Professor Lupin reminded everyone at the end of Friday's class that he would not be teaching on Tuesday and Thursday next week. "Instead you are going to be having the first of our guest lecturers."

Hermione raised her hand. "Who's it going to be Professor?"

Lupin just smiled at them. "We're saving that as a surprise, but I think you'll all find it fascinating."

They all went off to lunch together discussing who it could be. Neville hoped it would be an Auror from the Ministry. Someone who could tell them first hand want it was like to fight against the Dark Arts, in the field.

"Maybe it'll be Mad-Eye Moody," said Ron. "The real one this time. Professor Lupin said we'd be learning more about the Unforgivables this year, and he'd be just the one to teach that."

"I don't think Professor Lupin would be so mysterious if it was just an Auror," said Hermione. "I think it's going to be something special, someone we won't expect."

"What do you think, Dawn?" asked Harry.

Dawn smiled. "I have a suspicion, but I don't want to say." Buffy had been entirely too coy about when she would be coming back to Hogwarts in the recent letters she had sent to Dawn, the only thing she would say was that it would be 'soon.' Dawn decided to change the subject. "So, are we giving Hermione a birthday party tonight?"

"Oh, that's right!" said Ron. "I completely forgot about it! Happy Birthday Hermione!"

"Thanks Ron. I guess that means I'll be getting your present late again this year."

"So, do we party?" asked Dawn. "It's Friday night, and it's the only sixteenth birthday Hermione will ever have! It's been a whole two weeks since the team party."

"Yeah, I think we can arrange for a party!" said Harry.


Harry, Ron and Ginny had Quidditch practice after classes that afternoon so Dawn got the job of going down to the kitchens to find Dobby to arrange for Hermione's birthday cake, and other party foods. She hadn't been down there again since her first evening at Hogwarts, and was amazed by the difference. Instead of a dozen House Elves scurrying around, there were a hundred starting the preparations for tonight's dinner. She spotted Dobby right away, even though she'd never met him before. He seemed to be a foot taller than all the other elves because of the stack of hats he was wearing. He was also wearing a bright red sweater, and a couple of scarfs were wrapped around his neck. There were mismatched socks on his feet.

Dawn approached the elf. "Um, hello, Dobby?"

Dobby turned to look at her. "Oh, hello Miss! How can Dobby help Miss? Would Miss like tea and biscuits?"

"Oh, no thank you, Dobby! And call me Dawn. Harry said you were the one to talk to to arrange a birthday cake for Hermione tonight." Dawn saw that the other House Elves who had been starting to gather around, shied away at the mention of Hermione's name, and went back to the work that Dawn's arrival had interrupted.

"Certainly Miss!" said Dobby. "What sort of cake would you like?"

"Can you do a chocolate raspberry cake, with candles?" asked Dawn. "And big enough for everyone in Gryffindor to have a piece."

"Oh yes, Miss! We can do that, Miss!" said Dobby. "Anything else, Miss?"

"We need party food too, like what you did last time, but I don't think we'll need as much of it," said Dawn. "About half as much will do."

"Very well Miss! Anything else Miss?"

"No, thank you. I think that's everything. Can you bring it all to the common room at eight o'clock? And I told you to call me Dawn."

"Yes, Miss Dawn," said Dobby. "Everything will be ready at eight o'clock."

"Thank you, Dobby."

"You are welcome, Miss Dawn."


Hermione sat by a table on which the remains of a large chocolate raspberry cake rested. The Gryffindor common room wasn't as full as it had been last time. Most of the first and second year students had disappeared right after they got their pieces of cake. They knew Hermione primarily as the prefect most likely to make them go to bed on time, and they'd already learned she was less likely to do that if she didn't see them.

"Okay, the cake's done!" said Dawn. "Time for phase two: presents!" She pulled a pile of wrapped gifts out from under another table. "Looks like Ron didn't really forget after all."

"My Mum reminded me to get something for her, before we came back to school." said Ron. "So I had the gift, I just forgot it was time to give it to her is all."

Hermione started opening her presents. She loved the book 1001 Logic Puzzles she received from Ron, and Harry had gotten her a magic orrery of the entire solar system, with all the planets and moons accurately portrayed. They hovered in the air over their heads, slowly revolving around the room. You could zoom in on any object for a closeup view of its surface, close enough to see that there were indeed no mice on Europa, or even get an aerial view of any spot on the surface of the Earth.

"That's cool!" said Dawn. "Can we see Hogwarts?"

"I doubt it," said Hermione. "Hogwarts is unplottable."

"Huh?"

"You can't plot its location on a map," said Hermione. "If you tried, wherever you placed it would be the wrong place. This is sort of a magic map, so Hogwarts wouldn't show up on it."

Hermione set the orrery aside, and went back to opening presents. Mrs. Weasley had sent her another jumper, and her parents had gotten her a subscription to The Journal of Transfiguration. Dawn's gift was a sweater too, but much more stylish than the one Mrs. Weasley had given her.

Once again WWN provided them with music for dancing. This time it was Ron who started it off by asking Hermione to dance with him. Others quickly joined in. As the evening progressed many of the other boys asked Hermione for a dance too, but she always seemed to return to Ron.

Dawn had one dance with Ron while Harry was having his turn with Hermione. She was a little surprised by how good a dancer he was, she had gotten the impression that he hadn't had much practice at it. When she complimented him on it, he blushed, and leaned closer to her. "Promise not to tell anyone?" he asked quietly.

"I promise," said Dawn.

"I was stuck in Grimmauld Place for a month this summer, with Ginny as the only other not-old person in the house, and she made me practice with her."

Dawn laughed. "Your secret is safe with me."

Hermione and Dawn traded partners for the next dance. It was a nice slow song, that let Dawn and Harry get nice and snugglely while they danced with each other. Dawn was happy to see that Ron and Hermione seemed to be getting snugglely too.

A little later in the evening Dawn tried to take Harry back to their quiet corner, and discovered that Ron and Hermione had gotten to it ahead of them. They quietly left again with disturbing them, and went to find someplace else.


"So, is he a good kisser?" Dawn asked Hermione as they were getting ready for bed.

"Who?" asked Ginny.

"I guess you were too busy snogging Dean to notice Hermione here snogging your brother tonight."

"Eww! Ron?"

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with Ron," said Dawn. "He's nice and funny and handsome and a good dancer too. Back to the question though: is he a good kisser?"

"Well, I don't have a large sample to compare against," said Hermione, "but based on my limited experience…yes, he's a good kisser."

"Eww!" said Ginny.

"So, how many guys have you kissed?" Dawn finished putting on her pajama top, and sat on the end of Hermione's bed with her legs crossed. "I mean really kissed, not like you'd kiss a cousin, or a friend or something like that."

"Counting Ron…two."

"Who was number one?"

"Victor Krum," said Hermione. "He was sort of an exchange student from Bulgaria who was here a couple of years ago, and we dated a bit. Ron's better though. How about you? How many guys have you kissed?"

"Ginny!" said Dawn. "You were getting into it pretty good with Dean tonight. How many have you kissed."

"Oh no!" said Ginny. "You started this. You have to go first. Don't tell me Harry was your first."

"Not exactly."

"What does 'not exactly' mean?" asked Hermione.

"Well…there was this vampire."

"What?" asked Ginny and Hermione.

"Well, I didn't know he was a vampire," said Dawn. "And vamps are supposed to stay in on Halloween! So me and my friend Janice snuck out. Buffy thought I was spending the night at her place, and she'd told her mom that she was spending the night at my place, and we met up with these guys we'd met at a party…and it turned out they were vamps."

Ginny joined them on the bed. "No way!"

"Way!" said Dawn. "So they drove us to this quiet place where the kids all went to make out, and then we started to…you know…make out, and then his face got all bumpy, and he had fangs and I was screaming, and I tried to run and he caught me, and then Giles, Spike and Buffy all showed up, and there was a big fight, and most of the vamps got dusted—me and Janice weren't the only ones parking with a vamp there that night—and I dusted the vamp I'd been kissing, and then when Buffy got me home again I almost wished he had killed me, I felt so stupid."

"Okay, so you've kissed Harry, and a vampire," said Ginny.

"Not exactly," said Dawn.

"Okay, now what does 'not exactly' mean?" asked Ginny.

"Last year there was this guy in my school, and he had a jacket, and the jacket had a love spell on it that made every girl who saw him in it fall madly in love with him—emphasis in the 'madly'—and for a little while I was one of them, and I was throwing myself at him, and kissing him and stuff, but I don't think he should count because I wasn't acting of my own free will, and he was a lousy kisser anyway."

"How good a kisser was the vampire?" asked Hermione.

"He was pretty good," said Dawn. "It was a little weird, he was kinda cold, but I thought that was just because it was a cold night, and he'd been really nice and loaned me his jacket and everything beforehand and I'd never really kissed anyone before so I didn't really know what it was supposed to feel like."

"So, vampire, love spell and Harry," said Ginny. "Any more 'not exactly's?"

"Nope," said Dawn. "That's it. Now it's your turn. Spill. How many guys have you kissed?"

"First you have to tell us which was best. The vampire or Harry," said Ginny.

"Harry, hands down," said Dawn. "Much better than any night crawling hellspawn vamp…but I suppose if you asked Buffy she might disagree. She's had a thing for a couple of vampires."

"What?"

"First you have to tell us about your kissage," Dawn told Ginny. "How many?"

"Two," said Ginny. "Dean and Michael…you've met him, he was at the team party with Cho. So what's this about Buffy and a couple of vampires?"