Lily and Ruth walked out of The Three Broomsticks and started up the road to Gladrags.

"Where are we meeting Kate?" Lily asked.

"Uh..." Ruth hesitated, and stopped to think.

"You don't know do you..." Lily said

"I thought you knew." Ruth said.

"I thought you knew!" Lily laughed at the irony.

Ruth turned around to see they were standing in front of the road leading up to the shrieking shack, and then turned back to Lily and said "now what?"

"I guess we go to Gladrags and see if we can find her there." Lily said.

"That won't be necessary." said a voice. Ruth and Lily turned around to see Kate, walking down from the road from the shrieking shack.

"There you are." Lily said.

"Ready to go?" Kate asked.

"Sure." said Ruth. "What were you doing up there?"

"Oh nothing...just checking something." Kate said casually.

"Checking on what?" Lily said, seeing what Ruth meant back in the pub.

"Silly things...you know...ghost stories and stuff." Kate said.

"Right..." Ruth muttered under her breath.

Upon arrival at Gladrags, they had so much fun trying on different dress robes, some wacky, some elegant, and some just plain girly, that Lily had forgotten all about Kate's strange behaviors. After they paid for their robes, they started their journey back to Hogwarts. Since most people were going to be at Hogsmeade all day, they decided to have a picnic by the lake with the Maurauders and their new french friends. They dropped their items off in their rooms, and went down to the kitchens.

"Hello there Winnie, how are you?" Kate said to Winnie the house elf, a friend of hers.

"I'm very well Masters Kate." Winnie said shyly. "I have prepared a basket for your outting today. Hope it's to your liking."

"Thank you Winnie." Lily said.

"You're very welcome Masters Lily." She said with a bow. "Good bye."

"Good bye." The three said.

"How do you know her?" Ruth asked Kate.

"Its a long story." Kate replied as her face fell.

"Its a long way from here to the lake." Ruth said.

"Alright then." Kate said, slowing down her pace. "Winnie was the house elf of my Uncle Thomas's. His family was killed one day, out of the blue, and we set her free along with the other elves." After that, she was quiet, looking at the floor.

"Oh no...I'm so sorry..." Ruth said, wishing she hadn't asked.

"No its alright. They were really that close anyways. I didn't even know I had an uncle until the day the news came." Kate said.

Lily gave her a hug. "Let's go on. Its a wonderful day out."

The three of them walked down to the lake, and the rest of their friends were already there.

"What's for eating?" Peter asked.

"Peter, all you care about is food." Sirius said.

"But I'm hungry." Peter said, as everyone laughed.

Ruth, answering Peter's first question, said "There is some bread, sandwiches, and soem french dishes for our guests."

"What sort of french dishes?" Sirius asked as he picked up package and unwrapped it. Inside was something that looked like pounded meat.

"That would be Goose Liver." Annette said, seeing the confused look on his face.

"Oh...I see." Sirius said, and quickly put it down.

The bunch of them sat eating and talking and laughing.

"Wait wait...ok, now who's going with who to the ball?" Ruth said.

"Un well...let's see." Lily said. "James and I are going together...um..."

"Remus and I." Ruth said.

"Uh..." Lily hadn't thought about her French friends and who they were going with. "What about you guys?"

"Well..." Annette informed them. "Paul and I are going, Janelle is going with Olivier, Danielle with Christophe, and Lyle with..."

"Lyle and I are going together." Kate chimed in. This came as a surprise to all of them, but apparently not Sirius.

"Oh..." James said, as he looked at Lily, and saw that she had the same look on her face.

"Um...Sirius, I just remembered, I found something that I think would interest you...you know...over there..." James pointed to a spot next to the school building. "I think Lily would like to see it too."

"Oh...right...yes I probably would." Lily said, getting James's hint.

"Well I don't know what you found that could possibly interest me but..." Sirius started, but James cut him off and pulled him along.

When they had gotten out of hearing range of the others, James pulled Sirius and Lily behind a rock, and right up against the wall of Hogwarts.

"What happened to you and Kate?" James asked Sirius.

"I thought the two of you would be going together." Lily joined in.

"No...we broke up." Sirius said.

"Why? What's wrong with Kate?" Lily asked in defense of her friend.

"Nothing...we got into a fight, that's all." Sirius said.

"What kind of a fight?" Lily asked.

"If you don't mind, I don't think its any business of yours." He said to both of them.

"I'm just concerned..." James said. "I can tell you liked her more than any of your other girlfriends."

"We..." Sirius hesitated. "Well...alright. If you have to know. It was a couple of days ago, and she had been spending a lot of time in the Library, you know, with Lyle. So when I asked her about it, she said it was none of my business. So then I said that it is because I'm her boyfriend, and she said that I wasnt being very supportive as a boyfriend. Then we got in a huge arguement about being honest with each other, and she confronted me about...something."

"What?" Lily asked.

"Um...Marleen, she confronted me about Marleen." Sirius said. "So we decided to make this breakup mutual."

This was good enough for Lily, so she left and went back to join the rest, but James knew that Sirius had been lying.

"What really happened?" James asked him.

"The breakup wasn't mutual, I broke up with her after she asked me about..."

"About...what?"

"About where I've been going once a month." Sirius looked really worried now. The maurauders had all been going to the shrieking shack once a month on the full moon to accompany Remus, a warewolf.

"You don't think that..." James said slowly and quietly.

Sirius knew what he was asking. "No, I don't think she's onto us. All she knows is that I've been disappearing once a month, and I think that she assumes that I'm cheating on her."

"Well as long as she doesn't know..." James said.

"Right..." said Sirius.

"Let's go back." said James, and the two of them went back to join the others to finnish their picnic.

(a/n I have a new fanfic up it's called A Wonderful Nightmare. It's a Ron/Hermione, a Harry love triangle, and a whole bunch of confusing stuff. But it also deals with a LOT of mystery, especially when it comes to strange letters that Harry has been recieving.)