Chapter Three

We all gathered in the Great Hall, Lily on one side of me and Sirius Black on the other. Honestly, what was with all of this sitting beside me today? The Sorting took place, with the Sorting Hat singing a poetic and inspirational song about unity and strength and perseverance, and Professor Dumbledore reinforcing its words with his start-of-term speech.

The feast was splendid as usual, other than the fact that Sirius was very busy making googly-eyes with a pretty fifth-year girl who giggled like an idiot every time he winked or smiled at her, which he did more than was strictly necessary. I found myself eager to leave the Great Hall much sooner than I would have normally.

I was glad to get to the Gryffindor Common Room, with the familiar scarlet and gold decorations, a roaring fire in the hearth and the scattered, well-worn furniture, but the sight of our dormitory was even more welcome. Our trunks had been brought up, and Lucy, who had escaped some time during the feast, had obviously found her way quite well without me; she was asleep at the foot of my four-poster bed.

"I'm so happy to be back," Lily said with a sigh, flopping back onto her bed.

I was already stripping off my uniform; I was so excited to go to sleep that I didn't care if it was only half-eight. I pulled on my new pajamas; bright pink flannel pants and a white T-shirt smattered with hearts. "Me too," I replied, snuggling into the covers.

Lily turned over onto her belly to face me. I smiled at her; I loved girl-talk with Lily, and the Gryffindor dormitories were like a sleep-over every night. Before Lily could open her mouth to speak, however, Alice and Marlene burst into the room, looking distraught and excited simultaneously. Mary followed at a slower pace, looking pensive.

"Did you guys hear?" Marlene asked in a rushed sort of way, and I sat up in bed attentively.

Lily and I exchanged looks, both shaking our heads. "No," she said, "hear what?"

Alice came to kneel on the foot of my bed; "You know Sirius Black's kid brother, Regulus?" she said, and we nodded. "He's a Death Eater."

My mouth fell open and Lily sat up immediately. "How do you know?" she demanded.

"I heard him talking to Avery and a couple of other Slytherins. Avery's dad's a Death Eater; I wouldn't be surprised if he was too … who else was there?" Marlene asked Alice.

"Rabastan LeStrange, I think…his brother and his wife are Death Eaters; Evan Rosier … his dad is a Death Eater; that Travers guy, that Wilkes guy, Sna - ahem - one or two others." I felt sure she had been about to say Snape, but seemed to remember Lily and quickly decided against it.

"Are you sure?" I spluttered, "He's only, what, sixteen? If that?"

"I don't think You-Know-Who really cares how old he is, to be honest with you," Mary said.

"Also, Dirk Cresswell's older sister was killed two weeks ago," Alice said.

"And, Bertram Aubrey's parents went missing," Marlene added.

"And Dorcas Meadowes was attacked by Death Eaters last week; she killed two of them," Mary put in.

"Dorcas Meadowes?" I repeated, agape. Dorcas Meadowes was in the year above us, a Ravenclaw; tall, soft-spoken and extremely clever. She had helped me with Arithmancy a few times last year, and from my limited knowledge of her, she hardly seemed the type of person to kill another person, let alone two. "Is she alive?"

"As far as I know," Mary said. "I just heard a couple of her friends asking her brother on my way up here."

We sat together in silence. It was as if a massive storm cloud had settled overhead. This was the exact reason why I had been avoiding the Daily Prophet. My heart was pounding in my chest. Was Regulus Black really a Death Eater? And those other boys that had been with him, were they Death Eaters, too? Bertram's parents … poor boy … and Dirk Cresswell's sister … and Dorcas! What an amazing feat; to kill two Death Eaters and live to tell the tale. Incredible.

And even though I hadn't really taken stock of how many students were missing from the Great Hall during the feast, it was now all I could think of.

I wondered how many more of us would get news that family members had gone missing or been killed. Or how many more of us would have to defend ourselves in such a frightening manner. Or how many students would be withdrawn from Hogwarts because their parents thought it would be safer.

This year was going to be much more different than I had anticipated; this war was going to make adults of us, whether we liked it or not.

I didn't like it.


It stormed the entire weekend, which could be seen one of two ways; as shitty, since the only completely responsibility-free weekend of the school year had to be spent indoors while a thunderstorm raged and gale-force winds pummeled the castle, or as beneficial, since we could clean and organize our rooms and get prepared for the week to come.

I was of both minds. Lily and I spent Saturday morning emptying our trunks and organizing our areas of the room; text books stacked neatly in the cupboard of our nightstands, pajamas folded neatly in the drawer of the nightstands; clothes hung or folded in the wardrobes beside our beds. Our neuroticisms were one of the things that had made us friends, but I would have liked to spend some time outside.

Mary stayed in the room with us Saturday morning, but she did not clean; she read. She had acquired a rather large stack of various spellbooks; Curses and Counter-Curses, Practical Defensive Magic and its use Against the Dark Arts, and Self-Defensive Spellwork, along with the numerous Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks we had acquired over the years, were just some of the books piled into her trunk. While Lily and I organized, Mary was busy reading The Dark Arts Outsmarted. She read us a few particularly interesting passages, and offered to let us borrow one of the others, if we wanted. I helped myself to Self-Defensive Spellwork. Who knows, it might come in handy.

Marlene and Alice thought we were geeks and left to pursue more exciting activities.

On Saturday evening at dinner, we were all given an appointment time to meet with Professor McGonagall tomorrow and at one-fifteen on Sunday afternoon, I went to Professor McGonagall's office.

"Good afternoon, Miss Kavanagh," she said, as I closed the door.

"Good afternoon, Professor." I sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk.

"Well, Miss Kavanagh, you did extremely well on your OWLs, as I knew you would." I beamed, and Professor McGonagall crinkled her eyes at me. "Have you decided on a career path?" The last time we'd had a similar meeting, I hadn't had the faintest idea of what I wanted to be.

I shook my head. "I've narrowed it down to two, though," I said. "Either a Curse-Breaker with Gringotts or working with the Department of Mysteries."

Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows, as if she, too, were surprised I hadn't decided to become a Professor. "Well, good for you, Miss Kavanagh. I see no reason why either choice should not be possible. Now, you won't be allowed to continue with Astronomy or Divination, but would you like to continue with everything else?"

"Yes, please," I said.

"Alright. You may go, Coraline. You'll get your schedule tomorrow morning."

"Thank you, Professor." I left, and on my way back I encountered Remus on his way to meet with Professor McGonagall. If it had been only Remus, it wouldn't have been a problem, but as usual, Remus was accompanied by James, Sirius and Peter.

Don't notice me, don't notice me, don't notice me –

"Gherkin!" Sirius cried. I barely suppressed a groan, but I sighed as I straightened.

"Hey, Coraline," James said, approaching me. With a mischievous glint in his hazel eyes, he said, "You look like you're trying to avoid someone." I grinned sheepishly, blushing slightly, avoiding their eyes, and they laughed.

"Come on, Little Gherkin," Sirius said, throwing his arm over my shoulder. Flabbergasted, I quickly sidestepped before his arm could land; Sirius continued with his statement, not even phased; "We're not so bad."

"Guys," Remus said, "I've got to get to my meeting." And he took off at a brisk trot.

"We'll wait for you here, Moony!" Peter called after him.

James pushed a hand through his hair, making it look pleasantly windblown. "So, Coraline," he said, "Are you still up for helping us with Potions?"

"We wouldn't have gotten O's without you," Sirius added.

"You got O's?" I half-shrieked, incredulous, and they nodded, beaming. "Wow, good for you!" And me! I resisted the urge to jump up and down and clap my hands like a giddy little girl.

"So, you can still help us this year, right?" James asked, perhaps a little anxiously.

"Er...yes, sure." I tried to sound reluctant, but honestly, I couldn't resist stroking my ego with little successes such as these. I mean really, Sirius and James had barely been scraping A's before they sought my help. I was feeling a little bit conceited.

"Great! Thanks, Gherkin." Oh, Merlin that nickname is terrible.

"No problem," I murmured, and I made to step around them so that I might return to the Common Room. I hadn't seen Lily since she'd left for her meeting with Professor McGonagall … actually, I don't know why we hadn't gone together, seeing as our appointment times had been relatively close. No matter; I was eager to learn which subject she had chosen to drop out of; Astrology or History of Magic.

However, I was brought up short by James, who asked me, "What subjects are you taking this year?"

"Arithmancy, Potions, History of Magic, Charms, Ancient Runes, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Herbology."

Ticking them off on his fingers, Peter gaped. "That's … that's eight subjects!"

Yay, you can count! I thought maliciously, and immediately felt bad. "Yep," I replied.

"You're taking eight NEWTs?" Sirius said in a flat tone.

"Uh huh …"

"You're aware that NEWT stands for Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests?" James said.

"Yes …" I said, wondering what the point of this was.

"And you're taking eight of them?" Sirius repeated.

"Yes, yes! I'm taking eight subjects!"

"You're nerdier than I thought, Gherkin."

"I am not a nerd," I snapped. "And stop calling me that. My name is Coraline."

"I know what your name is," Sirius assured me. "I just prefer Gherkin."

"Well, I do not."

"Oh, you love it."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes at him before storming away. Stupid Sirius Black with his gorgeous smile and beautiful hair and his way of calling me that stupid nickname that made me not really mind it at all. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Laughing, Sirius called after me; "See you later, Gherkin!"


The rest of Sunday came and went without mishap, other than Lily having actually decided to drop History of Magic, much to my chagrin. Honestly, I almost cried when she told me, but when we received our timetables Monday morning, I was relieved to find that Mary had History of Magic with me, so I wouldn't be alone in the class. Marlene had had much the same reaction as James and Sirius had when she saw that Lily and I were taking eight NEWTs.

"Are you crazy?" She hissed at us over her bacon.

"We're just trying to keep our options open," Lily replied calmly, spooning a bit of cottage cheese into her mouth.

"You're going to kill yourselves in the process."

First thing Monday morning, we had History of Magic. Thank Merlin it wasn't a subject that required a lot of attention; I hadn't gotten a very good night's sleep last night. The news about Dorcas, Bertram and Dirk and the group of potential Hogwarts-student Death Eaters was just the tip of the iceberg compared to the numerous other rumors that were flying around Hogwarts, and with all of this speculation and intrigue and worry, a girl's bound to have nightmares every now and then.

As I had expected, our History of Magic class had dwindled severely in numbers. Those Hufflepuffs who had elected to continue in History of Magic had joined our class, but still there were only about fifteen people. What did surprise me, though, was the presence of James and Sirius in the class. He caught me staring at him once, and waved jovially, and I felt myself heat up. He grinned. My face went aflame. Really, Coraline, control yourself. I hunched over my desk, diligently taking notes to distract myself.

"Coraline," Mary whispered in my ear, "Sirius Black is staring at you." And sure enough, when I looked round, he actually I raised my eyebrows at him the second time I saw him staring, he had the audacity to wink at me. I rolled my eyes at him; how dare he, honestly? – but my insides were fluttering and I had to wrestle a smile back into an impassive line.

Needless to say, I didn't absorb much of that first History of Magic lesson. Luckily, Professor Binns didn't assign any homework. Unfortunately, he was the only Professor who neglected to do so. Double Transfiguration followed History of Magic, Professor McGonagall told us she expected us to have a particularly difficult bit of Transfiguration (turning an inanimate object into an animal and back) mastered by our next class on Wednesday, as well as twelve inches of parchment written on the theory and practical uses of the charm.

After lunch, Lily and I had Ancient Runes. We had been required to purchase a very large workbook as well as our new textbook for Ancient Runes, and Professor Borsa demanded that the entire first chapter (roughly one hundred and fifty complex translations) be finished for our class on Friday.

Double Herbology finished the day, and the class consisted of me very nearly killing a juvenile Devil's Snare attempting to escape as it wrapped itself around my wrists, effectively handcuffing me. I managed to feed and repot the damn thing, but upon seeing the sorry state I left the poor little Devil's Snare, Professor Adiantum demanded that I nurse the plant back to health, on top of completing the twelve inches of parchment he assigned on the medicinal properties of the Devil's Snare's sebum for Wednesday. He didn't seem to care that the slender little vines had rubbed my wrists so raw they almost bled.

Lily offered to carry my bag while I ported the Devil's Snare back to our dormitory at arm's length, frowning at it the entire time. She did not rub it in my face that all I'd needed to do was stop my struggling and the plant would have released me. I appreciated her sensitivity.

Resentfully, I stowed the Devil's Snare in the drawer of my nightstand, and gave Lucy a firm lecture to avoid it; I didn't know if it could escape, and I certainly didn't want it strangling my cat if it could. Lucy eyed me lazily from where she lay, tail switching, on my pillows. She could not have made it plainer that she did not care one scrap for anything I said, whether it was in her best interest or not.

Lily and I ate dinner slowly; I was so tired after our first day of classes that I didn't feel all that hungry. I pushed my mashed potatoes around on my golden plate until Lily suggested we go to the library. "I have no idea how to take care of a Devil's Snare," I pouted, resting my chin on the stack of books we had accumulated and giving Lily my saddest eyes.

Thankfully, by the end of the evening, with Alice's help (she was an adept at Herbology), we knew everything there was to know about Devil's Snare, had finished our essays and I had taken notes on how to prepare a nourishing potion to revive the little plant in my bed side table.

I fell asleep on top of my Ancient Runes workbook, praying that tomorrow would be easier.

It was not.


A/N : THANK YOU TO ISLINGTONANGEL, MY FIRST REVIEWER! Yay! I'm really glad you like it so far. If there's anything you think I ought to change, please let me know! I wouldn't want to let you down. ^_^

Anyway, I hope all of you who AREN'T reviewing are enjoying this story nonetheless. Review! Thanks for reading!

xx.