Note to last chapter: I got the name 'Brockenstown' from Brocken, a mountain peak in Germany, where witches were supposed to gather on Walpurgis Night, a witches holiday, something made famous in "Faust".

Oh, and much to my dislike, I STILL don't own anything in this story except Juliet Reilly. That, and some of the teachers. And Brockenstown. ANYTHING that you don't recognize is MINE, MINE I TELL YOU! ALL MINE! MUHAHAHA!

CHAPTER NINE:

A (SEMI) NON-WASTEFUL END

I gathered my things, including my Christmas present, a female Barn owl I had named Cassiopeia, in front of the fireplace. Giving one last check that I hadn't forgotten anything, I grabbed the Christmas presents that I bought. "Be good for Mrs. Potter," my mother said, hugging me one more time.

However unlikely this was, I still said, "Don't worry, Mom, I will. Could you remember to mail that letter to Dad by Muggle post?"

"I will, don't worry," she said, straightening my glasses. "You have fun now."

She helped me load my things into the fireplace, and I took a pinch of Floo Powder. Cassiopeia gave one last hiss-like call as I said (as clearly as possible) "The Potter Residence!" Up came the green flames, and I started to spin as Cassiopeia continued to hiss.

"Oof," I said, as I landed in James's fire place. Cassiopeia hissed louder.

"Hello!" Said a kind voice, as I brushed ash of my shirt. "You must be Juliet."

I looked up into the face of Mrs. Potter. She had hazel eyes just like James. "Yes, I am," I said, now polishing my glasses. "It's very nice to meet you."

"I'll call James," she said, and called, "James! Another one of your friends has arrived! William, come down here and help!"

A man with glasses and untidy hair just like James's appeared. "You didn't need to shout, Anne," he said, putting the copy of the Daily Prophet he had been holding down on a table. "I was only in the next room." He looked down at me and said, "Hello. Are you James's friend?"

"Yes, sir," I said. He looked so much like James!

James and Sirius walked into the sitting room. "Nice owl," said Sirius, examining the frantic Cassiopeia.

"She didn't like traveling by Floo," I said truthfully, as Mr. Potter stated to levitate my stuff up to what I suspected was James's room. "Are Peter and Remus here yet?"

"Yeah," said James. "They're upstairs. Peter's never seen a television before, and Remus was trying to drag him away from it."

"You have a TV?" I asked as we began to walk up the stairs.

"Yeah. My parents are Muggle obsessed. The house is all-Muggle, except for the Floo powder. And my room."

James was right. His room looked like any wizard child's room should. He had moving posters of Quiddich teams plastered on every surface, and comic books such as "The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle" and books like "So You Want to be an Auror?". The only Muggle thing in the room was a TV, which was playing an episode of "Star Trek". Peter had his face pressed against the screen, and it seemed like Remus had recently given up his crusade to separate the two. He was sitting on James's bed (with a Chudley Cannons bedspread) and seemed quite happy that we had returned. "Hi, Juliet," he said to me before turning to James and saying, "It's hopeless. He won't move."

With that, James coolly walked toward the TV, and switched it off. Peter jumped and screamed. "What about those people who live in the box?" he yelled, as James and I laughed. "You killed them!"

"Peter, relax!" I said trying to keep from laughing more. "Their just pictures that move. Muggles make them. For fun."

Peter remained confused.

Mrs. Potter brought up some sandwiches, and we began to exchange gifts. Peter had obviously gone to Honeydukes, as his gifts were all incredibly large boxes of candy. He welcomed the Chocolate Frogs he got in return from me. James and Sirius, who both gave out bags of things from Zonko's, both looked ridiculous in the Chudley Cannons stuff, and Remus really liked the book, which he said was the first of it's kind- a book on werewolves written by a werewolf. Out of all the gifts, Remus's meant the most. It was a Knut, split in five, with a hole at the top and a chain running through it. each of the pieces fit together perfectly. "I did it with a severing charm," said Remus, sounding slightly embarrassed.

"I like it, Remus," I said truthfully. "Thank you- merry Christmas."

"Thanks. Happy Christmas to you too," he said.

"Didja get a letter from the Ministry?" asked Sirius.

"Er... yes," muttered Remus. "Why?"

"HA!" yelled Sirius. "Didn't know you had it in you, Moony! I got one too!"

"Why?" I asked.

"No comment," said James and Sirius together, to which I shrugged. Maybe I didn't want to know.

"Sounds like you two had an interesting break," said Remus raising an eyebrow, his slight embarrassment gone.

"Er... yeah..." said James. "Want to try out the Zonko's stuff on Lizzie?"

"Who's Lizzie?" I asked. I couldn't remembering hearing about a Lizzie Potter.

"My sister," said James. "She's older than me- graduated last year. She starts Auror training soon."

"Oh. Sounds... nice," I said. What happened to her? I thought. She had never been mentioned before in the books...

Lizzie's room was just up the hall from James's. In my bag, I had found a box of the Realistic Roving Roaches we had used on the Slytherins. Passing them around, we slipped them under the door, and... "AHHHHHH!" screamed someone from inside, as we tried to suppress our laughs. The door which we had been leaning on opened, and with a great THUNK we all fell to the floor- still laughing. "JAMES FRANCIS POTTER!" yelled the blonde-haired someone who opened the door, "I KNEW YOU WERE BEHIND THIS!"

"Behind what, Lizzie?" said James, trying to look innocent.

"Francis?" said Sirius snorting. James glared at him.

"Lizzie, what ever makes you think I, your loving, sweet, innocent," it was my turn to snort, "younger brother, did... what ever it was?

"Reason number one: you were standing at my door with your..." she looked at us, "friends. Reason number two: you and this one," she kicked Sirius, "bought these in Diagon Alley on Tuesday. Reason number three: you are so not innocent. Reason number four-"

"Okay! I get it, there were plenty of reasons," said James, hitting me for laughing. He stood up, and we followed him. "Hold on a moment," he said, checked his watch, and the began to run. Sirius, Remus, Peter and I followed.

We ran out the door, and onto the street, but continued running. We could hear Lizzie shouting behind us shouting, "I'LL GET YOU JAMES AND YOUR FRIENDS! I SWEAR!"

But we kept running.

Eventually, we had to return to the Potter's, and Mrs. Potter, as expected exploded... to Lizzie. "Your brother has company!" she shouted, once Lizzie protested. "I'll punish him later!" so James was off the hook- from his mother. Lizzie seemed to be another story.

That evening, a miniature war was waged inside the Potter household. The generals were Lizzie Potter, and James Potter. Let the games begin. We used up most of the Zonko's things, Nose-Biting Teacups, Hiccup Sweets, and she managed to bring up fifteen (I counted) embarrassing things about James during dinner. Much later, we set off a chain reaction of Dungbombs in her room- while she was asleep. Unfortunately, she woke up Mr. and Mrs. Potter when she screamed. That time, Mrs. Potter got very mad- at James, and sent us all to bed.

Mr. Potter had arraigned five sleeping-bags in the sitting room, and the boys fell asleep instantly- it was almost two o'clock. I stayed up for a short while though, fingering the Knut piece around my neck. I liked this present best of all- it seemed to meaningful. Eventually I did fall asleep, lulled by Peter's snores.