I got my acceptance letter this morning."

"NOT FAIR!" Sirius shrieked, looking at her wide-eyed, almost in disbelief. Lily had just found out she was a witch and she was already accepted. What if he wasn't accepted? Could that be possible? He supposed anything was possible… But maybe that wasn't likely. So where was his letter? It seemed like everyone else's had already arrived.

"She said you guys were squibs."

"SQUIBS!" yelled Jag. "WHAT THE FUCK! Hmph." Squibs were fake wizards, who usually were dropped on their heads as babies, and couldn't do magic. Jaguar and Sirius found it fun to call Danika and Katrine squibs sometimes. She and Sirius were definitely not squibs. Or were they? Nivea did seem to know everything… Jaguar might have pondered that idea until she upset herself, but Lily didn't give her the chance.

Lily, who knew what a squib was, although of course she had never seen one, raised her eyebrows. "She also gave me these, but I wasn't to give you them until she said so." She pulled two letters out of her jacket.

Two pairs of eyes stared at her as she held them out. "Mine..." Sirius moaned, reaching out towards them.

"Finally..." Jaguar whispered, lunging forward to grab one, but Lily spun away, tucking them into her clothes somehow, and ran down the hallway. Sirius and Jaguar tore after her, but lost her as she seemed to disappear around a corner. A few minutes later, they gave up and went back down with the adults, in extremely bad humor, and found Lily sitting safely with Nivea and Monica, chatting with Katrine.

"I hate you," Jaguar growled, narrowing her eyes at her aunt, who looked back, obviously amused, and rolled her eyes. "I HATE you."

Sirius strode forward and snatched the two letters out of Lily's hand. "THANK you!" he snapped, ripping open a letter. "Oh wait; this is yours!" He handed it to Jag, and she tore into it like a hurricane.

"Can we go tomorrow?" Sirius and Jaguar asked at the same time, staring at each other with huge grins on their faces, while Danika and Katrine looked at them, with semi-scowls.

Monica sighed, and shook her head, sounding perhaps a bit regretful, or maybe just indifferent. "I can't take you. I have to work." She looked over at Nivea. "Maybe Nivea can take you." Neither Jaguar nor anyone else in the room had expected Monica to agree to take them, so they were not surprised.

Lily, Jag, and Sirius turned and stared at Nivea with wide eyes.

Nivea wrinkled her nose. "Thanks for volunteering me," she said dismissively to her sister. "Do I have to?" she asked after a moment, cleaning her sunglasses magically, although she used no wand, which generally would have been necessary for most people.

It was obvious by the way that the children glared at her, what the answer would be.

"Ah fine," Nivea assented, smiling slightly. "We'll go to Diagon Alley tomorrow."

"No no no," Petunia Evans was saying to the two girls who were standing at the edge of Jaguar's pool. "It's perfectly alright."

The three girls stood in a circle, seemingly hiding something from Jaguar, Sirius, and Lily, as the children walked outside several minutes later. Jaguar ignored them and headed for the other side of the yard, where there was a gate which led to the magical forest.

"Are you sure?" one girl asked, flipping back her long brown hair. "'Cause like… I dunno." She giggled.

"Don't be a puss!" snapped Ari Black, who was standing facing Jag, Lily, and Sirius. She had a cigarette hung from her mouth. "God, Annabelle. Smoking is super awesome."

The other girl shook her head, and Jaguar knew that she was probably pouting. She would give in to what Ari said. She always did. Finally, Annabelle took the cigarette from Ari, and seemed to take a drag from it. Suddenly she began to cough very loudly, and gagged into the rose bushes near by. The other two girls collapsed into peals of laughter.

"ANNABELLE!" Jaguar yelled. "GET OUT OF MY BUSHES."

She clenched her fists and tried to look angry. Jag was furious when she was really angry. Soon enough Annabelle straightened up sheepishly. The cigarette was gone, presumably lost somewhere in the bushes. Looking at Annabelle, Jag smiled and waved. "Where is James?" she asked.

"Eh," said Annabelle. "Beats me. Did he even come with me? Oh yeah." She giggled. "I think he's with the quiet one."

Jaguar frowned. "Aw." The quiet one was Remus Lupin. Annabelle's brother James was staying with Remus. Jaguar, who loved her friends dearly, wanted to reminisce. Some days, Jaguar fell into moods where she seemed much older and wiser than her actual age. No one had ever told her, but she had the power to capture the attention of crowds of people with her voice, and her appearance, and most of all her attitude about the world. "Well then," said Jaguar. She turned back to lead Lily and Sirius out of the yard.

"Who's the quiet one?" Lily asked as she followed the other two, feeling lost. She had felt like that quite a bit lately.

Jaguar was frowning dejectedly and didn't respond. Her sunny mood had just dissolved. Why would James' sister be at Jag's house if her brother wasn't with her? Jaguar disliked Annabelle, who was exceedingly dumb. Even worse than Ari Black was, thought Jaguar. She had known Ari all her life, so she remembered many times where Ari had shown her true intelligence. She acted strange ways either for attention, or for some creepy ulterior motives. Other than Nivea, Ari Black was probably the most mysterious person on earth. Completely untrustworthy. She would use everyone for her own purpose. She would probably sell her own soul just to get the best of it.

Noticing that Jaguar wasn't in the best mood, Sirius answered for her. "The quiet one is Jaguar's best friend. Remus Lupin."

Jaguar snapped out of her thoughts. "You're my only best friend!" She said fiercely. "I don't act like how you do with James."

Sirius frowned slightly. "You're my only best friend too," he said quietly.

Jag raised her eyebrows doubtfully. "Oh really? You don't do a very good job showing it." She laughed.

The boy shrugged at Lily, confused. He had been hanging out with James quite a lot lately. But that was only because James was a male. And Jaguar wasn't… He started feeling bad.

"Jaggie."

She turned around slowly, looking at the sun as she did. It was at its zenith, and the sky was bright blue. It seemed to her that it had been this way all throughout her childhood. And for just a moment, she fervently hoped it would always stay that way. Then that moment was put out of her mind as she finished turning.

"Siri."

They looked at each other. The moment seemed to stretch on strangely, and Lily, who was wholly out of the loop, looked back and forth between them. She didn't know, but sometimes Jaguar and Sirius didn't need to talk. They understood each other well enough that words weren't necessary. It had nothing to do with mind reading, or anything of that sort. But when you are around someone for extended periods of time, the way Jaguar and Sirius were, you find that body language becomes evident.

Finally a consensus seemed to be reached because Jaguar smiled slightly and said, "Okay."

Sirius opened his mouth and might have spoken, but at that moment, a boy bounded through the gate besides which they stood. His dark brown hair bounced around the top of his head as he yelled, "Jaguar! Sirius!" He skid to a stop before them.

"James!" Jaguar cried out. "What're you doing here?" She grinned at him, then turned to look at Remus Lupin as he walked through the gate, closing it behind him. "'Sup, Remus?"

"Eh," he said, shrugging. "Nothing much."

"We didn't know you were going to be here today," said Sirius.

"Nor did we," James laughed. "Anna dragged us here. She wanted to hang with Ari." He wrinkled his nose. "Dunno why." The boys laughed.

Lily hung back, a bit nervous around a group of children she had never met before. "Who are you?" she asked quietly.

"We're the future first year Gryffindors," James replied, grinning widely. His family, the Potters, was very old and wealthy. One of the most famous of the wizarding lineages. Most of them had been sorted into the house of Gryffindor at Hogwarts.

Sirius frowned and looked away. Most of his father's family had been sorted into Slytherin, a house that greatly opposed Gryffindors, and muggle people. He hated to think that he might be anything like the Slytherin people he knew of. And besides that, Jaguar and James, being from very old, rich, Gryffindor houses, would certainly be placed there. Remus would probably be a Ravenclaw. So he would be alone. With the exact sort of people he hated. So he frowned and looked away. It was all he could do. Whenever he had brought up the subject in the past, all he heard from his friends was 'Oh no, Sirius! Don't worry!' which was really no comfort at all.

Remus Lupin noticed and drew closer to Sirius, looking concerned. Sirius shrugged one shoulder at him. Perhaps they would both be in Ravenclaw. And Jaguar and James would be together. It just seemed so wrong… The whole idea. He couldn't pinpoint why, and thinking about it seemed silly. So he focused on Lily Evans.

She was actually a pretty girl, although she seemed quieter than Jaguar, and thus paled in the light that Jag seemed to give off. Her golden red hair fell to her shoulders softly, and her green eyes were bright and piercing. She looked back and forth between the four children.

"You all know what house you'll be sorted into..?"

Jaguar looked sad, but she nodded anyhow. "Well we have to believe that. And if anyone is truly dissatisfied with their house, they can get a resorting."

"Can they really?" Remus asked, looking interested.

"They can," replied James. "But it's not common, and there needs to be an actual reason for it."

Sirius wandered a few feet away, looking dejected. Lily noticed this, and looked over curiously at Remus, who was watching him. The sandy haired boy looked over at her and smiled slightly, although he looked weary.

"My name's Remus," he said. "And that prat is James." He pointed.

"Hey!" James cried out indignantly.

"I'm Lily," she replied, not much louder than before, but now with a sparkle in her eyes as she smiled.

"Yeah," Jaguar said. "Lily, my cousin."

And she explained the story as well as she knew it to her friends. Although she had disliked Lily at first, that feeling at stemmed from her jealousy over Nivea's attention. Jaguar always looked for the good side of people. She gave everyone a chance. And nothing was wrong with Lily. She seemed like a very nice girl. Innocent until proven guilty.

"Anyhow," Jag finished. "Let's get going."

She led the children out of her yard, into the forest. The muggles who lived near Jaguar's neighborhood could not see the forest. It was filled with magical creatures. Although not the extremely dangerous type. Most of the large wizarding clans had at least one house that bordered this forest, and by traveling through it, it was possible to reach the houses of the Malfoy, Snape, Morgan, Asriel, Montague (yes, the one from Romeo and Juliet), the Farlings, the Ice family, and many more.

Of course, the children were not planning on walking that far. If they wanted to visit another family's estate, they would use floo powder or apparate with an adult. Either way, they really had no reason to see any of those people. Each family had its own deep secrets. The forest seemed to reverberate with them. Lily, who had been excluded from this world for her entire life, and was only now about to be immersed in it, felt something as she entered the forest. Perhaps it stemmed from the fact that she herself was a secret. Even Jaguar had not known about her existence. But Nivea Cortez was the most respected woman in their world. No one would go against what she said. Openly, at least. So the forest let her in.

In Jaguar's backyard, the three teenage girls sat on the ground, giggling over some joke Ari Black had just told.

Petunia Evans watched the 5 children leave the yard and asked, "Where are they going?" It seemed like there was a strange blur outside of the gate. She squinted at the air, but couldn't see the children clearly.

Slightly alarmed, Annabelle gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Here she had been going on and on about how much fun Hogwarts was, to a girl who was not magic enough to see the forest! For a moment, Anna wondered if she was a muggle, then realized that she might just be a squib. Well that was just as bad! Momentarily, she felt bad.

"Ah," said Ari, tilting her head to one side and running her fingers through her hair. "They aren't going anywhere. Just headed off somewhere to talk about school, the way we are." Petunia cast one more look in that direction, then sighed. "Anyway," said Ari. "This year, I am going to make Adonis fall in love with me! I have to. You see, I once had a dream, sent from the Goddess. So I know its destiny!"

The day went on.

To all of the people at Brazil Manor, it seemed to be one of those days that changes the course of destiny. Perhaps it was.