Song for this chapter: Satellite Call by Sara Bareilles

Christmas break finally came, and Albus decided that we would go away. With all the disciplinary decisions made we were free to leave. We departed before the other students, taking a horseless carriage to Hogsmeade on our own. From there we apparated to London, but I had convinced Albus to fly on a plane to our destination of the Amazon. I had always dreamt of going in a plane, and he had never actually been on one. It took a bit of spell work to convince the men in security that we had the proper paperwork to leave the country, but soon enough we were on board.

Unfortunately we discovered it was only slightly less uncomfortable than slide-along. The seats were tightly packed together and the cabin was far too warm. People were sweating and a baby was crying. Not to mention the less than polite man behind me whom had his knees pushed into my back.

"I'm glad you convinced me to do slide-along for the trip back," I sighed. "Planes aren't as much fun as I imagined them to be."

"Oh I don't know," he chuckled. "It has a certain charm."

"You really are insane aren't you?" I laughed.

"Perhaps," he hedged with a laugh of his own.

We both exploded into laughter when the woman in front of us tried to lay her seat back and essentially lay in our laps. Had Albus not been there laughing I'm sure I would have been quite angry with her, but instead I just laughed with him. His company felt like it was the only thing that kept me normal sometimes.

We spent the rest of the ride talking idly about the muggle world. It was strange to think of myself as something separate from that world, but I truly wasn't one of them anymore. We were technically taking a somewhat muggle oriented vacation, but I highly doubted there would be a hiatus in the magic. Albus told me we were going to explore the old tree dwellings of ancient Amazonian wizards.

Fawkes had followed us to the Amazon somehow, but he kept his distance mostly. He flew about the forest, but we would occasionally catch glimpses of him. He settled down at our camp ground each night and slept beside us. It was fascinating to me that he had come along.

The tree dwellings were nothing like what I expected them to be, aside from being in trees. Even the Amazon was different than what I imagined really. It was so humid, and green. There was so much plant life it was kind of crazy to think about. There were trees that had to have been around for thousands of years simply because of how tall and thick they were.

Those impossibly tall trees had the dwellings in them. These round houses, made of what looked like weaved vines wrapped their way up the trees just like the many different kinds of mushrooms did on other trees.

There were walkways weaving between the different buildings of sorts, and they swung in the air. They were like short little rope bridges created entirely from nature. The whole system looked so delicate and beautiful and yet it had stood the test of time. According to all of the information posted they looked exactly as they had when the village had been created thousands of years ago, and I knew it must be due to magic that there had been literally no decomposition. Someone could easily move in to these dwellings tomorrow if the area wasn't seen as very nearly holy.

We spent our first two days in the Amazon just exploring the extensive village. It made me feel like all of the problems we'd left behind at Hogwarts were inconsequential when faced with something as awe inspiring as this village. Draco didn't matter. Even the things that had happened to me at the orphanage didn't matter her. I felt at peace. I was grateful that Albus had brought me here, and he seemed to be just as at peace as I was.

We also spent a lot of time just being one with nature. We hiked through the rain forest, observing more plant life and the amazingly colorful animals that lived here. We had swimming trips in the otherworldly bodies of water we found. I doubted Harry would believe me if I told him that Albus and I had climbed to the top of a rocky waterfall and dove off of it just to swim around in a pool of water so clear you could make out the bottom perfectly despite the fact that the pool had to be at least 100 feet deep.

More importantly than exploring nature we talked. In this foreign, beautiful land there seemed to be no reason to try to hide myself away. I felt comfortable clearing everything off of my chest and trying to really work through how everything with Draco had made me feel. We talked about my fears, my shame, my loneliness, and my alimentation from the student body. With all of that on the table it was only a matter of time before my uncontrolled magic came up as a subject.

"How often have the bursts of incidental magic been happening?" Albus asked me.

"Honestly?" I sighed. "Up until the last incident with Draco they were happening constantly. All day long, particularly if I became remotely upset. But even at night it was an issue, sometimes I would cause different colored smoke to issue out of my wand when I wasn't even touching it at night."

"It's a conundrum certainly," he admitted while tugging thoughtfully at his beard. "It is very uncommon for such outbursts of magic to happen after a person has begun to undertake formal magical training. I imagine that it is related to how much more powerful you are than the average witch or wizard."

"I don't know if I believe that to be true anymore," I admitted. "In the last month of term in particular I began to wonder if I will even be a proper witch. I haven't been able to execute basic spells properly, let alone anything of real power."

"You were under an incredible amount of stress," he pointed out. "It is not at all uncommon for something like that to cause a witches magic to falter. I've read several accounts of women in abusive relationships that lost their magic entirely. I think when you take into consideration your rapidly growing powers and the situation you were in that this response isn't all that unexpected in the end."

I just shrugged not really sure what to say.

"I think part of bringing it all back under control will be properly managing your stress," he thought out loud. "You could try meditation, or physical activity, or something artistic. It's your choice ultimately, but I think that is where our starting point should be since we cannot stay in the Amazon forever no matter how much we might like to."

"I think I'd like to focus on physical activity," I told him. "I'd like to grow stronger simply so I don't feel as weak as I did this term, and physical activity would certainly be good for me. Maybe I will run, or do yoga, or both."

"Why not start here?" he asked me. "I'd rather avoid the running myself, but I could do yoga with you in the mornings."

"Sounds fantastic," I said with a smile.

Each morning we did yoga together as the sun rose. It was a magic of its own in all honesty. I enjoyed that hour of silent movement with Albus almost as much as all of our conversations. Directly after yoga with him I would take to running while he prepared breakfast. I ran a new path each day, weaving through new parts of the forest and letting its magic lead me to beautiful new vistas every time.

Fawkes could be seen flying above me on each run and it made me feel protected even if he was just a bird. No matter where I ventured I didn't feel alone because if I took the time to look I could find Fawkes flying somewhere near me. I was really coming to love that bird as if he were my own pet.

I continued to venture further and further from camp until the day that I had an encounter with a boa hanging from a tree. It was a massive white snake covered in yellow splotches that looked at me with hunger in its eyes. I was lucky enough to run faster than the beast could move, so I did not become lunch, but I decided that for the duration of our time in the rainforest I would stick to doing yoga only.

We spent a quiet Christmas at our campgrounds sharing presents by the fire. I gave Albus a year's supply of socks after he said he never got them as gifts, and he seemed quite pleased. I could never tell if he was joking about things like that, but his pleasure seemed so genuine that I chose to believe he really had wanted the socks. He bought me a painting set and tickets to see the Weird Sisters during spring break. Needless to say I was quite pleased with my own gift.

We stayed one last night, sleeping late into the day on Boxing Day rather than rising early for yoga and then it was time for us to return to England. I was sad to be leaving the sun and the peace to return to snow and potential fallout from what had happened with Draco right before the start of break, but I felt strong enough to handle it now. I felt almost as if I was an entirely different person when we packed up our things and prepared to leave.

Albus performed a smooth slide-along and in just a few short twirling trips we had returned to Hogsmeade rather than suffering through another awful plane ride. I was grateful that Albus had convinced me to put on my layers of clothing in the sweltering Amazonian heat because it was absolutely frigid when we landed in the snow.

We caught one of the carriages up to the school and there was a house-elf waiting at the door to take our trunks. I handed over my cloak and sweater when I saw that it appeared the other students had already arrived and were milling about in the great hall before the start of dinner. I opted to join them and hurried in to see if I could find Harry.

Harry and Ron were sitting at Gryffindor table, playing wizard's chess yet again, and it appeared Hermione must have gone to the library. I skipped over to join them and flopped rather unceremoniously down on the bench next to Harry and they both stared at me for a few seconds before they seemed to gather their wits.

"Wow, you got really tan," Harry, stated dumbly while still staring.

"Well, it's pretty sunny over in Brazil," I pointed out before it occurred to me that he might be upset that he hadn't been included in the vacation. "There are too many snakes though. I think I'll spend next Christmas here."

"That would rock!" Ron cheered, and I had hope that we might make a friendship after all. "WE spent all of break on a secret search. You would have been great help even if you don't spend as much time in the library as Hermione."

"Haha, yeah," I laughed. "No one can love the library quite like she does. I find it useful enough though.

When term started I delved into the somewhat awkward act of trying to build a friendship with Ron and Hermione. They were Harry's friends and I wanted them to be mine, but there was a fairly massive gap between us. Ron had been part of basically despising me for associating with a Slytherin, but he seemed to be at least willing to try and let that go. Hermione had been alienated by me because of Draco's rules that I not associate with a person of her heritage and because of my own somewhat catty feelings about how she performed in the classroom. Needless to say I had my work cut out for me.

I settled in to try and help them find out who Nicholas Flamel was as a peace offering. I didn't have much luck, just like Hermione hadn't been having, but it seemed to help win her over that I was spending hours in the library combing through the stacks by her side. Eventually they felt comfortable enough to really bring me up to speed on everything that had taken place with Fluffy. I was amazed at what had taken place in their lives while we hadn't been talking. I listened to everything they had to say about what I had missed and I felt almost as if we hadn't been going to the same school all year. I hadn't realized just how cut off from everyone else I really had been.

They told me all about the Quidditch match I had missed, and the debacle it had been. They brought me up to speed on their theory about Snape and I had to admit that it sounded reasonable. It was possible that I was holding a grudge over the way he seemed to despise me, and then there was the fact that he also always seemed to dote on Malfoy, but I believed their thoughts on him. I noticed that their thoughts had an impact on my own when I realized I had started saying Malfoy in my mind as well.

Things turned a bit more interesting than library research when Hermione figured out who Flamel was. I felt a bit idiotic thinking of how many times I must have seen the book he had written with Albus sitting in his office and I didn't put the clues together. I chose to keep that to myself however. I didn't want Hermione or Ron to think I had intentionally withheld information from them. Our fledgling friendship still felt like it could easily be torn apart if I wasn't careful.

Then of course there was the excitement, and a tinge of fear, at discovering that Hagrid was harboring a dragon… in his wooden hut. Adding babysitting a dragon to the list of issues before us left me dangerously close to being stretched to thin. I still managed to keep my head afloat thought. I felt awful for thinking it, but I was relieved when Hagrid decided to give the dragon to Ron's brother rather than keeping him.

I had enough on my plate between trying to work in an exercise routine to control surges of magic due to my emotions, keeping up with my classes, avoiding Malfoy and his cronies through out the school, and baby sitting that dragon. The only real positive that came from my busy schedule was that I was dead tired at night, and I frequently slept without dreams at all let alone nightmares. So I threw myself into plotting the removal of Norbert from the school with a light heart. Up until when Ron was bitten, then I couldn't help but feel awful again.