I'm Going To China

Alice and groaned when she saw her schedule. "Divination? I can't think of a better way to start this term…"

"Well, cheer up," said Emmett, his mouth full of toast, "I'm going to take the bloody subject as well. More jam, Edward?"

Edward chose not to answer, as Jacob just passed by, kissing Bella lightly on her head before going. Alice wrinkled her nose in disgust.

The 'bloody subject' that Emmett had referred to turned out to be the lousiest subjects in the world. Alice stared into Emmett's tea leaves, trying to see if something would jump out at her…

"There's nothing here," groaned Alice, after she had drunk the incredibly disgusting tea and peering into it, "I can't believe that I ever took up something like this…"

Jasper and Emmett didn't answer to this. Emmett was started to suggest that perhaps the trick was to break the teacup.

"This is hopeless," said Emmett, after staring into the pieces of broken china, "you, Jasper?"

"Yeah, there's a burn on the table," said Jasper, pointing, "someone's spilt their candle…does that mean that Hogwarts will go up in flames tonight?"

"Better, in Malfoy's bed," muttered Alice.

"I wouldn't hope for that. I sleep three beds away.

"Let's just try to imagine something…" said Emmett in a hopeless voice.

"Nah, can't see or imagine anything," Jasper said after ten minutes of gazing into Emmett's new cup, "only a puddle of tealeaves…maybe you're going to China someday?"

Emmett choked back a laugh. "I'd like that."

"And the cup's made from china, made in China…you're definitely going to China. Here, you try mine…"

Two tables away, Hermione was making tut-tuts, making it impossible for Alice to concentrate on Jasper's cup of tealeaves.

"I have no idea…that looks like a lightening…that means great evil and hardships ahead, I guess…"

"You need your inner eye checked," Jasper muttered. Alice grinned and passed her cup to Emmett. But before Emmett could do anything, however, Professor Trelawney was there.

"Dear me," she said, taking Alice's cup, "let me see…ah, I can see the rose, the flower of love! The romantic flower! Dear child, you already have someone you like, do you not?"

Everyone was staring at her. Alice, feeling the flush working from her face, could all but look down at her feet, embarrassed.

"Wait, dear, what's this? Ah, this is the river of time…your love will be true, but only time will show you that, and how true your love is. In fact, it is a test of time. And ahead, there is great danger, and a decision, an important decision that will force you to choose carefully…"

"The only important decision I am seeing now," Alice said to Emmett and Jasper as they climbed down the spiral staircase to their next class, Transfigurations, "is whether or not to drop that loony subject before the old bat gets to me."

Emmett laughed. "Well, okay. Same here, you know. I didn't see any danger in your cup; it looked perfectly normal to me…"

"Maybe I'm going to China with you."

"So you're just going to avoid China for Professor Trelawney's sake?" Rosalie asked Alice as they got their turtles from Professor McGonagall.

"Nope," said Alice, trying to keep her fingers away from the turtle, "I couldn't see a thing in Jasper's cup…I was making everything up. And Hermione kept on whispering about what a loony subject it was. Personally, I agree with her."

"What?" Rosalie frowned at Alice, "Hermione was in Ancient Runes with me. So was Jasper. What are you talking about?"

"What are you talking about?" Alice stared, "I shared a table with Jasper! Ask Emmett yourself!"

Rosalie looked suspicious as she turned to Emmett.

"Emmett, did you—"

"I'm going to China, Rose!" Emmett said excitedly. Retarded fool, thought Alice with dry amusement.

"What?" said Rosalie blankly.

"I'm going to China, I'm going to China, I'm going to China…" Emmett sang. The whole class stared at him. Professor McGonagall took five points from Gryffindor for that.

~0o0o0o0o0o0o0~

"I don't see any point in that," said Bella, leaning across to look at Rosalie's runes.

"Me either," admitted Rosalie, digging in her bag for her dictionary, "I don't get this thing…" she flipped the huge book open and began to translate.

Alice, meanwhile, pored over her Divination homework, The History and Uses of Palmistry. It was incredibly boring and long, and she was tired. Emmett kept on looking over her shoulder to copy her work, earning him several looks from Edward.

"When have we got Defence against the Dark Arts?" asked Alice, stifling a yawn.

"Tomorrow," said Edward, "first class of the day…the new teacher seems to be good, though."

"Good?" said Fred and George Weasley, "What do you mean, good? He's fantastic!"

"We'll see," said Alice, scrunching up her third attempt of trying to draw a hand.

"Looks like he's been through a lot, doesn't he?" said Fred.

"Spanking good teacher. You'll see; he makes Lockhart and Quirrel seem like wimps."

"You don't know how right you are," muttered Bella.

~0o0o0o0o0o0o0~

Professor Lupin's classes were indeed very interesting. They made up for Alice's other disastrous classes, which were very disastrous indeed.

Potions had not improved one bit. Snape was forever framing the Gryffindors for all sorts of mistakes while the Slytherins sniggered. Needless to say, Alice made the worst potions. It was even worst than Neville's.

"We will be making the Shrinking Potion again," said Snape on their first lesson, "I will see how much you have improved…" his gaze slid wordlessly to Jasper, Ron and Alice, who willed her mouth not to turn up at the corners. She caught sight of Jasper looking guilty, as the memory of what had happened last time occurred to them. Draco Malfoy had been very…shrunk indeed after the only two successful potions in the class had been pored over his head. Unfortunately, the potions were slightly too strong, causing him to turn into a 'Minus.' Alice sighed and began to set to work. Her memory was very vague, though; the last time she had made anything like it, she had been terrified.

"If anyone dares to mess around with overdoses of leech juice," Snape said as they worked, "I will make sure they're expelled."

As she chopped up her daisy roots, she overheard Malfoy and Harry talking about Sirius Black. She leaned in, interested.

"Don't you know, Potter?"

"Know what?" demanded Harry.

Malfoy began to say something, but they were interrupted by Snape. Alice turned back to her potion and added only ONE pint of leech juice. She wasn't going to do anything.

Then across the room, Snape passed Jasper's potion. Goyle, who was sitting beside him, gave his cauldron a great push.

And Alice could only watch as the cauldron tipped right over and onto Snape, who began to shrink into his robes..

…and disappeared.

~0o0o0o0o0o0o0~

"Not even detention? Nothing?"

"Nothing," said Jasper, looking for his Arithmancy book, "you forget that Snape favours Slytherins. Aha, here it is…"

The both of them were in the library. It was Halloween, and everyone else had gone off to Hogsmeade. Alice, however, had lost her permission slip tragically, and was therefore banned from going. Now, she could only sit in the library, trying to get some work done with Jasper.

"But I thought he was going to expel you…"

"It wasn't leech juice this time, Alice, it was the number of shrivelfigs in the potion."

Alice rolled her eyes and started on her astronomy essay. "Trust you to do something like that…" she muttered.

"Oh, it wasn't anything. It was a little bit of muggle chemistry."

"What?"

"Chemistry, you know. It's like a function: you add something on this side, and then you have to add something the same amount onto the other side to make both sides equal. Well, same goes for the potion."

"You are hopeless," said Alice, shaking her head in irritation at something so complicated. Jasper hastily changed the subject.

"So why aren't you at Hogsmeade?"

"Lost my permission slip," said Alice, crossing out a moon grumpily.

"The big one's the Titan, Alice, and those two are Rhea and Iapetus, and you've mixed up Mimas and Dione. And Enceladus isn't that big; it's only one fourth of the moon. And—" he stopped abruptly, seeing the look on Alice's face.

"Sorry?" Alice snapped, pushing her sweaty hair out of her face, "I don't understand know-it-all talks, Jasper, so no thanks. You might like to try Hermione, though; she'll understand you. But I don't, and I'm going back to finish this somewhere where I won't be disturbed by people like you."

She said all this very fast as she pushed her chair in and began to gather her books, trying to avoid his eyes. Why was she being so mean? As Alice stumbled out of the library, she permitted herself to take one last look back at Jasper. When she saw the hurt on his face, she felt even guiltier. But the words were already said, and nothing could take them back.

~0o0o0o0o0o0o0~

"Brought everything we could," said Emmett, tipping a bag full of candy onto Alice's potions essay.

"Thanks," she said, picking one of them up and examining it carefully, "so what's Hogsmeade like?"

Rosalie gave her a dark look. "Would've been better without Jacob Black."

"Why, what happened?"

"He kissed Bella in front of everyone," seethed Edward, "in the Three Broomsticks."

"And what was Bella's reaction?"

Emmett swelled. "SHE KISSED HIM BACK!"

"Holy moly," gasped Alice, "did she really?"

"And then we told them that if they wanted to do it, it was best to do it somewhere else," said Rosalie scathingly, "and Jacob's like, 'go and kiss your ass,' to me. Can you believe it?"

"So where's she now?" asked Alice, looking around.

"Not here. Come on, let's go down to the feast…"

Alice saw Bella with Jacob after the feast, arm in arm, and incredibly, lip with lip. Luckily, no one seemed to notice them. Alice didn't try to look at Edward, knowing that there'd be some ugly look there. Glancing at the Slytherin table, she saw, with a pang of –jealousy?— several Slytherin girls flirting with Jasper, who had an annoyed and irritated look on his face that they had mistaken for affection. Rosalie noticed this.

"What's it with him?" she muttered to Alice.

Alice just shrugged. "Perhaps he's discovered that he has a taste for Slytherins," she said offhandedly. Rosalie gave her a suspicious look, but otherwise said nothing as they went back upstairs. However, the staircase was blocked. Everyone was crowding to see what was causing the holdup.

And then Peeves zoomed out of nowhere.

"SIRIUS BLACK!" he screeched, pelting them with ink bottles, "SIRIUS BLACK ATTACKED THE FAT LADY! RUN FOR YOUR STINKING LIVES, IF YOU VALUE THEM!"

"Is this a joke?" Alice muttered to Rosalie.

"Most likely," said Rosalie, frowning. Emmett was chuckling; he obviously thought it was one. Edward wasn't looking very convinced, though.

That was when Dumbledore and a few other teachers came running. As they formed a passageway, Alice craned her head to look over at the canvas, which had been slashed viciously

~0o0o0o0o0o0o0~

The next few weeks that followed were some of the worst for Alice.

First, Gryffindor lost against Hufflepuff in the Quidditch match. Harry Potter had fallen off his broom when the dementors had attacked him, and Cedric Diggory caught the snitch shortly after he fell. Alice secretly thought that Cedric looked a little like Edward, but she didn't say anything.

Secondly, it took just all of Alice's nerves and patience not to scream whenever she saw Bella walking arm-in-arm with Jacob. Jacob had started feeding Bella lies about her friends.

"Alice stole your books," he'd whisper to her frequently, or

"Emmett told the teachers lies about you," or

"Rosalie signed you up for Quidditch tryouts…"

And then, of course, he'd go and do all those things himself.

Bella started to have quarrels with her friends, blaming them for all the things they had never done before. She would only believe Jacob's words. The quarrels gradually faded into silence, when she chose to ignore them for good.

And if worst, it was the relationship between Alice and Jasper, which was getting worst within every passing day. What made everything worst was that she couldn't find the courage to apologize. And she hardly saw him now days, and when she did, he was often surrounded by many other Slytherins in the library, most of them being the likes of Draco Malfoy, so she hardly dared to approach him.

"Just go and make up for it," sighed Rosalie three days Christmas when she told her.

""But I can't, Rose, I can't. I don't know why."

"He'll forgive you," assured Edward, "remember last time? He never brought the argument ever again. Go on, Alice."

"You might want to do it before he goes home for the holidays," suggested Emmett.

Alice looked doubtful. A smile spread across Rosalie's face, and Alice knew that something was up.

"Alice, go ahead and do it if you want to go out with him on Valentines Day."

"What?" Alice looked at her, a flush creeping all over her face. Emmett grinned.

"Wow, you look just like a tomato, Alice!"

Alice ignored him.

"Well," said Rosalie, "you do want to, don't you?"

"I can't believe it of you, Rose!" wailed Alice, covering her face.

"Am I right?"

Alice nodded shamefully and began to sob.

"Alice, don't cry!" said Emmett, alarmed, "it's only natural, Alice. We're not Jacob, we're your friends, and friends don't laugh at each other for perfectly normal things like this!"

"Cheer up, Alice," said Rosalie, "I was just teasing you."

Then someone far more displeasing turned up. It was Ron, and he was very angry indeed.

"Where's Scabbers?" he yelled at her.

"Who?" Alice frowned.

Ron's eyes fell on Winter, who was playing with Rosalie's hair, "Scabbers is gone!"

"Haven't seen him," grumbled Edward.

"What's a Scabbers?" asked Rosalie.

"Ron's rat," said Emmett, "probably ran away…"

"Why'd he run away?"

"I'd run away from you, if I were Scabbers," said Alice scathingly.

"You girls are so weird," said Ron huffily, "whoever said that cats were allowed? First you, then Hermione…"

"We haven't touched him, okay?" Alice retorted angrily.

"And whoever said rats were allowed?" demanded Edward. Ron stomped away angrily.

"I'd watch out for him if I were you, Alice," said Rosalie, "but are you going to apologize?"

AN

Expect the next one on Valentines.

Please REVIEW!!!