In the Dead of Night, It happens

Harry looked down at his parchment, sighing. Professor McGonagall had wanted Ron and he to write an essay on Muggles about how their actions were different from Wizards'. That was when he heard someone hopping around downstairs. He walked out of his dorm and looked down.

Sierra had one of those candy things that she'd gotten from her parents. "M&Ms! I love my M&Ms!"

Mike glanced up and saw Harry. He groaned and shook his head. Harry laughed and walked down the stairs while watching Sierra walk over to Mike.

"Wanna M&M?"

"No thank you," he grumbled.

"I'll have one," Harry smiled. "What are they?"

She skipped over to Harry and handed him one. "Candy coated chocolate balls with a peanut in the middle. SureZ ya don' want one, Mike?"

"FINE."

"Oo, someone's got PMS don't they?"

She threw an M&M at Mike, who caught it, and ate it instantly.

Sierra shrugged and looked at Harry. "So, what's up?"

"Well Ron and I have that essay to write and I just wanted to know if you could help me?"

Mike looked up from writing down a potion for Snape. "Don't ask Sierra for help, you'll just get a hyper moron."

"Oh like you'd be any better? You're so optimist, Mike, really." Her voice dripping with sarcasm, she shrugged. "Maybe you could just be a little PESIMISTIC sometime? Ya think?"

That time he stood up and got right in her face. "Maybe you could just kind of leave me alone once in a while, ya think?"

"Well maybe if you would just-…"

Hermione and Ron walked into the room right as Sierra and Mike started to yell at each other.

"What's going on?" Hermione peeked at Harry. She ducked suddenly as a pencil flew her way –literally, it had wings! What can I tell ya, these two are just insane!!! (Okay so I made myself insane because of Mike… LEMME ALONE!!!)

"What do you think? They're fighting because Mike doesn't think Sierra can help me with the ess- Ron look out! -ay. So Sierra's fighting back… obviously a little violently but I think I've pretty much figured Sierra out."

Ron grabbed a book that was hopping and let Hermione do the counter hex. "That's easy for you to say… but… how? I mean, she's so different."

At this point Sierra turned around and smiled. "Yep! Different I am!"

Mike started to say something back but Sierra turned around and dodged it while it hit another book.

"Will you stop dodging me, Lily!"

"Never!"

Harry shook his head. Hermione and Ron didn't seem fazed and hadn't noticed but Harry had. Mike had just called Sierra Lily and she hadn't tried to stop him or anything. Yet even Mike and Sierra hadn't realized it because they were back again calling each other moron.

"Stop it!" Ron finally yelled.

They did but glared at each other. Harry shrugged. Maybe it really hadn't happened and he'd been dreaming –or at least not paying attention.

"Sierra? Are you gonna help Harry?" Mike wondered.

She grinned. "Sure, Mike, anything to get me to stop staring at YOUR ugly face," she snapped. Then she walked up the stairs after Harry.

"He's weird," Harry muttered.

"Patchew you can say that again!"

He laughed.

Mike sat down at the table across from Sierra, who was already eating something.

"Finally decided to show up, did ya?"

"Yeah."

"Now what were you into? Hexing my pictures of you?"

Mike laughed. "No, but good idea!"

"Michael Evan if I find anything, anything at all, messed up when I get back, your ass is going down."

"Really?" he wondered with a snigger.

Sierra nodded and chomped on a chicken leg. "Yep. An' 'fter that 'm gonna 'ear your 'eart ou' 'n make ya b'eed."

"Really?" Now he was rolling his eyes.

"Actually I'd probably just kinda take your body and-…"

"Never mind I don't want to hear the rest."

Sierra laughed and grabbed a piece of white something. "Mmm… I donno what these are called but I love em!"

"They turn your teeth whiter," Harry smiled. "Not too mention they're called Whitaliouso. Nobody's really sure why about anything about them."

"You've been doing your homework, I see," Hermione smiled.

"Yeah. I've had time to." Harry stuck his tongue out at her.

She shook her head and looked at Mike who was staring down at a book. Mike was looking up a spell to cast on Sierra to make sure she wouldn't do anything to him –like stalk him– while they were there. He looked up at her and shook his head as she blinked at him.

"What'd I do now?"

"Nothin," he smirked. "Moneria Lovosia!"

Sierra blinked another couple of times before glaring at Mike. "It won't work that easily," she grinned. "'Cause I still love you."

"Argh!" he yelled. "I hate you!"

"Yeah? So? I hate you now and it's not because of that curse. It's because I finally know what you really act like. You know, Callie was right. You really are an asshole."

Sierra stood up and started to walk away. For a second Harry thought he'd caught a brief glimpse of Snape watching her carefully. Then he knew he was wrong because Snape was glaring at Mike. But then again, why would Snape be glaring at Mike? He thought Mike should be a Slytherin!

"Harry, you'd better go talk to her."

He looked at Hermione. "You should do it –you're a girl."

"Yeah but know what it's like for your parents to be so far away –I can still go visit my parents over the Christmas break –she can't. And neither can you."

Harry sighed. ~I've always got to do the hard stuff, don't I?~

He found Sierra in the Gryffindor common room reading a book that she'd brought from America.

"Do you really hate him?"

She glanced up at Harry and sighed, shrugging. "I'm not exactly sure. I care about him, I think. But see, I can't be sure because now… I just don't know anymore. I care but he hates me so I don't. It's too weird, even for me."

Harry sat down at a chair next to her. "Don't worry, one of these days you'll find out the truth, whether you care about him or not."

Sierra raised an eyebrow. "All of a sudden you're an expert? Wow, J.K. will be totally surprised…"

"What?"

"Huh? I didn' say nothin… Really, honestly!"

"Right. Anyway, do you know that he does care about you?"

"If Mike cared about me, this world would be in trouble."

He sighed. "I don't think I'm going to get anywhere with you. Did you really learn all this from the Muggles and their TV?"

"Did you learn the way you act? I mean c'mon, Harry. I've lived with Muggles all my life whereas you've lived with them also. Harry I didn't learn from the Muggles, I was born into a Muggle family so I've just acted like them forever. I've never had to worry about an enemy like Voldemort, like you have, and I've never had to worry about anyone saying they hated me besides my brother. Okay maybe Mike too but that was before here. I thought maybe when we got here everything would change… Go figure I'd be wrong. I'm an idiot to have thought something like that. I mean, when someone like me's been acting the way I have for about three or four years now, it's pretty impossible to change.

"And I thought maybe Mike would be a little more social when we got here. Another little pirk of my idiocy.

"I'm a moron, maybe I should just get used to it."

Harry blinked a few times. "You like to say maybe a lot, don't you?"

She laughed. "Yeah. Maybe and moron are my favorite words in the whole world."

"I don't know what to say about all that, really. I know you're right about being born into the Muggle family and I not… But that whole Mike thing is a little too weird for me. I know Hermione has never been in a relationship before-…"

"But we're not in a relationship!"

"Right… Okay so I really just don't understand it at all, do I?"

"No, I guess not." Sierra sighed deeply until she heard voices coming up the stairs.

"She just doesn't understand!"

"But neither do you- Honestly, Michael, do you expect anything else from her? Callie has molded her to the exact way she wants her to be… So you have to understand that." They walked through the portrait. "I've talked to Abby about this Callie person and what she's told me is that-…" Hermione broke off as she realized Sierra run into Mike and her room and slam the door. "Oops. I forgot she was here. We have to hurry up and get to class. Mike's already got his stuff, which is good."

"But Sierra-…" Harry started.

"Forget about her," Mike grumbled, starting to walk away out the portrait.

Hermione brought food up to the tower like Snape had told her to. Now I know you're asking "Why Snape? Isn't he evil?"; well Snape wanted her to eat because the next day she was going to be taught how to fly and he wanted to see her do the best she could. Okay so he really just wanted to see how well she could do against Malfoy but whatever.

"Sierra?" She knocked on the bedroom door. "Sierra we brought you up some food."

When there was no answer, Hermione tried the knob. It was unlocked so she walked right in. She saw a lump on the bed so she didn't even bother yet left the food on the dresser. She shrugged and decided to wake her up so she would eat.

"Hey, Sierra, c'mon. It's about 10:00… Sierra?" She walked over and shook the pillow a few- Wait a minute, the pillow? "Harry! C'mere quick!"

"What?" He showed up at the door. "What's the matter?"

"Sierra… she's gone!"

"What do you mean 'she's gone'?" Ron had walked in behind them.

"She's not in bed. We've got to find her before Snape does and he takes points off of Gryffindor!"

Sierra danced around the room with a light heart. She'd seen the mirror and seen what she wanted –and it wasn't riches or her family, or even Mike! Sierra hadn't seen David or a rock star version of herself and a band; she hadn't seen the Sorcerer's Stone or even a stupid potion to give her immortality!

Instead what Sierra had seen was James and Harry Potter, together. But the funny thing was, Sierra had been standing next to the both of them in Lily's place.

"Hmm… La, la, la, la, la, la!"

And yet all she could hear was Hedwig's theme from the Harry Potter movie she'd seen in America.

There was a thick green smoke that was enclouding the room until the door swung open. Harry had heard her voice from somewhere down the hall but when they got there, all they saw was the smoke.

"Something's not right!"

There were screams from all around them and yelling of many voices. Harry heard his parents for a minute and then they were blended with all the other voices. Suddenly the smoke surrounded Harry, Hermione, and Ron but it mostly aimed for Harry, swallowing him every ten seconds. He felt weaker every single time, which made it even worse.

"Let's get out of here!" Ron yelled.

"No, we've got to get Sierra!"

Harry started to cough violently. His scar pulsed with pain every time that green smoke went through him –it was as if it was poisoning him. But he needed to find Sierra so he walked on with Ron and Hermione.

Finally they saw her dancing around… Yet it was like Sierra was a ghost, she was so pale. Her cape was white as snow and her hair hung freely around her shoulders.

The smoke stopped when they heard someone behind them. Harry fell to the ground instantly, unconscious. Yet Sierra danced on, still hearing that same song, over and over and over. The person stopped behind Ron, Hermione, and the grounded Harry.

Severus Snape stared in shock. "What is going on here?"

He pulled the cloak off of the three and they all watched as Sierra started towards the window.

"Oh… no… you… don't…" Harry managed, awake. He crawled over slowly to the window and grabbed onto Sierra, pulling her down to the ground with him. "Mom… don't leave me… again…"

"They're both delusional! Quick, Hermione, Ron, we've got to get them to Madame Pomfrey!"

Snape didn't even bother to take any points off of Gryffindor that night. Madame Pomfrey had treated them for fever and cleaned their capes carefully before sending them both back to their dorms. Neither of them remembered anything about what had happened.

Yet neither Snape, Ron, or Hermione knew how Sierra had gotten that cape. They could never have guessed who it was and why because they had even thought Mike and Dumbledore at one time but both had come up negative. Snape had told the other Professors what had really happened while making up a story to tell Dumbledore. None of the Professors wanted Dumbledore to go through any more stress than he had been going through lately with Voldemort on the loose. They know Voldemort was tied up in that somehow but didn't want to think up any other ideas in case of stress on their own behalf.

Snape kept an eye on Sierra during the next day, only to have given her grief.

Disclaimer? We all know that anything in here you see that's in J.K.'s writing is hers, not mine. Anything that you've never seen in there of J.K.'s is mine. Thanks to Abby for reviewing, I just wish people would actually read this. It's a lot of work because I'm writing it from both sides –the beginning and the end. And school doesn't help at all. So for anyone who has read it, thanks. For anyone who hasn't… I wish you would!

Oh and believe me… It'll get better!

Just a quick note: Only Sierra saw the mirror. No one else does.