"I think the three of you are likely to be at least a half-year ahead when you start runes next year," Percy suggested. We'd put the second years through a test just to see how much they'd been getting from the enchanting seminars, and Hermione, Neville, and Draco had all done quite well after a year and a half of watching us work. "And you two," he said, referencing Seamus and Millie, "will be at least a month ahead." The other two members of my "focus group" had finally started coming to the enchanting club this year, after realizing how much they needed to know to make their own foci.

"That's great!" Hermione enthused, "Only that should make it a lot easier to deal with the rest of my electives to already be so far ahead in runes."

"I doubt you'll have much of a problem anyway, Hermione," Penny suggested. "They adjust the other class times for your third year to account for the new electives, so you definitely shouldn't stress about a couple of extra classes.

"Except that I'm probably taking five extra classes," the girl shrugged. Both Neville and Seamus rolled their eyes, apparently already aware of this plan. Draco simply shook his head, smirking. "What? Professor McGonagall said I could if I really wanted."

"How?" I asked, thinking about the way the class schedules were set up. "I think you can do three if you're okay sitting with different sessions on different days depending on your other classes. But you'd need a time machine or something to take all five."

I caught Hermione's eyes widening and noticed Percy go stone faced. "Time turners," nodded Luna. She and Colin had started sitting in on the enchanting club as well. Ginny hadn't come with them, citing that she was too busy with quidditch. "Mother wasn't supposed to have told me about them, but they study them in the Department of Mysteries. I'm surprised that they would allow a student to have one, given the danger of paradox or just mischief." Of course the British wizards would invent time travel and use it to navigate Hogwarts' labyrinthine class schedule.

"I'm very responsible," huffed Hermione.

"Percy didn't even take all five classes. He took three and did the other two self-paced," I argued.

"I…" Percy started, then lapsed into a pregnant pause as everyone looked at him, even the twins glancing up from what they were tinkering with at the back of the room, finally admitting, "...may have gone Hermione's route in third year. The stress was too much, and I decided it was better to study two subjects on my own time rather than continue to throw off my sleep schedule."

"See," I told her, still floored that the only way you could get in on time travel was to work in the Department of Mysteries or be an excessive overachiever, "you're always a ball of stress during exam times anyway, Hermione. Besides, you can already pass the muggle studies OWL and divination's useless unless you have the Sight or you just want a blow-off class."

"Hey! I was gonna take divination!" insisted Seamus. The twins sniggered and then leaned back from completing whatever they were working on, while the rest of the group just shook our heads at the boy.

"Lavender and Parvati are going to take divination and muggle studies," explained Hermione, "and you told me I should do more things with my roommates, Harry! So I was going to take it to spend more time with them."

"Woah!" I said, not liking being blamed for all of this. "I support you doing stuff to hang out with your roommates, but not to the point you're trying to do an extra two hours of classes, plus homework, on the same amount of time to sleep!"

"Yeah, Granger," Draco inserted himself into the conversation. "You're unbearable when you're freaking out about exams for your current classes. Add time travel and trying to do five more and you'll be completely intolerable."

"Shut up, Draco!" Hermione turned on him. "You're the one who's unbearable! All those attacks from Death Eaters on Harry! And the basilisk roaming the school! You probably know exactly what's going on and are letting people nearly die because you think it's funny!" Before he could get his denials out, she also added, "And that total slag of a sister!"

"She's not my sister!" the Malfoy heir argued. "She's not even…" he trailed off with a look in his eyes that was similar to when I tried to explain who Maeve was. "She's my… half aunt," he belatedly explained the cover story.

"I notice you didn't say she's not a slag, though," Penny uncharacteristically tagged in on Draco. "The way she spends all her time trying to make people think she's sleeping with Harry…"

Percy growled, "Sometimes I wish my girlfriend was less concerned with Harry's love life."

"Why are you so jealous of Harry?" Penny whirled on her boyfriend. "We're just friends!"

"Your father! He knows Harry helped you heal him and I could tell he was impressed," Percy explained, petulantly. I hadn't even known he'd met the parents yet.

"Guys, ixnay on the ealinghay," I tried to interject, hoping that the rest of the kids in the room wouldn't pick up on the illegal magic Penny had done the previous December. I was actually super annoyed that they were treating something that could get me thrown in prison without the operational security it deserved.

"He so wasn't!" Penny argued, ignoring me. "He found out that Harry's on probation and congratulated me on dating an upstanding young man with a bright future! But thanks for assuming I'm going to date someone just because my father likes him, like I'm some chattel to be married off!"

"You muggleborn are so lucky!" Draco inserted himself back into the conversation, perhaps unwisely. "Longbottom and I have to marry who our parents pick for us."

"Speak for yourself, Malfoy," Neville objected. "My parents said they'd only try to make a match for me if I couldn't find someone I liked on my own. Maybe you should stand up to your father about Parkinson if you're so mad about it!"

"My father has a lot of things on his mind," Draco disagreed, "with my aunt to deal with!" I noticed a smirk, which I suspected was the boy realizing he could get around his secrecy oaths by implying he meant Maeve when he was really talking about Bellatrix.

"How did tha' even work?" Seamus chuckled. "She's a fine Irish lass, sure 'nough. Your grandad go wanderin' to see what pretty Irish witches are like right afore he died? Can't blame 'im."

"Like you'll ever know what a pretty Irish witch is like, Finnegan," Millie tagged in when Draco was at a loss for words and the implied insult to his family. "Face it, you're not a catch."

"Look who's talkin', ya bleedin' gargoyle!" the Irish boy yelled at her. And I thought they'd been getting along a lot better. "How much of a dowry will your da' haveta pay to get some pureblood boy to marry ya?"

"Who says I want to marry a wizard?" the big girl shrugged, but seemed like the attack had stung.

"You like girls?" Colin joined the conversation, having spent the past few minutes watching it like a tennis match. He didn't seem totally scandalized, but it was if the thought had never entered his head before.

"It's okay to like whoever you like, Colin," Luna suggested, simply, to her year mate. Unlike everyone else, she didn't seem particularly upset. "But why is everyone acting like a swarm of nargles is in the room? I don't see any."

"Luna," Penny chided, "I know you believe in these things but you really need to just shut your mouth when you're about to say something strange like that. This is why you're having a hard time making friends!"

"Penny!" I countered. "I've told you time and time again that you're too close-minded about this! She's probably seeing actual faeries. With the way things are going, we'll all be seeing them soon enough!"

"What?" several people asked at once.

"What do you think is going to happen when the school is playing host to the–" my mouth snapped shut before I could finish the thought, since I'd meant to say, "queen of the faeries!" I growled at the oath I hadn't even deliberately signed up for continuing to prevent me from sharing important information with my friends.

But the moment of silence gave me a jolt of perspective, especially since my fractured thought led everyone to spin off into their own private fights. Penny and Percy were having a hushed argument and the second years seemed to be mounting another Gryffindor/Slytherin offensive. Over at their table, the twins had apparently been having a row that had passed the rest of us by. "I'm so sick of you always getting to be Fred!"

"Maybe if you were witty enough to start the conversation!" the other twin who was maybe not George argued.

"It's all Harry's stupid rule anyway!" the one I'd normally consider Fred because he talked first insisted. "We need to figure out how to start conversations more evenly!"

"I'm not pre-planning conversational openers just so Harry will think you're Fred!"

"But I am Fred!" apparently-actually-Fred nearly sobbed.

It was so ridiculous that I started thinking about it logically, and noticed their completed enchanting project whirling angrily. It looked like a sneakoscope, and I remembered telling the twins about the broken one I'd been working on over the summer.

Hoping I wasn't going to have to owe them a huge apology for destroying an unrelated project, I strode over and slapped the spinning wooden top down while shouting, "Diffindo!" and channeling the cutting charm through my hand and into the magical object.

With the snap of splitting wood, it was like cold water hit the room, and everyone suddenly went quiet. The almost-imperceptible bubbling anger I'd been feeling was only detectable by its instant absence.

"Oh!" the-one-who-said-he-was-Fred exclaimed.

"Bugger!" said probably-George. "Well that worked too well."

"What were you trying to make?" I asked, gritting my teeth.

"Portable argument," likely-Fred admitted.

"You gave us the idea," I'll-assume-George wheedled.

"It would be a great prank! If we hadn't gotten affected by it too." admitted admittedly-Fred.

"Too strong, though," said professedly-George. "Back to the drawing board."

Everyone else groaned at getting on the end of the twins' prank, then the rest of the session was mostly about apologies.

As we were leaving, Luna caught me in private and asked, "You and Draco made oaths to a faerie not to talk about her? That seems dangerous."

"Not to–" I managed to get out, then tried, "I didn't mean to–" Even if Luna, of everyone, had worked it out, I still apparently couldn't talk about it to her.

"It's okay," she patted my hand. "Don't hurt yourself trying to break the geas. I'll tell daddy what I know and he'll have some ideas."

Somehow, that didn't make me feel like the world was saved.