REWRITTEN

Chapter Two: Friendships

Ain't no talking to this man,

He's been trying to tell me so,

Took a while to understand

The beauty of just letting go.

Cause it would take an acrobat

And I already tried all that,

I'm gonna let him fly.

The Dixie Chicks, "Let Him Fly"

"I love days like this," Tessa sighed, stretching out in the grass in utter contentment. "Just look at that sky. Look at it!"

Snoopy, as she was nicknamed by her best friends, was obliged to look. "There are clouds, you know," she remarked dryly, staring upwards. "We've had better."

"No, because clouds mean that it might rain, and I love the rain; but there's not enough up there yet to spoil this sun." The stocky brunette stretched in the light, closing her eyes against the yellow glare.

"I just hope it doesn't pour at Marie's welcome-home party this afternoon," her friend commented, pessimistic in the hot hours of the day. "We've invited half the state, it seems like." So saying, she flicked her brown, wavy hair out of her eyes in a gesture of irritation.

"Half the planet!" was the enthusiastic rejoinder.

"I can't wait to see her," Snoopy said, a tone of affection suffusing her voice. "You realize that she spent the entire last semester of term in Denmark?"

"Yes, the lucky twit." Envy flickered across Tessa's face. "But we've got our N.E.W.T.S. now, and it's summer." She smiled without opening her eyes. "We'll see her in a few hours."

Both were silent as they thought of their dearest friend, a ginger-haired, pale-skinned, freckled witch with a fondness for celtic jewelry and an unnerving interest in dragons. "Dragons," she had once claimed, "are the noblest of the serpent line, for given to them are the elements of air and flame." Equipped with Danish accent and a trained ear for laughter, she was a unique and selfless spirit, one whom they had missed terribly the last few months of wizard school. They sent owls to each other every week. It was hard to believe that soon they would reunite.

"And we're out of school," Tessa added, as if this were the crowning glory.

Snoopy collapsed on her side next to the seventeen-year-old, watching her with a faint smile on her lips. "Till autumn, anyway..." It was her turn to sigh. "Dunno why we have to go to college anyway, we're certainly adept enough."

Tessa smiled again, wider this time, thinking back to something that she had received only two nights before.

"Did you ever get your acceptance letter?" she asked, suddenly curious.

Snoopy didn't reply. Gray eyes blurred before she could stop them, but she put on a wry expression to mask her disappointment. "Nah, not yet. But it's only the third week of July. The Heads are bound to be still working on them, right? I mean, you only got yours two days ago."

"Bound to be," Tessa replied, crossing her fingers for luck, though she couldn't quite force her secretive smile to go away.

The letter had been written in pink ink.

Dear Tessa, newly graduated resident of Denver;

We are pleased to inform you that your application has been registered and accepted at Wet Carpets, Canadian College of Mayhem and Magic. Appropriate payment (300 lbs, or 430 Gallions the cost of your first year) has been taken from your Gringotts account. Notify us in six days if you wish to withdraw your enrollment and we will refund all of the transacted amount.

Term starts on the second of September, as the first will be occupied with travel, arrival, and the beginning-of-year feast, during which you will be Sorted. Houses are as follows: the House of Utter Insanity, the House of Annoying Jerk-Offs (a.k.a. The Cynics), and the House of the Filthy Minded.

Please remember that notification of enrollment must not exceed August 25th, a week before the first semester begins. Students will board in the castle unless other arrangements have been made.

Enclosed is a list of requirements, regulations, cautions, classes, and necessary equipment.

We look forward to your company in the fall.

Oyster

(One of the) Founders of the School

Head of the House of the Filthy Minded

Oyster set his flamingo quill back into the neon-pink inkwell and leaned back, sighing slightly. How he had been delegated the task of writing and sending off acceptance letters, he couldn't recall; but they were a right pain, and he rather suspected that Keith had had something to do with the inconvenient lack of owls around the castle. Keith, who stood as the Care of Dangerous Magical Creatures professor, had just had a batch of griffin cubs delivered to Wet Carpets. The predators were cute, but not if you had a pile of acceptance letters to send off.

The letters in question, heaped in multiple stacks to one side of his inkwell, drew his eye to them. He smiled, almost absently. It was still hard to believe that four days ago, they only had received six applications. Once the Ministry had given their blessing, the letters poured in. Janet had been right when she said that this would be their biggest school year.

And what a crowd! About eight were Canadian, twelve American, one Danish, and four Irish. Some had even sent in applications from Latin America, Asia, and New Zealand.

"What about Britain?" Janet had demanded irritably when he told her.

Oyster had grimaced then, and he grimaced now, rubbing pink-inky fingers over his face. Dumbledore had taken him at his word when he said he wanted more interest from his homeland. The man had given him ten bloody recommendations to sort through, two from each House except Gryffindor, from which the Headmaster had chosen four.

Thirty, all in all. Thirty freshmen applications. With their policy as it was - six students to a House, three Houses in the school – they only had room for eighteen, possibly twenty-one if they stretched it to seven students per House. If Oyster had kept his mouth shut and not written that cursed letter to Dumbledore, they would have had enough.

Now we have too many!

"Unbelievable," he said aloud, but he had to smile. Wet Carpets was turning into a real, prospering college, right before his eyes. "Absolutely unbelievable."

He swiveled in his chair and looked out the window. A tower bedroom, particularly one built four levels above the Filthy Minded common room, had a most lovely view of the grounds: typical Canadian tundra setting backed by dark woodland. Below, stark against the lawn, Keith was feeding his new batch of griffins. Shrieks of competition and hunger tore the still midmorning air.

Oyster leaned out of the window, amplifying his voice with a brief charm. "Will you clear your lot off?" he demanded, speaking normally. "You've scared all the owls away; you and those snarling demons."

"Some people have no appreciation for nature's finest," Keith shouted back as he offered a ferret to one of his charges. There was a snap and an explosion of fur. "Go to the Owlery if you've a mind to send letters."

The redhead, about to retort, thought better of it. Although on the far side of the school, the Wet Carpets Owlery probably had at least three or four birds to deliver for him, whereas standing at the window and fighting with another Head of House was bound to deliver him only to the wrath of the starving griffins.

Turning away, Oyster shuffled his parchment until it was more or less in a single stack. His eye fell on the topmost paper. He paused, stricken, then snatched at it, reading it with wide-eyed speed.

This was one application that he had not answered.

"No," he whispered as he read, trembling with shock and excitement and horror. "No..."

Finished, he sprang to the window, staring with disbelief at his distant peer. "KEITH!" he bellowed, waving the paper at him and forgetting that he still had his amplifier spell working. The result was a blast of sound. "Tell me that you didn't look through Dumbledore's recommendations!"

"It took you so long to get around to them that I figured I might as well have a peep and answer the most important on my own," was the cool reply. "Will you hurry up and send it off?"

"We're not ready for this one! He's a bloody Auror!"

"Not yet, you idiot. He's just a student."

Oyster broke out in a sweat, despite the uncanny cool air. "Just a student?! You – oh, never mind. Why is he coming here? We can't train an Auror!"

"It's not for us to question personal motives," Keith shouted back. "Send the acceptance letters, will you?"

"He almost died," Oyster whispered, staring at the paper. "He almost died, but he lived -and he's coming here...?"

"Look, Dumbledore requested it, okay?"

The redhead paused in midrant and shot Keith a funny glance, not that the latter could tell at this distance. "Dumbledore... How do you know? I thought he disapproved of Wet Carpets." Suddenly the memory of their trial flickered through his mind. "Wait a minute. What do you know that we don't? What-"

"SEND THE BLOODY LETTERS!"

Oyster mumbled something and ducked back into his room, staring around in obvious stupefaction. His hands, almost on their own accord, stacked and hoisted the application forms. Stumbling from the room, Oyster began the long walk down the tower's spiral staircase, passing as-yet empty dorms and the Filthy Minded common room blankly.

"Why the bloody blazes is he coming here?" he whispered to himself as he crossed the second-level floor and began the steep ascent of the West Staircase, still trembling slightly. "We can't train him the way he ought to be trained, we don't have much of a Dark Arts section, and he's potent... he's legendary... why is he coming to a nuthouse?"

Numbly, he crossed the Owlery door and went in.

I won't believe it until I see it, he resolved, peering around in the dimness for an obliging owl.

There is no way Harry Potter will come to Wet Carpets. Why would he? Why on earth would the most famous wizard in history come here?

And.. why does Dumbledore want him to?

Hogwarts was over. Harry couldn't quite grasp it, or comprehend that he was free. Free of the Dursleys every summer, free of school, free of – of a great Shadow. It was amazing, the sort of bliss that this would have brought him, if the price hadn't been too great.

He was a myth of a wizard now, he saw it in Ron and Hermione's faces every day, in the awed regard of passerby, even in the mirror when he washed up for bed. Trelawny had said it herself, seventeen years ago; "He will have power the Dark Lord knows not." To be welcome in every home... to be loved, and to have loved so dearly that his heart bled with the emptiness... to want to die, rather than dread it, as Voldemort had.

"But neither can live while the other survives."

"Does that mean one of us has to kill the other... in the end?"

A murderer. That was who he really was, under the fame and the weariness. They had come face to face in his seventh year, barely a month ago in fact, as they had for almost every year prior to that; but something changed. The end of school was, in a sense, the end of the war. Voldemort knew it. He had been waiting for it, in fact.

So they had dueled, but with a fury and a desperation unlike anything either of them had encountered. Harry bore the brunt of the tide of blood. At last, near-blinded and an inch from death, he had managed the words.

For my parents, he had told himself. For the Longbottoms, and Cedric dying in some forgotten graveyard. For – and the tears had got into his open wounds and burned like fire – for Sirius.

And Voldemort had blown away like so much dust, leaving Harry in a black dream.

Waking up in St. Mungo's surely must have been worse than hell, as he found himself consumed with a wrenching pain, unable to do anything but stare up at three figures at his bedside. He couldn't focus on them until they had wiped the blood out of his eyes. Hermione was crying hysterically. Ron was white as snow. But Dumbledore... Dumbledore had wept over his broken body, and somehow those tears did more for him than Fawkes's ever had.

He found the will to recover, but not to mend entirely.

And just like that, life at Hogwarts had ended. Harry's flesh healed without trace of the horrific battle he had suffered (though the lightning-bolt scar remained). Now he understood why Moody was such a scarred figure, even if his own Dark Arts wounds had vanished completely along with his enemies. Though Dumbledore would have him believe otherwise.

For the headmaster cautioned him, over and over again, upon his salvation - "you are not yet free from danger, Harry." Harry had shrugged that off; his archnemesis was dead, wasn't he? And he had other things to think about, i.e., going to live at the Burrow. Ron and Hermione insisted on him coming back to the Burrow with them, and to all fronts, he tried to present a normal life.

But the nightmares... the reliving of moments when he had tried to tear out his own eyeballs and the brain beyond to make it end... when he forced out the syllables, through a teeth stained red with vomited blood...

Voldemort would not have been satisfied with a swift death, but Harry found himself incapable of torment as he summoned the strength to raise his wand.

"Avada Kedavra!"

And he would wake in a cold sweat.

No more were his dreams of being an Auror. He couldn't live with the guilt of killing, even a Dark Lord, who had caused – and in causing, deserved - every bit of the pain Harry had felt for seventeen years.

So when Hermione came with an application form to some madcap college, he signed, thinking that perhaps he had earned himself a bit of peace.

Somewhere, Hermione had got up the courage to tell Ron the state of things: that she and Harry were both going overseas for four years, and he ought to come too (She neglected to tell him who had suggested it). To her shock and his credit, he took it surprisingly well.

At first.

"Hermione, there is no way Harry's going to Wet Carpets," Ron said firmly, seating himself on the tattered cushions of the Burrow's sofa. "It's an insane place, and he's still got Auror training to look to."

"So do you," the bookworm retorted, examining her russet scarf as though there was nothing more fascinating than the sleek fabric. She seemed unwilling to look up.

"Yeah, I do!" Ron snapped. "So?"

"Haven't you had... enough... of the Dark Arts?"

There was a moment where Hermione stared at her scarf and Ron stared at her, feeling that there was no right answer to that question.

"Aurors are the elite, Hermione." He folded his arms. "You can't tell me you disapprove of being the best."

"I don't want anyone else to get hurt," she said in a low voice, still fingering the red silk wrapped around her neck. A vision swam before her; of Harry lying motionless, facedown in on the ground, with every inch of his flesh torn and bleeding. Blinking hard against the sudden surge of tears, she looked up at Ron and then back at her scarf, stubbornly brushing away the moisture that clung to her eyelashes.

"Well, yeah! That doesn't mean I'm going to go haring off to some lunatic college!"

"You should, Ron," Hermione said, earnestly, yet still refusing to meet his annoyed gaze.

"Mum can't afford Wet Carpets and Auror training, you know that!"

"As well as you," she replied coolly, lips trembling. "But you can at least ask for a scholarship. Harry's had enough of the Dark Arts for the time being, and if he's coming to college with me to get away from the memory of Voldemort-"

Ron jumped, and then looked away guiltily, scanning the room for Harry. When it was clear they were alone, he leaned forward and hissed, "I would do anything for Harry, you know that. You would too. But it's not a question of friendship-"

"I don't see why!" Hermione was a formidable sight, standing hand on hip, eyes snapping with irritation as she finally looked at him. "He's lost Sirius, his parents, his sanity. The least you can do is be there for him!"

"Why should I throw away my ambition for your fancy?" Ron demanded, incensed. "He hasn't lost all sanity if he runs around signing up for colleges to make you shut up!"

"Dumbledore wants-"

"Dumbledore's pissed off because Harry was the one who got to kill You-Know-Who."

Hermione's eyes widened in horror. Shock thickened the air between them as the redhead absorbed what he had just said. "I didn't mean-"

She hit him, hard enough to send white lights across his vision. Ron gaped at her, both hands staunching the rush of blood from his nose.

"How can you say that when you know Dumbledore's only concern is his welfare!" she hissed. "As is mine!"

"Oh yeah," Ron fired back, burning with rage. She had hit him. She never hit him. "I've seen your – concern. Darling Harry this, Darling Harry that. Sitting around coddling him and forcing him into nuthouses! This isn't what he wants, O patron saint of war heroes! You just want him to drag him along somewhere where you can keep an eye on him, don't you? And Dumbledore isn't much better. 'Harry, be careful. Harry, it's time for someone else to try to kill you.' We almost lost him this year. You both just think it's up to you to make sure nothing else happens! And now you want me to give up being an Auror too!"

"What if I do?" cried Hermione, out of patience. Her brown eyes glittered; tears of fury and hurt coursed down her cheeks. "You're my friends, Ron!"

"'Friendship' is complete domination in your book, is it? Funny, this is the first time Hermione the Dictionary has gotten the meaning of a word wrong!"

"That's not fair," whispered the witch. Fresh tears spilled over as she glared at him. "That's not fair, Ron, and you know it. I just want something to happen to bring us three together again. And I don't want someone else to get hurt the way Harry has been."

"Why do you think he wanted to be an Auror at fifteen?" Ron snarled. "Two years ago, why did he decide to do something that would stop others getting hurt?"

"At the cost of his life?!" Ron made a rude noise. "Do you even remember what he looked like when we found him?" Hermione demanded, her voice breaking.

The redhead's eyes slid away from hers.

She lurched forward, cold with rage, hurt, and acid memories that surged with every fresh wave of tears. For a moment fear engulfed her, and some sane part of her wondered in horror if she was going to hit him again, but instead she collapsed against his chest and wept, shaking violently. Ron looked confused and angry for a moment, and then discovered that putting his arms around her made the sobs slow and, eventually, stop.

They sat there in silence.

"I wish you would come," she whispered at last, pressing her face against his cotton shirt.

"I can't," he said bitterly. "I meant it when I said Mum couldn't afford it."

"That wouldn't have stopped you a year ago. Go to Dumbledore." She refrained from saying that Dumbledore, of all people, would offer support. If she told him that, she would also have to say why, and that was a secret. At least for now.

He stiffened. "I don't want-"

"Charity?" Unseen, Hermione smiled to have anticipated him, though she felt exasperated. "It's a nice sort of charity that lets you be with your friends and get an education, wouldn't you say?"

Ron was tense for so long that she wondered if he was actually considering it. The arms he had wrapped around her withdrew, defensive. "I'll ask for a scholarship," he said shortly.

She would have to be satisfied with that. "You'll send an owl?"

"First thing tomorrow."

"Now," she insisted. "It's just barely past noon."

"Fine."

Silence dominated for a further few minutes. Hermione was becoming restless. "Right now," she repeated, sitting up and glaring at him.

Ron actually smiled. "As soon as you get off my lap."

Laughing slightly, she moved aside, watching him stand and leave the room. "Where in God's name has that owl of mine got to?" he demanded, vanishing from sight. She heard the screen door swing and slam. "Pig!"

As soon as she was positive he was out of earshot, she reached into her pocket and took out a well-creased letter. Her smile was definitely smug. "Just as you asked, Dumbledore," she whispered, and crumpled it in her fist. "All according to plan."

Unseen in the room above them, Harry took his ear from the floorboards, feeling sick. The prospect of Ron possibly coming to Wet Carpets with him seemed empty in the face of their fading friendship. If anything, the demise of Voldemort seemed to have prompted troubles closer to home.

He sat down against the wall, knees drawn up against his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. Noon sunlight, streaming through chinks in the wall and the open window across the room, did not dispel his misery.

Hermione came pounding up the stairs. She was flushed with the success of her conversation with Ron, though there was still a hint of sadness and venom about her posture. "Harry?" she called as she cleared the last few steps.

Harry watched her silently. Classic bushy hair and slightly skinny build hadn't changed much over the years, though her taste in style had improved. Clad in white hoodie and blue jeans - nondescript except for the odd silk scarf at her throat - Hermione seemed less of a bookworm than she had at eleven, entering Hogwarts in prim uniform robes. Those who knew her saw the intellectual woman fighting to emerge. A fussy, scrupulous girl had bloomed into one of the dearest friends he had, and he wished for the umpteenth time that their friendship could have remained untainted by Voldemort's dominion.

It was poison, the knowledge that he had killed someone. Ron didn't want to come to Wet Carpets with a murderer. If Hermione possessed any sense that didn't come out of books, neither would she.

She saw him there and faltered, one hand still on the handrail. "Did you... hear us?"

A nod seemed insufficient, so he spoke, his voice shockingly raspy and almost sinister. He had hardly talked at all for the past month, choosing as few words as possible whenever speech was not an option. "Yeah, I did."

"Ron's sent Pig out; he's asking for a scholarship!" she said, making a brave stab at being cheerful.

"I know." He looked away.

"Harry..." Concerned, she crossed the floor and seated herself on the floorboards next to him, watching him with obvious pain. "Aren't you glad?"

"He doesn't want to come. You shouldn't have made him." Watching a small beetle crawl along the floor, close to his sneakers, he added, "I suppose I am glad, though."

Hermione watched the beetle too. Harry could sense her struggle to find the right words.

"You'll have a bit of a break there, Harry," she said quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He couldn't think of a response to this. A break from what? From his identity as a murderer? He didn't think even a surgeon could remove the weight of guilt and horror from his stomach, or take away the memories and nightmares that haunted him...

"It'll just be the three of us again. Like it was in our first year."

He snorted lightly. "First year I found out how my parents died, discovered that there was someone out there who wanted to kill me, and almost managed to get myself murdered."

"First year you found a place where you belonged, found people who cared about you, and met your best friends," Hermione said, talking over him. "Stop acting like a dementor's got hold of you, Harry. Good things have happened to you."

"Is that what you think I'm doing? Wallowing in self-pity?" Harry demanded angrily. His voice was furious, though he was still watching the progress of the beetle. "Let's sic Voldemort on you for seventeen years, see how you like it..."

"I don't want you to decay like this," Hermione snapped back.

"Fine. I'll come to Canada and study at Wet Carpets. Are you happy?"

"No!" Hermione glared at the beetle. There was a pause, as she tried to bring herself under control again. "I want you to promise me that you'll make an effort to be Harry again this year."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Harry, nonplussed. He took his eyes off the insect to stare at her. "I can't stop being myself, really, can I?"

"Yes, you can," his friend retorted after a few moment had gone by, her voice low. "You can go so far into guilt and pain that you stop being a person."

The silence extended for another few minutes as Harry seethed. Hermione finally spoke again. "Where's Hedwig?"

"Going to patronize my owl too, hmm?"

"I was going to send a letter to Dumbledore, but I guess I don't need your assistance to find her, if you're going to be obstinate," Hermione snapped. She got to her feet and walked away, climbing up to the Burrow's third level. Harry heard her calling, somewhat chokily, for Hedwig a few minutes later.

He looked back at the adventurous beetle. It had crossed the floorboards, and was attempting to climb up his motionless foot. With great care – almost with tenderness – he peeled it off, stood, and carried it over to the open window, placing it on the sill. There was a moment when it stood motionless, tasting the whiff of free air. Then its wings unfolded. Harry watched it as it faded to a speck in the noon sky.

When Ron came up the stairs a few minutes later, he found his friend sitting under the window with his head lolled back, sleeping soundly for the first time in a month.

If a nightmare took him later, the redhead did not know of it.

"Tessa!"

The girl flinched and put her hands up, as though warding a blow. She was aware of a searing pain all over her skin, as though someone had put a Stinging Hex on her.

"Tessa!?" Concern laced the familiar tones. "You okay? Who's Oyster?"

"I... what? What happened?"

"You fell asleep," Snoopy's voice said in her ear. The burning sensation faded and fled as she pushed herself into a sitting position, blinking and breathing hard. "Look, are you sure you're okay? You were like... twitching."

"No, I'm... alright..." Tessa rubbed her prickling arms, disorientated, and sat up to find herself still in her backyard, surrounded by grass instead of the cold flagstones she thought she had felt. "What time is it?"

"Almost one. We should go change into our swimming suits soon if we want to catch Marie's party." Snoopy frowned, still watching her friend with curiosity and slight fear.

"Yeah, okay." Sudden excitement about seeing her old friend again erased all of Tessa's dread, though she continued to rub her arms as they went inside. "And I'm fine, so you can stop looking at me like that."

"You don't look 'fine.' You just fell asleep, out of nowhere," Snoopy insisted. "I was talking to you and all of a sudden you jerked and your eyes were closed. And you said something weird too... you said, 'Oyster.' Who's Oyster?" she repeated.

Tessa bit her lip as patchy memories began to piece together. Her friend's avid staring was starting to annoy her, and she led the way down the hall feeling still feeling the curious eyes on the back of her neck. "Someone was hurting someone," she said shortly.

"An oyster?" Snoopy giggled slightly without breaking her gaze.

"No."

"Well, then-"

"I'll change in the bathroom, you can take the guest bedroom, okay?" Tessa cut in swiftly, snatching up her turquoise swimsuit. "Apparate to the pool locker rooms when you're finished, Snoopy, and wait for me. See you there."

"But-"

Snoopy found herself cut off by the slamming of the bathroom door.

Barricaded within, Tessa sat on the toilet lid and shook, recollections of tearing pain flooding her mind. A Stinging Hex indeed! More like the Cruciatus. But Oyster was the Head of the House of Filthy Minded, she knew that from his signature on her letter, what could he have done to warrant an Unforgivable Curse? Or had he performed it? It didn't seem likely that a school Founder could be involved in such an episode. Then why had she said his name?

And if she hadn't... why had Snoopy said she'd said his name?

Her arms and legs still stung slightly, electric twinges racing up and down her body. She ignored them, still puzzling over the frightening vision, which had gone as quickly as it had come.

Straining her memory gave her even less of an answer. Tasting blood... immeasurable pain... a College Professor... and the Cruciatus? Where was the connection?

Getting up, she went to stand in front of the mirror, reaching for a brush and hair-tie mechanically. A short, slightly porky girl of seventeen looked back at her from the glass, blue-gray eyes still telling stories of bewilderment. Red patterns were starting to crisscross on her arms and legs, though the lingering pain had gone.

A whiplash crack made her jump. Snoopy had already gone.

I'd better get a move on, then, if I don't want to be late to Marie's Welcome Home party.

Sighing, Tessa shucked her skirt and spaghetti strap, pulling on in their place an overlapping two-piece swimsuit. It was patterned festively, though the main color was a bright teal; she had got it in Jamaica, when their seventh-year classes had gone for Muggle Mingling in Foreign Places. Smiling fondly at the memory, she reached for her beach towel, and then – on second thought – her wand.

"Sunebanus," she murmured, tapping her arms. A pale charm rippled out across her body and disappeared wherever it found bare skin; wizard's sunblock. Satisfied, she hid the slim wood in her Lion King towel, clutched it tightly to her chest, and closed her eyes.

A mighty crack shook the room, and she vanished.

She hated Apparating; it felt as though thousands of little hands were tearing at her skin, blurring the scenery just beyond, giving her a sensation of rushing wind. There was a moment, just before the journey was over, when it felt as though she were splitting in two –

"OUCH!"

The girl stumbled as something extremely solid attempted to occupy the same space as she was for a moment. It failed dismally, though in the split second before they toppled, Tessa was aware of shouting, splashing, and a rush of warm air. Then both witches fell backwards and hit the tiled floor.

"God, Tess, don't Apparate on my head!" Snoopy got to her feet, wincing.

"Sorry," Tessa gasped, sitting up. She only had time for a brief glance for her surroundings – the steamy, flooded aisles of the pool's locker rooms – before her companion hoisted her into a standing position.

"What took you so long?"

"I was..."

"There you two are!" Shea, a former seventh-year classmate, came sprinting over at the side of her best friends. "I just came back in to see if Kayla was still in the bathroom... You're both late, I'll have you know! We said one, remember? It's almost quarter after!"

"The world's going to end," Tessa snapped back, tottering slightly as Snoopy let her go. "Where's Marie?"

"She's outside – come on!"

Shea crossed to the pool entrance and disappeared through it, with Snoopy hard on her heels. Tessa snatched up her towel, checked it hastily to make sure her wand was still concealed within, and followed her friends into the bright sunlight.

A bit of a patchy chapter, hmm? And eleven pages! I thought I would have time to do the reunion too, but I got too involved with our splintering trio. I love the emotionally crumbling Harry, he's so delightfully sullen.

Ethan, I don't know how much longer this would have taken me if you hadn't bribed me. It's stupid to wish you happy birthday again, but as your somewhat lame birthday present seems to be turning into an epic, you'll have to be satisfied with To Be Continued for now.

I'm so glad that my friends are finally coming into the story a little bit... it's hard to write about yourself in an objective light, however. grimaces

I'm starting to uncover the plot! But I can't talk about that here, can I?

Until chapter three, then!

-Tessa