Chapter 3: Mounting Tension

Just as Kierra's head hit the pillows and her eyes shut, she could feel someone tugging at her arm.

"Wake up, Kierra, wake up!" it was Lily. Kierra let out a groan and pulled her covers over her head. "go away!"

"Kierra Nakofky, get up this instant! We have class in half an hour!" Lily shouted, yanking the covers off of Kierra.

"Lilyyyyyyy!" Kierra whined, curling up into a ball to warm herself up.

"Honestly Lily, you know there's only one way to get her up," Alice said, coming from the bathroom with a glass of water, and tiptoeing close to Kierra. Without warning, Alice splashed the water at Kierra's head.

"AAH! DAMNIT GUYS!" Kierra had shot up out of her bed so fast that she rolled onto the floor. "OOf!" Kierra glared at the girls, who were laughing at her as she got up and rubbed her behind.

"yea, yea…very funny.." Kierra muttered as she went to the bathroom.

"I'm sorry dear, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to be late for your first class on the first day of school!" Lily said perkily.

"Hurry up Kierra, I want to go for breakfast!" Alice whined.

"You guys can go without me! I'll join you in a few minutes!" Kierra called from the bathroom.

"ok, we'll see you then!" the girls shouted as they left the dormitory.

Five minutes later, Kierra sprinted down the steps, through the Gryffindor common room and out the portrait hole. By the time she got down to the Great Hall, it was so crowded, that she had trouble finding her friends. At long last though, she found Dominique, Alice and Lily, sitting only a few seats away from the boys.

"Oi, Kierra, over here!" Alice shouted. Kierra quickly went over to join her friends and took a seat across from Dominique. "Did you guys get your schedules yet?" Kierra asked.

"Yep" Lily answered, handing Kierra a roll of parchment, "and Professor McGonagall left a copy of yours".

"Oh cool, thanks" Kierra answered, unrolling her parchment, as Alice and Dominique leaned over to see what classes Kierra had.

"ooh cool, so we've all got potions together, and transfiguration, charms, defense against the dark arts…but that's it…Lily's the only one taking muggle studies, and while she's in that the rest of us will be in history of magic…er…" Alice glanced back at her own schedule, "and while Lily and I are gonna be in arithmancy, you and Dominique will be in Ancient Runes…"

"well, if we don't hurry, we'll be late for potions" Lily said, grabbing her books and sticking them in her bag. The rest of the girls followed suite, and soon were stalking down to the dungeons for Potions with professor Keifer.

"God, I hate this class…" Kierra muttered as she saw professor Keifer walk in. He was a giant man, both in height and width, with thick framed glasses, and graying hair, coming not only out of his head, but from his ears and nostrils.

"Ugh, someone should get him a pair of tweezers for Christmas or something.." Alice whispered to the girls, making them giggle.

"Welcome back to another year of potions everyone," Professor Keifer turned to face the class, "ah, and I see we have a new student here, stand up please" he said, pointing a finger at Dominique.

Dominique raised an eyebrow at him, but did as she was told.

"What's your name?"

"Dominique Fiore."

"And, you are from Beauxbatons, am I right?" Dominique nodded.

"Very well. Sit down." Dominique took her seat as Professor Keifer turned to face the blackboard. "We shall see in time how well the professors there train their students".

Dominique turned to Kierra, who sat at the double desk with her, and exchanged annoyed, confused glances. Lily, who sat on Dominique's other side, gave a shrug and pulled out her quill, copying down the notes that Professor Keifer put on the board.

"Today we'll be making the placating potion. It soothes the pain of almost any indigestion problems. Of course if you mess it up, well…that's another story. Before you all start," he said, seeing the students taking out their cauldrons, "I think I will be assigning you your partners for the year, just to avoid some….problems…we've had in the past," casting a look of abhorrence at Kierra.

"Well, let's see…Alice and Frank, you two can keep working together, you've never caused any problems…Dominique, our new fledgling…why don't you partner up with Miss Bellatrix Black over here? One of our best students!" he said pointing to a pretty girl with curly black hair.

"Black?" Dominique said quietly, looking over at Sirius questioningly. Sirius in return, only glared at Bellatrix, who was smirking.

"Move along now, Miss Fiore…let's see, who else…Mr. Potter, go and sit with Mr. Snape"—

"I thought you said you want to avoid having problems" Kierra said, causing several of the students in the class to laugh.

Professor Keifer stepped towards Kierra. "I don't recall ever asking your opinion, Miss Kierra. I think I'll put you with Mr. Pettigrew…you're about the same level…goodness knows, maybe he'll be able to help you out!" he snapped. Kierra stiffened at this, but quickly grabbed her things and took her seat next to Peter, who looked at her timidly.

"Ah, Miss Evans, why don't you work with Mr. Lupin? And Mr. Black…you sit with Mr. Malfoy."

Sirius rolled his eyes and gave a look of disgust at Professor Keifer before getting up to sit with Malfoy.

The next half hour passed by with little incident. Sirius had gritted his teeth and worked silently with Lucius Malfoy without hexing him, as did James with Snape. Across the room however, Dominique was being interrogating by Bellatrix.

"So I've heard you've taken a fancy to my dear cousin, have you?"

"Sirius is your cousin then?" Dominique asked, as she stirred the bubbling contents in her cauldron.

"yes, he is. Disgrace to the family, but all the same. You like him?"

"A little. Why? Why's he a disgrace to your family, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Oh he's just a good for nothing. He ran away from home, you know."

"Seiously?"

Bellatrix nodded. "yes, he ran away at the beginning of this summer, because he hated his parents so much. Can't understand why, they're the dearest people in the world if you ask me, especially his mother. They've given him so much…and he just turned up his nose at them…ungrateful if you ask me…So, he ran away, and stayed with that Potter boy. You know him?"

"A little. Well, that was nice of him to take Sirius in, I guess…but…" Dominique's voice trailed off. She didn't know what to think of him. Running away from home, from his parents? Either Sirius was a disrespectful, no good, scoundrel, or perhaps, they had quite a bit in common.

"Oh no!" came a voice from another end of the room. Kierra had jumped back. The cauldron was overflowing with bright green liquid. Suddenly it made cracking noises. "What happened?" Peter asked, as he came back to the table with more ingredients.

"Get down!" shouted Professor Keifer. Everyone ducked underneath their tables just in time to avoid getting hit by the explosion of green goop.

"Miss Nakofky!" bellowed Professor Keifer, stalking over to her table. "Can you not do anything right? Clean up this mess at once! GO!" Kierra backed away, timidly and reached for her wand.

"Without magic" said Professor Keifer, as he walked away he muttered, "How the hell did that idiot get enough NEWTs to get into this class?"

Kierra dropped her wand at hearing this, but quickly regained her composure when she realized the whole class was watching her. She knelt down to pick her wand back up and took a second to wipe the tears in her eyes, hoping no one would see.

"Well, seeing as the entire working environment has been spoiled by your classmate, you all are dismissed early. And Miss Nakofsky, you'll be dismissed when you get this mess cleaned up." With that, the students filed out of the room, with the exception of Lily, Alice, Dominique, and Peter.

"All of you, out, now!" Professor Keifer said. The girls and Peter quickly left the room, followed by Professor Keifer.

As the heavy door slammed shut, Kierra threw her damp towel on the floor and stomped on it. "Stupid asshole!" she said out loud as she let the tears go down her face freely. Just then, the door opened again. It was Peter.

"Peter! I"—

"Sorry, uh, want me to help you clean this up?"

Kierra blinked stupidly. "Er…yea, ok..thanks.."

"Sorry, this is my fault too…shouldn't have left you by yourself"—

"no it's not your fault," Kierra said, wetting another towel, "I'm just very accident prone when it comes to potions…wait, what the hell am I doing?" Kierra pulled out her wand.

"But I thought he said"—

"yea well, he won't be coming in anytime soon…scourgify!" and the room was sparkling clean. "Come on, let's go to history of magic..." Kierra said, as she grabbed her bag.

"Hurry up Padfoot!" James shouted at Sirius, who was lagging behind him several feet. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" drawled Sirius, who purposely seemed to be taking his sweet time.

"Oi, there she is!" James whispered eagerly as they entered the classroom.

Lily sat at her desk in Muggle studies, and was chatting with Frank Longbottom.

"I know I'm muggle born and all…but I thought it would be interesting to learn about it from a magical perspective, you know?"

"Well, I HAVE to take it," muttered Frank, "Alice is sick and tired of explaining things to me about muggle life, so she made me sign up for it…hey! James! Sirius! What are you doing here?" Lily snapped her head in the direction of the door. "yea, what ARE you doing in here?"

"Oh, I just transferred in here, asked McGonagall. And Sirius wanted to take it too"—

"No I didn't…I just took it because the poor bloke begged me to." Sirius said as he took a seat behind Frank.

"Sirius! You promised you wouldn't say anything!" whined James.

"Oh geez.." muttered Lily to Frank, "this is going to be a long year"..

James, who took a seat behind Lily, grinned at hearing this. "I'm loving this first day of school, Sirius."

"Lily, wait for me!" James shouted as he ran out of the classroom.

"Bug off Potter! I can't believe you got me into trouble on the first day of school!" Lily shouted as she headed up the stairs.

"I'm…sorry! I didn't…mean to!" James said, panting, as he struggled to keep up with the furious Lily. Just as Lily reached the entrance of their next class, Lily turned to face James.

"Why can't you just leave me alone! What do I have to do to get that point across to you! Ugh!" Lily turned back around and went straight to the empty desk by Kierra.

"This should be interesting" muttered Remus, who sat in front of Kierra.

"What happened?"

"Yea I wanna know too!" Alice said, coming into the classroom with Dominique. "We could hear you all the way down the hall!"

Lily cast a glare at James, who sat behind her, looking at her meekly. "Oh, nothing. It's just that Potter over here thought he'd pass me notes in class. Professor Maynard caught me with the note."

"That's not that horrible!" Dominique said. "I've had worse. I had a professor who took the note and read it out loud in class…I just wanted to die..."

"That's exactly what she did" Lily said glumly. "She read the note to the class."

"Ooh…coming from Potter too? This can't be good…what'd he write?" asked Kierra.

"Dearest Lily: I love you most ardently. Will you please relieve me of my suffering and consent to be my girlfriend?" Lily said, in a mock voice of Professor Maynard.

"aww!" Kierra, Alice, and Dominique said together.

"How could you get angry over that?" asked Kierra, "that's too cute!"

"Isn't it?" James asked hopefully.

"Stay out of this, Potter!" snapped Lily.

Just then, Professor Larson, the defense against the dark arts professor, entered the room, forcing everyone to return to their respective seats. "Alright everyone, welcome back, welcome back…and a welcome to Hogwarts for you, Miss Fiore" he said, turning to smile at Dominique, who nodded in acknowledgement and smiled back.

"Oi Padfoot, take a picture, it'll last much longer" James whispered to his friend when he saw how Sirius was staring at Dominique.

"Well, by now, you should all be fairly comfortable with theory, so this year our main focus will be practical uses of the magic you've learned all these years…and a lot of what we'll be doing this year is dueling technique…so, I'd like to do a little diagnostic test on you all on dueling…just to see how much you remember, hopefully you all won't be too behind. So…let's see, let me pair you all up…" Professor Larson reached for his roster list. "Ah, ok, James and Lily, our head boy and girl! Why don't you two partner up? (Lily groans, James looks at Sirius excitedly, who rolls his eyes in return) uhh…India, you partner up with Lauren….Dominique, partner up with Sirius Black, Nick with Lisa, Gary with Welma…umm…Peter, work with Alice, Kierra, work with Remus, Caroline and Frank. Well, that's all of you! Alright, I want to see two lines, hurry up now! Spit spot! And no lethally dangerous spells, understand!"

"Oww! Evans! Professor Larson said nothing lethal!" James cried, rubbing his behind.

"It's not my fault you've got a low threshold for pain" Lily said casually.

"Look," James said, screwing up his face, trying to think of a spell, "I'm sorry, o.k? I didn't mean for you to get in trouble! And you didn't even get into trouble! She just read the note out loud! And everyone knows I like you anyway, so who cares"—

"I CARE! URGH!"

"Rigda Sampra" James shot at her, throwing her into a fit of giggles. "Hmph," James smiled at his handy work, "you could use a little lightening up you know." James laughed.

"Undo…this…now!" Lily shouted between laughs.

"Nah, I don't think so Evans…you look even prettier when you laugh…"

Moments later, Lily was finally able to remember the counter curse. Right when she did that, she pointed her wand at James. "Expellaramus"- James' wand flew out of his hand and landed in Lily's.

"Looks like I've won this duel!" Lily said, turning to leave.

"Haven't won the war though…" James muttered under his breath.

"Oh, well done Miss Evans! Finished the duel in record time, I'd say! You can sit down then and just watch the others then if you'd like." James heard Professor Larson say.

James went over and picked up his wand that Lily had dropped on the floor when she finished, and turned around to watch Sirius and Dominique duel.

"Rigda sampra!" Sirius said, smiling, but Dominique had ducked it and missed the spell by a few centimeters.

'maybe I'll help Padfoot out a little,' James thought, racking his brains for a good hex to put on Dominique. 'ah ha…perfect…' "Tarantella!" James shouted. But Dominique had seemed to know that James would hex her, and she ducked his spell as well, causing James to accidentally hit Sirius with the hex instead. Immediately, Sirius' legs began to dance involuntarily to a faced paced, non-existent rhythm.

Dominique turned around and smiled at James. "Next time, don't do your curses in front of a mirror, if you don't want your opponent to see you sneak up on them." She said, turning back to Sirius to do the counter curse.

"don't do your curses in front of a mirror…" James muttered in a high pitched voice, mocking Dominique, as he stalked away.

"Ah, thank you Dominique," Sirius said, now standing quite normally, "now…wingardium leviosa!" he said to Dominique, and immediately she began to levitate in the air.

"Now is that anyway to repay me?" Dominique asked, laughing as she rose a few inches into the air.

"Mmm…you're absolutely right…I can think of a few other ways to repay you…" Sirius said, pulling Dominique closer to him with his wand.

"Sirius!"

"What? I was thinking of saying thank you!" Sirius said exasperated.

"Oh…"

"Oh…did you have something else in mind?" Sirius asked, grinning slyly, "I'm all ears."

"no, no…a thank you will suffice…and you're quite welcome" Dominique said, who now floated only a foot away from Sirius. "Hey I've got a question for you.." she said, remembering her talk with Bellatrix in Potions.

"Shoot"

"Well, I was working with Bellatrix…Lestrange…I think that's her name…anyway, in potions…and uh, she told me you're cousins?"

"yea, so?" Sirius said, staring at Dominique, determined not to lose focus on levitating her.

"ok…well, she also said you ran away from home, is that true? And why—ouch!" Sirius accidentally blinked in surprise at what she said, thus losing his concentration and dropped her.

"Oh shoot! I'm sorry"—Sirius quickly knelt down and pulled Dominique back onto her feet. "so sorry"—

"no, no..it's ok…I take it then, that she was telling the truth?"

Sirius looked away from Dominique for a moment, looking a bit annoyed, but looked back at her, and said, "yes, it's true. I ran away from home at the beginning of this summer. Stayed with James' family."

"But why did you"—

"nevermind that…" and with that Sirius stalked out of the classroom.

"Mr. Black! Where do you think you're going! Mr. Black!" Professor Larson called after him. "Well! 10 points from Gryffindor then!" he huffed.

"Oh no!" Kierra moaned. Remus had just put a leg locking curse on her, forcing her legs to stick together.

"Come on Kierra, you're not trying hard enough! You're practically letting me beat you"—

"I'm not letting you!" Kierra said, as she struggled to keep herself balanced, "I'm just that bad!"

"No you're not…here…" Remus undid his curse. "Ok, let's just start again. Just stay on your heels and keep your wits about you…it's the only way to win a duel… Stay alert and be ready...alright?" Remus asked her, as he stepped back into his starting position.

"Ready."

"Aloha corpus!" Lupin said, but Kierra ducked him. "There you go"—

"Petrifucus totallus!" Kierra shouted, hitting Lupin. However, the spell didn't go as Kierra supposed it would. Instead of making Remus go stiff and fall to the ground, ice began to form around Remus' legs, and slowly spread upwards.

"Uh…I think it's supposed to be 'toe-TAL-lus…not TOE-tu-lus…" Remus muttered.

'I am such an idiot…' Kierra thought to herself as Professor Larson rushed up to the two. "Oh my, Mr. Lupin! Miss Nakofsky, what did you do?"

"I think I pronounced the spell wrong, I'm sorry!" Kierra was ready to cry.

"Let's hurry now, get you up to the hospital wing Mr. Lupin, off we go now, come on…" and with that, Mr. Larson levitated Lupin into the air and took him to the hospital wing. Just as he left the classroom, he shouted at everyone, "Class dismissed!"

"Hey, way to go Kierra, you got us dismissed early twice in one day! That even beats my record!" he said, clapping a hand on her shoulder in congratulations. "Oi Padfoot, maybe we should induct her"—he, Sirius and Peter began to laugh.

Kierra just stood there in the classroom, feeling quite stupid now.

"Hey, you o.k.?" someone asked, from behind her. It was Dominique, who was standing with Lily and Alice.

"Gosh, I'm such an idiot! Totallus…totallus…geez, how stupid am I that I can't even get a simple spell right?"

"Kierra, don't beat yourself up over it! You just mispronounced it a little! Anyone could've done that!" Alice said, putting an arm around her.

"yea, well I did it! No one else did…just me…" Kierra muttered, "why do I get so nervous around him…if only I was dueling someone else…"

"Well there you have it!" Lily announced, making the other girls jump. "You're perfectly capable of doing these spells…you were just nervous dueling with him! I'd be nervous too if I was dueling with someone I liked!"

"You weren't nervous with James though"—Kierra said, smiling a little.

"BUT I DON'T LIKE HIM!" yelled Lily, "ARGH!" she groaned, and stormed out of the room, causing the remaining three girls to giggle.

Kierra slowly snuck out of the kitchen, waving gratefully to the house elves. She climbed up the steps, humming to herself. Thank goodness for James Potterand his extensive knowledge of the grounds of Hogwarts. He had taken her to the kitchens once during their fourth year. They had just gotten back from Hogsmeade, Kierra from her first date. She remembered it had gone horribly, and her date, Ravenclaw Jack Miller, had dumped her only an hour into the date. She had been crying into the night in the common room, and James had caught her. She smiled warmly at the memory of James taking her hand and leading her out of the common room, telling her a bit of maraudering would make her feel better. He had taken her to the kitchen and requested one of the house elves to prepare a midnight feast for the 'damsel in distress'...

Kierra carefully switched the basket she was carrying into her other arm, to shift the weight, wondering why she never took to fancying James. He was a good guy...and he knew how to have fun...Remus on the other hand, seemed too serious most of the time to know what the word 'fun' meant. And yet, here she was, smitten with him, and on her way to visit him int he hospital wing...

'Ok…just say sorry…offer him some food, and make a little small talk…' Kierra thought to herself.

Just as she was about to enter the hospital wing, Kierra stopped short at the sound of voices.

"So he'll be out soon?" she heard James ask.

"Yes, of course! Soon as we get him thawed out a bit more, and he'll be fine!" she heard Madam Pomfrey say, "We're nearly done, just need to undo the ice around the feet and he'll be set."

"Say, how far did the ice get up to?" she heard Peter ask.

"ugh.." Remus muttered, "too far up…"

"did it freeze"—

"yes Peter, it froze my special spot!" Remus said, irritated, sending James, Sirius and Peter into hysterics. "What? It's not like I can't use it or something…I went to the bathroom a few minutes ago..." causing the boys to laugh even more.

'boys' thought Kierra. She was about to push the door open, when she heard her name.

"You should've seen Kierra, she seemed quite upset when she hit you with that curse." James said.

"yea, I'd be upset too if I had messed up such a simple curse" Remus said grumpily.

"she looks good when she's upset…" Peter said. The guys chuckled while Kierra cringed.

"Peter, don't you forget that you're dating Veronica." Sirius said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "And I do wonder sometimes how Kierra managed to get in advanced defense..."

"She's not that terrible...she was probably nervous.." James offered. "...I'll bet she likes you...why don't you ask her out? She's pretty good looking"

"And how did you jump to that conclusion?" Remus asked casually. "Was it the way she sent me right up here to the hospital wing?"

James laughed. "I don't think she meant to...I read somewhere that girls get nervous when they like a guy...so maybe that's why she messed up..."

Remus shrugged. "I'm not interested...I'd probably get myself killed on the first date anyway..." Remus said, causing the boys to laugh again. "Though I'm very curious to know what titles you've been reading lately...Witch Weekly again?"

James scowled. "I told you guys, I wasn't reading it! I just found it laying around in the common room one day!"

"And then you picked it up and read through it..." Peter said.

"I wasn't reading it..." James muttered. "I was just...leafing through it..."

Kierra slowly backed away from the door, and turned to walk away. She struggled to walk down the stairs without tripping, as her legs had gone numb and her vision was blurred with tears. At long last, she had reached the common room. She saw Dominique sitting with a book in a corner, so she quickened her pace up the stairs to avoid her. As she got herself back into the dormitories, she sighed with relief when she saw no one was there. She plopped herself on her bed and began to cry freely.

Just then, the door opened, and Dominique appeared at the entrance. "Hey, what's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing.." Kierra sobbed.

"Bad day, for you, huh?" Kierra nodded into her pillow.

"I went to go see Remus…to bring him some desserts…and say sorry.." Kierra sobbed.

"oh, well that was nice of you! I bet he appreciated it"—

"I never saw him…"

"what happened?"

"I overheard him, talking to the other boys…" Kierra sniffed, "Peter, and Sirius..and James…he noticed that I was upset about cursing him…and Remus said that he'd be upset too if he had messed up such a simple curse"—

"he did not say that…Remus…oh gosh, what an idiot…" Dominique muttered.

"and then, James also said he thought that I liked Remus, so he should ask me out…but Remus was like, I'd get myself killed on the first date..and they all laughed…And…I think Peter likes me…" Kierra sobbed.

"Oohh, that sucks…but Remus…that was mean…that was mean…" Dominique sighed, "that's not like him though..he's not mean like that…he's never been like that…unless…" Dominique thought for a moment, "um…Kierra, maybe it was just…well you know, guys can get cranky sometimes…"

"are you suggesting that he has PMS?" Kierra asked angrily.

"no, no! well, sorta…some guys do get it..well something similar…once a month…" but Dominique stopped, she couldn't disclose any more information to Kierra without Remus' consent. "well," she continued, "no matter, he shouldn't have said that about you. I think I'll have a talk with him"—

"no!" shouted Kierra, pulling Dominique back down when she stood up, "you can't say anything! I don't him to know that I heard…"

"ok, if you like…" Dominique sighed and got up again, and squeezed Kierra's hand comfortingly. "Hang in there. I know how you feel."

"You know how it feels? I'm not sure, Sirius seems to like you pretty well, Dominique." Kierra said bitterly.

Dominique was now at the door and had just opened it. "I wasn't talking about Sirius. I was talking about my parents." With that, Dominique shut the door behind her.