sierradogbaby (review for Chapter 10): Ooo, sugar! *runs out of the room*

esteledhel: Hey, I rant and chatter all the time, so it's fun to read someone else's. Oh! I can do that too! Watch! *makes a popping sound and jumps out the window quickly*

Chibi Zen-chan: Harry/Snape? EW! *dies on the spot* Lol… we thought a pink Snape was a good idea.

Lanfear (review for Chapter 10): LOL. Hey, losers ignore me too! Is that a good sign? *looks for Nikki for confirmation, but Nikki just gives her an exasperated look* Oh.

sierradogbaby (review for Chapter 11): Yeah, you can't feel too sorry for the little geek or that defeats the purpose of giving him heck a la Ginny.

Lanfear (review for Chapter 11): Hey, we got the same review for both chapters, cool! I'm gonna have to see if I can get away with that one….

WARNING: If you have not read Order of the Phoenix, this chapter and the rest of the story contains SPOILERS. Please do not blame us if you read the chapter and find out that ****** died at the end of the book.

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"What are the properties of the porscheberry, Miss Jones?"

Nikki covered her mouth to hide her giggles. Snape had been trying to pay Ginny back for embarrassing him at lunch for the past twenty-five minutes… and he had not succeeded once. Ginny sounded like she was reading from a textbook her answers were so perfect. Nikki wasn't quite sure how Ginny could know the answers to questions about potions, but she'd learned to not doubt Ginny's ability to do anything. Like she'd said to Draco Malfoy: Ginny may have been an absolute ditz, but she was a brilliantly smart absolute ditz… when it suited her, that is.

"Um… a porscheberry? Wow I want a Porsche. Wouldn't that be cool, Nik, to have a Porsche? I want a light blue one that… hello." Ginny smiled sweetly up at Professor Snape, who was, by now, seething with frustration.

"What are you talking about?" he snapped.

Ginny's eyes widened considerably. "You don't know what a Porsche is?" she exclaimed, horrified. "Well, I'll fix that real quick." She raised her wand, and the Slytherins around her edged away. Snape didn't even have time to give Ginny detention for talking back.

SHING!

Nikki blinked, not believing her eyes… for two reasons. One: there was a sky blue Porsche with beige interior sitting in the front of the classroom where Snape's desk had been. Two: Snape was in the Porsche, which was just plain freaky. In fact, it was so freaky that Ginny shrieked in alarm.

"Get out of the car!" she yelled, waving her arms around. "You're gonna grease it up, and it's brand new!"

Snape was turning purple with anger, so before he could explode, Nikki dragged Ginny, who was still screaming her head off about the grease-ball ruining her new car, out of the classroom.

Once they were safely in the hallway with the famous Golden Trio, Nikki allowed herself to burst out laughing. Ginny looked quite offended, since it was her Porsche that Snape was now most likely destroying. Judging by the noise, he was tearing it the pieces.

"Nikki," Ginny whined.

Nikki quit laughing at the girl's tone. "What?"

Ginny looked like she was going to cry. "He hurt the pretty car. Why's he do that?"

Nikki patted Ginny on the back and noticed that Hermione looked sympathetic, while Harry and Ron looked just plain awkward. "Um… why don't I meet you boys in Divination?" Hermione took the hint and stuck around to lend female support, but the boys scampered away gratefully. "Now, Gin… you just caught Snape on a bad day." Nikki exchanged a look with Hermione. She'd hate to be around if Snape actually had a bad day.

"But why doesn't he like me?" Ginny sniffed.

Hermione smiled comfortingly, but Nikki could see she wanted to laugh at such a stupid question. "It's all right, Ginny. Professor Snape doesn't like anyone; he's always like that."

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for insulting a teacher, Miss Granger," came a low, menacing voice from behind them.

Before he realized that he would have been better off running for his life, Ginny had flung herself on Snape, hugging him around his middle and sobbing into his robes. "I'm so sorry! Let's never fight again, Sevvie!" she cried.

Snape looked terrified. He detached himself from Ginny faster than a teenybopper who'd spotted a shiny object. Nikki herself felt like gagging. Sevvie? What was Ginny on? Snape looked as if he was about to punish Ginny for her cheek, but he couldn't very well punish anyone from his own house without it reflecting on him, could he? As it was, he simply stormed off, looking rather red.

The second he was out of sight, all negative emotion vanished from Ginny's face, replaced instead by her usual happy-go-lucky smile. "And there's your first lesson in How to Get Rid of Snape 101," she said matter-of-factly, brushing off her uniform.

Hermione and Nikki looked at each other before falling into a fit of giggles. Like Nikki had said: Ginny may have been a ditz, but she was a brilliantly smart ditz.

"Hey, Hermione, are there any books on wizarding lineage in the library?" Ginny asked suddenly.

"Erm… yes, I think so. Why?"

Ginny grinned. "I thought we could find out if Nikki is Siri – er… Snuffles's sister or fifty-eighth cousin twelve times removed. Ooo! Nik, wouldn't that be cool if you could be his sister? Then maybe he wouldn't be as sad anymore. Although… I didn't read anything about you being on the family tree…."

Huh? "What family tree?" Nikki asked.

"The one at the Order's headquarters, remember? Snuffles's house? Boy was his mother a witch. Well, yeah… she was a witch, obviously, but…."

Nikki cut her off. "I get the general idea, Gin. But what the heck are you talking about?"

Ginny gave her an exasperated look. "I knew you read slow but geez, Nikki, you should have finished Order of the Phoenix by now!"

Okay, it's official. Nikki was confused. "Was Book 5 even out before we left?"

Ginny blinked. "Um… no." She and Nikki stared at each other, unaware that Hermione was quietly slipping away. Nikki's jaw went slack as she realized that their situation had just gotten much more complicated. Ginny seemed to have come to the same conclusion. "Crap," she whispered.

***

A/N: All right… I was going to leave you there, but Nikki thinks I give her the plot to take care of too often, so you get an extra long chapter. We're expecting many more reviews for this chapter than we got on the last chapter. Two?! Pfft. Ooo! Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea….

Get out of the way, Ginny, and quit singing! Hiya, folks, it's Nikki. The point is that it's gonna take a lot more than two reviews to get us to update quicker. Tell your friends to read and review. We've noticed that, the more reviews to start with, the more reviews come in later on. I supposed people think a lot of reviews is the sign of a good story. *shrug* Thanks! Now on with the plot for my sake, okay? Honestly, do you have any idea how hard it is to fit all of Ginny's little quirks in-between the plot? *snort* We've left out more of her antics than you would believe.

Let's see what we can do with this one, shall we?

… and other fancy stuff. Oh, Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea, and frolicked in the OW! Nikki!

***

If you don't count rainbow mash for the Slytherins and Peeves in a flowery nightgown and turquoise chickens with no heads running around in the Entrance Hall and portraits pointing at Snape and Malfoy and any other rude person and snickering and… many other things caused by Ginny's odd little quirks (Nikki: See? Told you. Quirks.), the rest of their first day at Hogwarts was uneventful.

In the end, Nikki grudgingly followed her new friends to their common room just before curfew. Ginny called after her, "Isn't Harry Potter Land fun?" She had then proceeded to roll her eyes in Malfoy's direction and smirk evilly. Nikki wished that Ginny hadn't gone and got herself stuck in Slytherin, because if she hadn't they could have stayed up planning an attack on the bleached-blonde git. In any case, Ginny probably had that area under control. Nikki's earlier prediction had been correct… it looked as though Ginny was putting Malfoy through hell. (A/N: That's not meant to be swearing. Hell as in the worst thing imaginable. K, now that I've explained my reference to the land down under… NO, NOT AUSTRALIA!)

Except for camp, Nikki had never slept in a dorm, and she quickly understood why Hermione had opted to stay in the common room with Harry and Ron. If she had known, Nikki wouldn't have wanted to be around Parvati and Lavender either. The two girls reminded Nikki of owls peeking out from their beds at her, looking as though they were about to pounce on her like she was a little squeaky mouse named Moe.

After changing into some Gryffindor-colored pajamas that she'd found in a truck labeled with her name (a fancy swirling of Nicole B.), she smiled nervously at the 'owls', walked along the row of bureaus on the opposite wall of the beds so she wouldn't have to be anywhere near the nosy girls, and headed down the stairs…except she had to stop before she got to the bottom.

The Trio (which Nikki had decided to call them seeing as it took so long to say Harry, Ron, and Hermione all in one go) was huddled together near the fireplace, talking quietly. They probably weren't talking about anything too secret, since they weren't whispering, but there was something about the way that they were acting that said it was something important. Carefully, Nikki crept as far down the stairs as she dared.

"… all miss him. Don't you think if they were from the Wizarding world they would have known?" Hermione was saying.

"Especially since it looks like Nikki's related to him," Harry muttered.

"That's another thing," Hermione continued. "They know about the Order and headquarters… well, Ginny knows, at least. She said something about Nikki reading it in Order of the Phoenix. Who do you suppose these girls are, exactly?"

Ron didn't seem as concerned as the other two. "As long as Jones keeps hexing Malfoy like she did today, I couldn't care if she was a Death-Eater."

"Ron," Hermione scolded. "You know you would care if she was here to spy on Harry. But that isn't what we're talking about. They don't know, you see? Whatever they know about what happened last year, they don't know that he died!"

Harry stood abruptly. "I'm going to bed." He walked swiftly towards the staircase and Nikki had to race back up and into the girls' dorm to keep from being caught.

***

Even the most deep of sleepers are, at some level, aware of their surroundings. That is why, when a piercing scream shot through the castle from the dungeons, most everyone found themselves wide awake and wondering what was going on. Some merely dismissed the disturbance of their sleep as something in their dreams, or someone having a nightmare. Some huddled under their blankets, hoping to hide from any evil that was invading the castle. But some, like Nikki, could have recognized the scream anywhere.

Not three minutes after Nikki's eyes had snapped open and she had shot up in bed, bleary-eyed and sleepy, she could hear a commotion down in the common room. Looking at the occupant of the bed next to hers, Nikki caught Hermione's eye and the two girls quietly crept out of their dorm and down the stairs. Harry and Ron were already in the common room, wands in their hands and directed towards the portrait hole.

A second before Nikki began to walk towards the door, the portrait slid open and Ginny ran inside. She was wearing Slytherin-colored pajamas, which clashed horribly with her newly-dyed bright purple hair, which was sticking out in all directions around a tear-stained face.

"He's gone, Nikki. He died! How could he die? Harry needed him! This isn't fair!" And with that, Ginny threw herself into Harry's arms, sobbing into the front of his pajamas.

Alarmed, Nikki moved slowly to stand beside Harry. What in the world could have made Ginny so upset? "Ginny… who are you talking about?" she asked hesitantly.

The volume of Ginny's voice increased. "It's that stupid Bellatrix, killing her own cousin. I used to like that name, but no more. I hate that stupid star!"

Nikki placed a soothing hand on her friends back. "Who died, Gin?" she asked. It was painful to even think of knowing… it was affecting Ginny too much to be good.

"Sirius!" Ginny cried, burrowing as far as she could into poor Harry's chest.

Shocked, Nikki looked up to see the stricken expression of someone who had been trying to forget pass over Harry's features. Oh no….

It felt like she'd lost a brother. "Sirius," she whispered, before beginning to cry herself.

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Boy is that emotional stuff hard to write…. Hope you liked it! Now, let's see how we can do with reviews, shall we? I bet that if you review a ton, Nikki might feel up to writing the next chapter right away (hint hint)!