A/N: I apologize for the delay on getting chapter 12 up—which is why it is quickly followed by chapter 13, both edited and delicious. Expect chapter 14 (the second to last chapter in the story) within the next three weeks or so, if not by the beginning of September. I hope you enjoy chapters 12 and 13!

D/C: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

See new list of characters, now posted and updated in chapter 5are based upon actual people, but their names have been changed to protect the actual persons from a life of fame and wealth (hah! You wish…).

"Talking inside of each other's heads" was made up by the real Kirsten and Inad. They came up with it freshman year. I have yet to figure out whether they actually do it or not.

The majority of the comments in this story actually came from the people that are said to have said them. A few were added by me, but I won't tell you which ones, 'cuz that would spoil the whole story. sticks out tongue

/…\ means that it's a memory…

Thank you for all your wonderful reviews!

Chapter Twelve – Strange Occurrences

"More better! It's the second derivative! It's like good squared!"

Thomas "The AP Turtle" Chen

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Chris jolted upright at the sound of his new alarm blaring. His heart felt like it was going a mile a minute, while his brain slowly adjusted to the harsh realities of life.

Inad and Kirsten had been lowered into their respective holes in the ground the day before.

He had caused the breakup of one of his favorite couples.

Lia hated him.

Daniel hated him.

It was still raining.

It seemed that the only good thing about that morning was that he had forgotten to take off the setting on his alarm so that he would wake up whenever he wanted to. Being Saturday, 6 AM was a bit early to be up and wandering around. However, once awake, Chris found it difficult to fall back asleep again.

Grumbling slightly, he threw back the covers and slipped off his bed. Cursing the cold wooden floors, he padded out of his room and down the hallway towards the bathroom. On his trip back to find a pair of socks, he heard a pair of voices coming from Zack's room, one belonging to a female.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"

Chris paused and gingerly leaned against the wall, trying to avoid letting the floor boards creak with his shifted weight.

"I honestly have no idea," said the Brit.

The bed inside groaned as someone sat down on it.

"I just hoped…I guess, that you might know how to help with this." There was a slight pause, and then, "It's just that this is so complicated!"

"Tearing out your hair won't make it any better."

"It's not like anyone would notice, or be able to tell."

"That's not the point, Lia."

Lia? Chris thought. How'd she get in here?

"I don't care. I just…."

"Hoped that he would forget that he doesn't care for you in that way?"

"When you say it like that, it's really harsh," Lia said in a hurt voice.

"Er, sorry…you know what I mean, though. Right?"

"Yeah," she said in a resigned voice, "it's just…I dunno, the way he talks to me…I've never had a guy treat me the way he does."

"No chance in hell that he's gay, eh?" Chris frowned at the smile in Zack's voice. When Lia didn't reply, he knew that she was blushing.

"Um…considering…." She trailed off, and the bed squeaked again.

"Eavesdropping?" a voice whispered in Chris' ear. He jumped and pivoted to see who was behind him. Matt, grinning from ear to ear, must have just gotten home, as he was still dressed. The dark circles under his eyes betrayed the fact that he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before.

Annoyed that he couldn't continue listening to the reasons why Lia was at his house at six o'clock in the morning, Chris grabbed Matt's slightly damp sleeve and pulled him into the living room. "Why are you just getting home?"

"Why are you listening at Zack's door?"

"I asked you first."

"I'm older."

"I don't care. Mom and Dad will freak if they—"

Matt raised an eyebrow. "If they what? Find out I just got home? Chris, I'm 19."

Chris shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "…Yeah? So?"

"And it's not any of your business, anyway…." His evil grin returned. "But they will freak if they find out that Zack has a girl in his bedroom this early."

Chris' eyes widened. "I don't even know what she's doing here. I didn't hear the door open."

"Her car's parked across the street, and the screen on Zack's window is lying on the lawn. How's that?"

A squeaking sound confirmed the fact that the window was opening, and that Lia was now escaping. Chris looked at Matt for a moment, and then darted for the front door. It was, if possible, raining harder than it had been when he looked out the window barely ten minutes ago. At first he ignored the freezing pavement, and then the water was soaking him A1 as he ran across the front yard.

"Lia!"

The girl looked up from her car across the street, a look of pain splayed across her face. "Go away, Chris."

Chris stopped in his tracks, feeling as though he'd been smacked. "What?"

The rain was flattening her hair, plastering it to her face and making her look even sadder than she already was. "Leave me alone."

"Lia…."

"Haven't you hurt me enough, already!" She nearly screamed the words at him.

Chris saw her as though they were a thousand miles apart, when in reality it was only about fifteen feet or so. He saw the intense green eyes that lay sparkling with tears below her dripping bangs. He gazed at the pools of pain, looked into her, seeing torment from the thought of losing first Kirsten and Inad, and then the betrayal….

He took a soggy step forward, and Lia let out a derisive laugh. "Do you think that anything you say is going to heal what you've done to me? Jack, I can forgive…I've known her for too long.

"But you…you know how I feel about you."

Chris stood immobilized: Lia was expressing how she felt about him. She was actually saying it out loud.

"You knew that I liked you…."

He sighed exasperatedly and ran his hands through his soaked hair. "Lia, I can't—"

"I'll tell you what you can't do, Chris." She was crying freely now, the tears mingling with the raindrops. "You can't fix what you've done. You can't help the fact that you treated me better than any other person has in this world. You can't help the fact that you were just acting humanly." She turned towards the car and opened the door, starting to get in. "You can't help that I started to like you."

Again he stood immobilized, this time by the force of the words that she was saying, and the realization of her situation.

He had no idea who she was.

"Lia, wait." He moved quickly, grabbing the car door before it shut.

"Goddamnit, Chris!"

"Please, Lia…." Had the situation not been so serious, he would have laughed out loud: the conversation was beginning to sound more and more like the stupid soap operas that his mother watched while ironing. "Lia, tell me what happened."

She was so startled by the question that she stopped crying. "What!"

"What happened between you and Sam?"

Lia looked uneasy for a moment, and then bit her lip. "That…." She shook herself. "That's none of your business."

"Lia—"

"Goodbye." She pried his hand off the car door, although Chris hadn't made any attempt to stop her, and even stepped away from the car when she turned the engine. For the second time that week, he was watching her drive away crying, in the rain.

&

Hermione sat on her hotel bed, doing her homework. No matter how hard she tried, though, the usually easy math equations just wouldn't sort themselves out in her head. She couldn't help but think about the other morning, when over the PA, the principal announced the death of two of the juniors at the school. It had come as a shock how much it affected her alone. The other students in her class were almost as surprised as Ron when she started to cry. Her thoughts had jumped to Harry, wondering whether he was alive still, or whether the death of Hedwig had been a sign that he, too, was gone forever.

Without telling anyone, she had attended the funeral. She snuck onto the bus that left the school, the hood of her coat covering most of her hood, and stood at the back of the group in the rain, listening to the murmuring, the sobs, and the sniffles around her. She saw the two girl's' parents weeping over the coffins that were suspended over the holes in the ground, saw their friends, crowded around hugging each other. For one wild, fleeting moment, she swore that she saw Harry with them, and realized that was impossible. For one thing, he was much too tall, wasn't wearing glasses, and had a limp when he walked. For another, Harry had disappeared in Seattle, over 100 miles from Vancouver, and surely, if he was still alive….

Well, if he were still alive, he wouldn't be here.

Hermione steeled that thought, and made up her mind to try to talk to one of the girls. She recognized one of them as the fiery, curly-haired girl that had blasted through her and Ron, and then the cheerleaders in front of them at their first day of school. Hermione needed to talk to someone—someone unfamiliar with her past, but familiar with the grief that came with loosing someone.

She was ready to talk about Harry.

&

Pyro sat in her car in the parking lot of the pool and stared out of the windshield at the driving rain. She didn't want to get out. It wasn't so much that she didn't want to endure the elements—in fact, it would have been a welcome change from the seeming normality that surrounded going to swim practice. She didn't care that she was already twenty minutes late.

The idea of facing Daniel and Jack after what had happened was strange. Jack refused to talk about what was going on between her and Daniel. It was obvious that they weren't speaking. It was also obvious that Daniel was purposely avoiding Jack, and shot furtive looks in Chris' direction whenever he thought no one was looking.

With a sigh, Pyro finally opened the door and stepped out, grabbing her swim bag from the seat next to her. The breakup was hard on everyone, not only because of the pain on Jack's face every time she, Jack, looked at Daniel from across the lunchroom, or saw him in the halls between classes. Jack and Daniel were close to being the perfect couple—or, at least, had been. Their "detours" were stuff of legend. Daniel used to treat Jack as though she were a princess, even though she hated it. They had been obviously "together", but not mushy, like other couples were. Jack had fought good and hard for Daniel, and nearly lost him to her own stupidity.

But their individual stupidity was what lost the relationship anyway, in the end.

Pyro absently made her way through the lobby and into the girl's locker room. A few other stragglers from the group below them were eagerly chatting about a new movie they had just seen. Pyro ignored them and changed into her suit, grabbed her cap and goggles, and went out on deck.

Jack was sitting with her back against the glass doors staring at the swimmers in the pool, while Coach barked out the set. She looked up as Pyro walked towards the front of the pool, and then back to the swimmers, or more accurately, Pyro realized as she got closer, to the concrete just in front of the edge of the pool. The teen endured Coach's wrath for being late, and then "fell" in the pool and swam. At one point, while Coach was giving out another set, she glanced over to Daniel's lane and saw something that she didn't expect to see. Rather than absorbing the instructions, he seemed to be watching Jack with a look of sadness.

The rest of practice went rather smoothly, except for Jack's near breakdown as she left for the locker rooms. Pyro assumed that she had gone home, and caught Daniel when he was getting out of the pool.

"Hey."

"Oh, hi, Pyro," he said back, as though noticing her for the first time.

"How're you doing?"

Daniel stared straight ahead of them, as though he didn't hear her question. Then, "I guess I'm okay."

"Hey, umm…" Pyro paused, and then put caution to the wind as she asked, "I, uh…I was wondering if you'd talked to Jack recently."

Daniel hadn't moved his head from the spot he was looking at. "No."

The response was so final that Pyro nearly said, "Fair thee well," and walked away. "Do you want to?"

"This isn't like you to meddle. Did she put you up to this?"

"I'm not meddling. And Jack doesn't know I've even talked to you since…." She trailed off and with the randomness known to her stepped in front of Daniel's gaze. "I want to know something, and I need you to tell me the absolute truth."

"Well I don't really want to tell you."

"You don't even know what it is!" Pyro exclaimed.

"If it's anything to do with me and Jack—"

"So what if it is? I mean, you two broke up, so it doesn't matter, right?" Pyro knew she had him in a trap. She hadn't asked for the details of the breakup—only the four of them (Chris, Jack, Daniel, and Lia) knew what had happened that night, and none of them had breathed a word to the others.

"Why don't you ask Chris? Or Lia? I'm sure they'd be more than happy to—"

"Actually, no. If I even mention it, Lia runs off crying and Chris shakes his head at me. Daniel, you actually loved Jack."

Daniel had a very pained expression on his face, as though he was about to either explode or start crying, neither of which Pyro wanted to see.

"I'll talk to you later, Pyro."

"But—"

"Later!"

Pyro was struck back by the force of the words, and this gave Daniel the chance for his escape to the boys' locker room, where she didn't dare follow. Instead, she ran to the girls' locker room and changed so fast that she was out before any of the other girls. The rain had stopped, leaving puddles everywhere, but the sky was still so dark that Pyro knew that they weren't going to get to see the sun that day. She walked over to Daniel's car, and waited.

&

It was completely unlike Daniel to take forever to change, but he knew that if he took long enough, he'd finish after Pyro, and she'd see that he wasn't there and leave. He stood in the showers and thought about everything that she'd said. "I want to know something, and I need you to tell me the absolute truth…. You actually loved Jack.

"You actually loved Jack."

Did I love her? Daniel asked himself. He thought back to everything they'd been through, from the beginning to the very end, and found that, though he was remorse to admit it, he had loved her. Hell, he still did. It tore him up to see her every day and not be able to go over and wrap his arms around her shoulders and plant a kiss atop her head. It killed him when she got out of the pool, struggling to breathe, chancing a look at him to see what he was doing.

Nearly 30 minutes after practice had officially ended, Daniel walked out of the locker room and towards his car. As he dug his keys out of his pocket, he saw the person he least wanted to see at that moment.

Pyro, shivering in the cold October day, was leaning against his car. When she saw him approaching, she hoisted herself up and began to walk over, her hands shoved in her pockets and shoulders hunched to provide more warmth.

"We need to talk," she said. "Whether you like it or not. It's not right of you to just…just…." She trailed off and pulled a hand out of her coat pocket to run it through her hair.

"Just not tell you why I broke up with my girlfriend?" Daniel supplied.

Pyro gave him a reproaching look. "If you want to put it like that, yes. She's completely devastated, Daniel."

"Then she shouldn't have kissed him."

"Kissed who? Who kissed?" Pyro said, mildly interested.

Daniel sighed and gave in, telling Pyro the entire story, complete with Jack accusing him of attempting to kill her.

"So you walked in on them kissing?" she asked.

"More or less," Daniel said, rubbing his arms. It was rather cold outside.

"What do you mean, 'more or less'?" Pyro crossed her arms. "They either were or weren't kissing. Which was it?"

"From where I was standing, it sure looked like it. And Jack never denied it— nor Chris."

"So they could have been—"

Daniel blew out an exasperated puff of air. "There was no 'could have been', Pyro." He closed his eyes, as though in pain. Then, he added quietly, "I wish there had been a 'could have been'."

Pyro looked excited, and sloppily tried to cover it. "So you still love her—why dump her?"

"Pyro, she cheated on me. I don't understand how she could kiss someone that she'd been friends with for…for…." He ran a hand through his hair, so it now stood on end. He finally continued, in a pleading voice: "Pyro, I did love her. Dammit, I still love her! You're right. But I can't take her back…not after…."

She slowly walked towards him and put her arms around him. It was completely unlike him to show his emotions so much, and it was hard to keep back the tears as they came. "Pyro, I still love her."

"I know," she said quietly. "And that's why you need to tell her—talk to her."

"It does you no good to dwell on what happened, Daniel," Nik's voice said. Daniel and Pyro turned to look at the side of the building. Unbeknownst to them, he had been leaning against the wall the entire time, and had most probably heard the whole conversation. Daniel gulped, and suddenly realized how Chris must have felt when he and Lia had walked into the hospital room that night. He guiltily wiped his tears, and rubbed his cheeks, pretending that it had been his intention to warm his face all along.

"I don't really know what you mean," Daniel told him, gently pushing away from Pyro.

"Here I have found you in a compromising position—your arms are around my girlfriend, whom I love as much as you love your Jack. Now, I know that she, too, loves me, and it does not bother me to see her hugging you. Do you know why?"

Daniel stared at him. Nik was such a strange person, someone who had just popped out of the woodwork one day and was as wise as any adult he knew. Nobody really understood him, and yet everything he said made sense.

"I understand that she is your friend. Just as Jack and Chris are friends. Now, you can ignore Jack from now on, and later regret that you let her go. Or, you could go and talk to her and straighten things out."

Daniel thought about his past year-and-a-half of dating Jack, all of the wonderful times the two had experienced. He thought about all the hardships, of all the waiting until he finally asked her out, and of the moment she asked him to be her boyfriend.

He knew what he had to do.

&

Zack sat chewing on the end of his pencil, studying the page of geometry homework. It seemed like he always had geometry homework nowadays. He had even started to have dreams completely to do with math class.

After finally completing all the angles on the shape on the page, Zack doodled a little drawing as he thought. The voices that he'd heard in his head…they'd sounded a lot like Kirsten and Inad. But had they really been them?

They're dead, mate, Zack told himself.

He stared at his picture, trying to figure out what was missing. He had drawn a stick figure girl wearing what looked like a too-large overcoat or bathrobe, complete with sash. She had an abundance of thick, bushy looking hair. All that was missing was a hat, he thought. For some reason, his fingers drove him to draw a witch's hat, and then on a spur of imagination, a little badge with a 'P' on it. Suddenly, his head felt like it was about to split open, and memories filled his head.

/"We're going to be late to class if you two don't hurry!" said a girl with bushy brown hair. On her chest gleamed a Prefect badge, complete with the Gryffindor lion….\

Blurring, pain.

/"You are so reckless!" she nearly screamed at them. "We could have been killed—or worse, expelled!"

The red haired, freckled boy beside him gave him a slight grin as he said, "She hasn't changed her priorities since our first year, has she, mate!"\

Pain pain pain pain pain!

/…He strained to remember the boy's name…whoever he was, he stood at the front of the party, accompanied by a pretty girl in blue robes he didn't know…\

Blurring, fast forward through the memory, pain!

/His eyes fell on the girl next to him, and his jaw dropped.

It was Hermione.

Hermione.

Hermione.

Hermione.\

Zack screamed as his forehead gave an almighty throb, and he blacked out.

&

Lia laid on her bed, curled around a pillow, a tissue box on her left and a large photo album in front of her. She was absently turning the pages, staring at each picture in turn and remembering each occasion.

This one was when she, Jack, Therese, Kaori, and Inad had gone to the beach their sophomore year. Lia pulled a tissue out of the box and sobbed into it at the sight of her dead friend.

This one was of Kirsten and Inad, and Kirsten's fuzzy pink notebook. More tears, more tissues.

This one was of herself, Jack, and Sam.

Sam…Sam had hurt her…she'd gone through so much pain with him…. Nobody knew what had happened with the two of them, and nobody knew why he had suddenly broken up with her.

/Lia approached the table at lunch time, watching as all her friends talked animatedly. For some reason, they all seemed so much happier, now that she was so sad. She had never felt so much pain, and wasn't sure how she was going to get over it.

No one looked up at her approach. A few people moved over for her to sit down, and it wasn't until she gave an almighty sniff that Jack and Inad turned around in surprise.

"Lia?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she bent her head down so that her bangs hid her eyes from view, knowing that they'd be red from all the crying she'd done already.

"Lia, what's wrong?"

Wordlessly, she slid a note to Jack, who picked it up and read it. "Dear Lia, I think that this letter is long overdue. We've been dating for three months now, and I'm sorry to say this relationship is going nowhere. I think it is time for us to see other people, and to grasp new opportunities. Come and see me in a few years when you feel more adventuresome. Always myself, Sam." Jack stared at it, and then looked up. "That bastard!"

Lia suddenly realized that everyone's eyes were on her.

"Did he really write that?"

"Gol, we need to get back at him."

"The nerve! I can't believe someone could write something like that!"

Lia was now shaking with suppressed sobs. She felt a body suddenly envelope hers, and then another, and suddenly most of the table had rushed over to give her a hug. Through her pain and sadness, she felt a warm glow of happiness, knowing that her friends would always be there for her.\

Lia smiled at the memory, and then thought for a moment. Would I have imagined today that I'd be in this huge fight? she wondered. Is this even worth it?

Chris didn't know what happened—he'd only been a freshman, and she hadn't known him that long at the time.

Jack seemed to genuinely want to be friends still. And, Lia knew, she really needed the support, at the moment.

Kirsten and Inad might be gone, but we still have the rest of our lives to live. I don't want to screw up my friendship because of something that happened…that hasn't happened since….

Lia put away her photo album and began to get ready for the next day at school.

&

Daniel closed the trunk of his car and moved towards the driver's door. As he started to open it, an older man wearing a black raincoat stopped him.

"Daniel O'Connor?"

The teen looked back at the man, and as he started to reach for his back pocket, Daniel froze. Was the man going to pull a gun on him? As he moved the edge of the coat aside, a holster—with a handgun strapped securely in—was brought into view. He pulled what looked like a wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open. A shiny police badge gleamed up at him.

"I'm Sergeant Matthews. We need to talk to you about an incident from four days ago."

&

A cacophony of noise filtered in and out of his mind. Blinding pain radiated in his skull.

Echoing giggling, pain!

Zack shook his head, trying to see properly, trying to hear, trying to awaken his mind to the world of the living.

"You're trying too hard to remember," a voice said. A girl swam into view, a girl with long, curly black hair and piercing blue eyes.

"What?"

"Don't try so hard to remember things! It'll all come in due time."

"These—these things I see in my mind, they're memories?"

"Times come and gone again. People who love and miss you. But worry not, because they will find you…all in due time.

"Just don't forget those who love you now."

Fading to black, swirling, voices, laughing, evil high pitched laughing….

&

Lia was sitting in her chair the next morning at school, reading her book, when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Looking up, she saw that it was one of the foreign exchange students she'd seen talking with the red-haired boy a few days ago.

"I know this is kind of abrupt," she said, her accent ringing clearly, "but I need to speak to you. My name's Hermione Granger."

Okay! That's chapter 12! Next chapter: Hermione pours her heart out to Lia; Daniel pleads his case; Jack talks; Kirsten and Inad giggle their way to insanity; and something that's been boiling up for a few months finally spills out all over the place. Stay tuned for more cliffhanger-y adventures! Mwahaha… XD

A1"was soaking him"