A.N. Hello there! :) Whalefairyfandom12 reporting with chapter one of Perspective. This a second generation FF written with zuzuzoo11, EmuFrost, HermioneJeanGranger-101 and ellw0721. Reviews are welcome and virtually painless.

Flames=LEO VALDEZ!

This chapter is dedicated to Dancer2323 and to ArabianDragon—luff chu both! :)

Chapter One—Gotta Get Back to Hogwarts

"Back to witches and wizards and magical beasts, to goblins and ghosts and to magical beasts. It's all that I love and all that I need at Hogwarts, Hogwarts, I think I'm going back."

Phoebe Allesandra Lupin was a fifteen year old.

Like most fifteen year olds, Phoebe was convinced that fifteen up were going to be some of the best years of her life.

She found herself looking forward to Hogwarts.

She was determined to excel.

She was convinced of her maturity.

She was determined to make a difference.

She was wearing dark red lipstick and a light brush of mascara and eyeliner.

She had decided that wearing pink with her red hair was a no.

And, like most fifteen year olds, Phoebe Lupin was convinced that she was in love.

Lukas Christopher Riddle, or, as he was known by his friends, Luke. The name was sweet in her thoughts, and sweeter to speak aloud. Grey eyes framed by curly black locks with high cheekbones and a sharp jawline.

The mere thought sent a tingle through her.

And Phoebe was going to see him.

Very soon.

She smiled dreamily at that thought, a romantic greeting, perhaps proceeded by a kiss? (romantic nothings would, of course be exchanged,) before jolting back to alertness.

The first boom of colour that greeted her eyes was grey.

Enormous smokestacks billowed from the tops of the brilliant engines that lined the station.

Phoebe followed her twin sister Izzy, older brother Teddy, and grandmother Andromeda down the station platform as more explosions of colour and noise echoed all around her.

"Be good," her grandmother warned Izzy, embracing her.

"Me?" Izzy quipped. "Phoebe's the one you need to worry about."

"You are too much."

Proceeding said statement, Phoebe found herself being tightly hugged by her grandmother.

She hugged her back, savouring the last couple of moments before she had to let go.

Andromeda stepped back from the train, waving a final goodbye before disapparating.

Phoebe dragged her suitcase alongside the train, her owl, Luna, hooting happily from her cage. The doors to the train lay dead ahead, and soon she found herself in the familiar corridors of the Hogwart's Express.

"See you later?" Teddy farewelled.

"Sure," Izzy smirked. Under her breath, she added, "—If you aren't too busy snogging Victorie."

The clock tolled 11:00 and the two sisters frantically bumbled onto the train.

"Bye," Izzy waved as the two sisters parted ways. "I can try to save you a seat—"

"It's okay," Phoebe assured her. "I'll sit with Luke and Scor."

She shivered internally. Luke. What a delicious, monosyllable word.

Izzy's noise wrinkled. "Luke and Scorpius? Phoebe…"

"Roxy and Lysander will be there too," Phoebe sighed in exasperation. Honestly. She didn't criticise Izzy's friends. Admittedly, most of them were family friends, but still. Sometimes she felt that if Roxanne Weasley and Lysander Scamander hadn't also been Slytherin's, Izzy would've marched up to Headmistress McGonagall and demanded that Phoebe be put in Gryffindor. Or fear her wrath.

Izzy rolled her eyes. "Whatever." See you at the feast," she added as she yanked open the nearest compartment door.

"Bye."

Phoebe shoved her trunk overhead and found a boy standing beside her.

"Miss me?"

Phoebe jolted back in surprise, hands immediately flying to her hair.

"Like a hole in the head," she replied.

Luke gave a crooked smile. "Likewise."

Phoebe smiled. "How was your summer?" She eyed him, taking in the sight and witnessing the raging battle of hormones going on inside her internally.

He seemed to have grown a lot since last year, and his shirt clung to his toned stomach, giving him a more sophisticated and insanely attractive look. Yep, she had missed him alright.

Although, to be fair, there was more to Luke than a pretty face. He was smart, determined, ready to stick up for his friends or whatever he believed in…

Lukas Christopher Riddle was many things.

Although one word Phoebe wouldn't exactly use to describe him would be nice.

Luke rolled his eyes. "About as good as one could expect, being stuck in bloody foster care all summer. Some vacation. So, yeah," he continued sarcastically. "Damn perfect."

"Langue," Phoebe chided, but a smile took the bite out of her words.

"I'll say whatever I like," Luke snapped waspishly. "Stupid muggles."

"From the girl whose parents were half-bloods, can I just say, not cool?"

"Yeah, well, your parents are also dead."

"Touche."

"Nice hair," Luke smirked.

Phoebe patted it self-consciously. "I like it."

Courtesy of her now deceased mother, Nymphadora Tonks, Phoebe was blessed, (or cursed, she hadn't quite decided yet,) with the powers of a metamorphmagus.

Her natural hair colour was red, and her eyes couldn't seem to decide which colour they wanted to be, giving her a kaleidoscopic feel that, personally, Phoebe hated.

Currently, however, Phoebe's hair was streaked with silver and green dye—Slytherin colours.

"It could be Gryffindor," Luke acknowledged. "At least you're showing Slytherin pride. Why do you talk to those suck-ups anyway?"

"They're my family, Luke," Phoebe groaned. "We've already been through this. And perfectly nice people as well."

"They're jerks," he said bluntly.

"Luke."

"They are!"

There went the hopes of a romantic greeting, Phoebe thought forlornly. She buried the idea of a kiss even deeper in the recesses of her mind. No need to be disappointed.

Luke was always like this. Expect one thing, and you got the other. Quite honestly, she had been ridiculous for even hoping for anything more.

"Bright side though!" Luke smirked. "Mia's looking fine, if you know what I mean. She lives in the same orphanage as me, you know."

He pointed to a passing compartment, where a very pretty fourth year sat, talking with her friends. Dark, glossy, shining hair falling in perfectly formed waves, perfect pink lips, sparkling pools of allurement for eyes, and the right figure and perfect curves.

Mia Black, Phoebe thought with disdain. Admittedly, she had hair any girl would die for, and a model perfect figure and mouth, but Mia Black…

"Mia Black is a very nice girl," Phoebe said with as much dignity as she could muster.

Already, her mind was comparing her blemished skin with Mia's clear and her limp red hair with her luxurious locks. Seriously, though, how did Mia get her hair to dangle like that? Not just hang—it positively dangled.

Luke gave her one of his lopsided smiles.

"Ah, shut up," he said, punching her teasingly. "I know how you feel about Mia. No need to fake enthusiasm."

"She is!" Phoebe insisted, but a look from Luke made her laugh.

"I'm not sold," Luke rolled his eyes, smiling.

"Mia is smart and nice and has lots of friends and—"

"—And's a stuck-up, golden girly girl?" Luke quipped.

Phoebe sighed, rolling her eyes. "I was going to leave that part out."

"Admit to this at least," Luke said as the duo resumed walking. "She's hot."

"I concede to that point."

"She's not as prissy as you think."

Phoebe slid open the final compartment door; the prefect meeting room. As she sat beside Luke, she couldn't help adding,

"What's this? Lukas Christopher Riddle standing up for a Gryffindor?"

Luke winkled his nose, making a face.

Phoebe returned the favour.

"She's hot!"

"She's an annoying baby."

"Fourteen is not a baby."

"Sticking up for a Gryffindor, are you, and against your best friend no less," Phoebe said with amusement.

She was enjoying this perhaps more than was correct.

That was one of her fatal flaws, she decided decisively. She enjoyed verbal sparring and a challenge a bit too much

"And to think that a couple minutes ago, you were putting down my family who are, oh, let's think, Gryffindorstoo!"

"That's different," Luke complained.

"Oh really? How is that any different?"

Luke sighed. "Need I reiterate this? She's bloody attractive."

Phoebe opened her mouth to retort, but the sliding doors chose that moment to flys open.

Heather, a Hufflepuff, and Nelson, a Slytherin, the head boy and girl, entered the compartment. Heather gently sat down in her chair. In contrast, Nelson slammed the door behind him and clomped over to his seat, throwing himself in it.

"Ello people," Nelson greeted the gathered prefects. "Let's get this over with, because I'm pretty sure we all have better things to do. I know I do."

Heather rolled her eyes. Normally, a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff wouldn't be a good combination, but as Nelson was as fatherly Slytherin as far as Slytherin's went, and Heather, being a Hufflepuff, had more patience for his antics than anyone else could've, the two seemed to make a fairly good team.

"Here's the patrol schedule," Heather said, gently tossing the slips of paper on the table before the assembled students. "Any problems with conflicting activities should be brought to my or Nelson's attention," she added quietly.

Everything Heather did seemed to be gentle, Phoebe reflected as she grabbed two of the outlines, handing one to Luke.

"We have patrol duty together," she informed Luke after a quick once over of the schedule.

With that sentence, her mind sped off again, imaging the two of them together basked in gentle torchlight, laughing. Unbidden, her half-formed thoughts of a kiss rose again, and she shivered in delight.

"That's it," Luke joked, throwing his hands in the air in surrender. "The world hates me."

"Now, can we review the rules—"

"Come on Heather," Nelson groaned. "The kids've been here five years. They know the rules. Can we go now?"

Heather sighed good-naturedly. "You're a pill." Then, to the other prefects, "—Meeting dismissed."

Nelson whooped and bounded out into the corridor, the door slamming shut behind him. Heather followed suit, and Phoebe followed, Luke hot on her heels.

"They are so stupid," Luke muttered.

Phoebe blinked in surprise. It was one thing for Luke to insult Heather, but to insult someone in his own house was something new.

"Why?"

"Nelson's dating Ellie."

Phoebe blinked, still confused. "So?"

"So? So," Luke snarled. "Ellie lives in Spinner's End."

"Yeah?"

"She's a mudblood Phoebe!"

"Luke!" Phoebe glared.

"What? Heather's a Hufflepuff. Stupid. Almost as worthless as Gryffindors. As dumb as some of them, too."

"Shut up Luke."

"That James Potter?" Luke pressed. "Useless prick. Albus isn't much better. if James wasn't such a prat Albus might've not been as bad. At least he's a Slytherin. If Voldemort hadn't been killed by the famous, the great, the almighty and powerful Harry Potter, there might actually be some common sense at Hogwarts."

"I told you to shut up!"

"You know it's true," he argued.

Love and hate are funny things sometimes.

People often say that they're closer than most people consider them to be, and Phoebe was forced to conclude that that must be true.

Otherwise, how could two people, the half and pure-blood, be friends?

How could the half-blood love the pure-blood. but hate him, his morals, and his beliefs, at the same time?

Love and hate are funny things sometimes, but without them, life would be devoid of all colour.

The two had reached the compartment door. Through it, Phoebe could see the outlines of Scorpius Malfoy, Roxanne Weasley, Albus Potter, Lysander Scamander, and Rose Weasley.

Phoebe could vaguely hear her's and Luke's voices rising, but she chose to ignore it.

"Why do you act like this?" Phoebe crossed her arms, staring at her friend defiantly. "You know I like and care about James and Albus. Harry, too. Would it kill you to take the opinions of others into account sometimes? Hm?"

Luke stared at her for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face. For a minute, she was glaring into his equally furious grey ones.

"You don't understand."

"Enlighten me."

"It's too complicated."

"Oh, so too complicated for a half-blood like me to understand, you mean?"

"That's not what I said!"

Throughout their battle of words, Phoebe somehow found herself inches away from Luke's face. She glowered into his equally venomous glare for a moment.

"This is the moment in books where they kiss," Phoebe said, regretting it the moment the words left her mouth.

Luke smiled slightly. "Even I'm not that cliche."

Another fairly awkward silence insured.

"Look, I'm sorry," Luke said. It looked to Phoebe as if he was having trouble pronouncing the words, which was probably true. Very rarely did Luke ever apologise. "You've already told me not to—"

"It's fine," Phoebe said awkwardly. "Just drop it."

The compartment door chose that time to slide open, perhaps unfortunate for the intruder, but rather more fortunate for the blushing Phoebe and Luke.

"Oh, sorry," Scorpius said, drawing up short. He smirked. "Are we interrupting something?"

Rose rolled her eyes, punching her friend lightly. "Oi! Stuff it Scor,"

Scorpius raised a coy eyebrow. "Make me."

"Hello to you too," Phoebe smiled. "Ready for school?"

Scorpius groaned. "Don't talk about it," he moaned. "I haven't had a chance to do any of the reading yet, and—"

Rose looked surprised. "But we've had the entire summer!"

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Not all of us are as in love with books as you, Rose. I'm sure all the reading was done the first week."

Rose flushed. "They were good books!"

Albus cleared his throat. "Sorry to intrude on your flirting," he said, directing his comment at both Phoebe and Luke, and Scorpius and Rose, "—But James was holding a compartment for us."

"Mia," Scorpius coughed suspiciously under his breath. "Anxious, are we?"

Albus glared.

Rose laughed, throwing an arm around her two friends. "Come on you two." To Phoebe, over her shoulder she called, "—See you later!"

"Bye Rose!" Phoebe smiled.

The trio tromped off merrily, leaving Phoebe and Luke standing, rather awkwardly.

"Shall we?" Luke asked fairly uncomfortably.

"After you," Phoebe said with the ghost of a smile playing at the corner of her lips.

"Why, ladies first," Luke said, acting aghast at the thought of anything less.

"Shut it you," Phoebe grumbled, punching his arm as she entered the compartment.

Lysander Scamander was a pale haired blond youth with dark brown eyes, possessing a prominent jawline with his Father's eyes and Mother's love for all things impossible. He was fairly handsome, Phoebe had to admit, although he wasn't her type.

Roxanne Weasley was the beauty of the group. With dark, cocoa coloured skin and black, crazed hair that somehow managed to look attractive, her figure rivalled that of Mia's, and her eyes were like dark pools of chocolate.

Phoebe threw herself on the seat beside Luke, surveying her friends.

Luke ran his fingers through his hair, leaving some parts of it sticking up, and sparking a serious hormone in Phoebe that made her want to run her fingers through his hair until it was even messier.

Get a grip, she administered firmly.

"Hey you lot," Roxy greeted. "Took you long enough."

"What's the scoop?" Lysander asked. "You look like you've got something to say."

"I'm going to ask Mia out," Luke announced at large.

Phoebe's chest seemed to contort. It was a familiar feeling—heartbreak, and one that had become her best friend. Heartbreak and Luke seemed to go hand and hand.

One would think she'd have been used to this after five years, but clearly not. Last year it had been Cassidy, Katherine, Jeanne, Francis and Hope. The year before it was an even longer string of girlfriends. One after the other, since first year, Luke had been having flings with so many girls that he had almost dated the entire school.

You couldn't get one without the other. Luke and heartbreak, heartbreak and Luke, but Phoebe knew it was worth it. Luke was worth it.

Roxy gave Phoebe a brief, pitying look, and Lysander gave her an, "I told you so," look.

"Do you think she'll say yes?" Lysander asked. "This is Mia we're talking about."

"Sure," Luke scoffed. "We snogged a couple of times this summer. All good."

Phoebe experienced a momentary lack of air.

"What was it like?" Lysander asked dreamily. "Kissing Mia Black. Were her lips soft? Did you use your tongue?"

Roxy snorted. "Perverts."

Luke ignored her. "It tasted like strawberries and sunshine and holding her hand just made the world seem like a brighter place, know what I mean? It was…magnetic." He glanced up, lost in a daze no doubt about Mia Black, Phoebe thought bitterly. "I reckon she's the one."

"What do you think Phoebe?"

It took Phoebe a second to realise that Luke had directed the question to her.

"Cool," she said lamely. "Awesome."

She gnashed her teeth together, trying to block out the sting. Shut up shut up shut up.

Phoebe sat through the rest of the train ride in a daze.

The other's gave up in trying to engage her in a conversation, so when the train jolted to a stop, Phoebe was roughly halted out of her wanderings.

Phoebe waited by one of the carriages, and as Lysander and Roxy joined her, she questioned,

"Where's Luke?"

"Sucking up to Mia," Roxy said sympathetically.

As the threesome hauled themselves into a carriage, Lysander shook a mocking finger at Phoebe.

"I told you to move on. I told you. I said, Luke doesn't like you that way, and the more you stay, the more you'll get burned."

"Leave her alone Lysander!" Roxy scolded.

Phoebe stared dully at the ground. It wasn't a burn, though. Lysander was wrong in that respect. It wasn't a burn, it was more than that. It was a scorch. It was an inferno. It was the feeling of something being broken. In this case, her heart.

"How was your summer?" she asked, trying to break the ice.

She shelved the conundrum for the present. Letting something as stupid as Luke and Mia ruin her life made her an idiot. She was her own person. You're dating Mia, she thought with grim determination, well good for you.

"Fine," Lysander shrugged. "Mum and Dad and I went on a camping trip to find whalefairys."

Roxy seemed to struggle to keep a straight face. "Did you find any?"

Lysander shrugged. "There was this one time—"

"What did you do?" Roxy hurriedly asked Phoebe, preventing a long winded explanation of what. exactly, a whalefairy was."

"Spent a lot of time with the Potter's," Phoebe said offhandedly. "Not much, really, although, Gram, Teddy, Izzy and I went to Paris for a couple of months. It was fun, but we couldn't stay too long."

"I went to visit my Uncle Charlie with Rose and the rest of the gang," Roxy said. "To study dragons."

"Yeah, Albus told me," Phoebe said, recollecting. "Was it fun?"

"Well," Roxanne dragged out the word, elongating it. "There were some technical problems, and we almost didn't make it back in time for school, and—"

…

The fight had begun before most of the school knew what was happening.

"I saw you!" James yelled. "You killed him! You killed Arthur Grislton."

"Take that back!" Luke shouted. "I didn't kill anyone!"

"Stop it!" Phoebe shouted, but her pleas were lost in the din.

Like that rest of the mob, she could only watch in suspended terror.

"You're just like Voldemort!" James screamed. "Just as obsessed with blood purity. And what were you doing, eh? Making more horcruxes?"

"I told you to shut up!" Luke roared.

"Or what?" James taunted.

"Or by Merlin I'll make you!" Luke thundered, yanking out his wand. James followed suit.

The cry was deafening by now.

"Fight, fight, fight, fight!"

"So this is it, Riddle, it it? A duel?"

Luke sneered. "Unless you're too scared."

James shook his head scornfully. "Never."

"Stop it! Both of you!" Phoebe cried helplessly.

James and Luke bowed sharply, neither taking their eyes off the other.

The two had just raised their wands when—

"Mr. Riddle! Mr. Potter! What is this?" Headmistress McGonagall's voice echoed. Phoebe released a tremendous sigh of relief. It was over. Everyone was safe now. It would all be okay.

Luke and James continued to glare with hatred at each other, however.

"He called me a murderer!" Luke shouted.

"He called me a liar!" James yelled.

"Expelliarmus!" McGonagall said sharply. The two wands flew from the boy's hands and into hers.

"Now!" she addressed the assembled group, bristling with anger. "The feast will begin in a couple of minutes. I don't know how it started—"

She raised a hand as Luke and James opened their mouths. "—And I don't care how. But you will resolve this petty quarrel immediately and proceed into the Great Hall like civilised human beings. I trust that is within your power."

"Am I clear?" she thundered as Luke and James continued to glare mutinously.

"Yes," they mumbled.

To Phoebe, it was clear that it was far from over, and she knew that McGonagall knew that too.

However, McGonagall didn't seem to have much choice but to let them in.

"Now then," McGonagall said, regaining her composure. "Let the feast begin."

…