Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling; therefore I own nothing that has already been published by her. That being said, please don't steal from me.

Chapter One: A New Mystery Enters Hogwarts

She was just reaching the edge of the greenhouse when the school's clocks chimed six; turning towards the sound of clanging bells, she wonder's briefly if her roommates would worry when they see her bed is empty. To the quiet school grounds she whispers: "Back home, my friends and my sisters would." A jab of homesickness stabs her empty stomach, and she turns away from the school. It had been three weeks since Lydia Isle had started her first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When she had received the letter, her parents didn't believe it and thought it was a scam; in her parents' opinion, everything was a scam, even Father Christmas. "Magic is for charlatans and fools desperate to lose money." The shock came when a teacher from the school showed them magic in their own home. It was a surprise to her that her parents had let her to come; even after they had it proved to them that Hogwarts wasn't a scam. If she had to guess, Lydia thought that her younger sister, Patience, had begged them to let her go; Patience was their favorite, Patience was everybody's favorite.

It wasn't that Lydia minded; her younger sister just made people happy without trying. It wasn't that Lydia had minded, at the time, whether she was allowed to go to Hogwarts or the same academy as her friends. Now, Lydia had been to this school for three weeks, and seemed to be the only one who was still missing home and still didn't quite believe Hogwarts was real. Even though everyone in Hufflepuff was very nice to her and a few girls in Ravenclaw and Gryffindor had talked to her in their classes, she still felt like she was alone and she doubted if she should stay.

Nightmares had kept her up the night before, like they had three other times last week, all surrounding the idea that she would never make friends like she had at her old school or in her neighborhood. Today was the first time, and last time judging by the numb feeling she was getting in her hands and leg, that she had taken her sleepless-self outside to think; although she wasn't taking in much of the scenery considering she been watching her feet as she spoke to herself."Maybe I should ask my parents if I can come home. They might let me. Patience will be upset if I don't stay though. But she might not be a witch, so wouldn't it be better if—"

Lydia stopped midsentence at the sight that had reached her feet. Laid out on her side, in only jeans and a thin, red long-sleeve was a teenage girl with dark blonde hair sprawled over her face. Lydia leaned down, pulling her fingers out of the wool mittens and wiped the hair out of the girls face, hoping the movement would wake her up. This is a dream, she thought firmly to herself, this girl is a dream and in this dream she is just asleep. The girl's forehead wasn't warm like Lydia's but it didn't feel like ice either; so she couldn't have been outside long. Lydia tried to shake her gently: "Hey, wake up. Wake up!" But other than through the motivation of Lydia's hand, the body didn't react. More urgently and louder, she tried to rouse the girl again: "Person, Wake Up Now. Your Outside and It's Freezing, WAKE UP!"

"Lydia!" Lydia turned to the voice calling her. "Are you okay?" She saw one of her roommates jogging towards her. "I woke up, and you weren't in your bed." She looked back to the body and then to her roommate. Acers, Julie Acers. "We were worried—"

"Julie! Go get help!" Her roommate stopped abruptly. "Find a teacher and get help. There's this girl, and she's not waking up." Her roommate stood stunned. "NOW JULIE! GO GET HELP NOW!" Julie blinked and started running towards the school. Seeing this, Lydia turned back to the still girl beside her and tried rousing her again. "Wake up! Come on, wake up!" Lydia took offer her coat and wrapped it as well as she could around the girl, wishing that she knew a spell that would either warm or wake the teenager. She patted her quickly on the face. "Come on, come one. My friend Julie is going to go get help. My friend Julie is going to get a teacher, so we can get you back to the school. Please WAKE UP!"

In the stretched out hours, equaling to fifteen minutes, it took for Julie to come back with their Transfiguration teacher, Lydia had been unable to get a movement out of the girl. As they struggled to follow the fast-paced Professor McGonagall, who had created a magical stretcher on which to carry the teenager, Julie stripped out of her jacket and held it out to Lydia. "Did you know your shivering?"

"You'll be the one that's cold if you give it to me, Julie."

"What a little cold between friends?"

"We're friends?"

"Well I don't just go outside in the freezing morning of 7am for people I'm not friends with. Besides, some things you can't go through without becoming friends."

"Such as saving a complete stranger?"

"You don't know who she is?"

"Never seen her before."

"Weird. I wonder what happened to her."

"Dunno. I guess we'll find out when she wake up."

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the safest place to be in the Wizarding World; unless you are a secret. Although Julie Acers and Lydia Isle had kept their promise to Professor McGonagall by not saying a word to anyone about the girl (not that there was much to tell, as she was still asleep when the nurse and McGonagall had told them to head to breakfast and leave her to them), when they walked into the Great Hall, they were attacked at the entrance by one of their other roommates, Melinda Groves. Who said, right in the middle of a quiet conversation gap: "Is it true that the two of you found a dead girl on the grounds this morning?" Lydia went red as the entire Hall turned to them, and then cringed at Julie's honest response: "Professor McGonagall told us that we aren't allowed to talk about this morning to anyone." This had several consequences: First, the Hall became very loud with questions, rumors, and speculation revolving around the girl (who suddenly and unbeknownst to her, was dubbed Laura Kline by a second year Hufflepuff, although even he didn't know what house or year she was in). Second, the two first year girls experienced popularity for their first time; both girls found it strange and spent most of the time blushing with embarrassment at the attention. Third, I was drafted or dragged into a "mission" with Marlene McKinnon as my partner and Dorcas Meadowes as my immediate superior.

"Ladies, our mission is simple but possibly dangerous." Marlene caught my eye and looked upward convey the idea of "heaven-help-us-we-are-in-the-presence-of-a-mad-woman", to which I couldn't help but smile. Marlene, Dorcas, and I were roommates, along with Emmaline Ives and Chrysanthemum "Chrys" Tellor. Although I was close to all of them, I definitely got dragged unwillingly into situations most by Dorcas and with Marlene. "There is a mystery girl on campus, and our job as soldiers for truth is to discover everything there is to know about this girl and how she happened to have been found almost dead on the grounds. Any questions?"

Marlene waved her hand like a sarcastic raise. "When did we become "soldiers for truth"? Why can't you do this mission on your own? And do you realize that you got me up on a Saturday before noon?" Marlene had the annoying ability to never complain about getting up for classes during the week, but she'd hex you if you woke her up before noon on a Saturday. It only took two months worth of Saturdays for Dorcas (the Queen of Early Saturday Mornings) to learn how to dodge the attacks.

"I realize that it's Saturday and typically that means the soldiers for truth, which has been in existence since our first year, it just didn't have a name until now, are on holiday, but this is an emergency mission, which is why I had to get you up before noon. Besides, who needs to sleep until noon on a Saturday?" Marlene glared at her, inducing Dorcas to look at me for support. "Right, Lily?"

I bit my lip, hesitantly. I had just told them both yesterday that I was ahead in my schoolwork, and I really didn't have anything better to do, but… "Do we really have to Dorcas? I mean is it really any of our business?"

"Of course it is." She answered without hesitation, and Marlene's eyebrows shot up.

"Why? And don't say that it's because we are "soldiers for truth", because you just made that up."

"What if it has something to do with…him?" Dorcas' whisper didn't need further explanation to let us know that she was speaking about the most dangerous man in our generation. The muggle world had had Hitler and Nazis; ours had Lord Voldemort and his army of Death Eaters. The idea of "one supreme race" was ancient but far from dead; how many people have to be tortured and die for the sake of blood purity before genocide is eliminated? Everyone was afraid these days, even to speak his name; Muggle borns like me, Purebloods like Marlene, Halfbloods like Dorcas, and all sorts of magical creatures. We were safe while we were at Hogwarts, but this was our sixth year and I can't see him being removed from power before we leave. Especially since there are students that are being recruited for the army before they've graduated. Damn, Severus.

"Why do you say that?" Marlene looked more serious than before. The McKinnon family were purebloods, the kind of families Lord Voldemort wanted on his side and tried to sway, but he was never going to get McKinnon; Marlene laughed the last time one of the seventh year Slytherins had called her a blood traitor. And if memory serves, I think that James and Sirius pulled a prank of him later that week. The Potters were what was considered blood traitors, like the McKinnon, but Sirius was a Black and they had a history that aligned its beliefs with Lord Voldemort's. Even though Sirius was made a Gryffindor, I think there is still an expectation in his family that he become a Death Eater. Not that it will happen, Sirius and James are like brothers that share one brain. Both are trying to be a Aurors, which would pit them directly against Lord Voldemort. On the front line. Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach.

"I'm not saying that it does, I just want to know. I want to know what happened to that girl to make her like that. It's just odd for something like that to happen. I mean, have you ever heard of anyone dying at Hogwarts before?"

"Moaning Myrtle died here, and I don't think the girl actually died. I think that she just wouldn't wake up."

"If that first-year hadn't found her, she could have died."

"But that's just it, we don't know. We are speculating. As is all of campus. I want to know if she lived or died or if she's still asleep. Are you guys in? I am going to need help in order to move around teachers; they've been more hushed and worried about security than I've seen before."

"What do you need us to do?"

"Marlene, I want you to go find the girls and bring them in for questioning."

"It's going to be difficult to get their attention, since there the height of popular right now."

"I saw them earlier in a hall way going towards the library; they were surrounded by a crowd. They didn't seem to be all that comfortable with the attention. One of them was trying to drag the other and make an escape."

"Interesting tidbit, Lily. Maybe I'll try to grab them and take them to the kitchen? We won't be disturbed there, and then I can explain that I was trying to help them get out of an awkward situation."

"Buttering up a bunch of first-years in the kitchen; the Marauders would approve. Speaking of which, we have to keep the four of them out of the kitchen for the duration." Dorcas' and Marlene's eyes traveled to mine and I knew instantly what they were thinking.

"So help me, if you put me on James I will leave this room and never return."

Dorcas laughed at my dramatic response and said: "I would never put you on James, but if you could distract—"

"No! I haven't had a bad incident with James in these few weeks, and it's a record that I don't want to break." James Potter and I had an awful…relationship. We hit it off wrong when he insulted my ex-best-friend, Severus Snape, and even though I now think Severus is a git like everyone else, I still can't say that James was right by torturing him. Besides, it was annoying to have someone ask you out weekly. And he always had this irritating side-ways grin when he asked, like my answer was going to be different. Arrogant idiot.

"But you're so good at distracting them! And if James is there, Peter and Sirius will be—"

"Actually, Dorcas that might not work. If Lily is there to distract James, Sirius will probably leave, dragging Peter with him. Besides Dorcas, you are friends with all four of them and never really had a problem with them; it makes more sense for you to do it." Thank you Marlene! I beamed at Dorcas, who rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically.

"You're right; I'll have to postpone my matchmaking until after this mission." Dorcas had been convinced since we were thirteen that James and I were meant to be. Since she's the closest girl friend (a friend that's a girl, only) James has, she feels it's her duty to make me see the light.

"Has it ever occurred to you that you should give up, Dorcas? James and I are never going to be an item. Never ever." I would never date James Aaron Potter. Never.

"I might have Lily, but then you said the most surprising thing last year, and it made me believe in my vision of you and James together." She smiled brightly, and Marlene snorted at the love dove eyes she brought out.

"…You have me at a loss. What did I say to give you false hope?"

"It was almost a week after your fight with Snape, you came in the room and said: 'James just asked me if I would have liked him had he pretended to be innocent and well behaved rather than be himself, arrogance included. I think I just lied to him.'"

"I didn't say that!"

"Yes, you did! Ask Marlene!"

"I didn't say that, right?" Please say I didn't say that. It sounds mushy…

"I don't think that was word for word, but the gist was there. I remember because I had to ask you if you were talking about Potter. I've never heard you call him James before." I couldn't help a groan at Dorcas's smile. "Back to the mission, what is Lily doing if you are handling the Marauders?"

"She's going to take my job, I guess. Lucky duck, you get to be the field agent."

"Aren't we all field agents?"

"Not in the same way; Lily is going to the Hospital Wing to see the victim."

"Lily gets to see what is possibly a dead body, Christmas has come early you this year, girly."

Outside I just smiled, in my head was a revolt and for a split second it asked if it was too late to take the job of distracting James.