~*T*~

"There's a ghost-protecting ward," Lisa sighed, while the spell continued to fizzle out.

"Well, fuck," Taylor scuffed out the circle on the floor of Binn's office, "That's lovely."

Amy crossed her arms, pouted, and scowled at the floor, "He's immobile, insensate, and useless. He hasn't remembered a student since 1776, and hasn't graded a paper since 1854. I'm not sitting through another seven years of his crap."

"Bind him, remove him, then exorcise him?" Taylor proposed.

"Bind him, remove him, tie him to the Minister of Magic's desk?" Lisa offered.

"The statue of Magical Brethren. We need to get rid of that eyesore, anyway," Amy sighed, "Salt, virgin's blood, a good rock?"

~*i*~

"We should bump them to second year, maybe third," Snape said. "They're utterly bored."

"Have you been reading the students again, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

"I can smell it, it wafts off them in waves. There is no challenge to their schoolwork for them."

"I must agree," Quirrell said, "Wa-wa-wafts. They are reading the seventh year defense book in class, wa-wa-without being so distracted they can't answer any question I p-p-put to the class."

"They spent both class periods this week turning matches into needles, then into hedgehogs and porcupines. Potter had a lovely Crested Porcupine last class, and Lovegood's hedgehog was adorable."

"They are working on Summoning and Banishing in my class," Flitwick agreed, "I fear disruptive behavior if we cannot present them with a challenge."

Dumbledore stroked his beard, "Let's give them another week, and make a decision next Friday."

He gets nods from around the table.

~*i*~

Second Saturday of the school year.

Flying lesson for the first years.

Lisa stood, staring at he broom she lined up next to. She chewed her lip, brought one leg up, stroked her chin, brought her other leg up, put her elbow on her knee, and her chin on her hand. She tucked her feet up on top of her knees, and sighed, leaning on both hands, sitting on the air.

Amy poked her, "Showoff," she whispered.

A flurry of noise rose.

Lisa smiled, untucked her feet, and stood up, "Thank you, thank you," she said, bowing left and right.

A smattering of applause sounded.

~*i*~

Lisa, Amy, and Taylor had gotten into a game of tag, and Amy was it.

Lisa went up, Taylor went right, and Amy angled to intercept Taylor.

Taylor pulled hard to the left, there was a crack, and she tucked and rolled off the broom. She fell four meters, rolled to bleed off the impact, and sat up.

The broom stabbed into the ground, caught fire, then exploded.

"Cool," Taylor said as flaming splinters landed all around.

~*i*~

The girls swam in the cold Hebridean water, vast shallow pans full of seawater set up above the high-tide line of the tiny deserted island they chose. The pans are heated, sunlight during the day, and biologically at night, so the salt should be ready to harvest in a week.

Taylor cupped Lisa's foot in her hands, and threw her into the air, driving herself under the water, nictitating membranes closing automatically. Lisa laughed, tucked into a spin, and crashed back into the water with a huge splash.

Amy pinged them from the bottom, and they watched as she fish-kicked to the surface, breached, and jerked her flippered feet out of the water even as she tumbled backwards back in.

"All out!" she bragged, shoved her hair back out of her face, tread water easily.

"Awesome!" Lisa congratulated, swimming over slowly.

Taylor tried, again, to porpoise. She breached, a sliver of clear air under her tummy, then back into the water. She surfaced next to the other two, "Technique? Strength? Or hydrodynamics?" she asked.

"All three?" Amy asked, "We can work on that next week, when we come back for the salt?"

"Sounds good," Taylor nodded, a smile crossed her face, and she reached out, tagged Lisa, "You're it."

~*i*~

"Happy Birthday Hermione!" rang out as the girls came through the portrait hole Thursday after class.

Taylor put her wand away, calmed the swarm, tucked the cowbells and fireflies back into the cracks in the stonework. Lisa stepped back over, wand down, but still out. Amy patted the paranoid as it climbed out of its bones, cuddled back around her neck.

The twin Weasleys break the ice, "I guess we shouldn't startle you in a dark alley."

Lisa laughed, "No, you shouldn't."

~*i*~

There is still a little cake left when Lisa pulls the guitar out of her pocket.

Amy clutched Taylor, and Crookshanks darted into his human's lap, put his paws over his ears.

Lisa laughed at them, continued checking the tune of the guitar.

~*i*~

"Comin' in from London, from over the pole, flyin' in a big air liner," Lisa sang, badly, and played the guitar, much better, "Chicken flying everywhere all over the plane,"

Amy and Taylor endured, and the rest of the victims in the common room clapped.

Lisa changed the tune, played the intro, "They were farm kids, way down in Dixie, met in high school, in the sixties," Lisa's ability to maul songs didn't show as much in this song.

"The whole town said that the boy shoulda used red, but it looked good to Charleene in John Deere Green," Amy and Taylor joined in for the chorus.

~*i*~

Lisa scraped up the last of the salt, bagged it, and added it to the pile. The last drying pan turned into crabs and scuttled away, leaving the small island empty, the grass a little pale from a week without sun, but otherwise undamaged. The moon was high, and the sun setting, casting orange light over the beach.

"Let's swim?" Lisa asked, even as she pulled her robes over her head.

"Yes," Amy said, stripped, and ran for the water.

~*T*~

Note: Lisa's mauling Arlo Guthrie's "Coming Into Los Angeles" and Joe Diffie's "John Deere Green"

Looked up 19 Sept 1991, and it's a Thursday. The full Moon was 23 Sept 1991. This required some re-arranging.