I feel much more loved this time. Thanks for all the opinions, guys. This is personally my favorite chapter out of all of those written so far. Hope you enjoy it as much.

"Weather is a great metaphor for life - sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and there's nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella."

~Terri Guillemets

Chapter 3: When it Rains, it Pours

I don't know who invented the Alarm Spell, but I have a very passionate hatred for him. Or you know what, that sounds like the kind of thing a woman would come up with.

Anyway, Dorcas seemed to think it was a fantastic idea, and so she set one to go off the next day. At five bloody thirty in the morning.

It was not a good start to my day.

On top of the screeching sound of the alarm (the muggle kind are so much easier on the ears), I couldn't find my favorite shoes and had to wear heels. I mean, I like heels, but they're very impractical for walking around school all day.

I frowned as my shoes clicked and clacked down the stairs the whole way to breakfast, and I just had a bad feeling about the day. I was a little worried about what kind of calamity might occur in the Great Hall. After all, the first day back was a notorious Marauder prank day. I surveyed the room hesitantly from the corridor, craning my neck to see if anything looked amiss. Everything looked pretty normal, and no one seemed to be screaming, so I took the chance and stepped into the Hall.

And I was immediately drenched.

I looked up at the doorframe and saw that a small storm cloud had formed over my head. Blinking the water out of my eyes, I headed to a seat next to Remus at the Gryffindor table. The first thing I did before I sat down was pull out my wand and point it at myself. "Impervius!" I muttered darkly. I felt the difference immediately; instead of soaking up the water like a dry sponge, I was repelling it. I still had the problem of a cloud following me around (I would never boost their egos by telling them so, but it really was a brilliant bit of magic), but I was no longer dealing with a constant deluge.

"Hilarious, Potter," I deadpanned at the smirking boy. "Just for the record, I usually prefer to at least get through breakfast before coming face to face with the weather."

"Hey," Black said from beside him, apparently offended. "How come you're so sure it was Prongs' idea?"

I rolled my eyes. "Your ideas tend to be more permanent and less friendly. And you almost always target Slytherin specifically."

He pondered my reasoning for a minute before he shrugged and said, "Fair enough," before stuffing almost an entire piece of toast in his mouth.

I wrinkled my nose in distaste and turned to Remus. "How do I get this thing to go away?" It was still raining all around me, and I noticed that a lot of people throughout the room were dealing with the same problem.

"Sorry. I'm not allowed to tell you." After Remus had told me the counter-spell for last year's first day prank, the boys were very careful to specify that he wasn't allowed to help me in any way, shape, or form.

Brushing the puddle in front of me onto the floor, I thought about what might end the spell. I tried, "Finite Incantatem!" but nothing happened, and I was still being rained upon.

It occurred to me that I had seen magic like this before, but I couldn't remember where or when.

And then it hit me. "Meteolojinx Recanto!" I exclaimed, pleased to see the cloud overhead dissipate as I did. I said a quick drying charm and happily spooned some eggs onto my plate.

Potter was gaping at me. "Wha- how did you..." he trailed off, horrified that I had so easily defeated their innovative spell.

I laughed at the blatant confusion on his face. "My dad works for Magical Maintenance at the Ministry, and they have problems with the Atmospheric Spells all the time."

They obviously hadn't considered that, because all four of them were looking at me as if I was suddenly speaking Latin.

Shaking my head, I turned to look around the Hall. It was fuller now, and each table had a collection of storm clouds hovering over it. Many students were waving their wands in desperate attempts to make them go away, several sixth and seventh years had conjured umbrellas, and a very few students had simply settled in to breakfast and done their best to ignore their sodden robes and books. I appeared to be the only student successful in performing an effective counter-spell. That was certainly a first for me.

A sobbing first-year walked past me, and I took pity on him, muttering, "Meteolojinx Recanto," under my breath.

"Hey!" Potter said, looking rather affronted. "That's against the rules!"

"Potter, as I am not a Marauder, I don't believe your rules apply to me. Besides, when is it ever good fun to make a first-year cry?"

"She's got a fair point, mate," Black told him, although he didn't look too pleased with me either.

The Head Table was free of weather oddities, and Dumbledore was looking on with some amusement as students came up with all kinds of unsuccessful methods of removing their own clouds.

I heard a series of high-pitched shrieks at the door, and turned to see that my three best mates had walked completely unsuspecting through the door and slipped in the growing puddle there. Lily stood up first and stormed over to us with a full-blown glare on her face.

"Potter!" she growled. "What did you do?"

He shrunk away from her slightly, gulping in a very comical fashion. "Umm..."

"It's a joke, Evans," Black drawled. "Lighten up."

She turned her venomous gaze on him and said tightly, "Does it look like I'm laughing?"

He raised his hands in surrender, leaving his friend to deal with her. They seemed to have an unspoken code of leaving girl problems personal. When it came to Lily, I couldn't much blame them for it.

"Potter!" she said, turning back to the boy who was now running his hands nervously through his hair. "If Remus helped Ashlynn, then you can most certainly help me!"

"Don't even think about it," Black muttered in Potter's ear. His eyes were looking directly at me, as if daring me to say something.

Poor, clueless, little Pettigrew spoke up and told Lily, "But Moony didn't help her. She figured it out herself."

I found myself swallowing, hard, as Lily's steely glare slowly turned in my direction.

"Ashlynn!" she screeched, her voice rising shrilly. "Do something about this."

I was tempted to let her suffer a little longer, especially since I'd had no help myself, but she was now brandishing her wand in anger and I'd seen enough of Lily's hexes to know that I didn't want to be on the receiving end of one of them.

The boys were all watching me expectantly, but I reminded them quickly, "Your rules don't apply," and then pointed my wand at Lily. "Meteolojinx Recanto!"

She sat down with a squelch, her eyes still narrowed at us. I noticed that she intentionally kept a bit of space between herself and Potter.

"So is everyone ready for classes?" I asked, trying to diffuse some of the tension.

It didn't work. I got a few shrugs and one word answers, but otherwise everyone was silent. Lily's outburst seemed to have drained all of the fun from the joke; they weren't even laughing anymore when students screamed or slipped.

With a sigh, Remus raised his wand and muttered a series of words I couldn't understand under his breath. The clouds overhead immediately began to diminish, and people around the Hall were cheering.

I'm sure you've heard the saying that misery loves company, but from my experience, it's not true. It didn't make me feel any better to see that the Marauders were having a bad day too. If anything, it made it worse.

I stabbed viciously at the eggs on my plate, no longer hungry. I barely even blinked as a piece of parchment appeared in front of me - my schedule.

I looked over it dully and discovered that my day truly could get worse. My first class: double potions.

How bloody fantastic.

A/N:

I hope you recognize my little counterspell. If you don't, you might want to check out the seventh book. You might have missed something kind of important if you didn't read it. And now, after I get some love, you'll get chapter four!