Teddy decided to ask for help at Christmas. After all, the assorted family friends that he saw every year at Uncle Harry's Christmas party probably covered a good ¾ of the different departments of the Ministry of Magic. So someone should've known something about Angela Leon and her problems, right?

It backfired fantastically. Instead of help, every time Teddy asked, he got a variant of "Aw, little Teddy's found a girlfriend!" Adults. Useless, the lot of them.


Angela's reappearance was so sudden and anticlimactic that Teddy could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw her simply wandering down platform 9 ¾ like nothing had ever happened. She was just…right there! Acting like nothing had ever happened and chatting with her roomates like she'd never dissapeared. Once they were on the train, Teddy lured her away from their gaggle of assorted friends with a few well placed chocolate frogs; wasn't too hard with her sweet tooth. And so began the questioning.

"It's a clan thing." Angela admitted as she scarfed down a handful of Aunt Ginny's homemade fudge. "Super secret clan stuff THAT YOU CAN'T TELL ANYONE!" Teddy nodded, though he wasn't intimidated by the condition. They'd already made a pinky promise, after all. He wouldn't dream of ever telling a soul under such an unbreakable oath.

"Basically, my witch clan is really evil and stupid and stuff. And they want me back! 'Cuz I'm super strong!" This was the Angela he knew, obnoxious and loud and somehow funny all the same. Not the quiet girl on the platform who shook her head and said that it wasn't possible.

"Maka and Kim are at Hogwarts to make sure that nothing happens to me. They're just really paranoid about letting people know what's up with my whacko clan. That's all." Somehow, Teddy doubted it was. They hadn't really covered the graffiti on the Slytherin wall, for example. But their carriage on the Hogwarts express was too comfy, and he was too happy that she wasn't mad at him to push the questions any further.

(And, even though he won't admit it, he was kinda sorta really terrified that if Angela told him anymore stuff, Ms. Albarn and Ms. Diehl would find out and beat him up or something)


What's the point of having a power you're ashamed of if you don't ever use it? If you're gonna say it's screwing up your life, might as well make it pay its rent, right?

It was three in the morning in the Slytherin common room. Again. Angela nodded to herself, taking a breath and placing her wand on a nearby table. Practice time then.

"Cama Lama Cama Chameleon. Invisibility!" The incantation had shortened a ton, which was the best news she'd had all week. It wasn't like she could choose how long it was, when calling on the magic in her soul the words came without any effort of her own. Fewer words meant that she was getting better, no questions asked.

And just like that, when she opened her eyes (both of them at once!) there was no sign that a girl known as Angela had ever occupied that space. Nothing. She glanced to the mirror. No reflection. And certainly no right hand. It meant victory.

It meant that she wasn't a total failure.

It meant that her wavelength hadn't really stabilized. Maka had lied.


"It's really pathetic how close you two are to failing History. We're in first year! What are you going to do next year? And the year after?"

Angela and Garnet didn't miss a beat. "Keep copying from you." They chimed in chorus with identical grins. Brenna could only groan helplessly.

"Of course. What was I thinking?"

"You obviously weren't thinking at all." Angela pointed out as she looked over Brenna's notes on the Giant Divide of 567.

"Obviously." Agreed Garnet as she paraphrased the last portion of her roomate's essay and claimed it as her own. "You do realize that at least thirty percent of the school cheats off somebody else, right? Muggle school is so easy compared to this, the jump is just too hard!"

"Well, true." Brenna began, chewing on the end of her quill. "It makes sense though, think about it. A majority of the jobs in the magical community involve hiding it from the muggle community in some way. The survival of magic depends on us being able to out-think a muggle."

Angela and Garnet looked to each other.

"Yes." Drawled Brenna. "That means you two are in trouble."


January wasn't all that great a month. They got their midterm results back, and Teddy was disgusted to see that he had done pretty badly across the board. Transfiguration and Charms were the only classes where he could claim any pride. His Potions exam, on the other hand, had a note taped to the bottom that he should see some of the sixth or seventh years about some tutoring. The same was true for Herbology, although that note was a little more expected since even he'd been able to catch the sorry smile that Uncle Neville had been flashing him over break.

It worked out pretty well though. His roommate Hugo failed Transfiguration, so the git was suddenly a little more willing to trade his potions homework for a peak at Teddy's Transfiguration notes.

Angela's charms results were likewise dismal, though that might have had something to do with her missing the last week of review. Either way, they set up a similar exchange; her Herbology work for his Charms study guide.

The only odd one out was History of Magic. Teddy wasn't able to find a soul who passed.


Kim's healing wavelength washed over her like honey, leaving a sugary aftertaste in her mouth and a renewed bounce in her step. Angela felt like she could fly laps around the school towers! That was saying something, since flying scared the living daylights out of her nine days out of ten.

The medi-witch, however, didn't seem nearly as enthused as her patient. Actually, it looked kind of like she'd bitten down on a rotten lemon. Probably not a good sign. Angela decided it was best to get out of there as quickly as possible before she got some kind of lecture. As soon as Kim removed her hands, the brunette grabbed her cloak and went for the door.

"Angela?" Too late. "You remember what we said about practicing your magic, right?"

Oh crap.

"Yeah. Why?" Struggling to keep her face calm, Angela pulled her winter cloak over her shoulders and made to leave again. Kim stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm, holding the girl with more force than she appeared to have in her petite body. Plus, it kind of helped that Jackie was almost-but-not-quite glaring from her seat in the corner.

"The restorative powers in my wavelength are meant to counteract the destruction in yours, Angela. I can tell if there's a greater amplitude than normal." Rather blunt, wasn't it?

"Teen angst?" The girl offered, smiling faintly.

Kim's eyes softened, probably in pity. Gah, she didn't need pity. Only babies needed pity. But oh wow. Had Kim actually bought that?! "You're eleven, Angela, remember that."

"I feel older." And you know why, she wanted to add, but wouldn't. It'd just be redundant. A witch's soul was in a constant cycle of partial reincarnation. Spells were just the reclamation of memories from a previous life. Even now, the previous Chameleon Witches were there, lurking somewhere at the bottom of her soul.

She wasn't eleven.

"Same time next week, right?" This time, she managed to leave.


Angela got really weird packages. Weird, but cool. She claimed they were from her legal guardian, the one who traveled the world as a bodyguard and was stupid and loud and obnoxious, but an almost-decent guy all the same. (Her words, not his)

The guy managed to find and send the weirdest stuff though. One package was a bright pink water-bottle, the next an ancient helmet that looked suspiciously like it belonged in a museum. But there was one that really threw Teddy off. Kind of because it was such a random thing to send, but mostly because he figured it meant something to Angela, hell if he could figure out what.

It was a wanted poster featuring the portrait of a younger guy with a bridge through his nose and a predatory gleam in his grin. "Demon Chainsaw Giriko" said the poster. There was a stamp of red ink that looked rather like a skull off to the side, and an attached note that the wizard in training never got to read.

Angela didn't say much about it when asked; only that it meant the guy was dead. The fact that she seemed relieved about it brought way more questions than answers.


"So who can demonstrate for us, hmm?" Professor Ritter clomped down one aisle of desks, surveying the students who were in various stages of panic. Made sense, probably only half of them had bothered to do the required reading last night.

"Ms. Leon!" Teddy grinned and nudged her with an elbow. Angela nudged right back. Meanie, making fun of her for getting picked. "Let's see some needle transfiguration." Their professor boomed, too wide of a smile on her face.

Transfiguration incantations were hard, disgustingly so. You didn't just use one word to get whatever it was you wanted, the incantation varied depending on what you wanted the item to become. So when Professor Ritter said needle, Angela didn't think turn this into a needle, she thought turn this into something silver and pointy! Except not in English. Stupid old magic. Making her learn a whole 'nother language.

"Your needle is green, Ms. Leon. Would you like to fix that?"

"Huh?" Angela looked down, blinking herself out of a stupor. Oh crap it was green. Pretty bad, since the matchstick had been nowhere near green on the color wheel, and the silver of a needle wasn't any closer. Oops.

But the brunette couldn't resist one last mental stab at Transfiguration. Because honestly, when was she ever going to have to turn a match into a needle?


It was their third flying lesson of the year, the one where Madame Hooch let the first years fly off and she pulled in some of the staff to stand in as muggles who might happen to spot a careless witch or wizard on their broom. It was perfect, Teddy figured, for some free flying. He'd heard from the second years that as long as you stayed over the forbidden forest and high enough that Hogwarts was just a greenish yellow blur, then you were in the clear.

It was there that he dragged Angela despite her screams that it was way way too high for her. Pansy. He'd already shown off to his roommates, and now was the only chance he'd have to show her exactly why Ben Steiner was an idiot for not letting him on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. (He ignored her screams that she didn't care)

It was kinda cold up there.

So Teddy was halfway through a slothgrip-roll when his thoroughly numbed fingers simply forgot to hold onto his broom. The first year hung there for a moment, staring dumbly at Angela's look of utter horror before his knee gave out too and he was falling.

And suddenly, there was only the sound of the wind rushing by his ears and rapidly growing outline of the Forbidden Forest beneath him. He couldn't focus on anything but the single oh shit factor running through his brain at a billion kilometers an hour, screaming from the top of its lungs that he's gonna die die die die die die…! He was too young to go! There'd been so much he'd wanted to do and Granny Dromeda was going to be so heartbroken and he'd told himself he'd live for his parents and he was gonna die. Die. He didn't wanna-!

Something, or someone, grabbed him around the waist and yanked sharply.

…And he was slowing down?! At ever so painfully small a rate, he was slowing down. Slowing down. Oh what nice words. Nice lovely words. Teddy looked over his shoulder to maybe see who was saving him, and found only a very long pink…thing. Taffy?

No. Angela's tongue, (which, apparently, could not only lengthen to over a hundred meters, but could support the weight of a falling eleven year old and slow him to a stop) was the sole thing keeping him from being a splat on the Forbidden Forest. Which, like her random wandless magic was so wicked. And again like the wandless magic, left Angela speechless and in a foul mood.

She lowered him to the ground in the forbidden forest, touching down only a moment or so later. Watching her tongue unwrap itself and fold neatly back inside Angela's mouth was so freaky but so incredibly cool. For him. The brunette didn't look nearly as pleased.

"I'll explain later." She sighed as Madame Hooch swooped in to see what all the yelling was about. (Apparently he'd been screaming the whole way down) "Be in your common room after midnight, I'll find you."


The spell was quick and painless, for her anyway. The witch slumped back against the wall all the same, panting heavily. It was absurd how much power that had taken out of her. This needed to be fixed. There was still life in those bones. Somewhere, deep down, there was life. But the witch had barely the strength to return to her room. Not nearly enough to lay the killing blow. This would be enough. It had to.

Angela slept on.


She never did find him.

It made sense, since Teddy was pretty sure Angela didn't have an invisibility cloak, and after-hour security had been majorly tight lately. Hair a disheveled mess from sleeping on the couch and too tired to change it, the brunet shuffled down to breakfast and was greeted with the news that made Angela's absence all the more likely.

Caretaker Albarn had been attacked.

The Hufflepuff table was a real-life rumor mill, since they got along with every other house and so heard every angle on a story. By the end of breakfast, Teddy had heard everything from a Basilisk petrifaction to a Sempersompor curse to alien abduction. The bottom line was this; Caretaker Albarn was in the wizarding equivalent of a coma.

Teddy was still digesting this when Angela came dashing to his table, out of breath and hair in an even untidier mess than his. "Sorry!" She panted, gulping down his orange juice. "It's just, Maka, she-" Teddy put what he hoped was a comforting hand on her shoulder. (Cuz girls were suckers for touchy-feely 'hope you feel better' contact)

"I heard what happened. If someone I knew had been…" what's a good word for it? Was there a good word for it? "…attacked, I don't think I would've shown either." Tears he'd expected. A hug he'd hoped for. Confusion was what he got.

Slowly, as if they were new news to her, Angela mouthed the words back to herself. Teddy had the horrible feeling that he'd just broken horrible news to a girl who didn't need anything else on her plate. That, or she was upset enough that even the reminder of it sent her reeling.

"Maka caught me." The brunette finally mumbled. "She…" Something must've clicked, because suddenly the girl's eyes widened and she dashed from the Great Hall like Voldemort was on her heels.

Angela disappeared from class, again, for the last week before spring break.


And so the plot thickens...one chapter to go. Hrm. Wonder what's up with Maka. And seriously, I think I have a thing for hurting her. I've sliced her almost in two, broken her ribs, crushed her organs, and now put her in something like a coma for unclear reasons. Um...yeah. I love her when she's kickass! Really! I'll need to work on that :P

Anyway, muchos thanks goes to Ryo Hoshi for the review, and to everybody who has story alerted or favorited or just read this thing. Later~!