A/N: Wow, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Freakin' long. I will be most surprised if anyone reads this and reviews it. If you do, yay! If not, I suppose I deserve it. Well, one thing that is going to keep motivating me for this story is that the way the plot works out, it has to be done before HBP comes out and from there, I might be able to add more on to the story, depending on what happens in HBP. Anyway, I'm at college now and while last quarter sucked ass b/c of bio and chem stuff, I'm now a nursing major and have ultra easy classes this quarter so I can spend more time on this.

So that you don't have to re-read all that has been going on, here's a review:

Michaela, a Squib, has spent the first few months of school (her senior year in hs) at Hogwarts because her parents have been taken by Death Eaters. Her mother is the sister of Dumbledore and we have found out later that the mother was killed involuntarily by her husband (under the Imperius Curse) but no one knows this. Michaela has adjusted as most one can be under the circumstances and has a developing friendship with Sirius. Umbridge ceases to annoy her and Professor Snape intrigues her. Last chapter we dealt with some issues of bias that wizards have against Squibs and left her wondering how much longer she is going to stay at Hogwarts.

So, got all that? Good. Here you go, the next chapter will be up in perhaps two weeks,,,

Chapter 13

"I can't wait!" Michaela's face was shining with excitement. The first Quidditch match of the year was to begin the next morning, after breakfast.

"Just you wait, Michaela," Fred said. "It's bloody good fun."

The only person who didn't seem to share in this excitement was Ron, who was looking down at his sandwich gloomily.

"Better watch out Weasley!" called Malfoy as he and a few other Slytherins sauntered by. "The Quaffle'll go faster through the air than your broom—not that you'd catch it anyway!" The gang of Slytherin's laughed as Ron tried unsuccessfully to shrink more into the table bench. Poor Ron, Michaela thought.

"Too bad your broom isn't fast enough to escape the Bludgers, Malfoy!" one of the twins called back and the Slytherins' laughs subsided a bit as they headed out the doors.

"Just ignore them; they're nothing but prats," Harry said. Ron didn't look convinced.

"Ron, since when have you ever listened to a Slytherin?" Michaela asked.

Ron looked up. "Well, I don't, but . . . oh, you don't understand!" He leaned into his cereal again. Michaela and Harry exchanged looks.

Inwardly, she sighed. She couldn't help Ron if he didn't want to be helped. The bell rang for classes and she trudged up to her makeshift classroom.

After the incident with the D.A. (as the group had decided to call themselves), Harry and Hermione were the first to apologize profusely to her, followed later by all of the Weasleys. However, they all agreed (Michaela included) that it would be best if she didn't attend any more meetings.

"He was right, in a way," Michaela had concluded. "I am a Squib and can't perform magic stuff like you guys can. Of course, he could've gone about saying it in a more polite fashion, but that's the way you do it if you happen to be a jackass."

Her evenings, then, were now spent in the library, reading some Wizard literature (as her uncle had done with Muggle literature) and doing some light research on House-Elves. She agreed with Hermione's idea of an organization to free the House-Elves, but felt that Hermione was going about it the wrong way.

The first thing was the name. No matter how good its intentions were, Michaela knew that any name whose initials were synonymous with tossing your cookies would not draw many people. She needed something catchy.

Ron's offhand idea of "House Elf Liberation Front" (H.E.L.F.) wasn't bad at all, and she pondered using "Party" instead of "Front" to make the initials spell out "H.E.L.P." The only snag in all of this was how to suggest all of this to Hermione tactfully, without raising Hermione's defenses.

But of most importance on these evenings was the question of college applications. Dumbledore had provided her with a Muggle computer (with special modifications so that it would work at Hogwarts) and when she promised not to contact her friends back in California, Michaela had essentially full access to the Internet.

All of this was great for Michaela, but where to apply? University of San Diego and University of Southern California were high on her list of potential schools, but they were also selective and expensive. However, her uncle had told her that she shouldn't consider the price of college at all because her parents and he were well off and could probably afford to send her almost anywhere. Along with that, he also said to apply to at least one to two universities in England.

Studying abroad? Before coming to stay at Hogwarts, living and studying abroad had always held an appeal to her. It seemed adventurous and exciting, even a bit romantic, though the last reason seemed a bit silly.

Americans romanticize Europe so much, Michaela thought. And why not? With the adorable accents, historical landmarks, and buildings hundreds of years old, how could anyone not romanticize it? That is, until you live there day in and day out.

Michaela did love the scenery and the architecture that she had seen, but missed the "American" style homes and warm weather every day. It seemed as though it rained every other day here at Hogwarts.

Yes, it was nice staying here, but Michaela couldn't imagine permanently staying in a foreign country—there would be virtually nothing keeping her here.

Except . . . perhaps a relationship with someone? Oh, yeah? Her mind said. And who would that be? Try as she might, she couldn't help but think of Sirius, but immediately dismissed the notion.

He's too old (he's not that old), he's a wanted fugitive (who's innocent), he's headstrong and stubborn (but proved that he can reconcile with it), and he looks too rugged (which you find very attractive) . . .

"ARGH!"

"SSSHH!" Madam Pince looked highly aggravated that Michaela had made such a disruption in her library and sent her a look of pure venom.

Hastily calling it quits for the night, Michaela packed her backpack and laptop and headed for the common room. It was getting late and she didn't want to miss the Quidditch game in the morning, so she went to bed soon after. As she settled under her down comforter, she never imagined that more than 5,000 miles away her other comforter wasn't receiving the same treatment.

SLASH! BANG! These were the noises heard inside 94-310 Hunting Horn Way West, home of the currently absent Woodburns.

"Stop making so much noise, Nott!" The voice of Lucius Malfoy was that of a low hiss. "We don't want to attract the attention of the Muggle neighbors!"

Three Death Eaters were in the master bedroom, virtually tearing it apart, looking for any clues as to the existence of other relatives on the Dumbledore line. The Dark Lord had given orders to find out who the relative was and not to return without this information.

They had tried to extract information out of Howard Woodburn, but he had died a month or two ago. After a few hours of torture, it had become clear to Howard that eventually he would crack against his will. In order to save his daughter and prevent the further rise of Voldemort's power, he effectively committed suicide. He goaded his guards into beating him until his body wore out and he allowed his spirit to be let go.

The Death Eaters had only just found out the location of the Woodburn's residence again because it seemed that the house's location was put under a spell to keep them from finding it. This further confirmed Voldemort's suspicions that there must be some other relative to the Dumbledore line that no one knew about, perhaps a bastard child or cousin.

Now that they knew the address, Voldemort wasted no time in trying to ascertain the mysterious relative. He sent three of his servants to the Woodburn's residence and they were there, searching with frenzied determination. If they took too long, the Dark Lord would surely punish them, even if they managed to uncover the identity of the relative.

"Enough. There is nothing more here. Search the other rooms on this floor."

Nott and Goyle stumbled into the bathroom while Lucius headed to one of the other rooms. Opening the door, he found another bedroom. This room was obviously feminine as the walls were light lavender and a pale blue comforter with flowers printed on it. Looking around before tearing up the bed, Lucius pondered whether this was perhaps a guest room.

The dresser drawers, he discovered, were empty and there were no picture frames or personal-looking knick-knacks. "We didn't find anything in the bathroom, Malfoy," called Goyle.

"Go downstairs then, you bumbling idiots!" Malfoy often did this nowadays, displacing his anger onto whoever was readily available. It was a trait he had picked up from the Dark Lord himself in the recent months.

He used to be so cool and collected, calculating in his responses that were exactly the right thing to bring a person down, but lately his temper was getting the better of him. His Master the Dark Lord was brilliant, but he demanded so much of his followers, especially of those higher up on the hierarchy. This latest turn of events was certainly no exception.

The bastard hasn't let up on this for days and I haven't had any sleep because of it. He expects me to do two jobs at the same time.

"Malfoy! I think we've found something!" Nott's voice was excited, but Lucius knew better: The bumbling idiot probably came across nothing. He went downstairs and couldn't the pair.

"Out here, Malfoy!" called Goyle.

Lucius walked to the open sliding door and saw Nott and Goyle bent over a—well what was it? It was towards the back of the yard, near some (now) dead flowers. It must be a bench of some sort, Malfoy thought. Who could be excited over that?

"Malfoy! We found something here, the Mudblood lovers in some pictures—but with a girl."

A girl?! Malfoy strode swiftly to Goyle and Nott's side, pushing them aside. He got a better look at the bench. It was more-or-less a wooden, rectangular box, but Goyle and Nott had lifted the top off of it and inside it was filled with dozens of things, mostly photographs and papers.

It was dark, so Malfoy muttered "Lumos" and rooted through the box, looking at the pictures. "They can't have a daughter, it would've been seen on the records . . . a cousin maybe?" he muttered.

As he looked at the pictures again, this one of the small girl sitting on the lap of a fat man dressed in red, Malfoy realized two things. First, the picture was a Muggle picture and secondly, the fat red man holding the girl was undoubtedly a Santa Claus.

The reason why he didn't recognize him before was because in the Wizarding world, parents didn't do such ridiculous things. But taking a good, hard look at the picture, Malfoy was sure he was right.

And if they had this girl and they had Muggle pictures of her, who was she? He picked up a "Mother's Day" card and looked inside. It read in scrawling letters, "You're the best mommy in the world! Love, Michalea." Suddenly, it clicked.

"A Squib!" he said aloud. "Nott, Goyle! How did you find this? Tell me!"

"We were, uh, lookin' downstairs and I found—"

"No, I found it!"

"No you—"

"Shut up! It doesn't matter! Just tell me!"

"Well, we found a treasure map on the wall by the door and we thought it would be a good idea to—"

"Where is it? Let me see it."

Goyle handed it over and Malfoy peered upon it. It was a crudely drawn map of the house and the yard. On the back in neater handwriting, was written, "Time Capsule."

With a triumphant gleam in his eye, Malfoy shoved all the papers and articles back in the wooden box and replaced the lid. "Come on, we've got everything we need right here." He levitated the box toward him and the Death Eaters disapparated in the dark night.

Dumbledore had feared that the Death Eaters would come to the Woodburns' house and so had taken precautions when he originally retrieved Michaela's personal things. He had cast a charm on the house that removed any item that had the name "Michaela" anywhere on it or had a picture of her in it. He gathered up all of the various items and stored them in his private office space (which obligingly grew to accommodate all of the items), certain that the Death Eaters would not find a trace of Michaela's existence in the house.

And it had worked. Malfoy, Goyle, and Nott hadn't found anything in the house about Michaela. But how was Dumbledore to know that the non-descript garden bench in the backyard was filled with Michaela's memories?

Each year, the Woodburns put in mementos from the year, including cards, pictures, drawings, even old items, like Michaela's first "grown-up" watch that finally broke when she was ten years old. Even some of Michaela's old school papers were in there.

That night, Harry awoke to a feeling of joy—which wasn't good, he supposed, but he didn't know why Voldemort was happy and couldn't do anything about it anyway, so he rolled over and went back to sleep. By the next morning, it was completely forgotten about—Harry had other things on his mind that seemed more important, like the Quidditch match that morning.

Michaela's first Quidditch match fun to watch—but only in the beginning. The Slytherin's started to sing an awful song, "Weasley is Our King" which made Ron particularly embarrassed, Michaela could tell. He became depressingly off form as the match progressed, stung because of the song.

Eventually, Harry got the snitch and the whole of the Gryffindor side was celebrating—more of an uproar than Michaela had ever experienced at a sporting event before. People got excited over sports in America, Michaela thought, but not this much!

Seeing all the hubbub and commotion around her, all the stories that she'd heard in past years about crazy European fans suddenly seemed more believable. Michaela could never understand the European passion for soccer, for example. It was fun to play it, but not to watch it. The game was too simple—kick a ball into the goal, essentially. And there were such things as ties.

Ties, Michaela thought, were unacceptable. To her, somebody had to win. Of course, this was just in sports, of no means how she lived her life. Compromising could be one of the best things that could happen in a bad situation, but that was neither here nor there.

"WHOO! AOW!" she shouted along with the rest of the Gryffindors. Michaela was so busy sharing the merriment of the Gryffindors that she didn't notice what happened next. It wasn't until after she saw Harry and George suddenly run headlong into Draco that she realized all was not well.

Madam Hooch yelled, IMPEDIMENTA! and the spell knocked the boys off their feet and threw them several feet backwards. The roar of the crowd was now not loudest by the Gryffindors but by the Slytherins who jeered at Harry and George as they walked past, heading back to Hogwarts.

Finding Hermione, Michaela talked quickly with her, asking if she knew what happened. "No, I couldn't hear anything," Hermione said, anxiously. "Oh! I hope they don't get into too much trouble."

Too much trouble? Try getting kicked off the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Michaela thought. After she found out exactly what happened, she was furious too—at Draco and Umbridge. How could she be so unfair? Just another reason to oppose her with more vigor.

That evening, Harry, Hermione, and Michaela were discussing the match when Ron suddenly came in, looking pale and chilled to the bone. Hermione immediately jumped up, saying, "Where have you been?"

"Walking." Ron mumbled.

"You look frozen, come and sit down!"

Ron walked to the chair farthest away from Harry and slunk into it. "I'm sorry," he said.

"What for?" Harry asked.

"For thinking I can play Quidditch," said Ron. "I'm going to resign first thing tomorrow."

Harry started to argue with him, and for once, Michaela let them be. She noticed Hermione walk over to the window and joined her, looking at the snow that was flurrying downwards.

"This is the worst I've felt in my life," Ron concluded bitterly.

"Join the club," Harry said, matching Ron's tones.

"Well, I can think of one thing that might cheer you both up," Hermione said, still looking at the window.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," Hermione said. "Hagrid's back."

Harry ran up to his dormitory while Ron and Hermione explained to Michaela who Hagrid was. When Harry brought down the cloak, they tried to fit all four of them under it, but it just wasn't working.

"You guys go ahead," Michaela said. "You know him more than I and you can tell me everything when you get back." The trio headed out and Michaela looked around, seeing no one else in the common room, headed up to her own dormitory.

Lavender and Pavarti were doing their nails and gave no notice to Michaela since they were engrossed in their gossiping. Michaela rummaged through her trunk and held up the mirror that Sirius had given her. But instead of going into the bathroom, Michaela headed back downstairs. Sure it was risky, but it was just so comfortable downstairs and there was nobody there and it was pretty late. All these things Michaela told herself as she went down.

Settling herself on a chair that had a good view of the stairs leading to the various dormitories and the Portrait hole, Michaela looked into the mirror and called for Sirius.

His face appeared in the mirror and Michaela's face lit up. She couldn't help it. He was just too cute with his hair all out of place—

"Michaela?"

"Hey Sirius, how're you?"

"I'm doing okay, but why the late hour? Everything alright?"

"Yes, we're fine. Ron, Harry, and Hermione just went off to visit Hagrid who just got back but there wasn't enough room for me underneath the Invisibility Cloak so I'm waiting for them to get back. Thought I might chat with you for a bit."

"Why of course. How've you been?"

"Well, I've been pretty busy with schoolwork and everything. Hermione's even got me knitting for House Elf clothes."

"She's still after that?"

"Yes. The way I see it, if they want to be free, they'll have the opportunity now. Uncle Albus wouldn't turn away a House-Elf who wanted to work for wages, I know he wouldn't so I don't see any harm in it."

"Sure."

Michaela knew a lack of interest when she heard it, so she changed the subject. "How's your friend Remus Lupin doing?"

They talked for a good hour before Michaela heard Hermione, Harry, and Ron creak open the Portrait door. "Gotta go, bye!" she whispered, and put the mirror away just as they came back in the Gryffindor Common room. "Hey guys, so what happen—" She stopped, seeing their short faces and then waited for explanation.

The next few weeks rolled by agonizingly for Michaela. After Harry, George, and Fred got kicked off the Quidditch team, tensions grew more and more between her and Umbridge. The weekly sessions were becoming a nightmare for her and with the added stresses of more schoolwork, college applications, and the SAT test in the next few days, Michaela felt overwhelmed.

Keep your cool, keep your cool. But with her vicious comments each week about her school, her friends, her way of life, basically, Michaela didn't know how much more she could take. She was beginning to understand Harry's anger, but even Harry's anger was going away. Since the D.A. had formed, he had a sort of talisman against her. He was defying her, even if not openly.

What was Michaela doing? There was only so much she could do against Umbridge with her comments and Michaela's replies were becoming steadily more and more daring, leading to detention.

Fortunately, since she wasn't an official student at Hogwarts, she didn't have to do Umbridge's detentions; she had to do the equivalent of her own high school. That basically meant cleaning up the hallways and classrooms with Filch, who talked very nastily to her the first few times, but eased up an inch when he saw the energy she put into the work that she was assigned.

If there was any other thing that Michaela could defy Umbridge in, it was doing exactly what Umbridge didn't expect her to do. She did better than her best when she cleaned the classrooms. The classrooms never looked so swept or polished when she mopped them.

Of course, she thought ironically, one sweep of someone's wand could probably make it just as nice than when I clean it, but this shows my hard work, at least.

But even with all of this, Michaela's feelings of not belonging at Hogwarts continued, and if anything, grew. She was relieved when the holidays came around. She planned to have another long talk with her uncle about her future plans, one possibly being that she go back to California.

As for her parents? Michaela didn't know what to think. They had been taken away from her four months ago and she had no idea whether they would come back or not. Though the thought of them possibly dead still wrenched at her heart, she found that she was beginning to move on.

She didn't have any news on them and couldn't worry about them all the time because it would drive her crazy. She would become that broken figure again all those months ago, back in August, but permanently this time. And she didn't want that to happen. She had to remain strong.

Not only for her parents, but most of all for herself. She had her life to lead and hanging around at Hogwarts was not fulfilling or making her happy. After all, she spent more of her time in the library than she did anything else. She was becoming an Internet addict, and lately had taken to reading various live journals, reading peoples lives and wishing so much for her old life.

As she settled into bed that night, she firmly stamped out what she was going to say to her uncle the next day. She would stay with the Weasleys for the holidays, but wanted to go back to her own life. She would be eighteen soon and could take care of herself or perhapsher unclecould send someone to live with her.

Little did she know but this night was the night that the Weasley family would be knocked upside down as Arthur Weasley was attacked by Lord Voldemort. The events that followed would make it impossible for her to go back to California, but she did not know that. All she knew was the fading reality of the world as she dozed off to sleep.

Ah? Aah? Whadda ya think? I like it, but am a bit iffy on some parts. So if you've gotten this far, please tell me what you think! Am I moving too fast? There's a bit of a jump in this chapter from about late October to mid-December. I'm also looking for a beta reader (as I've just found out what they are),,,I've gone over this pretty thoroughly, but you never know. Thanks, and the next chappie should be out in the next two weeks or so.