Queen of the Night: Years 1-3

by awalkerlifeforme

Tara Nox was born in Godric's Hollow nine months before Harry Potter. For a year of infancy they were like siblings, until Voldemort attacked. Tara's family was forced to flee to America while Harry was sent to live with the Dursley's. Now, nine years later, Tara returns to befriend the boy that doesn't remember her, and more importantly, to protect him from the evils to come.

26. The Deathday Party

October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Fred had managed to get back his winter cloak for a few days after the disastrous Quidditch practice that had resulted in Ron's vomiting slugs for hours. But, once more, it was mine to use. The grounds had become ice cold once more. And that meant that I was almost always found curled up in his. I had a feeling that he would end up just giving it to me anyways. He had gotten a little taller and needed a bigger one anyways. It worked for me, since that meant that I was now able to curl up in the two of the thick winter cloaks that I had.

Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden rush of colds among the staff and students. I was very thrilled to have gotten out of that one. Her Pepperup Potion (one that Mom frequently tried to get me to use) worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward. That was why I attempted to always avoid having to use it. Ginny Weasley, who had been looking pale, was bullied into taking some by Percy. The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire. I'd tried to ask her if she was feeling alright, but she'd merely nodded at me quickly and sprinted away.

It wasn't the first time that I'd wondered if there was something wrong with her. She'd been doing so well for the first few weeks of school. She always seemed so happy. She'd been making some friends in her own year and had even been making some friends in our year. But lately I'd noticed that she'd stopped speaking to everyone. Hermione and I included. She had been losing all of the color that she had and seemed to have been losing weight, too. I'd tried to get her to go to Madam Pomfrey, but she'd merely smiled weakly at me and told me that she was nervous for a Transfiguration test. Knowing that I couldn't press her, I'd merely smiled and told her to come to me anytime she wanted to talk.

As much as I wanted to continue checking on her, I knew that I couldn't. There were other things that I needed to take care of. And there were the weather problems that we all had to deal with. It was half of the reason that so many people were getting sick. With all of the time that I spent outside, I was shocked that I hadn't been sick. Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the castle windows for days on end; the lake rose, the flower beds turned into muddy streams, and Hagrid's pumpkins swelled to the size of garden sheds. Things with Lockhart had calmed down for a while, but very recently they'd stirred back up again.

Just the other day I'd slipped and fallen out near the greenhouses on my way to Herbology. It had seriously hurt. I'd already been running late to class, after having been cornered by Colin, who had been asking me about Dittany. Probably just his excuse to talk to me. My uniform hadn't really been on straight - I'd forgotten my tie and sweater - leaving me in only the robes, skirt, and white button-down. I'd been soaked to the bone within seconds, and it had made my shirt a little see-through. Cedric had been walking by at the time and he'd stopped to help me, checking to make sure that I was alright.

As mortified as I'd been at the thought that he could see right through my shirt, he'd been nice enough to pretend that he couldn't. And maybe he hadn't. He wouldn't just be looking. He wasn't that type. It didn't matter. Lockhart had been walking by and - after ensuring that I was alright - had scolded me for attempting to 'show off' to an older boy. I'd been so mortified that I hadn't been thinking straight. I'd tossed one of the rolls that normally had parchment wrapped around them - very heavy and wooden - straight at Lockhart's head. I'd gotten twenty points taken away and two night's detention for it from Lockhart, with Hagrid, which was much better. Hagrid had allowed Cedric to come in and help tend to the pumpkins and keep me company. I had a feeling that he felt guilty for what had happened.

It did provide me great amusement to see Gilderoy Lockhart walking around with a lump the size of a tea plate on his head for a few days. I had a feeling that Madam Pomfrey refused to help him. It gave me even greater amusement to tell the others what had happened - omitting little pieces of the story. Hermione had been absolutely horrified that I'd done something like attack a teacher. I'd noticed that there were a few more chocolate eclairs - my favorite - on the platters that evening for dinner and the professors seemed particularly upbeat.

Lockhart seemed to have calmed down since then. He rarely looked in my direction anymore. But that didn't mean that my troubles were over. Oliver Wood's enthusiasm for regular training sessions were not dampened. We were out in the pouring rain every single day working as hard as we could. It meant that every day I could be found soaking wet, freezing, and grouchy. On the bright side, I had learned to stop wearing white. Oliver seemed to have been determined that we were going to beat Slytherin - which would be next to impossible with their brooms. As lousy as Malfoy was, he did have the faster broom.

His new training sessions were exactly the reason as to why Harry and I were to be found, late one stormy Saturday afternoon just over a week before Halloween, returning to Gryffindor Tower, drenched to the skin and splattered with mud. It was just two days before my birthday. I would be thirteen this year. As the oldest of the Second Year Gryffindor's (both male and female), I was the first person to turn thirteen. It would be my first year of being an official teenager.

Chattering and trying to wrap Fred's sopping cloak closer around me, I glanced over at Harry. He looked just like I did. A drowned rat. "How if Oliver the only person that doesn't seem to be affected by the weather?" I growled.

"Tara, there's no part of his brain that's wired to anything but playing Quidditch," Harry responded.

And he was right about that. Harry's arm fell over me and I tucked myself into his side. We were both cold. My blood was cold, my bones were cold, my brain was cold, and even my hair was cold. Even aside from the rain and wind it hadn't been a happy practice session. Fred and George, who had been spying on the Slytherin team, had seen for themselves the speed of those new Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. They reported that the Slytherin team was no more than seven greenish blurs, shooting through the air like missiles. Our only hope was to try and play as best as we could, praying that the fact that they were still terrible players would help.

The two of us were walking quickly. Each one of us were desperate to get back upstairs and clean ourselves off. The only thing that I wanted was to get into my pajamas and toss my thick blankets over me before curling up in front of the fireplace. It was days like these that made me miss the warm air of Ilvermorny Castle. As Harry and I squelched along the deserted corridor we came across somebody who looked just as preoccupied as we were. I held out a hand to stop him.

Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, was staring morosely out of a window, muttering under his breath, "... don't fulfill their requirements... half an inch, if that..."

He looked even less happy than we were. The two of us inched forward. I wasn't sure if we could startle ghosts or not. "Hello, Nick," Harry said softly.

Nick gave a little start and turned back to us. "Hello, hello," he said, still looking sad.

Maybe angry. Ghost emotions were a little hard to understand. Nearly Headless Nick wore a dashing, plumed hat on his long curly hair, and a tunic with a ruff, which concealed the fact that his neck was almost completely severed. He was dressed to the nines, just as he always was. I assumed that he was probably rather dashing in his living days. For the time period, anyways. He was pale as smoke, and I could see right through him to the dark sky and torrential rain outside.

He glanced over at us and frowned. "You look troubled, young Potter and Nox," Nick said, folding a transparent letter as he spoke and tucking it inside his doublet.

"So do you," Harry said.

Nick gave a heavy sigh. "Ah," Nearly Headless Nick waved an elegant hand, "a matter of no importance... It's not as though I really wanted to join... Thought I'd apply, but apparently I 'don't fulfill requirements.'" In spite of his airy tone, there was a look of great bitterness on his face. Probably something to do with the Headless Hunt. "But you would think, wouldn't you," he erupted suddenly, pulling the letter back out of his pocket, "that getting hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe would qualify you to join the Headless Hunt?"

I knew that it had something to do with the Headless Hunt. He had wanted to be a part of it for years. Centuries, really. But he kept getting denied. The last thing I'd heard was something about how he hadn't been properly beheaded. His hand hung on by just a few threads. He had showed us last year that he could pull it off of his shoulders, but that it was still connected by a piece of skin on the left side. It meant that he wasn't truly headless, hence his nickname.

He was still watching us. "Oh - yes," Harry said quickly, realizing that we were obviously supposed to agree.

Smiling at Nick, I had to suppress the urge to place my hand on Nick's shoulder. Touching a ghost was like going in an ice bath. "If it makes any difference, I would have voted for you, Nick," I said sweetly.

Nick turned to me with somewhat of a smile. "Thank you, my dear." I nodded at him. "I mean, nobody wishes more than I do that it had all been quick and clean, and my head had come off properly, I mean, it would have saved me a great deal of pain and ridicule." Harry and I exchanged a disgusted glance. "However-" Nearly Headless Nick shook his letter open and read furiously.

"'We can only accept huntsmen whose heads have parted company with their bodies. You will appreciate that it would be impossible otherwise for members to participate in hunt activities such as Horseback Head-Juggling and Head Polo. It is with the greatest regret, therefore, that I must inform you that you do not fulfill our requirements. With very best wishes, Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore.'"

Well... It sounded kind of nice to me. As nice as declining someone for a Headless Hunt could be. Fuming, Nearly Headless Nick stuffed the letter away. "Half an inch of skin and sinew holding my neck on, kids!" I cringed, feeling absolutely disgusted by the thought. I certainly hoped that when I went, it wasn't by beheading. And if it was, I wanted it done properly. "Most people would think that's good and beheaded, but oh, no, it's not enough for Sir Properly Decapitated-Podmore." I couldn't help but to snort. Nearly Headless Nick took several deep breaths and then said, in a far calmer tone, "So, what's bothering you? Anything I can do?"

In all honesty, there were quite a few things that were bothering me. Some of them were smaller things, leftover thoughts from last year. I wanted to know what I meant to Voldemort and why he seemed to know me. I also would have loved to know who had sent me the three unmarked presents, which were still unaccounted for. But I tried to ignore those, since I hadn't heard a word from Voldemort since, and there had been no more boxes. But that didn't mean that there were no things that were bothering me now. As always, there were plenty of things that were causing me trouble.

One of the biggest things was the horrible relationship that I had with Gilderoy Lockhart, I was going to flip out and kill him in a matter of days. The water goblet would be nothing. I was also just about sick of Draco Malfoy. He'd kept his head down in the weeks since I'd given him a black eye for calling Hermione a Mudblood, but he was starting to make noise again. The constant Quidditch practices and days spent soaking wet and freezing cold were driving me up the damn wall, too. Classes were beginning to get harder and the work was starting to pile up. Plus there was still the fact of the murderous voice that only Harry and I had heard during our detention with Lockhart.

It seemed that no one had heard it other than us, and neither of us had heard it since. Not for lack of trying. Every time that I walked through the corridors I would strain my ears to see if I could hear anything that would show me that the voice was back. But nothing ever did. I couldn't hear the voice ever again, and there was nothing indicating that the voice that I'd heard wasn't a figment of my imagination, as Hermione thought, save for the fact that Harry had heard it, too.

I decided to give it a try. Perhaps there was a chance that ghosts could hear things that most people couldn't. "Wouldn't happened to have heard any strange voices lately?" I asked.

Nick glanced over at me, seemingly very briefly distracted by his pity over being denied for the Headless Hunt again. Harry glanced over at me and shook his head. We had agreed to drop the hearing voices thing, not wanting to sound like we were losing our minds. I had debated on writing Mom and Dad but I didn't want to worry them, or end up with a Howler telling me to stop getting myself into things that weren't my concern. Not that I could help this one. For a while I had even debated on going to Dumbledore and telling him what I had heard. But Harry had convinced me that it was the best to say nothing.

Our argument ended with the agreement that even in the Wizarding World, hearing voices wasn't good. "I hear all sorts of strange things. Comes with being a ghost," Nick finally said. I nodded at him. Of course. A voice saying that it wanted to rip and kill wouldn't have sounded strange. "As evidently the Headless Hunt does not..." he muttered, back on his previous predicament.

"No," Harry said, angrily yanking at his own muddy Quidditch robes. We were the ones that had decided to run back to the castle, rather than wait it out with the others. But we'd known that it wouldn't stop anytime soon. "There's nothing that you can do for us to make it better. Not unless you know where we can get seven free Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones for our match against Sly-"

The rest of Harry's sentence was drowned out by a high-pitched mewling from somewhere near his ankles. Glancing down, I saw that I was gazing straight into a pair of lamp-like yellow eyes. It was Mrs. Norris, the skeletal gray cat who was used by the caretaker, Argus Filch, as a sort of deputy in his endless battle against students. She wasn't particularly unfriendly. Merely creepy. But usually she would be followed closely by Mr. Filch the second that she appeared. And that never meant anything good for the students. He was always looking for some reason to get the students into detention.

Nick seemed just as unnerved by her sudden appearance as Harry and I were. "You'd better get out of here, Harry, Tara," Nick said quickly. "Filtch isn't in a good mood. He's got the flu and some Third Years accidentally plastered frog brains all over the ceiling in dungeon five." How the hell had they managed that? "He's been cleaning all morning, and if he sees you two dripping mud all over the place -"

"Right," Harry said.

Grabbing onto my arm, Harry started yanking me away from the scene. We were backing away from the accusing stare of Mrs. Norris, but not quickly enough. Not that I shouldn't have seen that coming. Nothing seemed to have been going right for me this year. Drawn to the spot by the mysterious power that seemed to connect him with his foul cat, Argus Filtch burst suddenly through a tapestry to our right. Harry and I both rolled our eyes at the obvious ending. Filch was wheezing and looking wildly about for the rule-breaker. There was a thick tartan scarf bound around his head, and his nose was unusually purple.

He was very clearly sick and I took a step back, not wanting to be involved in that cold. "Damn it," I muttered.

I shouldn't have spoken. I'd drawn Filch's attention right towards me. "Filth!" he shouted, his jowls quivering with the shout, and his eyes popping alarmingly as he pointed at the muddy puddle that had dripped from Harry and I's Quidditch robes. I tried to flick them behind me, but I only made it worse as a splatter of mud shot off of my robes and onto the carpet. "Mess and muck everywhere! I've had enough of it, I tell you! Follow me, Potter! Nox!"

"We weren't breaking a rule!" I shouted back.

"Did I ask you?" Filch howled.

"I'd be shocked if you asked me anything - actually making this fair..." I muttered.

My comment was not well-received. Harry stomped on my foot to get me to be quiet as Filch whipped around to me. "Detention! Tonight at eight o'clock. Cleaning out the trophy room!" he hissed.

Groaning under my breath, I moved forward and walked with Filch. Harry and I waved a gloomy goodbye to Nearly Headless Nick. He looked very guiltily as we walked off with Filch. A few students spotted us and cringed, some sending us reassuring looks. Everyone knew how much it really sucked to get caught breaking the rules by him. We followed Filch back downstairs, doubling the number of muddy footprints on the floor. The whole time Filch was practically growling at anyone that came too close to him. He looked absolutely furious that he even had to be here today. Or any day. I knew how angry the students made him. Not that he made us any happier.

Neither Harry nor I had ever been inside Filch's office before; it was a place most students avoided. The room was dingy and windowless, which didn't surprise me in the slightest, and it was lit by a single oil lamp dangling from the low ceiling. A faint smell of fried fish lingered about the place. It almost smelled good. I groaned as my stomach gave a harsh growl. I had been planning to get something to eat soon. Oliver had made me run four laps on the field for shoving Fred off of his broom when he'd laughed at a missed throw. It had definitely burned off everything that I had eaten earlier.

Wooden filing cabinets stood around the walls. Labels were scrawled across the front. My eyes scanned over them. The ones in the far corner of the room seemed to have older students. I could have sworn that I very briefly caught sight of a drawer that contained James Potter and Marcus Nox. There was even a scrawled plate for Sirius Black. I shuddered slightly and moved along. He was not someone that I wanted to think about. These were clearly the details of every pupil Filch had ever punished. I snorted when I saw that Fred and George Weasley had an entire drawer to themselves. My own name was in the new section. My piece of the drawer already took up about a fifth of it. Harry and Ron's files were also stuffed in with mine.

A highly polished collection of chains and manacles hung on the wall behind Filch's desk. It was common knowledge that he was always begging Dumbledore to let him suspend students by their ankles from the ceiling. He had wanted to do the same thing to us after he'd caught us trying to deliver Norbert to Charlie's friends in the Astronomy tower after curfew last year. Filch grabbed a quill from a pot on his desk and began shuffling around looking for parchment.

Filch certainly did not look happy. Harry and I exchanged a worried look, knowing that this wasn't going to end well for us. I'd already gotten myself a detention. "Dung... great sizzling dragon bogies... frog brains... rat intestines... I've had enough of it... make an example... where's the form? Yes..." He retrieved a large roll of parchment from his desk drawer and stretched it out in front of him, dipping his long black quill into the ink pot. "Names... Harry Potter... Tara Nox... Crime..."

"It was only a bit of mud!" Harry exclaimed.

I could have slapped him. I had made things bad enough. He didn't need to make things worse. "It's only a bit of mud to you, boy, but to me it's an extra hour scrubbing!" Filch shouted, a drip shivering unpleasantly at the end of his bulbous nose.

Cringing slightly at the sight, I shouted back, "We'll clean it up!"

"Shut it!" Filch howled at me. Blushing slightly, I sank back into my chair and watched as he went back to the papers. "Crime... befouling the castle... suggested sentence..."

The two of us exchanged a look once more. Filch was always nasty towards the students and usually gave extremely long punishments for simple things like tracking in mud or standing in the halls for too long. Dabbing at his streaming nose, Filch squinted unpleasantly at Harry and I. I'd already managed myself one detention, now it was a matter of seeing how many more he would tack onto that. If nothing else, Filch usually didn't take points away. I supposed that it was the one good thing that could be said for the nasty man. Filch smiled nastily as he lowered his quill and I cringed, knowing that he had come up with some terrible punishment, when there was a great bang on the ceiling of the office, which made the oil lamp rattle.

The three of us all jumped at the sudden noise. I grinned. For once, Peeves had actually been helpful. "Peeves!" Filch roared, flinging down his quill in a transport of rage. "I'll have you this time, I'll have you!"

Seemingly forgetting about us, and without a backward glance at Harry or I, Filch ran flat-footed from the office, Mrs. Norris streaking alongside him. Peeves was the school poltergeist, a grinning, airborne menace who lived to cause havoc and distress. No one particularly liked him, but it couldn't be denied that the way that he got Filch going was funny. Peeves didn't take orders from anyone, save the Bloody Baron, and it was the only reason that we'd been able to get past him when trying to save the Sorcerer's Stone last year. Hopefully, whatever Peeves had done (and it sounded as though he'd wrecked something very big this time) would distract Filtch from another punishment.

"Good timing on Peeves's part," I said to Harry.

"Never been so grateful for him," Harry replied. "Should we wait for him?"

As much as I would have loved to run for it, I knew that we were better off staying and waiting. "We should probably stay and wait. Filch knows us and knows where we live. If we make a run for it, it'll only make things worse," I said.

"Damn," Harry muttered.

"Well said."

The two of us laughed softly as we took a step backwards. We'd been standing very carefully away from Filch. Everyone knew to keep their distance from him, particularly when he was angry or sick. Harry sank into a moth-eaten chair next to the desk. He motioned for me to squeeze into it with him, considering that there was only the one chair. I glanced over at his desk. There was only one thing on it apart from his half-completed form: a large, glossy, purple envelope with silver lettering on the front. I raised a brow but didn't do anything. I merely laid back in the chair. With a quick glance at the door to check that Filtch wasn't on his way back, Harry picked up the envelope.

Stopping him before he could grab the letter, I laid a hand over his. "We shouldn't read that," I said.

Harry shrugged his shoulders at me. "It's an envelope. Who cares?"

He was sounding more and more like Ron every day. I knew that it was just an envelope, but it might have had sensitive information in it. Although... I was curious. "It's not ours," I argued, although it was very weak.

Despite not wanting to read something that was Filch's and not wanting to make him even angrier with us than he already was, I assumed that he would be busy with Peeves for a little while. The two of them normally got into shouting matches for a long time. So I let go of Harry's arm and allowed him to pick up the letter. The two of us read over it together.

KWIKSPELL
A Correspondence Course in Beginners' Magic

Harry gave me a look and I shrugged my shoulders. I'd never heard of Kwikspell before. Of course, there were still lots of things in the Wizarding World that I'd never heard of. I was only twelve, after all. Almost thirteen. Intrigued, Harry flicked the envelope open and pulled out the sheaf of parchment inside. He gave me another look and I nodded at him. We'd already started. Might as well know what we were looking at. More curly silver writing on the front page looked like an advertisement.

Feel out of step in the world of modern magic? Find yourself making excuses not to perform simple spells? Ever been taunted for your woeful wandwork?

There is an answer!

Kwikspell is an all-new, fail-safe, quick-result, easy-learn course. Hundreds of witches and wizards have benefited from the Kwikspell method!

Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes:

"I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke! Now, after a Kwikspell course, I am the center of attention at parties and friends beg for the recipe of my Scintillation Solution!"

Warlock D. J. Prod of Didsbury says:

"My wife used to sneer at my feeble charms, but one month into your fabulous Kwikspell course and I succeeded in turning her into a yak! Thank you, Kwikspell!"

Harry gently laid down the envelope and glanced over at me. He seemed to have realized that I was reacting to the letter. He clearly knew that I understood something. It was horrible. Perhaps this was exactly the reason that Filch was as nasty as he was. If he was a Squib... Well... I couldn't blame him for hating everyone in the castle. To be born into a magical family to have no powers of your own. Yeah. I could imagine that something like that would have made me incredibly bitter, too. At least, in the event that he was a Squib and not just a lousy wizard, Dumbledore had allowed him to come and work at Hogwarts.

"Merlin, I wonder if Filch is a Squib," I muttered under my breath.

Harry looked at me. "A what?" he asked.

"Think opposite of Muggle-Born."

"Pureblood?" he asked dumbly.

Glancing up at him, I shook my head. We didn't have the time to talk about it right now. I wanted to read through the letter. "I'll explain later," I promised him, looking back at the letter.

The two of us were both fascinated. Leaning over Harry's shoulder, I watched as he thumbed through the rest of the envelope's contents. Why on earth did Filch want a Kwikspell course? The only thing that I could think was that he was a Squib. Or a really lousy wizard. I'd never seen him with a wand. Then again, I hadn't seen Snape with a wand either, but I knew that he could perform magic. I'd never seen Professor Sinistra or Madam Pince with wands either. They didn't need them. But Filch... It could definitely be a possibility. We were just reading 'Lesson One: Holding Your Wand (Some Useful Tips)' when shuffling footsteps outside told us that Filch was coming back.

Shoving at each other in panic, Harry stuffed the parchment back into the envelope. Harry threw it back onto the desk just as the door opened. The two of us jammed ourselves back into the chair and tried to look as though we hadn't just discovered what could have been a very embarrassing secret. Filch was looking triumphant. He must have made some headway in his quest to get Peeves banished from the school. I was watching very nervously, hoping that he wouldn't be able to read our guilty faces.

"That vanishing cabinet was extremely valuable!" Filch was saying gleefully to Mrs. Norris. "We'll have Peeves out this time, my sweet -"

He seemed to have finally remembered that someone else was in the office. My heart nearly stopped, even though nothing had happened yet. His piercing eyes fell on Harry and I - seemingly noticing that we had moved - and then darted to the Kwikspell envelope. Oh no. He knew. And as I looked over, I realized that it was very obvious that we had read it. The envelope was lying two feet away from where it had started. Filch's pasty face went brick red. Cringing softly - knowing how angry Filch would be for someone seeing it - I braced myself for a tidal wave of fury. Filch hobbled across to his desk, snatched up the envelope, and threw it into a drawer.

When he turned back to us, I was sure that it was the angriest that I had ever seen him. "Have you - did you read -?" he sputtered.

"No," Harry lied quickly.

Filch's knobbly hands were twisting together. I was absolutely positive that he was going to ring our necks. "If I thought you'd read my private - not that it's mine - for a friend - be that as it may - however." Harry and I were both staring at him, alarmed; now I knew that Filch had never looked madder. His eyes were popping, a tic was going in one of his inflamed cheeks, and the tartan scarf didn't help. "Very well - go - and don't breathe a word - not that - however, if you two didn't read - go now, I have to write up Peeves' report - go -"

Knowing that we needed to leave before making things any worse, the two of us stood up and shoved each other towards the exit. Filch was muttering angrily to himself. I was absolutely amazed at our luck. Sure I'd gotten the one detention, but we'd managed not to make things any worse. Harry and I sped out of the office, up the corridor, and back upstairs. The two of us didn't slow down until we were two floors up from Filch's office. Once we did, we turned to each other and laughed. To escape from Filch's office without punishment - since my official punishment had been given in the hallway - was probably some kind of school record.

"Harry! Tara! Harry! Did it work?"

The two of us turned from each other to see who was calling for us. Nearly Headless Nick came gliding out of a classroom. My eyebrows rose. I thought that Peeves was the one who had done something? Nick rarely did anything other than say hello to the Gryffindor's that happened to be passing him. Sometimes the other Houses, but never Slytherin. Behind him, I could just see the wreckage of a large black and gold cabinet that appeared to have been dropped from a great height.

Had he done that? "I persuaded Peeves to crash it right over Filch's office," Nick said eagerly. "Thought it might distract him -"

"Thank you!" I spoke over him excitedly.

He had definitely saved us a lot of trouble. "Was that you? Yeah, it worked, I didn't even get detention," Harry said gratefully.

"Yeah. You didn't get a detention..." I muttered.

Harry turned towards me and rolled his eyes. "If you'd watch your mouth you'd stop getting detentions," he said.

"Careful, your Hermione is showing," I teased.

Harry laughed under his breath and shoved into me. Nick smiled at us both. I'll drop by the trophy room and help you out, my dear. Ghosts can be quite good about cleaning," Nick offered.

Shocked that he would actually help out, I grinned brightly. That would definitely make things easier. "Thanks!" I exclaimed.

I'd never been as grateful for the Hogwarts ghosts as I was right now. "And thanks for the distraction, Nick!" Harry added. Together we set off up the corridor. Nearly Headless Nick was still holding Sir Patrick's rejection letter. I felt terrible for him. Even in death, he still couldn't get everything that he wanted. "I wish there was something we could do for you about the Headless Hunt," Harry said.

"Can we petition for you to join?" I offered.

Nearly Headless Nick grinned at me. I assumed that we probably couldn't petition. I doubted that the ghosts cared anything about what two living children thought. But something seemed to have triggered in Nearly Headless Nick. He stopped dead in his tracks and Harry and I walked right through him. The moment that I had, I wished that I hadn't. It was very obvious that Harry felt the same way. Walking through a ghost was like stepping through an icy shower.

Nick seemed clueless to our distaste. "But there is something you could do for me," Nick said excitedly. "Harry - Tara - would I be asking too much - but no, you wouldn't want -"

We exchanged a look and nodded. Nick had done something very nice for us. The least that we could do was repay the favor. "What is it?" Harry asked.

"You helped us. Let us help you," I said sweetly.

Nick gave something that I assumed was a blush. His cheeks became a little paler. "Well, this Halloween will be my five hundredth deathday," Nearly Headless Nick said, drawing himself up and looking dignified.

Harry and I exchanged a look with each other. Was that something to be happy or sad about? I couldn't really tell. But Nick seemed very happy about this. "Oh. Right," Harry said.

"Congratulations?" I asked more than said.

Nick didn't seem to catch that we weren't sure about this. "Thank you, dear, Tara," Nick said. I nodded at him. "I'm holding a party down in one of the roomier dungeons." Ah, yes, the dungeons. A wonderful place for a cheerful gathering. "Friends will be coming from all over the country. It would be such an honor if you would attend. Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger would be most welcome, too, of course - but I daresay you'd rather go to the school feast?" he asked.

He watched Harry and I on tenterhooks. Immediately I understood that Nick really wanted us to come, but also didn't want us to feel guilt-tripped into coming. "Of course not!" I said.

"No," Harry said quickly once I had agreed, "We'll come -"

"My dear boy! Harry Potter, at my deathday party! And Miss Tara Nox! Pretty and bright," Nick said sweetly. I smiled softly and blushed at the ground. And," he hesitated, looking excited, "do you think you two could possibly mention to Sir Patrick how very frightening and impressive you find me?"

"Of - Of course," Harry said.

"Not a problem," I added.

Nearly Headless Nick beamed at us. I smiled, knowing that we had done something very nice for someone that had done something very nice for us. It felt good. Although... I couldn't help but to be a little sad. The Halloween Feast was always something to be loved. Everyone in the school always looked forward to it. The food was incredible and the decorations were lovely. I had missed most of the feast last year, considering Ron's nasty comment about Hermione earlier in the day had called her into the bathroom all day to cry. The time that had been spent in the Great Hall had been irritable, considering that I'd been furious with Ron for saying what he had. Afterwards we'd nearly been squashed by Quirrell's troll.

He had set the thing to come and distract the teachers so that he could get into the third-floor corridor but had been headed off by Snape. In the meantime, Harry and Ron had accidentally locked it the bathroom with us. We had all barely managed to defeat it. But the disaster had done one thing. It had cemented the friendship between the four of us. I had really been looking forward to experiencing a happier Halloween Feast this year. But we couldn't back out. We'd already promised. It would be nasty of us to back out only minutes after we'd said yes. And Nick had seemed so excited...

We said goodbye to Nearly Headless Nick as we started heading towards the Gryffindor tower near the top of the school. "What's a Squib?" Harry asked me softly once Nick had gone.

I'd nearly forgotten, considering the new plans for the deathday party. "Remember last year when we first met Neville in the Great Hall? He was talking about the ways that his family had been getting him to show his powers?" I asked. He nodded slowly at me. "He got all sheepish when he was saying that they hoped that he wasn't... And then he trailed off."

Harry seemed to be thinking back to that day, well over a year ago. "Yeah. What about it?" he asked.

"Squibs are basically the polar opposite of Muggle-Born's. They're witches and wizards that are born into a magical family but display no magical powers of their own," I said. Harry looked shocked. "They're very rare. They can usually see some magical things like... They can look past enchantments and see magical creatures, but they can't cast spells or anything like that. Muggle-Born's are descended from Squibs who married Muggles. The magical ability unexpectedly resurfaces after a lot of generations."

Harry was silent for a long while. I understood. It had taken me a long time to understand what Squibs were when Mom and Dad had taught me about them. I'd never actually met one before. But maybe I had... Maybe we all had. "That's horrible. To be raised in a magical family to have no powers of your own," Harry finally said.

It was one of the worst things that could happen to someone from a magical family. "They're considered disgraces to the Wizarding World. The Ministry doesn't even keep records of their birth because they don't consider them related to us in any way. For all intents and purposes, they're Muggles. Most of them choose to live cut-off from the magical world because it's too painful for them," I continued to explain.

"I guess we know why Filch is so nasty to the students," Harry muttered.

I nodded at him. I certainly wouldn't be happy working around people that had the same skills that had been robbed from me. "Can you blame him?" I asked.

"No," Harry said quickly. We began climbing the final staircase that led up to the Gryffindor Common Room. "So... Hermione?" Harry asked me softly as we walked.

Glancing over at him, I nodded. "Yeah." At one point, her family had been magical. But it wasn't until Hermione that the magic came back. "At some point there was magical blood in her family, a long time ago. But then there was a Squib, and that Squib eventually married a Muggle. Her great-great-great-great-whatever. Either her mother or father are descended from a once-magical family."

"That's how we got Muggle-Born's, then?" Harry asked.

Tapping my nose gently, I nodded at him. "Exactly. There isn't like a mutation or something that causes the magical gene. It comes back after years of lying dormant. That's why my parents told me to never be cruel to Muggle-Born's. At one point, they were just as magical as we are. Don't mention that to her," I added.

"I won't," he said quickly. I didn't want her thinking that her family wasn't as good because she happened to have a Squib in it somewhere. "Is that why people like Malfoy hate Muggle-Born's?"

"Kind of. They're just considered to be, not true magical people. They're biased, trust me. People like Malfoy aren't even overly-fond of Half-Blood's. But they'll deal with them, considering that's what most witches and wizards are. Most of Slytherin is Half-Blood," I said. Most of every House was Half-Blood's. "Very few are Muggle-Born."

I hadn't actually even heard of a Slytherin Muggle-Born. I was sure that there was one, but I hadn't met them yet. "Magic just gets more and more confusing with each passing day," Harry muttered.

Laughing softly at him, I gave a little nudge. "And you're only two years in." We both laughed as I gave the Fat Lady the password and we walked into the Common Room. Ron and Hermione were doing their Potions homework on the couches as Harry and I walked over to them. "Guess where we're going on Halloween?" I asked as I took a seat next to Hermione.

"Where?" Ron asked, barely looking up from his essay.

"Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party," I said.

Both Ron and Hermione dropped their quills and essays. Harry and I exchanged a little grin. They looked completely dumbfounded. "What?" Ron asked.

Laughing slightly, I leaned back into the chair and explained. "It's a way to celebrate the day that someone died. Ghosts do it," I explained when I realized that Hermione was staring at me like I'd lost my mind. "Nick invited Harry and I and told us that we could extend the invitation. It's his five hundredth deathday."

Ron still looked like I'd asked him to kiss the Venomous Tentacula. "A deathday party?" Hermione asked keenly. I knew that if anyone would be excited about the whole thing, it would be Hermione. "I bet there aren't many living people who can say they've been to one of those - it'll be fascinating!"

"Why would anyone want to celebrate the day they died?" Ron asked. He seemed to be about halfway through his Potions homework and it had clearly made him grumpy. As Potions homework seemed to do to everyone. "Sounds dead depressing to me..."

Almost snorting at the dead joke, I managed to keep my straight face and glared at him. "Shut up. It's important to Nick," I snapped.

That was the end of that conversation. The four of us all agreed to go to the deathday party and miss the feast. There was always a chance that we would be able to see the end and get some dessert. In the meantime, the four of us sat together and started going through our Potions essay. I'd already written mine and was allowed Hermione to compare the two. Mostly I was letting her check over the grammar and spelling. Snape was one of the few that took off for it. McGonagall being the other.

Rain was still lashing the windows, which were now inky black, and it made me want to drift off to sleep. I'd always liked letting rain lull me to sleep. But the inside was a much different scene. All looked bright and cheerful. The firelight glowed over the countless squashy armchairs where kids sat reading, talking, or doing homework. In my case, attempting to take a nap. Which was a bad idea, considering if I did that, I would probably never be able to get to bed. It didn't matter, Harry's voice was keeping me awake. He was retelling the story of our Quidditch session, Filch's nasty attitude, and the Kwikspell letter. As much as I thought that it wasn't our business, I didn't want to argue to keep the secret.

It wasn't just that, which was hard to listen to and try to fall asleep. Fred and George were currently trying to find out what would happen if you fed a Filibuster Firework to a salamander. I'd argued with them for half an hour about how it was cruel before Fred had tossed me over his shoulder, George had held my legs, and had tossed me back down on the couches on the other side of the room. I'd asked Percy what had happened and he'd told me that Fred had 'rescued' the brilliant orange, fire-dwelling lizard from a Care of Magical Creatures class. I was watching them through lidded eyes and saw that it was now smoldering gently on a table, surrounded by a knot of curious people.

Harry had just gotten to the point of telling Ron and Hermione about Filch and the Kwikspell course when the salamander suddenly whizzed into the air, emitting loud sparks and bangs as it whirled wildly round the room. I gasped and jumped up from my chair. I was going to kill the two of them. That was so horrible! It wasn't just me that was annoyed with the twins. Percy was bellowing himself hoarse at Fred and George. The disasters didn't end there. There was a spectacular display of tangerine stars showering from the salamander's mouth, and the salamander had had enough. It made a marvelous escape into the fire, with accompanying explosions, getting far away from the Weasley twins.

Standing from the couches, I walked over and whopped both of the twins in the head, joining Percy in screaming at the twins. "That's so horrible!" I shouted at the two of them.

"Relax, its fine," George said.

Fred grabbed me pushed me away from the crowd, followed closely by George. "So was shoving me off of my broom earlier!" I grinned to myself. Seeing him go face-first into the muddy ground had definitely been the highlight of my day.

"Quit whining, you big baby," I told Fred. He whacked me over the head as we sat back down with Ron, Harry, and Hermione. Fred was on one side of me and George was on the other. I glanced over at Fred as he brought out a deck of cards and moved towards him. He twitched away from me and I rolled my eyes. "Come here. You have mud in your hair."

Fred batted my hand away. "I know. I'm saving it," he said.

My eyebrows rose. "For what?"

George leaned towards me and showed me a plastic bag filled with mud. "Got detention with Filch tonight," he said. I smiled brightly. Maybe that meant that we could hang out together. I hated detentions with Filch alone. It creeped me out. "Gonna spread some mud over the castle carpets on our way back afterwards."

Snorting under my breath, I nodded as Hermione berated them for making his job harder. "Cleaning the trophies?" I asked Fred as George tried to defend their decision to destroy the carpets.

"You too, huh?" he asked.

"Yep."

"Wanna help?"

The two of us were grinning at each other as I nodded. "You know it," I said brightly.

For most of the earlier part of the evening, we sat together and enjoyed the nice air of the Common Room. Things were still reasonably simple in classes and it meant that my homework wasn't driving me insane yet. Plus, Hermione hadn't even started howling at us to make study charts. I knew that Ron and Harry were dreading the day that she did. I could only imagine how much she would want to go to Lockart's office hours to get him to help her studying. I intended to stay far away from her when that time came. I'd explode if I had to be in his office ever again. I was personally enjoying the absence of Gilderoy Lockhart over the last few days.

Finally the time came that Fred, George, and I had to go downstairs for our detention with Filch. I'd found out that they'd gotten detention for accidentally letting the Venomous Tentacula out. It had ended up biting two Sixth Years. I'd laughed but scolded them, for what could have been a big deal. Professor Sprout had been beside herself in fury. Evidently Lockhart had been up in the hospital wing all day, trying to insist that he knew the cure, which Madam Pomfrey knew just as well. It explained why I hadn't seen the offending man in a while.

It ended up being a great deal for us to get detention with Filch. He'd left us to go hunt down Peeves - probably for the vanishing cabinet destruction earlier - and left us to our own devices. It meant that the three of us could play with the cards that we'd taken from Ron earlier. Much more entertaining than cleaning the trophies. George had borrowed Lee's wand, so we were able to clean up the trophies with a flick of the wand and spend the rest of the time playing Exploding Snap. Nearly Headless Nick had even come in and we'd explained to him how to play. Filch had come back within the hour and let us go, unable to find anything wrong with the spotless room.

Not long after he'd let us go, the three of us had gone traipsing through the castle, being very careful to duck into the secret passages whenever we saw one of the ghosts, Mrs. Norris, or Filch. We'd gone through the entrance hall and spread the mud everywhere. On the carpets, paintings, and walls, before heading back upstairs and sitting with everyone else once more. Hermione thought that I'd been proud that we'd cleaned the trophies so fast. She'd found out what we had really been so happy about when Filch's screams had echoed through the castle, waking everyone up the next morning, shouting about dirt and mud.

A few days after my detention with Fred, George, Nearly Headless Nick, and Filch, I was shaken awake by Hermione. She was standing with Lavender, Parvati, and Fay. Each of the girls was shouting a greeting at me, wishing me a very happy birthday. I'd smiled brightly and leapt from the bed, rushing downstairs with them. Fred and George had swiped a cake from the Hogwarts kitchens that we'd all shared. Everyone had been there. Fred, George, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Parvati, Lavender, Fay, Ginny, Percy, Oliver, Angelina, Alicia, Katie, Colin, and Lee. There were some other Gryffindor's there, too, that were celebrating with us.

There had been a few presents that they'd gotten me, and I really had appreciated it. Harry had gotten me another few pictures that I could add to the photo album. One of my favorite pictures that he'd given me was one that Colin had actually taken. We were rushing through the wind and rain, Harry and I, and the picture was of us racing, lightning flashing in the background. Hermione had gotten me a few books and cute pair of socks that changed color with my mood. Ron had given me some candy from his own stash. Mrs. Weasley had even sent me a chunk of homemade fudge. Mom and Dad had sent a letter that said that my presents were at home.

And so had gone the beginning of my birthday. I'd been heading down to the Great Hall to grab myself a small breakfast pastry or something, and to enjoy the nice weather in the meantime. It was the first day in weeks that it wasn't raining. I liked to think that it was a good sign for the day. Some people that were passing by me wished me a happy birthday. I'd smiled and thanked them all as I walked by. The Slytherin's had merely sneered at me, not that I cared. I was going to have a nice day. If nothing else, I was thinking about sunbathing by the Black Lake for a little while or going down to have tea with Hagrid. He had invited me to drop by on my birthday.

My quiet walk was not quiet for long. I was interrupted by a pair of arms being thrown over my shoulder, scaring the daylights out of me. "Happy birthday!" a familiar voice shouted.

Turning back, I laughed and wrapped Cedric in a hug. "Merlin, you scared me," I said. He smiled, probably not feeling very bad. "Thank you!" I chirped happily.

Just a week prior, it had been Cedric's birthday. We'd been in classes on his, but I'd still managed to do a few little things for him. Thankfully Dai no longer hated me. He didn't seem overly thrilled with me, but he would come close enough to me to take a few Galleons back home with a request for Mom to send me a present for Cedric. This year I'd gotten him a carving kit. He had been talking about how he loved his broom, but always managed to lose it in the Hufflepuff locker room. They all had the same broom. He'd thanked me profusely for it and laughed when he'd seen that I slipped in a Stars pendant. I'd noticed with a deep blush that it was now on his bag.

"So, what are you doing today?" Cedric asked me, distracting me from my thoughts.

Shrugging my shoulders, we started walking towards the Great Hall. "Not much, actually. Fred and George both got detentions. Everyone has Quidditch practice today. Oliver let me have the day off to enjoy my birthday. Ron has to work on a Transfiguration essay that Hermione was going to help him with. I figured that I'd head out to the grounds and see if Dean and Seamus wanted to kick a soccer ball around or something like that. Or maybe go to Quidditch practice anyways," I said.

Cedric held out a hand to stop me and I glanced over at him. "How dead set are you on those plans?" he asked.

Raising my eyebrows, I shook my head at him. If he wanted to do something, I would definitely like to spend the day with him, considering that everyone else had something to do. "Not very..." I said slowly.

Cedric grinned and grabbed me by the hand, yanking me with him. "Good. Come on," he said.

I laughed and followed him through the halls. We headed straight towards the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and I stopped dead in my tracks. After promising that he wasn't taking me to see Lockhart, I nodded and allowed him to drag me along again. We were very close to the classroom when he stopped me and motioned to the statue of a one-eyed witch. I grimaced, the statue had always creeped me out. But Cedric brought out his wand, muttered something that sounded like Dissendium, and I watched as the statue moved, showing me a passageway that it was covering.

Laughing softly, I kept a lookout as Cedric sat on the ground and dropped himself into the narrow passageway. Thankfully no one was coming. The weather was reasonably nice today so almost everyone was outside. And there were no classes, so we didn't have to worry about anyone coming around the corner and seeing us. Cedric held out his hand and motioned for me to follow him. I sat down on the edge of the opening and dropped down. He caught me around the waist and I blushed, breaking eye contact with him when the passageway over us closed, plunging us into darkness.

Considering that it was a weekend, I didn't have the Hogwarts robes or anything like that on. But I had worn some thicker clothes, which was good, since it was very cold in the dark and damp passage. Tightening my white coat over my form, I leaned down and snatched my wand out of my brown boots. It was where I normally kept it when I didn't have my robes on me. I was very glad that I'd worn a scarf and thicker pants today. If we were going outside, I needed to be covered. It was cold.

"Lumos," I muttered, letting the wand light up the dark passage.

Cedric noticed that I was glancing up towards where the passage had closed. He smiled at me and grabbed my hand. "Don't worry. It will open when we come back. We don't need a password to get back," he said.

I nodded and allowed him to pull me along. I was glad that it was as dark as it was, considering that I was blushing softly. "I thought that I was with Cedric Diggory, not Fred and George Weasley," I teased.

"Being in class with them helps sometimes," he said.

Laughing softly, I nodded and attempted to keep my footing. It was very rocky in the pathway and I was sure that I was going to fall over myself. His grip was tight on me, though, ensuring that I didn't fall over myself. It made me blush that one of his hands was right around my waist. The other was leading us along the passage. I kept my wand raised so that we could see ahead of ourselves. For a few minutes we stayed in silence. I wasn't sure if anyone would be able to hear us if I spoke.

But eventually, I decided to give it a try. I knew that Cedric would tell me to be quiet if we couldn't speak down here. "How long have you known about this?" I asked him.

Part of me couldn't help but to wonder if I was the first person that he had ever brought down here. First girl, that is. "Just a few months. Only tried it once," he said. The blush brightened slightly. He'd only been down here once, presumably to give it a test, by himself. I was the first person that he'd brought here. Thank you, Fred and George. "Come on and be quiet. It'll let us out in the cellar of Honeydukes," he said.

"Hogsmeade?" I asked, even though he'd just told me to be quiet.

Cedric nodded at me with a little smile. "Weren't you saying just the other day that you wanted to go to Hogsmeade?" he asked.

He was right about that. The day that we'd spent up in the Astronomy tower, I had mentioned that I really wanted to go to Hogsmeade. "Best birthday present ever," I said softly.

He laughed at me as we made our way through the passage. About ten minutes later he mentioned for me to put the light out. I did so and made my way up through the passage. I realized a moment later that the passage into the Honeydukes cellar must have been very old. Perhaps it had been one of the first things that was made. A way in and out of the castle without having to go through the front gates. I assumed that it would be a good way to get back and forth in the case of an emergency.

We arrived in the cellar of Honeydukes a moment later. Cedric pressed on the wooden pallet above us and very carefully peeked out. He glanced around twice before pushing it up gently and pulling himself out. He pulled himself out and handed me an arm down towards me. I grabbed his hand and let him pull me out of the passage. He gently closed the wooden trapdoor and I nearly laughed. It looked just like the one that Fluffy had been standing on. But this one was much different. We headed up the stairs and very carefully slid past the counter. Thankfully the owners were not paying us any mind as we slid out of the door.

The two of us gently shoved each other out onto the street. We probably shouldn't be out here right now, considering that it was not a Hogsmeade weekend up at the school, but if we were careful we wouldn't be caught. The first Hogsmeade weekend was actually next Saturday. Plus, I couldn't really bring myself to care. I was already having a good time out here. It was Saturday, so the village was full of people, but there were no school-age kids. There were older people that were clearly past Hogwarts age, and younger kids, that weren't old enough.

Hogsmeade itself was gorgeous. Even though we were still months away from Christmas, Hogsmeade looked like a Christmas card. There were little thatched cottages and shops were all covered in a layer of crisp snow. It was almost comical. It wasn't snowing up at the school yet, but it seemed like somewhere like this, it never stopped snowing. Cedric was looking at my wide-eyed reaction with a bright smile. He clearly knew that bringing me here was the best thing that he could have done for my birthday. There were holly wreaths on the doors and strings of enchanted candles hanging in the trees.

Cedric grinned at me bright-eyed reaction and gave me his hand. "Willing to trust me?" he asked.

"I think that now would be a bad time for me to tell you that I didn't trust you," I joked.

He smiled at me and held out his hand once more, I took it and allowed myself to loop my hand around his arm. Come on," Cedric said, pulling me down the snow-covered road with him.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Cedric smiled at me once more. "I'm going to show you my favorite places," he said.

We passed through all sorts of shops as Cedric pointed out some of the places that he'd visited last year. There was Dervish and Banges, which sold and repaired pretty much anything that you could think of. Dogweed and Deathcap was a Herbology shop that Cedric said was one of Professor Sprout's favorites. There was a hairdressing place, post office, and even the station - where the Hogwarts Express brought us in for each new year of school. There was J. Pippin's Potions, which I was sure that Snape visited frequently. Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop was near the end and I poked my head in quickly. It looked like Scribbulus in Diagon Alley.

We had passed most of the shops without going in. He merely pointed them out to me. I knew that he was saving the shops that he liked the most to actually bring me in at the end. There was Dominic Maestro's Music Shop. I remembered seeing a trophy with his name on it in the trophy room at Hogwarts. While we were in there we'd played on some magical drums and learned that Cedric was not a good guitar player. When he'd been playing one of them, the chord had snapped, whacking him painfully in the fingers, before zipping back into their place. Dominic put it back on the shelf and we settled on merely watching from a distance.

It was very obvious that Cedric was not someone that should ever play a musical instrument in real life. He didn't exactly have good rhythm. I'd teased him and told him that he had probably offended the guitar. He told me that I probably actually had offended it. We went to Gladrags Wizardwear after that. It had all sorts of novelty clothing in it. We had greatly enjoyed trying on sweaters that reflected the face of the person who was looking into it. When it reflected the face, it would greatly distort it. It had turned me purple and given me orange polka-dots. It had made Cedric bald and given him thick wrinkles.

We'd laughed so hard that we'd been chased from the shop for causing a commotion. So we'd headed along down the street when Cedric pulled into a store called Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop. He didn't seem thrilled to be in here but he clearly thought that I would want to come in. I rolled my eyes. This was such a girly shop. The windows were all steamed up from the heat of the tea, the gaudy tables and chairs were being taken up by younger couples, and the decorations were very pink and frilly. The bell chimed very sweetly as we walked in and Madam Puddifoot led us to a table. The round tables were decorated with lacy napkins and china sugar bowls, and cramped up the small shop.

It wasn't long before Madam Puddifoot came back and brought Cedric a cup of regular tea and myself a cup of black coffee. She looked a little confused at us before heading off. "Well... This is..." I trailed off, unsure of what to say.

Cedric looked mortified that he had taken me here. Most girls probably thought that it was cute. But it was definitely overwhelming. Maybe a kid would like it. A little girl that still liked faeries. "Overheard my mates saying that girls liked it here," Cedric said abashedly. He ran his hands through his hair and I laughed. "It's a little..."

"Vomit-inducing?" I offered.

Cedric smiled and shook his head as he sipped on the tea. "Well it's not that bad," he said. I raised a brow at him. He laughed and shook his head. "Okay, yes it is. Alright I'm sorry about this one."

Smiling at him softly, I blew at the coffee to get it to cool down. "It's adorable. You tried," I said, gently nudging him with my leg. "But I'd much rather be at a Quidditch store."

"Good," Cedric said.

Blushing slightly under his gaze, I went back to my coffee cup. We ended up not staying for very long. The two of us were laughing so loudly and kept teasing the other couples in the store. All of the tables were so close together that someone had overheard us and complained to Madam Puddifoot. She'd frowned and sent us on our way. It didn't bother us. As we walked out of Madam Puddifoot's we'd been in stitches laughing about Cedric's very poor attempt to impress me. I appreciated it, though. It had almost felt like he was trying to take me on a date. This entire thing actually felt very much like a date...

Despite the fact that we weren't holding hands or anything like that. But I almost liked it. It didn't feel like there was so much pressure. It just felt like we were having fun together and my crush wasn't a big deal. It still was there, but it could have been worse. We went to Tomes and Scrolls afterwards, it was a specialty bookstore. Cedric merely smiled and followed me around the store as I pointed out the books that I'd always loved. I thought that I might have been boring him, but he seemed to enjoy just watching me be happy. He had even laughed when I'd admitted that The Fountain of Fair Fortune was my favorite story as a child.

We'd gone to what I could only imagine was Fred and George's favorite shop afterwards. It was Zonko's Joke Shop. Cedric said that it was one of the most popular stores in Hogsmeade. It carried everything that could be in even Fred and George's wildest dreams. I could only imagine that they would want to model their own shop after it. It carried Dungbombs, Hiccough Sweets, Frog Spawn Soap, Sugar Quills, Nose Biting Teacups, and everything else under the sun. I'd gotten a particular kick out of watching a Screaming Yo-Yo go around a loop to come back and whack Cedric in the face.

The last thing that we'd done was head over to the Three Broomsticks Inn. It was supposedly older than Hogsmeade itself. We'd sat together and had two Butterbeer's. It was a Hogwarts favorite. Students frequently came here. It was warm, crowded, and quite a bit smoky, but it still managed to be clean and inviting. It was owned by a sweet and pretty witch named Madam Rosmerta. She had given us a long look but at Cedric's winning smile, she'd shaken her head, taken our orders, and walked off. The two of us ended up sitting together and chatting for hours. It was peaceful, the air in the pub much warmer than outside.

The sun was starting to set by the time that Cedric - on his insistence as a birthday present - had paid the tab and we'd left. Not that we'd really made it that far. We'd simply started milling around the outside of the pub. It wasn't snowing but the air had turned cold and icy. I was chilled to the bone, wishing that I'd brought Fred's clock with me. We were still walking slowly, not wanting to go back to school. The day had been so nice that the last thing that I wanted was to head back to a school full of poltergeists, nasty teachers, and murderous voices.

We were just passing the edge of the Three Broomsticks when I found myself asking a question I'd been trying to keep to myself. "Can I ask you something? It's kind of a strange question." Cedric raised his eyebrows but nodded for me to continue. "Have you ever seen Filch actually do magic?"

The moment that I said it, I wished that I could have taken it back. "You're right. That is a strange question," he said. I smiled guiltily, wanting to tell him to forget it. "I can't say that I have. Although I've definitely had him threaten to hang me from my toenails in the dungeon."

My head turned over to him. Cedric rarely broke the rules - except, it seemed, with me. "What for?" I asked curiously.

Cedric shrugged his shoulders. "Something about tracking in too much mud after one of our Quidditch sessions," he admitted.

Snorting under my breath, I nodded. So it appeared that Harry and I had only been the most recent victims of Filch's demand for a cleaner castle. "Ah, Harry and I got harassed for the same thing. He tried to give us a detention for it," I said.

"Sounds like Filch. Why were you asking me if I'd ever seen him perform magic?" Cedric asked.

Coughing awkwardly, I debated on whether or not I should tell him. As much as I hated Filch, I didn't want to embarrass him. "Well... I don't want to give away his secret. But I trust you not to say anything." Cedric nodded his agreement. "He had an envelope for something called Kwikspell on his desk. It sounded like something that a Squib would use."

Cedric's eyes widened. Being a Squib was not something to be taken lightly. "It does kind of sound like something that a Squib would use. He might be. It would explain why I've never seen him with a wand or anything like that. That's a little sad," he said.

"Can you imagine? Being born into a magical family but having no powers yourself?" I asked.

Cedric shook his head. I imagined that no one would ever want to think of something like that. "If that's the case, it's nice that Professor Dumbledore actually let him come and work for Hogwarts. No sense in just telling him that he couldn't be involved in the Wizarding World."

Nodding at him, I slowly kicked at some of the grass that we were walking past. "No. That'd be cruel," I told him. "Maybe that's why Filch is as mean as he is."

"It would make sense." We walked together for a little longer before I gave a nasty shiver. "Cold?" Cedric asked.

Blushing slightly, I tried to play it off, but my chattering teeth gave away the truth. "A little. It's fine," I said. But he didn't just let it go. Cedric wrapped an arm around me and I blushed, tucking myself into him. He was much warmer than I was. "You know, I think that this is the most fun that I've ever had on my birthday," I told him.

Cedric smiled down at me. "I'm very glad to hear that," he said.

"Thanks for this," I said, motioning around us.

"Figured that this would be a fun way to get out of school for a little while."

"It was."

For a moment we just stood and smiled at each other. It was right then that I realized that staggering height difference between us. He must have recently gone through a growth spurt. He was well over five and a half feet. Probably nearing five-foot-ten. Definitely tall for his age. Here I was, not even five feet yet. His voice had deepened since the last year and he looked a little older now, too. His hair was longer and curled a little less, now it fell more in a swoop. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that he was a Fifth or Sixth Year. He began to move again and myself, still standing under his arm, was pulled along. I didn't want to go back, but it was time.

We'd barely made it before a heavy rain began to fall, the wind whipping the rain at us like bullets. "Oh!" I cried, preparing to make a run for it. It made no difference. We were soaked within seconds. "That's typical."

"At least Lockhart isn't around this time," Cedric quipped back.

The two of us had to speak loudly over the roar of the rain. But it felt very intimate. No one was standing around us. Everyone had fled the rain, other than us, considering that we were already soaked to the bone. I was blushing deeply for the earlier comment about Lockhart. I'd prayed that he hadn't noticed, but maybe he had. So the two of us merely laughed and stood together, the rain falling over it. The wind had died down and now the rain was simply falling around us. For a moment I could have sworn that he'd moved into me, and for a moment, I could have sworn that I'd taken a step closer. Is Cedric Diggory really about to kiss me?

It was like a scene out of a romance movie. But like any good romance, there had to be a few near-misses before the final kiss. "Tara? Diggory? What're yeh doin' out here?" Hagrid's voice called, shattering the moment.

Cedric and I jumped back from each other, petrified at the voice. I assumed that he, like me, had not been expecting anyone to be around here. And if they had, they would have left us alone. I turned back, noting that Cedric's face was burning red, and smiled awkwardly at Hagrid. "Oh, Hagrid! Hello," I chirped.

Despite barely being able to see through his beard, I knew that Hagrid was smirking at me. He was standing under the Three Broomsticks overhang, motioning us out of the rain. "Out fer an afternoon stroll, then?" he asked.

Blushing softly, I grinned at Hagrid. He seemed to be chuckling lightly. ""What are the chances that you won't repeat this to Harry? Or Ron? Or Hermione? Or anyone, actually?" I asked.

Hagrid nodded at me. I knew that he wouldn't tell them if I asked him not to. Besides, I'd tell them. If something happened. Which it wouldn't... "Won' be half bad if yeh head back up teh the school now. Yeh two aren't s'posed to be out here. 'Specially not yeh, Tara. Yeh aren't old enough yet," Hagrid told me.

"I know. Sorry, Hagrid, just a little birthday trip."

Hagrid smiled at me and pulled me into him. His hug was so crushing that I was sure that my ribs were going to snap. But I smiled and laughed, knowing that Hagrid meant well. "Happy birthday, Tara," he said.

Without warning, Hagrid let me down. I stumbled backwards slightly, caught by Cedric. "Thank you."

"Go on back now, no detours!"

"Promise!" I called back.

The two of us waved off Hagrid before turning back to leave. I was sure that I could hear Hagrid laughing as we walked off. Cedric's arm went back around me and I blushed. The rain was slowing now, simply drizzling. "Well if there's any Hogwarts employee to be caught by in Hogsmeade, underage and not on a visiting weekend, it's Hagrid," Cedric commented.

I nodded at him. If there was ever a Hogwarts personnel to catch a student doing something against the rules, it would always be Hagrid. "Definitely. He knows that I won't go straight back up to the castle. He just doesn't want to be held liable if I get caught. Likes to think that he's tried to do the right thing," I said.

The two of us smiled at each other as we walked back through Honeydukes. Cedric bought us a Chocolate Frog to share, and mostly so that the owner of she shop would have to restock and the chest. He left to the back storage room and Cedric and I jumped into the back, dashing down to the cellar and out of sight before the owner could spot us. Cedric opened the trapdoor and jumped down into it. I turned back to make sure that the owner was still pawing around in the front of the store before jumping into Cedric's arms. He closed the trapdoor behind us and I lit up the tip of my wand.

For a while we walked in silence, until we were far enough away from Honeydukes. Cedric split the Chocolate Frog as we walked. Once we were far enough away from the store, I glanced over to Cedric. "I think that you might be breaking even more rules than me. And that's saying something," I teased him.

He laughed at me and shook his head. "No, I don't think that anyone will be able to dethrone you on that," he teased me back.

Chatting the entire way back, I smiled at the day. We'd broken quite a few rules heading out to Hogsmeade without anyone knowing, but I'd really enjoyed myself today. And I would have enjoyed myself even more if Hagrid hadn't interrupted us... But as my mind was burning with the memory of the near-kiss, Cedric seemed perfectly content. Maybe he hadn't really meant it. Maybe it wasn't really going to happen. I could have been overreacting. As we arrived back at the entrance to Hogwarts, Cedric gave me a boost up into the Defense Against the Dark Arts hallway and I reached a hand down, helping him up.

The two of us made our way out of the hallway as quickly as possible, grinning brightly as we walked through the halls. I understood how Fred and George were always in such high spirits. Breaking the rules really did make you excited. "Thank you for today, Cedric. I really had a lot of fun," I said as we headed upstairs.

Even though the Hufflepuff Common Room was downstairs, he would walk me upstairs towards Gryffindor tower. "Glad that you did. Here's hoping that I can top it next year," Cedric said.

How about a real kiss? Not that I would ever dare say that out loud. "You'll think of something," I said brightly. Of course, I felt terrible. He had done so much for me, and I'd barely done anything for him. Just a stupid Carving Kit for his broom. "Here's hoping that maybe one year I can actually compete with something that you do," I added.

Cedric smiled at me and briefly squeezed my hand. He seemed almost reluctant to let it drop a moment later. "You don't need to compete. You're good enough," he told me.

That time I was sure that we both blushed. Cedric was normally very good about keeping his face under control. He never seemed to feel anything other than amusement when it came to the two of us. But I knew it when I saw it. He was embarrassed for saying something like that. It didn't help the furious flush that fell over my face. Deciding that it wasn't that big of a deal, I leaned up and pressed a small kiss against Cedric's cheek. His skin was cold from the icy rain. He grinned at me as I got off of my tip-toes and smiled at the floor.

"I'll see you soon," I said softly.

Cedric smiled at me and grabbed my arm, pressing a small kiss to my cheek. If it was at all possible, my face burned an even brighter red. "Happy birthday, Tara," he told me.

The two of us - both vaguely resembling Hagrid's tomatoes - smiled at each other and waved before stalking off. My feet hurriedly carried me to the Gryffindor tower. I did not want to run into Peeves and have him shout to the entire castle that I'd broken the rules. As if I wasn't on bad enough terms with Filch these days. So I headed straight to the Gryffindor Common Room, ignoring the Fat Lady's question about where I'd been all day, and walked in. Ron and Harry were nowhere to be found. I was definitely glad about that. But Hermione was. She was sitting by the fireplace and tapping her quill against her chin.

It only took her a second to realize that I was here. She turned back to me and gave me something in between a smile and a scowl. "Where have you been?" Hermione asked me.

"Where are Ron and Harry?" I asked, ignoring her question.

Her eyebrows knitted together. "They're in their room. They absolutely refused to work at their Transfiguration essay anymore," she said. I nodded. That figured. I wondered if they'd been curious as to where I'd gone. "How could they ever expect to pass their exams if they aren't studying? I know, you don't care. Wanna go get them?"

Grinning at her correct assumption that I didn't care about studying or Transfiguration, I shook my head and grabbed her hand. "No. Let them be boys." She looked surprised. We normally were always with the boys. "I have to talk to you," I told her.

"About?"

"What I did today. Come on!" I called to her.

Grasping her hand tightly, I yanked her from her chair and motioned for her to gather her things. "You're soaking wet," Hermione noted as she started putting her things away.

Rushing her to gather all of her things, Hermione scolded me for not properly putting all of her papers away, telling me that she would never be able to find them the way that I had placed them. I'd been quick to tell her that I didn't care. So we'd sprinted up the stairs. I'd dropped all of my things and she'd dropped hers on the bed. Hermione hopped up onto her bed as I dashed back and forth through the room, telling her everything that had happened today. From the moment that he'd found me, to everything that had happened in Hogsmeade, to the near-kiss that had been interrupted by Hagrid.

The two of us sat in silence for a long time as Hermione processed everything that I had told her. She'd smiled brightly at the comment that I was sure that he'd been about to kiss me, but it seemed that her smile had since faded. I raised my eyebrows at her, wondering what had bothered her now. I would have thought that she'd be happy for me.

"You snuck out of Hogwarts!" she hissed at me.

"Are you kidding?" I asked her with a very bored tone. I would kill her! She had to be girly with me from time to time. When she'd get her first crush, I'd be girly with her. "Be happy for me!" I shouted at her.

Hermione sighed and hopped onto my bed. "I am happy for you. But you snuck out!"

"And I wasn't caught."

"Hagrid caught you."

Well I supposed that technically I had been caught, but I knew that Hagrid wouldn't say anything about me being down there. Hagrid liked me well enough to never rat me out for something like that. "Could have been Snape," I told her with a small shrug.

"You wouldn't still be here if Snape had caught you," Hermione pointed out.

She was right about that. Ever since the incident with the Whomping Willow last month, Snape had been itching to find any reason to kick Harry, Ron, and I out of Hogwarts. Not much worked. He'd taken plenty of points from us and was constantly harassing us in his class but he'd had no true issues with us. Not enough to get us kicked out of Hogwarts. Although, if he'd found out that I'd snuck out of the castle, underage, on an unaccompanied trip, he would have had me out of here in a heartbeat.

And, as Dumbledore had said, he would have had no choice but to expel me. Hermione was right. I'd risked a lot to go out there. But I'd been so happy that I hadn't been thinking about it. "Fair point," I mumbled to her, not wanting to admit that she was right.

Hermione sighed and began to smile at me. "That was really sweet of him to be willing to risk all of that to actually take you out somewhere for your birthday," she said. I smiled at her and nodded, not wanting to tell her that I was actually the one that was risking more. "You should have kissed him, you moron!" she shouted after a second.

My jaw dropped. Every now and again, Hermione said something that really did surprise me. "What was I supposed to do? Hagrid was right there!" I tried to defend myself.

"Why didn't you do that afterwards?" she asked.

Because I'm too much of a baby to risk the friendship. I'd rather just stew in my annoying and very obvious crush. "I just... I got nervous," I muttered, picking at the dirt under my nails.

"Tara, he likes you."

"No he doesn't, Hermione, he's just my friend."

I'd figured that Hermione would argue the point with me. What I hadn't figured was that she would pick up a very large - and leather-bound - copy of Moby Dick and begin whacking me with it. "Don't - be - an - idiot! He likes you!" she shouted at me.

It was just the way that I had hit her on the first day of classes when I'd seen that she'd outlined Lockhart's lessons with hearts. "Ouch, damn it!" I barked, snatching the book away from her and tossing it onto the ground. She smiled bashfully at me as we rolled onto our stomachs to talk. "You really think that he likes me?" I asked her softly.

She rolled her eyes at me, something that Hermione didn't do very often. "Every single person in Hogwarts knows that you both have feelings for the other, save each other," she said.

My cheeks burned awkwardly. "Well... That's embarrassing," I muttered.

Hermione leaned forward and patted me on the back. "Do something about it," she told me. I groaned and shoved my face into the bed. "Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but eventually."

"I will think about it. Thanks, Mione," I said.

"You're welcome." A second later, Hermione jumped up onto her knees and yanked me with her. "So, tell me everything!"

Rolling my eyes at her, I nodded and jumped upright. "Hang on, I'm gonna get Ginny and get her in here, too. She told me to tell her whenever something happened between Cedric and me," I said.

Hermione nodded at me and came with me down into the First Years girl's dormitory. It seemed so weird to think that we were no longer First Years. It still felt like we were the little guys. But we were slowly making our way up. Of course, we didn't have the credit that the Sixth and Seventh Years had, but we were better than the First Years. We ran into Ginny's room - saying a quick hello to her roommates - and yanking her with us. She'd seemed completely shocked that we were harassing her into coming with us into our room. But she'd come with us anyways, the three of us cramming onto my bed and gossiping long into the night.

It was a good thing that Parvati, Lavender, and Fay were spending most of the night in the library. That night was the happiest that I'd seen Ginny since starting Hogwarts a month and a half ago. I assumed that maybe she had just been missing home, as she seemed to straighten up the moment that I introduced Hermione to her and began gossiping with them. It was nice to see her in better spirits. She still seemed a little twitchy and sometimes seemed to stare off into space, but she seemed a lot happier. Being away from her mother had to be weird. And it probably didn't help that her brothers all already had friends. She was kind of left alone for a while.

Over the next week and a half, school passed in mostly a blur. As expected, the day after my birthday, Ron and Harry had caught Hermione and I down in the Common Room and had asked where I'd gone all day. I'd lied and told them that I'd hung out with some of my friends in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw before meeting up with Hermione and spending the day together in our room. They looked a little suspicious of my answer, but they'd let the conversation drop. I'd never tell them what had actually happened that day. Not until the day that we were going to die. It would stay between Hermione, Ginny, Cedric, Hagrid, and I forever.

Speaking of Cedric, things hadn't really changed on that front. I wasn't sure whether to be happy or bothered by this. The near-kiss hadn't seemed to affect him as much as it had affected me. Perhaps he really hadn't been leaning in to kiss me. Maybe I'd imagined the entire thing. I really hated that. But things were still good. We tended to laugh whenever we saw each other, making Ron and Harry roll their eyes every time. Of course, Hermione normally smiled brightly. I hadn't spoken to him much, but we didn't really have that much free time when we were together. Came from being in two different years.

Things were not good with Ginny in the meantime. She seemed to have felt a little bit better while we had talked to her on my birthday and she had seemed a little bit better for a few days afterwards. But, once more, she seemed to have lost her peppy spirit. It had led her to have been bullied into taking another Pepperup potion from Madam Pomfrey. She seemed a little bit better, but not much. Hagrid seemed to always be around these days, giving me a pointed glare whenever Cedric seemed to be a little too close to me. I rolled my eyes, knowing that I had gotten another brotherly/fatherly figure to keep boys away from me.

By the time Halloween arrived, ten days after my unauthorized trip to Hogsmeade, I knew that both Harry and I were regretting our rash promise to go to the deathday party. The rest of the school was happily anticipating the Halloween feast; the Great Hall had been decorated with the usual live bats, Hagrid's vast pumpkins had been carved into lanterns large enough for three men to sit in, and there were rumors that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment. We'd commented all of this to both Ron and Hermione. Ron seemed all for skipping the party (of course) but Hermione wouldn't hear a word of it.

"A promise is a promise. You both said that you'd go to the deathday party," she told us bossily.

That ended the brief conversation that maybe we should tell Nearly Headless Nick that we weren't going to be able to make it. In all fairness, I was glad that she'd said that. I couldn't imagine having to go to Nick and tell him that we wouldn't be able to make it to his deathday party. So we trudged around the Common Room on Halloween morning - which had fallen on a weekend this year - before heading down to the Great Hall for lunch. If nothing else, there was some of the food at lunch that would be at dinner, too. So it was something. I knew that as much as Hermione didn't want us to break the promise, she, too, wanted to be at the feast later.

We were halfway through our lunches when someone came up behind me. I turned back and smiled when I saw that it was Cedric. I stomped on Harry's foot when I heard his scoff. "Hey, Tara," he greeted.

As per usual, Fred and George were making kissy faces at each other in the background. "Oh. Hi, Cedric," I said.

"You going to be at the feast tonight?" Cedric asked.

I shook my head at him. "Actually - no."

"Better plans?" he teased.

Better would probably be a very bad word to use. I couldn't imagine that a deathday party was particularly fun. "Different plans," I said. Cedric's brow rose. "A few weeks ago Filch caught Harry and I coming into the castle after a Quidditch practice. We were covered in mud so he brought us to his office to give us a detention. Nearly Headless Nick created a distraction for us, and in response, we agreed to go to his deathday party tonight," I explained our plans.

It wasn't against the rules, so I didn't mind talking about it in the middle of the Great Hall with anyone being able to listen in. "Well..." Cedric said, probably not sure of what else to say. "That was nice of you both."

In all fairness, I hadn't been sure what to say either. "It was a little too rash," I said, earning a small smile from Cedric. "Save me a few pasties, will you?"

"Not going to eat the ghost food?" he teased.

Was there even such a thing as ghost food? Of the many things that I knew, whether or not ghosts ate was not one of them. "Do ghosts even eat food?" I asked him.

Cedric seemed to think on it for a moment. "Fair point. No problem with the pasties," he told me. I smiled brightly. At least we would have part of the feast. "Have fun at your... party."

I knew that he wanted to laugh. "Go on. Laugh," I told him.

He quickly shook his head at me. I knew that he didn't want to offend me, and it didn't. I knew that we had been a little foolish to actually agree to go to a deathday party without a second thought. "No, it's very sweet," he tried to insist.

"Why don't you come along?" I asked with a little smirk.

I knew that he would say no. If he'd asked me, I would have said no. It was more of a joke. Cedric waved me off carelessly. "Oh, you know, I would but I've already made a promise to someone that I'll be at the feast," he said.

I couldn't help the little burn of jealousy that sank into my stomach for a moment. "Who?" I asked, trying to pretend that I didn't care.

"My stomach," he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

At that, I laughed very loudly, feeling better for the first time that day. Shaking my head at him, I gently nudged him away from the table. "See you later," I called after him as he walked away.

We all enjoyed our lunches together, Fred and George both teasing me about 'Pretty-Boy Diggory' for most of the time until I'd gotten sick of them and left. Harry and I had spent much of the afternoon with Dean, attempting to teach Ron how to play soccer. He really didn't understand it and thought that it was boring, since the ball didn't fly and there was only one. We'd even taught Oliver, but he seemed to much prefer Quidditch. Hermione had watched us, sitting under one of the trees by the Black Lake and reading one of her books. By the end of the afternoon, Seamus, Angelina, Katie, Alicia, Fred, and George had been playing with us, too.

It had definitely been a good way to lead up to the party that none of us were looking forward to. It was pushing six o'clock when we had all made our way back upstairs. I'd showered and changed, meeting the others down in the Common Room. As mostly everyone was already at the feast, we wouldn't have to worry about being headed off. So at seven o'clock, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I walked straight past the doorway to the packed Great Hall, which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles. Ron and I let out hearty sighs as Hermione shoved us past the doorway. Instead, we directed our steps instead toward the dungeons.

The passageway leading to Nearly Headless Nick's party had been lined with candles, too, though the effect was far from cheerful. These were long, thin, jet-black tapers, all burning bright blue, casting a dim, ghostly light even over our own living faces. I had to admit that I was a little unnerved to come down here. I'd never been overly-fond of the whole 'death' thing. The temperature dropped with every step that we took. I wished that I had more than just my robes. I should have brought Fred's winter cloak. I drew my robes tightly around myself and strained my ears. What is that?

Something that sounded very much like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard was echoing through the hall. "Is that supposed to be music?" Ron whispered.

It certainly sounded like something that dead people would want to listen to. Perhaps that was why dead people were always so sad. They couldn't even pretend to be somewhat happy. Of course, I might be a little upset if I was dead, too. Particularly if I'd been whacked on the back forty-some-odd times by someone and then not been properly decapitated. We turned a corner and saw Nearly Headless Nick standing at a doorway hung with black velvet drapes. He didn't look happy. Was I expecting him to look happy?

Keeping my voice low so that Nick couldn't hear me, I spoke in hushed tones. "It's a deathday party, it's not exactly going to be happy," I told Ron, in reference to his comment about the music.

"My dear friends. Welcome, welcome... So pleased you could come..." Nick said mournfully.

Clearing my throat, I attempted to put on my most earnest smile. "You look nice, Nick," I said.

A semblance of a real smile appeared on his face. "Thank you, dear," he said.

He swept off his plumed hat and bowed us inside. We moved in, closely together. We didn't want to get too far away from each other. Not at a party full of ghosts. It really was an incredible sight. Not quite like the Great Hall, but no less impressive. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform. Everything that either black or pearly-white. It made me feel a little strange in the scarlet robes. A chandelier overhead blazed midnight-blue with a thousand more black candles.

It didn't take long for our breath to rise in a mist before us; being in here was like stepping into a freezer. "Merlin it's cold in here!" I hissed, drawing my robes around myself even tighter.

The others seemed to agree with me, but no one said anything. "Shall we have a look around?" Harry suggested.

"No," I said almost immediately.

Hermione glanced over at me and scowled. I could see her lips and nose turning a pale blue. "You were the one that said that you would go," she told me.

"I wasn't thinking," I argued weakly.

The four of us slowly moved away from the middle of the dance floor. I did not want to be near any more of the ghosts than I had to be. "Careful not to walk through anyone," Ron said nervously, and we set off around the edge of the dance floor.

There were ghosts everywhere. It was very difficult to completely avoid them. Although I hadn't stepped through one yet. We passed a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains, and the Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. Cedric had mentioned that the Fat Friar was quite nice; some people even forgot that he was a ghost. I wasn't surprised to see that the Bloody Baron, a gaunt, staring Slytherin ghost covered in silver bloodstains, was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts. Even Malfoy didn't like him.

"Oh, no," Hermione said, stopping abruptly. "Turn back, turn back, I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle -"

"Is she here?" I spoke over her.

Myrtle never left the bathrooms. Why was she here? I hadn't even seen her. And she was normally very hard to avoid. "Who?" Harry asked as we backtracked quickly.

Beside Gilderoy Lockhart and Severus Snape, one of my least favorite people at Hogwarts was Moaning Myrtle. Not that she was really a person. She was a ghost. Her real name was Myrtle Warren - as I'd found out from a Fifth Year Ravenclaw - and she'd died when she was only fourteen. She had apparently been a Ravenclaw herself. She skulked around the lavatories, always complaining about how someone was teasing her, wearing her old school robes. She appeared to have died somewhere in the forties, as that was the style that her robes resembled. I'd never gotten up the courage to ask her how or when she'd died.

"She haunts one of the toilets in the girls' bathroom on the first floor," Hermione explained.

"She haunts a toilet?" Harry asked.

Both he and Ron looked shocked that a ghost actually haunted a toilet. "Yes. It's been out-of-order all year because she keeps having tantrums and flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful trying to have a pee with her wailing at you," Hermione explained to the boys.

They looked disgusted. That was exactly why I always held it. "Pretty sure that she died here. Of course, considering her attitude and clumsiness, I wouldn't be surprised if she went toppling down a flight of stairs in her own day," I muttered as we fled the scene.

"That's cruel," Hermione told me.

Glancing over at her, I cocked my eyebrows and placed my hand on my hips. "I'm sorry, do you like Moaning Myrtle?" I asked her.

Hermione flushed slightly. "Well -"

"Look, food!" Ron exclaimed.

"Saved by the bell," I said as I rolled my eyes.

Ron was pointing to the far side of the dungeon. I was surprised to see that there was any food in the dungeons. Perhaps Nick had asked for some food to be brought up for us. That would have been nice. Although, wouldn't that be offensive to the dead guests that couldn't eat? On the other side of the dungeon was a long table, also covered in black velvet. We approached it eagerly, all starving, but next moment we had stopped in our tracks, horrified. The smell was quite disgusting.

The food that was sitting on the table was nothing that anyone would actually want to eat. Large, rotten fish were laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry green mold and, in pride of place, an enormous gray cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington died 31st October, 1492. I raised my hand over my mouth to keep from puking. I watched, amazed, as a portly ghost approached the table, crouched low, and walked through it, his mouth held wide so that it passed through one of the stinking salmon.

Suddenly I was glad that we hadn't suck some food from the feast. I would have thrown it up. "Can you taste it if you walk through it?" Harry asked the ghost.

"Almost," the ghost said sadly, and he drifted away.

My hand was over my mouth as I turned away from the table. "I expect they've let it rot to give it a stronger flavor," Hermione said, pinching her nose and leaning closer to look at the putrid haggis.

"That's disgusting," I muttered.

It seemed that I wasn't the only one that was sickened by the sight of the food on the table. "Can we move? I feel sick," Ron said.

Not waiting for them to give an answer, I immediately walked off and tried to get as far away from the table of rotten food as I could. But I didn't get very far. Only a few steps. The others had followed me, but someone else had cut us off. A little man swooped suddenly from under the table and came to a halt in midair before us.

"Hello, Peeves," Harry said cautiously.

We all shifted to look at each other. There was never anything good that was coming if Peeves the Poltergeist was anywhere near you. Unlike the ghosts around them, Peeves the Poltergeist was the very reverse of pale and transparent. Since he was not really a ghost, he was not transparent and wore very brightly colored clothing. He could turn invisible at will though. Tonight he was wearing a bright orange party hat, a revolving bow tie, and a broad grin on his wide, wicked face.

"Nibbles?" he said sweetly, offering us a bowl of peanuts covered in fungus.

Taking a step back, I allowed the others to handle this one. "No thanks," Hermione said.

"Already ate, thank you, Peeves," I muttered.

Peeves was not going to allow us to pass unseen. "Heard you talking about poor Myrtle," Peeves said, his eyes dancing. I groaned at him, knowing that he had some type of plan that definitely wouldn't be good for the rest of us. "Rude you was about poor Myrtle." He took a deep breath and bellowed, "Oi! Myrtle!"

"Peeves! What the hell?" I hissed at him.

"Oh, no, Peeves, don't tell her what I said, she'll be really upset," Hermione whispered frantically, shaking her hands to stop him. "I didn't mean it, I don't mind her - er, hello, Myrtle."

We all turned very slowly, Hermione and I already knowing what was going to happen. All of the girls at Hogwarts knew who Moaning Myrtle was, and we all tried to avoid her at all costs. The squat ghost of a girl had glided over. I turned back and gave her a once-over. She looked just like she always did. Gloomy, pimple-faces, sunken-in eyes, with big, rimmed, glasses sitting over her depressed gaze. Today her lank hair was falling over her face. As usual, she was in her old Hogwarts robes.

"What?" she asked sulkily.

Taking in a deep breath, I attempted to smile at Myrtle. "You look lovely, Myrtle," I told her.

"Liar!" she shouted at me.

Hermione gave it a try next. Myrtle had always seemed to like Hermione a little more than she'd liked me. "How are you, Myrtle?" Hermione asked in a falsely bright voice. "It's nice to see you out of the toilet." Myrtle sniffed.

Perhaps that was a better thing to say than to try and tell her that she looked nice. Myrtle never took compliments very well. "Misses Nox and Granger were just talking about you," Peeves said slyly in Myrtle's ear.

"Just saying - saying - how nice you look tonight," Hermione said, glaring at Peeves.

"See, Myrtle, I told you that you look nice," I said.

Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. She looked like she thought that I was insulting her intelligence. Myrtle eyed Hermione suspiciously. "You're making fun of me," she said, silver tears welling rapidly in her small, see-through eyes.

Hermione and I both shook our heads. "No - honestly - weren't we just saying how nice Myrtle's looking?" Hermione asked Harry and Ron, nudging them both painfully in the ribs.

"Oh, yeah -"

"They were -"

"Don't lie to me," Myrtle gasped, tears now flooding down her face, while Peeves chuckled happily over her shoulder. I groaned and rolled my eyes. That was not going to help. "D'you think I don't know what people call me behind my back? Fat Myrtle! Ugly Myrtle! Miserable, moaning, moping Myrtle!"

"You've forgotten pimply," Peeves hissed in her ear.

Moaning Myrtle burst into anguished sobs and fled from the dungeon. None of the other ghosts seemed particularly bothered. Peeves shot after her, pelting her with moldy peanuts, yelling, "Pimply! Pimply!"

"Well that was rude," I commented.

"Oh, dear," Hermione said sadly.

We weren't left in peace for long before Nearly Headless Nick drifted toward us through the crowd. "Enjoying yourselves?"

"Oh, yes," we lied together.

Nick was glancing around the crowd and I smiled at him. At least he seemed to be having a good time. I supposed that was the important thing. "Not a bad turnout. The Wailing Widow came all the way up from Kent..." Nearly Headless Nick said proudly. "It's nearly time for my speech, I'd better go and warn the orchestra..."

"Good luck," I called after him.

But he never got the chance to go warn them or leave our side. The orchestra had stopped playing at that very moment. The four of us, and everyone else in the dungeon, fell silent, looking around in excitement, as a hunting horn sounded. Judging by the look on Nearly Headless Nick's face, I assumed that the ghosts of the Headless Hunt were coming.

"Oh, here we go," Nearly Headless Nick said bitterly.

Through the dungeon wall burst a dozen ghost horses, each ridden by a headless horseman. The assembly clapped wildly; Harry and I started to clap, too, but stopped quickly at the sight of Nick's face. He was obviously not happy. The horses galloped into the middle of the dance floor and halted, rearing and plunging. At the front of the pack was a large ghost who held his bearded head under his arm, from which position he was blowing the horn. The ghost leapt down, lifted his head high in the air so he could see over the crowd. Everyone laughed as he strode over to Nearly Headless Nick, squashing his head back onto his neck.

Grimacing at the sound that came from the head, I watched as the ghost walked over to a very gloomy Nick. "Nick! How are you? Head still hanging in there?" he asked.

He gave a hearty guffaw and clapped Nearly Headless Nick on the shoulder. "Welcome, Patrick," Nick said stiffly.

So this was the Sir Patrick that Nick had been talking about a few weeks ago. Patrick grinned before looking over to us. "Live 'uns!" We all backed off at the sudden feeling that he would do something to us. He gave a huge, fake jump of astonishment, so that his head fell off again. The crowd of ghosts howled with laughter.

"Very amusing," Nearly Headless Nick said darkly.

"Don't mind Nick!" Sir Patrick's head shouted from the floor. "Still upset we won't let him join the Hunt! But I mean to say - look at the fellow -"

"I think," Harry said hurriedly, at a meaningful look from Nick, "Nick's very - frightening and - er -"

"Ha! Bet he asked you to say that!"

Knowing that Harry was next to useless at trying to convince anyone of anything, I took a step forward. "Well I'll tell you one thing!" I howled, drawing the attention of the ghosts. "I'd be much more terrified to run into Nearly Headless Nick in the back of a dark alley than I would, you. Who would be afraid of a ghost named Patrick?"

There was scattered laughter from the ghosts as Nick smiled at me and Patrick floated off, muttering incomprehensibly. Once he had gone, Hermione looked over at me. "Would you stop insulting dead people?" she snapped.

"They're dead. And he's rude," I told her. After a moment, I grinned at her. "Bet you never thought that you'd be saying that two years ago, huh?"

She rolled her eyes at me. Before she got the chance to say anything, Nick began shouting through the dungeon. "If I could have everyone's attention, it's time for my speech!" He was striding toward the podium and climbing into an icy blue spotlight. "My late lamented lords, ladies, and gentlemen, it is my great sorrow..."

But nobody heard much more. Sir Patrick and the rest of the Headless Hunt had just started a game of Head Hockey and the crowd were turning to watch. I felt absolutely terrible that the ghosts were stealing the one moment of limelight that Nick had. Nearly Headless Nick tried vainly to recapture his audience, but gave up as Sir Patrick's head went sailing past him to loud cheers. There was nothing that could be done. He floated in vain from the podium, looking very forlorn.

By this point I was very cold by, not to mention hungry. Thankfully Ron saved me the trouble of looking heartless. "I can't stand much more of this," Ron muttered, his teeth chattering, as the orchestra ground back into action and the ghosts swept back onto the dance floor.

"Let's go," Harry agreed.

"I think I've done enough here," I added.

Even Hermione couldn't say anything against leaving. There was nothing more that we could do, we had proven that we were there, we were starving, and freezing. There was no point for the four of us to stay in our own misery. I had a feeling that Nick had lost control of the party anyways. It would probably be over soon. We backed toward the door, nodding and beaming at anyone who looked at us, including smiling at a sad look that was cast our way from Nick, and a minute later we were hurrying back up the passageway full of black candles.

"Pudding might not be finished yet," Ron said hopefully, leading the way toward the steps to the entrance hall.

There was a chance that we could be back in time to eat some of the food. At least have some pumpkin juice and take the pasties that Cedric had promised to save. "I asked Cedric to save me a few pasties. We can share them," I told the others.

We were smiling at the prospect of heading back towards the Halloween Feast when I heard it. "... Rip... Tear... Kill..."

Against my own will, I screamed. Ron and Hermione jumped in horror to turn and look at me. Harry was the only one that had reacted the same way that I did. He hadn't screamed but he had stumbled along to the edge of the stone wall. He was clutching it. He looked like he might have been in pain, but I could tell that he was trying to listen. It was the same voice, the same cold, murderous voice that we had heard in Lockhart's office. It was back. And it sounded closer this time. I was desperately whipping back and forth, looking around, squinting up and down the dimly lit passageway, to find the owner of the voice.

Glancing back at Ron and Hermione, I could tell that they hadn't heard it. "It's back!" I shouted.

Hermione moved forward very carefully. "Harry, Tara, what're you -?"

"It's that voice again - shut up a minute," Harry said.

"Stop talking!" I shouted when I started to hear the hissing voice again.

"... So hungry... For so long..."

It wanted to eat something. It hadn't eaten in a long time. Was it going to eat a person? "Can't you hear that?" I asked Ron and Hermione desperately. They both shook their heads.

"Listen!" Harry said urgently, clearly as irritated as I was that they couldn't hear the voice. Ron and Hermione had frozen, watching us.

"... Kill... Time to kill..."

Kill? There was no way that I was going to let that thing kill someone! Harry had frozen in fear. "It's gonna kill someone! Come on!" I yelled.

"Tara! Come back!" Hermione yelled.

But it was too late. I had already darted off. I had no idea who the voice belonged to, or what, but there was no way that I was going to let someone die. Particularly if they couldn't hear the owner of the voice, as it seemed that no one but Harry and I could. Perhaps I was running towards something very dangerous, but I had to get there in time. The voice was growing fainter. It was still muttering about food and eating. It had to be moving away - moving upward. A mixture of fear and excitement gripped me as he stared at the dark ceiling as I ran; how could it be moving upward? Was it a phantom, to whom stone ceilings didn't matter?

It had to be invisible. It had sounded right next to us. But now it was moving up. "This way," Harry shouted.

He was running at my side, seeing as we were the only two that could hear the voice, with Hermione and Ron trudging behind us, looking very concerned for our mental state. We began to run, up the stairs, into the entrance hall. Harry and I were taking two of the stairs at a time. It was no good hoping to hear anything here, the babble of talk from the Halloween Feast was echoing out of the Great Hall. I wanted to shout at them to shut up. Harry was smart enough to make another move. He sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor, myself immediately following, with Ron and Hermione clattering behind us.

"Harry, Tara, what're we -" Hermione tried to ask.

"Shh!" Harry hissed at her.

We stopped moving for a moment to see if we could hear the voice again. I raised a hand to Hermione and Ron to keep them from speaking. I strained my ears as far as I could. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, I heard the voice again. "... I smell blood... I smell blood!"

My stomach lurched. It was right there. It was about to find someone and kill them. "Floor up, go!" I yelled.

"It's going to kill someone!" Harry shouted.

Ignoring Ron's and Hermione's bewildered faces, we ran up the next flight of steps three at a time. Harry and I were running in the same stride, both desperate to save the person that the voice was preparing to kill, trying to listen over my own pounding footsteps and heartbeat - we hurtled around the whole of the second floor, Ron and Hermione panting behind us, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage. We stopped, trying to control our breathing to keep it soft, and hear the voice again.

"Harry, Tara, what was that all about?" Ron asked, wiping sweat off his face. "I couldn't hear anything..."

"Shut up!" I shouted at him. Just like before, I couldn't hear the voice. It had gone. And it had very possibly just killed someone... "Do you hear it?" I asked Harry.

He shook his head. "No. It's gone..." he muttered.

But Hermione gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor. "Look!"

Our heads whipped around. Hermione and Ron were about to start believing that Harry and I were hearing voices. Something was shining on the wall ahead. My legs quivering at the knowledge that the owner of the voice had very likely just been here, we approached slowly, squinting through the darkness. Why was it always us? Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches. It appeared to have been written in blood. My stomach lurched.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

What was the Chamber of Secrets? "What is that?" I asked softly.

"I don't know..." Hermione muttered.

And if Hermione didn't know what something was... That couldn't have been a good thing. "What's that thing - hanging underneath?" Ron asked, a slight quiver in his voice.

It was the most terrified that I had ever heard him. I was terrified, too. Harry and I were the ones that had heard the voice. As we edged nearer, I almost slipped - there was a large puddle of water on the floor. Harry had caught me, but then nearly slipped himself. Ron and Hermione grabbed him, and we all righted each other. Once we had steadied ourselves, we inched toward the message. My eyes suddenly fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. I realized what it was at once and leapt backward with a splash. So did the others. Mrs. Norris, the cat, was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring. For a few seconds, we didn't move.

Had that voice killed Mrs. Norris? "Let's get out of here," Ron said.

"Shouldn't we try and help -" Harry began awkwardly.

"Trust me. We don't want to be found here," Ron said.

But I couldn't just leave the cat like this. I hated both Mrs. Norris and Filch, but she was an innocent creature. "She's not dead. I don't think so, anyways," I said. I wasn't sure how, but I knew that she was still alive.

Slowly, I began taking a step towards her. "Tara, get away from her!" Harry shouted at me.

"I'm trying to make sure that she's not dead!" I barked back.

None of the other three made a move to follow me forward. Not that I had really been expecting them to. I wouldn't have if anyone else had been willing to check that the cat was alive. As I got closer, my hands began shaking in fear that the owner of the voice would jump out and kill me, too. But nothing ever happened. With Harry, Ron, and Hermione watching, I moved forward. My hand very gently pushed onto Mrs. Norris. I cringed at her bony body. I'd never touched the cat before. No student had. She was ice cold. But she was not dead. Very faintly, I could feel her heartbeat.

Whatever was wrong with her, she seemed to be frozen in time. "She's not dead. I can feel a heartbeat," I told the others.

The second that I was about to walk back to the others and suggest that we leave was the same second that I realized that it was too late. A rumble, as though of distant thunder, told me that the feast had just ended. Myself feeling just as frozen as Mrs. Norris, I watched helplessly, knowing that running would look worse. From either end of the corridor where we stood came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, happy talk of well-fed people; next moment, students were crashing into the passage from both ends.

The chatter, bustle, and noise died suddenly as the people in front spotted the hanging cat. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood alone, in the middle of the corridor, as silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to see the grisly sight. Chatter broke out loudly as their eyes followed the warning on the wall and my hand on Mrs. Norris. Everyone looked horrified as they began to whisper that I had killed her, with the help of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Not far from me, I could see Cedric staring at the scene in horror. I realized too late that my hand, on a cat that looked very dead, probably didn't look very good. Just as I was about to let go of her cold body, someone shouted through the quiet.

"Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

As the person who always seemed to pop up at the worst of times, the voice belonged to Draco Malfoy. He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his usually bloodless face flushed. His eyes briefly passed over us, looking thrilled at the sight of me being the closest person to Mrs. Norris, actually touching her, and he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat.

A/N: Next time... Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry runs amuck in terror of the Chamber of Secrets, Tara and Harry begin to swirl at the center of the rumors, and the Quartet prepare to delve deeper into the mystery of the Heir of Slytherin. Hope you guys liked this one! Poor Tara, always in the deepest of trouble. Thanks so much for the follows and favorites! Please review! Until next time -A

Grin like the Cheshire Cat: I will think about it. But in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the Cedric/Tara moments in this chapter!

MadJazzy: I'm so glad that you love them both! I love Cedric, too!