A/N: Hey guys, I'm really sorry this is so late but I've been at work most of the time. We love to read the reviews you guys send, keep it up. There will be a plot at some point, but seeing as we added all new characters we kinda have to get them properly integrated into the story.

Disclaimer: We don't own Harry Potter and characters, if we did we'd be rich women, just like the wonderful Mrs. Rowling. We own Steph, Sarah, Patrick and Sebastien, and I stole Demona off of my sister, with her permission of course.

Now, onto the story

Chapter 8

Underneath the bandana was a head of bright green hair. "Blaise Zabini!"

He stared up at her with innocent lavender eyes. She did the counter curse to her spell but quickly tied him up with ropes that snaked out of the end of her wand.

"Where did you learn all these spells?" asked Harry, he was flabbergasted by the extent of her knowledge.

"When you have an overprotective dad like mine, you get placed in every self defense class available, muggle and otherwise." She explained as if it was a normal occurrence. She turned back to face Blaise who was now leaning against the wall. "Now, will you please explain what the fuck you're doing here, how you found it and how you got in." she glared. "or I hang you upside down by our feet until your face turns purple."

"I followed Potter." He admitted slowly.

"Why would you follow me?" asked Harry, "you hate me."

"Which is why I followed you." He looked at their confused expressions and continued. "You're always breaking the rules, but you never get caught. It's really annoying, so I decided that if I caught you doing something illegal, I could report you and finally get you in trouble. Maybe even collect a few points for Slytherin and impress Stephanie."

Steph's eyes widened at his last comment. "Why would you want to do that?" she asked.

"Cuz you're special, I can tell. You don't take shit from anybody, not even Draco, who basically rules the common room. You showed him up without even trying. And what you told him about earning respect made me feel like I had to do the same." He finished. 'She's falling for it' he thought to himself. 'She's eating up every word I say'.

"I guess I can believe that…" said Steph skeptically. 'He's hiding something, I can tell.' "Well Sarah," she continued out loud. "Looks like our secret room is out."

"Yeah, but I kinda don't want to share it with anyone new right now, no offense guys." She said to the two.

"None taken," replied Harry "we didn't exactly do anything to deserve an invitation to stay." Blaise nodded his agreement.

"Well you guys can hang out until lunch is over if you want, but then you'll have to pretend that this room doesn't exist." Offered Steph.

"We'd love to," Blaise replied quickly, he could use this time to make his move. He was confident that he would have Steph all to himself soon enough. Draco would be so jealous, it was so obvious that she intrigued him.

Patrick and Sebastien had joined them about 10 minutes later.

"Hey guys," smiled Steph, "you two missed a pretty exciting time."

"Yeah," laughed Sarah, "two 'stalkers' in as few as two minutes."

"Stalkers?" asked Sebastien, "I don't get it."

"Did they hurt you guys?" demanded Patrick, dropping his bag on the floor and rolling up his sleeves.

"No no, don't worry," Steph replied, putting her hands up for emphasis. "It was just a misunderstanding. We'd like you to meet some of our new friends, Harry Potter of Gryffindor…"

"Hi, nice to meet you," he said.

"Same here."

"Ditto." Finished Patrick.

"And Blaise Zabini of Slytherin."

"Pleasure" he said, bowing his head slightly.

"I've seen you around school, love the hair," answered Sebastien.

"My parents would have killed me!" exclaimed Patrick with wide eyes.

The small group laughed at Patrick's naivety. Soon they were discussing their first day of school.

"There's a girl in my class who's really ditzy," Sebastien was saying. "She's so blonde it's almost funny, but she's really nice, we partnered up, and aside from her attitude, she's actually kind of smart. She wants to be a singer when she's older."

"Ooh…" mocked Steph, "sounds like you're in loooove." Sarah laughed at the deep blush that was quickly covering his face.

"Oh come on you guys." He complained, "I just met her, I don't even know her."

"Aww…" cooed Sarah, "love at first sight. That's so romantic." More laughing followed.

"Well I got stuck with a mental link to Malfoy." Steph said and received an array of sympathetic murmurs. "Let's just say it was a total nightmare. I don't know where he hides his brain. His ego is so big he couldn't possibly have room for it in his head." She glanced at her watch and quickly jumped out of her seat. "Shit we got class in five minutes!"

"What," Yelled Harry, "We'll never make it!"

"We'll have to summon our books." Suggested Blaise.

"Good idea," Piped up Sarah. They all summoned their books. They should have taken turns because all the books flew in through the window together and collided, dropping into a pile on the floor. Quickly gathering up their books they all dashed out the door.

They rushed off in different directions. Steph and Blaise were just running up to greenhouse #3 when the bells chimed. They stopped before walking in to catch their breath. Blaise walked in slightly behind Steph, he watched for Draco's reaction to seeing them together. He saw the frown cross over his face and smiled at him victoriously. Draco gave him the finger then began furiously writing on a piece of paper. He folded it and used wingardium leviosa to make it float over to Steph. She took it and pocketed it.

Walking in after Harry, Sarah sat down in the back of the classroom. Giving Sarah a curious look as Ron and Hermione dragged him over to sit in between them Harry wondered why she wouldn't sit any closer to him. Feeling somewhat disappointed, yet not knowing why he had such a reaction, Harry tuned both Hermione and Ron out as Professor McGonagall entered the classroom.

Head resting n the palm of her right hand, Sarah idly listened to the professor explain how to turn the silver bowl in front of them into a bouquet of flowers. Pulling out her wand as she sat up straight, Sarah ignored the chubby girl who was babbling next to her as she pointed her wand towards the object placed before her. With the flick of her wrist, she grinned triumphantly as her bowl turned into a rather large assortment of red and white roses tied together by a black silk ribbon.

"Well done Ms. Lachance, ten points to Gryffindor." Congratulated McGonagall as she eyed the beautifully bloomed roses on the desk in front of her before walking around to the other desks.

"Thank you." Sarah replied in an almost whispered tone. 'Well that was easy, learnt how to do that last summer.' She thought to herself. Feeling a pair of eyes watching her, Sarah looked towards the front of the class to catch Hermione's glare. Smirking as she noticed the drooping daisies that Hermione was holding. Raising an eyebrow inquisitively, Sarah was about to make a snide remark when Professor McGonagall started to dismiss students who had completed their assignment. Gathering her belongings, she placed her unopened textbooks, pieces of parchment and her ink bottle into her bag. Getting up, she silently let herself out of the classroom while sticking her quill in her hair. Muttering just loud enough for Hermione to hear it, she said, "Take a picture next time, it'll last longer." Smiling innocently as she earned herself another glare, Sarah deposited her roses in front of Hermione and left.

'Learn from examples Granger. You're going down whether you like it or not, seeing how you have no say in the matter after all…' Recalling the stories Michael had told her during Herbology, Sarah was told that Hermione was a know it all and was considered the top student at Hogwarts. 'Not while I'm here, and I'm sure Steph will help me out. Witchy bitch needs to learn her place.' Smirking, she headed towards the Gryffindor common room to gather her books for her next class, before heading to the Dragon room to hopefully meet up with Stephanie.

"Damn I need to talk to her. Hermione is driving me crazy!" she mumbled. Flopping down onto her bed, she muffled her scream of frustration into her pillow. Grabbing what she needed, she got out of the tower and headed towards the Dragon room while wondering what she should do about the nosy little witchy bitch that was posing as a problem for her.

Back in Herbology, Steph was sitting down and reading Draco's note. She had managed to shake Blaise off for a bit. He was nice, but really clingy. The note was short, she could tell it was rushed.

Steph,

I'm sorry about earlier. I was a real jerk. I went looking for you to apologize but I couldn't find you. Will you be my partner for this class? I promise to participate. Let me know.

Draco

She figured that he was trying to play her for a fool, sucking up to get something in return later. But knowing that, she had the upper hand. She figured let him do his thing, but don't fall for any of it. She wrote back on the same paper.

Whatever, as long as it's not already assigned.

Steph

She floated it over to him. He pulled it out of the air just as Professor Sprout walked in. She was slightly disheveled and looked exhausted.

"Sorry I'm late class," she explained breathlessly, "I had to fight with my venus tentacula. He's hit puberty you see." The class laughed a little at her insinuation. "Now then, how many students are we?" she counted the heads of the students. "Twenty-one? Ok, then I want seven groups of three. You have five minutes to pair up, at the end of which I will put the remaining students into random groups. Go, go!" she shooed them into motion.

Draco caught Stephanie's eye and walked over to her. She nodded, signifying she knew what he wanted. He sat next to her at a workstation and they waited for the five minutes to pass. Blaise fought his way through a flock of girls and made his way to Steph. He stopped shortly when he noticed Malfoy sitting next to her, his pause was enough to lose sight of both of them behind a crowd of seventh year Slytherin and Ravenclaw girls. Luckily that friend of hers, Sebastien or whatever, already had two partners, other wise his plans would be set back. He pushed through the crowd again and walked up next to them.

"Hey guys, mind if I join you?" he asked, resting his hands onto the table in front of Steph.

Draco glared at him. "Why don't you ask one of your hoes to go with you?" re replied icily. "They all seem so anxious to be your partner."

"He's right, there's an entire crowd of girls who seem to be dying to work with you." Steph pointed out.

"Well usually I would, but I don't do so well in Herbology and I want to work with partners that will actually do their work and could possibly explain it to me in a way that may help me pass." He gave Steph such an innocent puppy dog stare that she felt she was being played for a fool, but she agreed anyway, to many protests from Malfoy.

Thanks to expert control from Steph, no fight broke loose between the two males, mainly because she had muttered "Silencio" to them. It was a pleasantly quiet class and the dagger glares they sent each other were ignored.

The rest of the week passed in much the same way. Sarah continued having problems with Hermione, while Harry and she became good friends, Steph was stuck with Draco acting like an ass one minute and trying, emphasize the word trying, to be her friend the next, and Blaise was sticking to her like glue.

It was Friday afternoon, and the tension of the upcoming quidditch tryouts was intense. Sarah and Steph were in their advanced defense against the dark arts class. Professor Lupin had returned at the request of professor Dumbledore and under the assurance that only students with parental permission would be in his class. The two had immediately signed up for the class, Stephanie wanted to become an auror, and Sarah wasn't sure yet where she was going, but the dark arts fascinated her. After this class, they shared DADA with the rest of the Gryffindors and Slytherins. Although it was Friday and the weekend was hours away, they were a little stressed. They'd been stuck in double potions all morning also, they used the stress they were under to increase their performance in class.

By the end, they had each amassed a great deal of points for their houses. The class was composed of an obstacle course where they faced a variety of dark creatures after a short study session to teach themselves how to stop each creature. It was a test to make they were advanced enough to remain in the class. Only two boys were asked to see Professor Dumbledore about a course change. When the bell rang, the two girls remained in the class, as they had the same teacher next.

The rest of the class strolled in, Steph quickly told Sarah to be her partner in case they were paired up. She didn't want another fight. Sarah agreed and laughed at her predicament.

"You're always in the middle of at least two guys. They must like your attitude or something." Sarah laughed.

"Oh shut up," Steph complained, "you always make an enemy for every friend. At least I don't have any enemies yet."

"Ooooh… that was low…" she mocked, acting hurt. She broke into a grin and they laughed at each other and themselves.

The class passed quickly; near the end they had a question and answer session. The questions were mostly answered by Sarah, Steph, Harry, Draco and Hermione. Near the bell time, Lupin was asking the difficult questions, and only Steph and Hermione were left answering, it became a showdown to see who would get the most right. Lupin had to call a truce when the bell rang and awarded them both 20 house points.

The students rushed out of the classroom, Sarah and Steph were laughing. They planned on meeting in the dragon room after they had dropped off their bags.

Once in their shared common room, Sarah burst out laughing. "Did you see the face on that bitch?" she chocked out between fits of laughter. "She was in shock! You answered her question for question! I don't think she's ever been second best like that before."

"I wasn't trying to beat her, I just knew the answers. Now stop yappin', get your broom and let's go kick people off the quidditch teams with our Canadian flying. Cuz once you fly in Canadian weather, no one can beat you." She winked, laughing.

Sarah nodded her head, "true true, with all the shit we go through, this should be a breeze." She teased. They both grabbed what they needed and set off for the pitch.

Sarah and Steph realized they were a little early for the tryouts, they were the only ones on the pitch.

"Feel like practicing a little?" asked Sarah as she leaned against the hilt of her broom.

"Why not. Just try not to show off too much, people don't like show offs."

"Ok, ok, I'll tone it down a little," she smirked evilly, "ever been to the beach?" she asked.

"A few times, why?" Steph answered.

"Can you surf?"

"Sure, it's easy, haven't tried doing tricks yet, but I can stay on the board. What are you getting at?"

"Nothing," grinned Sarah, she ordered her broom to hover a little off the ground. She stood on the handle and controlled it skillfully as if she was surfing on air. As she rose higher, Steph hopped onto her own broom and followed Sarah.

"You going to be okay without a spotter?" she asked, "I wanna go practice some seeker moves."

"Go right ahead, I do this at home all the time" explained Sarah.

"Oh yeah… ok then, be careful anyway."

"I will," assured Sarah. She was now trying to do a handstand on the broom. "Those years of gymnastics weren't wasted," she grinned.

Steph looked back and laughed, then turned back to focusing on perfecting her favorite seeker move, the Wronski Feint. She climbed as high as she thought necessary and dove suddenly in an impossibly steep fall. To any unaware spectators, it would have seemed as if she would crash head first into the ground below. Viktor Krum was the only known professional seeker to be able to perform the feint perfectly, and after 3 years of practicing, her technique was finally flawless, and being skinnier and more agile then Krum, she was able to pull out even closer to the ground, she told herself it was a good thing to know in case the snitch actually decided to fly that low.

After another perfect dive, she checked her watch and saw that there were 5 minutes until try-outs. She turned to call to Sarah who was busy trying various turns and flips in the air.

"Sarah! Time to land, try-outs are in a minute."

"Okie Dokie!" she answered cheerfully, "I'll race you!" she called as she dove.

Steph dove after her and easily won the race, she wasn't a seeker for nothing.

"Poop on you, you cheated" Sarah complained.

"You were closer to the ground then I was!" Steph shot back.

"So? You… you smell bad!" she said, thinking of random insults, trying to win.

"I smell like raspberries Sarah… just give it up." Sarah stuck out her tongue, just to have Steph mimic her.

"Alright Quidditch player wannabes," called Madame Hooch." Line up according to house in front of your appropriate Quidditch team." There was a quick scrambling as everyone tried to catch the front of the lines.

There was a tryout for every position, but the most popular ones were for keeper and chaser. Sarah was up next for the beater tryout.

Since Fred and George had both walked (or rather flew) out of the school in the 5th year, the Gryffindor team had been in desperate need for a good beater.

"I will release one bludger into the air, you will fly around and protect 2 members of the team by hitting the bludger towards any of those targets over there." explained Madame Hooch, pointing to moving targets the size of 17 year olds. "You will have 5 minutes. Mount your brooms… on my whistle then TWEET

Sarah gripped her beater club tightly as she kicked off the ground. Seeing as Harry and Ron were the only Gryffindor team members left from the previous year, she had to protect them from the bludger. She swerved in and out, over and under, hitting the bludger towards the targets for a dead on hit each time.

Madame Hooch blew her whistle to signal the end of the 5 minutes. Sarah knocked the bludger towards the box and it fit nicely into its holding space. A nearby student quickly snapped into place.

"Now then, seekers please. You will compete against each other, 2 at a time." explained Madame Hooch. "There will be a number of other players on the field to see how well you can maneuver around people. We're lucky to have an even number of seeker tryouts, the first two then please." She called. Two seekers mounted their brooms and floated towards Madame Hooch. She blew her whistle and they flew into the air. She released the snitch moments later. The players flew around in random patterns while the seekers flew around in search of the miniscule snitch.

About ten minutes later a seeker shot off to the right, the second seeker following suit. Steph's trained eyes had already noticed the fleck of gold in the sky. She watched as the first seeker closed in, stretching out his hand in an attempt to wrap his fingers around the ball. The whistle blew as soon and he had the snitch secure in his hands.

Now it was Steph's turn, her heart was pounding with the increase of adrenaline. She mounted her broom and tensed her legs for the whistle. About three minutes into it, Steph noticed the snitch, but she was having too much fun, she didn't want to have to stop flying yet, but she didn't want the other seeker to see it, so she dove suddenly and shot off to the ground.

She'd use the Wronski Feint to distract the other seeker for this time. Sure enough, the other seeker dove after her, believing her to be chasing the snitch. A collective gasp rose up from the crowd as it seemed they would both crash into the ground. At the very last possible second, Steph pulled out suddenly, the other seeker pulled out just enough to minimize injury as he plowed into the ground. Steph sped back up, her broom obeying her every whim. She swooped in and out of the players and twisted around the goal post to catch the snitch easily.

She then floated to the ground and went to check on the other seeker to make sure he was alright. Once assured of his condition, she handed the snitch to Madame Hooch and went to sit next to Sarah in the stands. The next tryout took another 15 minutes before a Ravenclaw boy caught the snitch.

"Well done students, that was a great tryout" yelled Madame Hooch over the noise of the small crowd. "I will give envelopes with the results to each student who tried out, you will either receive a "sorry, you didn't make it", "You made the team" or "please challenge current." If you have received the latter, report back here at 10 tomorrow morning to challenge the student in the position you want, the winner plays on the team."

She looked around at the students as envelops appeared in front of them "Enjoy your Friday, I will inform the team captains of the situations with their teams. So keep cool and stay out of trouble." Her pale yellow eyes gleamed.

The students tore open their envelopes, and soon the dusk light mingled with disappointed moans and ecstatic cheers from the stands. Sarah jumped out of her seat, she'd just been named the new Gryffindor beater. Steph on the other hand wasn't as happy.

"What's wrong Steph? Didn't get in?" asked Sarah.

"Well, yes and no, I have to come back tomorrow to challenge the current Slytherin seeker." She explained as she crumpled the paper and lit it on fire with a prod from her wand.

"Oh, you'll beat them for sure. Don't worry. When you did that Werki or Worsky… or whatever, Hooch was is shock. And I heard the seeker isn't all that good, had the snitch right next to his ear and never even saw it."

"I know who the seeker is, that's the problem. It's Malfoy," she groaned.

"You mean that really hot guy who bugs you?" asked Sarah.

"Yeah, just when we call a small truce, I have to kick him off his team," she smirked. "Guess it's back to square one."

"Don't worry about it, if he gets mad cuz he doesn't want to be beaten by anyone, then he's egocentric, if he gets mad cuz he was beaten by a girl, then he's just jealous," winked Sarah. "Now come on, let's sneak into Hogsmeade for a butterbeer for our victory," she grinned.

"But we don't even know if I'm on the team yet…"

"You will be on the team, you're the best seeker I know," encouraged Sarah, "and if you dare lose on purpose just to make him feel better, then I will spread so many rumours about…" she warned.

"Ok ok, I won't try to lose. Now lets get going before it gets dark." She started to walk to the castle when she stopped suddenly, making Sarah crash into her.

"Hey! Watch it!" she complained as she caught her balance.

"I just remembered," thought Stephanie out loud. "We don't know how to get to Hogsmeade…"

"Yeah, you're right" Sarah answered sadly. "well, we could always go down to the kitchens and ask for butterbeer and celebrate in the dragon room."

"Good idea, you get the butterbeer, I'll send Ixi to give a message to Patrick and Sebastien to meet us there," Steph planned excitedly.

"I'll race you back to the castle," Sarah challenged, running ahead.

"Hey, no fair!" Steph called after her, running to catch up, "you cheated."

They raced back to the castle as a figure stepped out of the forbidden forest. She was a young girl with very long, straight black hair that reached her lower back. She was very thin and pale.

She watched silently as Sarah and Steph went into the castle, her deep, red eyes gleaming maliciously in the darkening sky. After a moment, she seemed to dissolve, her red eyes continuing to glow until they too vanished. A whisper hung in the now chilled air.

"Draco…"


A/N: I'm so sorry guys, this semester at school has been hell, and there have been non-stop computer problems, but look on the bright side... we updated...

Anywhos, hope you guys enjoy this next chappy, and remember

read and review, we love your comments.

Kie & Aries