Hey! Ready for more Yule ball? I am! *cheers* Time to meet Aries's team and have Lily and Sirius find out a little bit about Zana. Also, a little bonding between Aries and Rue. Enjoy! Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am a mere Biology student listening to survival of the fittest. Wonder if that's why Dumbledore put Harry with the Dursleys. Food for thought...

Druella Macnair strolled forward in her red ball gown, smirking slightly at the stares she knew she was getting. Rue wasn't the type of girl to be vain, but she knew she was beautiful. Unlike most girls, she didn't consider it a huge accomplishment. In fact, to her it was a curse, a curse that had doomed her to spend the first six years of her life living with a perverted uncle. He thought she was pretty too.

Aries smiled wryly. "You've always liked red dresses," he commented, his eyes glittering in mischief.

Rue glared at him. "You burned my last one!" she accused, causing incredulous looks and heads turning to look at Aries.

"You filled the keyboards of my piano with glue!" he shot back. "That's a sin!"

"Only because you threw me in the lake when I was fully clothed!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Kids," a silky smooth voice intoned, "If you keep fighting, you won't get any desert." Forward stepped a figure. In contrast to Aries's rugged Mediterranean looks, this boy was distinctively English with a strong jawline and traditional English features. He had forgone dress robes in favor of an imbecilely tailored grey suit that flattered his light brown hair and blue eyes.

Aries scowled. "Fuck off, Marsaille," he said.

Marsaille raised an eyebrow. "So eloquent, Kalgarias. I see that the English atmosphere is doing you so much good."

"Now, Mar, don't test him. It is Christmas after all," another voice said. A girl stepped forward, a kind smile prevalent on her flawless face. While not as beautiful as Rue, this girl was pretty in a soft gentle way. Her round face was framed by light brown curls, and she was wearing a flowing pink dress.

Aries smiled at the new arrival. "Hey, Emma," he greeted, the scowl starting to disappear from his face.

"Hi Aries," she greeted cheerfully. "Happy Christmas."

Aries just rolled his eyes, and a snort came from behind him. Another boy emerged, a smirk on his face. "Aries doesn't do Christmas, remember Em? He's the Grinch."

Rue glared at the Japanese boy in silver dress robes. Isamu was lucky he was an only child, or she would've killed him years ago. "Leave him alone, Mu. We're not all five year-olds trapped in a teenager's body."

Those around them listened to the snipping with interest. It was hard not to be charmed by the Beauxbaton champion, and yet few knew anything about him. It was obvious he was Greek, and it was rumored that his mother had been friends with the Potters. Drew Potter had told his fellow Gryffindors about the Weighing of the Wands, causing a lot of speculation about how exactly Aries Kalgarias made his wand. The more people learned about the mysterious Greek boy, the less they actually seemed to know.

Even the people that knew him well, his friends and cousin, were watching the group interact. Though Gabrielle was slightly familiar with Rue, Jacques and Iris had only met the slightly creepy girl the day of the first task, and none of them had ever met the other three. Though this didn't seem to bother Jacques, Gabrielle and Iris were both irked. Gabrielle felt her Veela ancestry flare up as the brunette chatted with Aries. It always seemed to bug her when Aries talked to any girl that wasn't her or related to him. Sometimes Jacques joked that fireballs would start coming out of her hands.

Iris was similarly irked, but her reasons were a bit different from the beautiful Veela. The Kalgarias family, despite its remarkable size, was very close-knit. Iris considered most of her cousins more like siblings than cousins, and she thought this about Aries especially. Of the cousins, Aries was the only one her age, and they had been constant playmates in childhood. Though he had been quiet when he first came into their family, Aries had eventually blossomed and became the idealistic dreamer everyone in the family adored. This had all shattered when Aunt Zana had killed herself. Her favorite cousin started to withdraw into himself, away from their family, and became a person she didn't recognize. The new Aries hated Christmas and didn't play the piano and always looked tired and drained even when he was smiling. Worst of all, he didn't seem to trust anyone anymore, even her.

Isamu pouted. "And to think, I was so nice as to get you a nice little Christmas present." He reached into his robe's pocket and pulled out of an unopened pack of cigarettes.

Rue grabbed them before Isamu could react and caught Aries's eye, gesturing to the door. Aries nodded, relieved to get a break from the eyes that had seemed to bore into his back all night. The two walked out, seemingly oblivious to the whispers that followed. Or, at least that's what everyone thought.


Lily watched as the boy that just might be her son as he excited the Hall with that Macnair girl. She wasn't sure what the connection between the two of them was, but she was eager to find out. More and more, she had been thinking about Aries Kalgarias and the girl who had once been her best friend. How had Zana died? Who was her little girl's father? How would she have known where Harry was? Why would she steal him away in the first place?

If Lily was honest with herself, she knew the answer to that last question. Petunia had always been petty, even as children, and there was a good chance she would've treated Harry very badly. The thought of her firstborn being abused in anyway set her skin on fire. Why had she and James ever even agreed to give Harry to her sister in the first place? Looking back, Lily honestly didn't know. They had been so young back then, so afraid of their son being hurt by Voldemort's remaining followers, and so utterly dependent on Dumbledore's advice.

When she found out Harry had gone missing from Petunia's, Lily had believed her son was gone forever. She had never believed he was still alive, believing that she would know it in her heart, and then Aries Kalgarias showed up at Hogwarts. He looked like a Kalgarias, like Zana's son, and yet they all knew he had to be adopted. At first, Lily hadn't wanted to interfere in the boy's life. He had friends and a family, and she couldn't see how she had a right to disrupt that. Slowly, however, little things popped out at her: how Aries's eyes seemed to light up when that Veela girl was around, how he never refused his little sister piggyback rides, and how he never seemed to drink pumpkin juice at dinner. Lily recognized pieces of James and herself in his mannerisms and habits, but there was more of Zana. He had her spark, her passion, and she could not find a flaw in how her best friend raised this boy.

Lily was pulled out of her musings by her husband's voice. They were sitting at a table catching up with Emmeline Vance and her date, an Auror James frequently worked with. Emmeline had been Sirius's girlfriend about four years ago, and they had been briefly engaged that December and January. The match was just ill-suited, the both of them told their friends, but Lily always suspected the real reason was that Sirius still had Zana in his heart.

"Lilyflower? You with us?" James teased. Lily just rolled her eyes at her husband.

"Where else would I be?" she responded. Before James could come up with a response that would probably land him a week on the couch, Sirius popped in, an easy grin on his face.

James raised an eyebrow. "What's got you so happy?"

Sirius smirked. "I don't kiss and tell, Prongs," he stated. Lily and Emmeline just sighed. It was highly unlikely Sirius Black would ever grow up, but one could hope.

Both Lily and Sirius's attention were diverted elsewhere when the mysterious guests of Aries sat down at a nearby table.

"I swear, both of them are going to end up dead before their thirty," the brunette girl in a flowy pink dress that reminded Lily of the princesses she had grown up with stated, a frown on her lips.

A boy with light brown hair sat next to her and smirked. "That's probably their idea, Em." He received an elbow in the ribs. "Ow!"

"I don't like hearing stuff like that, Mar!" she said. "Especially about our leaders." The term made the clogs in both listening brains turn. Leaders? Leaders of what?

Mar just shrugged. "It's true. You know Aries and Rue. They're all live hard, die young. I mean, Aries's an adrenaline junkie. No normal person would do half the shit he does. And Rue's mentally unstable. There's no other reason a normal person would periodically cut up their face."

Em narrowed her eyes at him. "You seemed very preoccupied with what's normal for someone who isn't. We're part of this team because we're not normal, Mar. Normal teenagers don't need to do the shit we have to. We're different, and unlike you, I'm not ashamed of that."

Mar seemed to at least look like I'm ashamed. "I know. I didn't mean to diss Aries or Rue. They're great leaders, and I don't think we could have better ones. I was just being a prick."

Em's face softened. "I know what you meant to say, Mar. We're all damaged in our own ways. Rue and Aries are just a bit more than us." She turned to the Japanese boy, who had been quiet the whole time. "Whatcha think, Mu?"

"I think," Mu said slowly, "that smoking is probably one of the least destructive things those two can do to themselves. They should get to keep it." There was a short pause. "Besides, it's Christmas Eve. We should be more worried about the Boss's liver than his lungs tonight."

There was mutual agreement, and now Lily had yet another question: What happened to Aries on Christmas Eve? Looking at Sirius, she could tell he was thinking the same thing.

Before she could even approach the teenagers, however, something odd happened. Mar clutched his wrist tightly, and then the rest of them did. Despite the hands covering the skin, Lily still noticed a faint glow.

"We've got to go," Em said to the other two. "Aries and Rue should be done with their cigarettes by now."

Mar snorted. "Hell, they've probably smoked the whole bloody pack by now!" As they walked towards the door, Emma bent down to grab her purse. Lily got a glimpse of the mark on her wrist. It wasn't a Dark Mark for sure. Instead of the Skull Death Eaters bore on their forearm, this girl had a six-pointed yellow star outlined in blue on the inside of the wrist. It was oddly glowing, and Lily made every observation about she could about it until the girl scurried away to catch up to her friends. Even more questions were now spinning around her mind. Why did these teenagers have stars on their wrists? What organization were they working for? Who would train kids? And what exactly was Aries's role in this group? Lily promised to find out, even it meant confronting Aries.