Cynthia was enjoying her free period in the Common Room one afternoon. She had a bit of homework to do, but decided to spend the free time she had reading a novel instead. She had a free period almost every day, so she shouldn't have a tough time getting her homework done. She had just settled into an armchair and began reading when Amelia came bursting through the door, gasping and very out of breath. "You have to come and she what they've done!" she exclaimed, beckoning vigorously. Cynthia got up and moved to follow her as she went back out of the Common Room.

"See what who's done?" Amelia was obviously very excited about something and Cynthia hoped it was worth missing her book over.

"Those boys! The Gryffindor boys!" Cynthia rolled her eyes. What had they done now? They were always causing trouble, the arrogant little berks. As a general rule, she found their antics annoying, her secret crush on Sirius notwithstanding. They finally reached the Grand Staircase and saw what was going on below. The room was full of large, multicolored bubbles bouncing around. They bounced off the walls, and off people's heads without popping and seemed to multiply when they hit something instead of disappearing.

"They're dead," Cynthia giggled. "McGonagall is going to kill them." It was mild compared to how irritating their pranks usually were. It was even a little bit cute. Cynthia reached out and tapped a bright blue bubble with her finger and watched five or six more branch off of it, filling the air with more bubbles.

"Look!" Amelia exclaimed, pointing down the stairwell. Severus Snape and his greasy group of Slytherins were climbing the stairs as well, and the bubbles weren't bouncing off of him- instead they were sticking to him! He was starting to look like nothing but a mass of colors. "Maybe that'll clean old Snivelly up!"

"Do you like them Snivelly?" they heard James Potter call from the level above them. "We've trained them to stick to grease!"

"They seem to be especially attracted to you!" shouted Sirius, snickering.

"Yeah," chimed Peter. "Cause you're so greasy!" Poor little Peter always needed to state the obvious and show off for his friends.

Snape tried to use his sleeve to rub some of the bubbles out of his eyes, and started firing curses up toward where the boys were standing. Cynthia and Amelia stepped back from the railing to avoid being hit, and when the curses started ricocheting off portraits and banisters withdrew back into the Common Room.

"Aren't they hilarious?" Amelia giggled.

"I guess so," Cynthia replied. She didn't particularly appreciate her reading being disturbed by this and wanted to get back to it.

Suddenly they heard shouting echoing through the corridors. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU COULD'VE KILLED HER YOU IDIOT!" It was Snivellus, shouting at one of his friends.

"What happened?" Amelia ran back toward the edge of the landing, peering down.

"Lily Evans," said Cynthia, pointing. Lily was lying at the bottom of a stairwell, unconscious. She must have been Stunned in the crossfire. But why did Snape care about that?

"Avery must've hit her with a Stunner while trying to hit the boys. I hope she's okay," gasped Amelia.

James ran down the steps and was crouched next to Lily on the landing. With a flick of his wand, he woke her up. She looked around a little confused, and realizing who was standing over her she shoved him away. He was trying to talk to her, but she just rolled her eyes at him and stood up. He was pointing down to Avery, shouting at her. She just shook her head, and stormed away.

"She sure has an iron will."Amelia said. "Any other girl would've melted for James Potter by now."

"I know, right?" Cynthia shook her head. "I think she's making a mistake. He'd do anything for her and he's a huge sweetheart. She should give him a chance."

"She's the most stubborn person I've ever met. She'll never give in," Amelia insisted.

Cynthia shrugged her shoulders. "Lets go," she said, turning away. "I have plenty of homework to do, I don't need to be wasting time on this."

"Can we do some work in the library?" asked Amelia. "I fancy a change of scenery."

"Sure," said Cynthia.

Once the girls had gone back to the dormitory and grabbed their books, they made their way toward the Hogwarts library. They settled down at one of the tables and opened up their books. Cynthia was working on a ridiculously long essay on the Unforgiveable Curses for Professor Valencia, and really needed to focus on it. Amelia on the other hand, was peeking over her books, tossing her hair around. She'd added blue streaks to it last night and was clearly using the library as a place to show it off. But for who? Cynthia looked around, and saw a couple of boys from their year at the next table.

"Who are you showing off for?" hissed Cynthia, irritated that her friend's antics were interrupting her studying.

"No one," lied Amelia, twisting her hair around her finger. The two colors swirled together like a candy cane.

"Don't lie to me!" Cynthia couldn't understand why her friend was trying to hide it. She was obviously fishing for someone's attention. "Is it Marcus Thorne?"

"No," Amelia shook her head furiously. "Of course not!"

"Benjy Donnel?" Cynthia continued prying.

"No."Amelia looked down at her work, still shaking her head. "Just let it go."

"Well," said Cynthia thoughtfully. "There's only one other boy over there. It has to be Xenophilius."

Amelia went pink. "No!"

But it was an obvious lie. "Oh so that's it, is it? Xenophilius Lovegood! I should've realized. He's the only one here that's as crazy as you." Cynthia laughed.

"He isn't crazy," insisted Amelia. "Just… interesting."

"Interesting, hmm?" Cynthia raised her eyebrows.

"Okay, okay, fine. I fancy Xenophilius. He's cute and smart and he says the most fascinating things. Do you know he's trying to duplicate the Diadem of Ravenclaw? How awesome is that?" Amelia gushed.

"Whatever you say, Amelia," Cynthia laughed.

"Just please don't tell the others. Especially not Kery!"

Cynthia promised that she'd keep her friend's crush a secret. She was even thinking of clueing Amelia in on her own crush, but eventually decided against it.

They caught up with the rest of the girls on the way back from History of Magic. "How was class?" asked Amelia.

"The worst," groaned Kerydwyn. "Binns is always dead boring."

"Yes well," laughed Victoria. "He is a ghost."

"Why even bother taking it for NEWTs? You can't focus in class, and you may as well have a free period!" Cynthia had dropped History of Magic because, even though she managed to do well thanks to her own personal study, she could never manage to listen in class and the whole thing seemed rather stupid to her.

"I want to work in the Ministry and I think it's a good idea to know about how our laws were made and such," said Kerydwyn.

"I'm taking everything that I could fit into my schedule," said Victoria.

"And Becky likes watching James Potter in class," laughed Kerydwyn.

"That's not why!" exclaimed Becky. "I want to be a Curse Breaker and I need to know as much as I can about the history of different places!"

"Suuure, Becky," laughed Victoria.

"That's actually really cool, Becky," said Cynthia. "I never knew that. "

Cynthia still hadn't decided exactly what she wanted to do when she left Hogwarts. Graduation was still two full years away, but the only thing she was especially good at was Divination. Not that she was a Seer, per se. She didn't get visions or make prophecies. She was better at Seeing through mediums like palmistry, tasseomancy and crystal gazing.

They all walked down to dinner together, and sat at the long Ravenclaw house table. Cynthia began serving herself food from the large platters in the middle. Her friends were still talking about their plans for after Hogwarts. Luckily they hadn't asked Cynthia what she was planning, and she didn't try to involve herself in the conversation. Instead, she was absentmindedly watching Sirius at the Gryffindor table. She always managed to find a seat facing their table, and in fact spent most of her time in the Great Hall watching Sirius and his friends. She could tell by the way they were acting tonight that they were in the middle of plotting something. Remus and James had leaned very close to one another and were looking down at something on the table. Sirius was shaking his head at something that Peter had said. His hair had tumbled into his eyes, and he flicked it casually out of the way like he always did.

"Cynthia?" Kerydwyn tapped her on the arm. "Did you hear me?"

"Huh? No. What?" Cynthia had lost track of her friends' conversation.

"Who do you think James is going to take?" Kerydwyn repeated.

"Take where?" Cynthia didn't have any idea what her friend could be talking about.

"To Slughorn's Christmas Party of course! Have you been listening to a word I've been saying?"

"Oh, no, I hadn't been. Sorry. I imagine he'll try to take Lily." Cynthia shrugged. What did she care who James took? She was far more concerned with Sirius' date.

"But of course she won't go with him," insisted Becky. "So he's going to have to ask someone else."

"Hoping he'll take you?" Amelia grinned.

"And who are you taking?" Victoria asked. Amelia had been in Slughorn's band of favorites since her second year when he started to realize what an amazing talent she had for inventing spells.

"I don't know." Amelia's eyes flashed to me, as though expecting me to give away her secret.

"Well, I'm just going to take someone I'm friends with," shrugged Victoria. With her brains and stunning beauty, Victoria had been invited into the Slug Club in her first year. "Sirius Black asked me this afternoon, but I told him no."

"You told him no!" gasped Becky. Obviously she couldn't understand how anyone wouldn't want a date with someone as handsome and popular as Sirius. Cynthia breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Victoria turned him down. Not that there was any chance that he would ask her, but she still didn't want to deal with him hanging around Victoria.

"Of course I told him no! He's annoying. I don't want to have anything to do with him." Victoria rolled her eyes.

The girls finished their dinner and headed back up to the Common Room. Amelia tried to get Cynthia to come back up to the library, but she really wanted to actually work on her essay instead of watching Amelia try to catch Xenophilius' eye the whole time. Working with Amelia in the Common Room was just as annoying. She spent the whole evening trying to look around Kerydwyn to see if he was coming through the door. Cynthia wound up going to bed early, since they had astronomy later that night and she liked to get a nap in before she had to go to class.