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Author's Note:
It was Christmas morning, and only three girls were staying at Hogwarts for the holidays. Lily Evans rolled out of bed, stretched, and yawned. "I see you're finally awake." said Lily's best friend Rachel. Rachel had black, straight hair, and was the one who kept her friends up on what was new: clothes, shoes, hair styles, boys, gossip. Anything else you can think of?
"Good morning Rachel." she said sleepily.
"I think
you really
Lily looked down and indeed, there was a pile of presents laying neatly wrapped at her feet. "Oh, it's Christmas?"
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Duh!"
"Well I'm sorry. I've just had my mind occupied on someone . . .er . . .something."
"Umm hmm." Rachel said skeptically. "I know exactly where your mind has been, on Potter!"
"Well . . ." She thought for a moment then, "Well, yours has been on Sirius!" she said, knowing that it would make Rachel mad since she really didn't.
"I don't like Sirius!" she said with disgust etched on her face. "Why are we talking about your crush when we could be opening our presents?" asked Rachel.
"I don't know." said Lily with obvious shock on her face.
They both sat on the floor and began to open their presents. Sitting at the very top of her pile, there was a very small package neatly wrapped with a green bow on it. Looking at Rachel, Lily saw that her best friend had picked up an exact package of her own; except, Rachel's had a black bow, which they both thought was kind of odd. The girls looked at each other with curiosity, then slowly began to open the tiny packages. Inside was a gold necklace, with a ruby right in the center.
"Wow!" replied Rachel.
"Who do you think gave us these?" asked Lily.
"Probably a family member." said Rachel with a frown on her face.
There was also a note with each of them, which Lily had pointed out. The note read:
The necklaces
will take some time to work properly when first put on someone
different
Just then, as the girls were holding up their gifts and wondering what the notes meant, Christie came bounding into the room with donuts. Christie had dusty, blond hair that was also straight, but had a little more volume than Rachel. "Hey guys, I just came from the kitchen and . . ." She stopped in mid-sentence as she spotted the necklaces. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, sitting down the tray of donuts on a vanity. "Those are Fate Necklaces!" she said, sitting in front of the girls.
"They are?" asked Rachel.
"Yeah, they're extremely rare." she said in a hushed voice while staring at the necklaces.
"Look Christine!" said Lily, pointing to Christine's pile of presents.
"Yeah, I know. I wanted to wait for you guys." she replied.
"No," said Lily. "You have a package too."
Christine looked over and saw a small package, wrapped neatly with a blue bow sitting on top of her presents. "Oh cool!" she exclaimed, scrambling over to her bedside and ripping the paper off her present that was now clutched in her hand. "I got one too!" she said happily, holding up an identical necklace to the others.
"Christine?" asked Lily.
"Yeah Lil?"
"Why exactly are they rare? I mean, do they do anything?" she asked.
"Yes!"
she said, sounding like they should know already. "
"Well it's not very likely that all of our parents would send us an exact present; that's just too coincidental. That must mean somebody in Hogwarts gave it to us." Rachel said with a grin on her face.
"Or maybe three guys that hang around each other gave them to us." Lily suggested, looking at the necklace that was dangling in front of her eyes.
"Wait a minute!" said Christine. "What if yours came from James, Rachel's came from Sirius, and mine came from Remus!" She mentioned Sirius, because Christine also knew that Rachel despised him.
"That would never happen!" exclaimed Rachel, ignoring the 'Sirius comment.'
"Yeah," Lily began. "I mean, the guys all the girls follow around and drool over?"
"Not my Remus." Christine said dignified. "He's the shy one out of the group. Plus, he's cuter, even if other girls can't . . ." Before Christine could finish, she was bombarded with pillows. "Hey!"
After the girls had finished opening the rest of their presents and putting on their new necklaces, they went down to the Great Hall, not feeling like eating donuts that day. Christine had just shrugged and carried the tray with her so she could eat with her friends.
When they arrived at the the Great Hall, there was only one table positioned normally where the Gryffindor table sat. There were no teachers there, but there was four boys sitting at the table; two in which Lily and Christine went silently to themselves, "Uh oh." The others were Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew.
The girls slowly walked to the table and nervously sat down across from their crush. Peter was sitting next to the wall, Remus was next, then James, which left Sirius sitting on the edge. Not wanting to sit to Rat Boy, sat across from Sirius. (she disliked Rat Boy even more than Siri) "Hi!" said Christine cheerfully to Remus. Apparently, she wasn't nervous. Remus muttered a shy 'Hi.'
James and Sirius were in a very deep conversation, but when the girls sat down, they stopped. James said, "Hi." along with Sirius, and after the girls responded, James said, "Me and Sirius were talking about who we would most want to be stuck on an island with."
"Who do you want to be stuck on an island with?" asked Rachel.
"My dad." James said simply.
"Why your dad?" asked Lily, taking a bite out of her eggs.
"Actually, I don't really know." he said. Lily grinned.
"What about you Sirius?" asked Christine.
"The President!" he exclaimed.
"The President?" asked Rachel.
"Yeah, he's the most likely to get rescued!" Sirius replied. They all rolled their eyes. "Well, it's better than being stranded on an island with Professor McGonagall." he said defensively.
"Who wants to be stranded with Professor McGonagall?" asked Lily.
"He does." replied James, pointing to Peter.
"I . . .I like Pro. . .Professor Mc . . .McGonagall." he stuttered. Everyone gave him a strange look. "What?"
"Well, at least if you're stranded with Professor McGonagall, you know you'll get rescued, cause she's got a wand." Christine pointed out.
"Oh, I never thought of that." replied Sirius.
A week had passed, and Lily still couldn't believe that she had had an actual conversation with James and hadn't even blushed once. She was walking down the hall to Transfiguration when she heard someone call her name. Turning around, she saw James catching up with her. She was shocked.
"Hogsmeade is tomorrow and me, Sirius, and Remus was wondering if you, Rachel, and Christine wanted to hang out there. Go to Zonko's and the Three Broomsticks . . ."
"Okay." she said, trying to contain herself.
James smiled. "Okay, see ya' later." he replied and went off to his next class.
At Hogsmeade, the six went to the Three Broomsticks. A pregnant woman came and waited on them. "It looks like she's due anytime." said Lily to the woman.
"Four weeks." the woman said.
"Girl or a boy?" asked Christine.
"She's going to be a girl." the woman replied, rubbing her stomach.
"Have you picked out a name?" asked Rachel.
"Yeah, Triaddy Rosemerta." she replied, and walked off. After a little bit, she came back with six butterbeers.
Rachel absentmindedly fumbled with her necklace. She looked up at Sirius, and found him looking at her. He suddenly came very interested in Lily and James' conversation. She wouldn't admit that she liked Sirius to anyone; not even herself.
James and Lily seemed to be very comfortable talking to each other and acted alike in a lot of ways, while Christine and Remus were just the opposite. Christine was out-going and . . .well . . .weird, while Remus was shy and kept to himself. Rachel thought they made a cute couple, also James and Lily made a cute couple too.
The six started hanging around each other more often. In the Gryffindor common room, the guys -plus Rachel- could be seen huddled in a corner, thinking about their next prank. Lily and Christine didn't like pranks that much, and was worried that they would get into trouble. One day, Christine and Remus were playing chess, and when Remus won, he had a big grin on his face as Christine looked over the play, trying to figure out how he had won, and Lily and James were playing exploding snap. Suddenly, Rachel and Sirius came bounding into the room, cracking up.
"What's so funny?" asked James.
"We . . .we . . ." Rachel tried to explain, but doubled over in laughter. Sirius was rolling on the floor, laughing his head off.
Sirius tried to contain himself, but just as he was about to tell them, Professor McGonagall came storming into the room. She took Sirius and Rachel by the ears and led them out of the Gryffindor common room. The others looked at each other questioningly.
Meanwhile, Professor McGonagall led them all the way out to the Forbidden Forest. "Hagrid, can you sneak a detention in your time for these two meddlers?" Professor McGonagall asked.
"Now's not really a good time," replied Hagrid. "We're having some trouble with werewolves. I was just about to send these others back to the school." Hagrid motioned toward three 7th year Slytherines.
"I think they'll be safe." said Professor McGonagall stiffly. She turned on her heel, and headed back towards the school.
"I want Fang." said Sirius, petting the boarhound.
"I think you ought to stick with me this time." replied Hagrid.
"But in my 1,893 times I've had a detention, I've always had Fang." Sirius pleaded.
Hagrid thought for a moment. "All right." he said. "Rachel, you can go with Sirius, the rest of you, come with me."
They split up along the trail. Hagrid had told them they were supposed to find a special plant for the Herbology teacher, Mrs. Lazaring.
Rachel crept along behind Sirius, watching the woods for any kind of sign for movement. "Sirius," she whispered. "Hagrid said they were having problems with werewolves. What if one attacks us?" she asked fearfully.
"Don't worry, that rarely happens." he replied.
Rachel suddenly stumbled, and she let out a small scream. Sirius caught her and asked, "You all right?"
Clutching his shoulders to steady herself, she nodded. He helped get back onto her feet, and they kept moving down the dirt path.
They heard a growl from off the path, and they turned toward it. They readied their wands, just as something hairy and big came snapping toward them. Sirius felt Rachel fall to the ground, but didn't have time to react. He saw that it was indeed a werewolf, and it had attacked Rachel. Sirius yelled a stun spell for too many times than he could count, but finally the werewolf limped away.
Sirius fell to the ground by Rachel, and watched as she sat up. She was crying and he could see why. Three large gashes went sideways across her face, and were bleeding. He took her head in his hands, and examined the gashes. They looked pretty bad, and he knew that they would leave scars. "Does anything else hurt?" he whispered to her.
She nodded and said, "I twisted my ankle, and he stepped on the other one. I think it's broken."
She broke into tears; not of the pain, but what had just happened. Sirius leaned over and hugged her. And as he hugged her, he rocked her gently back and forth, trying to settle her nerves. Neither of them could see the ruby of Rachel's necklace glow a neon green.
