Alice Howard, fellow second year Gryffindor, a pureblood born and raised. She was a medium height for her age, with mousy brown hair and pale blue eyes. Her parents, two of the most respected witches and wizards of their time, both worked at the Ministry. Her mother, a small woman with the same eyes, worked for the Department for the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts. In the past five years though, her interest in that area had decreased. She had taken to doing volunteer work at St. Mungo's, especially with her daughter away from home. Mr Howard, a tall, fair man was dedicated to his work in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. As his need to be on duty grew he became distanced from his family, seeing them during late evenings only. It is, perhaps, for this reason that the causes for Alice's family changes came to occur.

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When she had stepped off the train at the beginning of that summer, Alice immediately knew something was wrong. Her father, always at work during the day, met her. Going home only further proved this belief. Alice had found her house in a state of chaos. Empty boxes lay in every room, full ones stacked neatly in the hall.

"What's going on?" Alice asked quietly.

There was no time for a response from her father as a man, if you could call him that, came through another door. To Alice he looked no older than eighteen, though her mother later assured her he was twenty-five. He has short dark hair, a tanned complexion and deep brown eyes. Though too old for Alice, he was the type of person she wanted to end up with, apparently so did her mother.

She looked up at her father to find him shooting this man daggers.

"Daddy, who's he?" she asked in a louder voice.

"You must be Alice," the man said in a cheery voice.

Alice ignored him, looking at her father for a response. "Your mother wants to tell you something," he said eventually.

As he did so her mother entered the room and took the unknown mans hand. "I'm all done in there," she said, not noticing her daughter stood staring at her at the opposite end of the hall. If she had she wouldn't have taken that moment to accept the kiss he leaned in to give her.

"Mum?" Alice said, making her mother jump in fright.

"Alice!" she cried in delight, walking towards her daughter. Alice cringed as she came near. Her long brown hair had been chopped into some modern style Alice had seen models wearing in Witch Weekly, her clothes weren't much better. A low cut, tight black top and a pair of hip-hugging jeans. She looked about twenty-seven, not forty-six. Her arms wrapped around her and Alice could smell the perfume coming off strongly and was close enough to see the mass of make-up caked on her mothers face. "Oh darling, it's wonderful to see you. Come with me, I want you to meet a friend of mine."

"You mean a boyfriend of yours." Alice said coldly.

Her mother laughed. "Darling, you make him sound like he's a child. But yes, he and I have been seeing each other as a couple."

Alice paled; she'd been hoping her guess had been wrong. She looked up at her father who shrugged before walking away.

"Alice, this is Matt," her mother smiled at her. "We're moving in together and we want you to come and live with us, don't we honey?"

The man nodded. "Yes, that would be lovely."

Alice glared at Matt before facing her mother. "What about dad?"

There was a sigh and then Alice felt herself being led into the living room that no longer felt like it belonged in her house.

"Things haven't been working out with your dad and me for a long time and so we've both come to the agreement that it's best if we separate. Your father has agreed for you to come and stay with Matt and me."

"But I don't want to," Alice said, furiously blinking the tears starting to form.

"It's for the best darling; your father spends too much time at work for you to stay here. And we would love for you to live with us."

"But I don't want to," Alice repeated.

Matt had followed them into the room, now he spoke. "It has already been arranged. Your things are already at home…"

"But this is my home!" Alice cried.

"Not any more." Matt said harshly.

She had cried as she said goodbye to her father and went to her new 'home'. She had cried as she entered her new bedroom to find everything there waiting for her, in neat little places. She only stopped crying when Matt came in and told her to shut her mouth because he couldn't sleep with all that whining.

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The next day she was informed that divorce proceedings were well under way. Her summer wasn't very good after that. She stayed away from Matt and tried to visit her father as often as possible. In some ways she began to resent her mother for doing this to her, but then she saw how happy she was and would feel ashamed at feeling such things. This Christmas though had been worse than the summer. She had kept in touch with her mother during the term and so had been informed of her intentions to marry Matt. Alice thought it would be a while off; a divorce took a while to be processed after all. But it turned out that proceedings had begun long before Alice imagined and so when she returned home for Christmas she was informed that the wedding would be on Christmas Day. Up until that day every conversation was about the wedding or the honeymoon they had planned; the one that didn't include Alice.

She had tried to get the wedding stopped, not because she wanted her mother and father to get back together, she had accepted their separation, but because Alice didn't like Matt. He didn't seem like a nice person who should be around children; he shouted at Alice at any available opportunity and had little patience for her innocent tales. She didn't want her mother to marry someone like that, but Christmas Day came and with it the wedding. Alice almost boycotted the whole event, and would have if she'd had anywhere to go. As it was she didn't, so she put on the best smile she could manage and tried to be happy for her mother, it was easier than she expected. With the wedding over she spent her days alone in her fathers' house, and though he slept in the evenings, Alice at least spent time with him then.

Now, the day she was going back to Hogwarts, she learnt an upsetting thing. A thing that kept her attention for some of the train ride back to Hogwarts, before she was interrupted by Lily.

"Alice, do you mind if I sit in here?" Lily's voice interrupted her thoughts.

Alice looked up at Lily, to her she looked nervous.

"Nope, but I'm not much company."

Lily laughed, looking a bit more relaxed. "That's okay, just so long as I'm not alone again."

Alice nodded but didn't question her. Alice went back to her thoughts; a tear escaped her eye, which Lily noticed.

"Are you okay?"

Alice shook her head and felt Lily's arm wrap around her in a hug before she even realised she'd moved.

"So you want to talk about it?"

Again Alice shook her head and Lily accepted this, just offering a shoulder for Alice to literally cry on. After a while she stopped sobbing and looked at Lily.

"I'm sorry, it's just…My parents split up in the summer, and my mum just married another man and he's horrible."

She could tell Lily didn't know what to say, but she looked sympathetic and that helped Alice.

"My mum loves him, so I shouldn't object, but I got this letter this morning and," she took a deep breath to calm the tears that threatened to start again. "They're making me change my name. I'm not a Howard anymore, I'm a Prewitt." The tears fell once more as she felt herself fading, becoming less of herself and more of that horrible man. What would happen to her father now?

Lily made a few sympathetic noises before speaking properly. "Maybe you could see it as a good thing?" she suggested.

Alice backed away from Lily's warmness and looked at her curiously.

"Well think about it, your dad can re-marry. You'll have two families; double the presents," she said with a sly grin to which Alice smiled weakly. "And you have a new name, you can reinvent yourself. I've heard you in the dorm, complaining about your hair and how you don't like the colour of it, how it's so pale you feel like you just blend in. What about a little something different to suit your name?"

Alice still looked bemused, but more intrigued by the idea too.

"Let's see," Lily said pulling out her wand. "Prewitt…How about a nice purple?" She flicked her wand at Alice and immediately her hair turned purple, Alice looked in horror at the windows pale reflection. Lily laughed. "Or green," still Alice looked horrified. "Or gold, silver, orange, maroon, blue." Each colour brought a new horrified expression until Lily settled down and chose a more suitable colour. "Black." She said eventually, making Alice smile in agreement.

"I love it," Alice said, as Lily pulled out a proper mirror to show Alice. "Thank you."

Lily shook her head. "No problem. Let me just add a few things."

By the time they reached Hogwarts, Alice was a new person. Her hair colour had changed from mousy brown to black with subtle red tips, her eyes were gently rimmed with a semi-permanent silvery eye-liner, guaranteed to last 3 months, or until the caster changed its colour. And her pale lips, previously so small, now looked fuller with the red colour that sat on them.

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Alice, feeling happier with herself followed Lily into the castle and up to Gryffindor Tower.

"Lily, you were on the train, right? Have you seen Alice?" Marie called from the other side of the room.

Lily looked back at Alice, the two smiled at each other before Lily turned to face Marie and motioned for her to go up to the dormitory. Alice led the way up there.

Shutting the door after Marie came in, Alice stayed quiet as Lily spoke to Marie.

"Marie, she's right behind you."

Alice could imagine the happy look on Marie's face before she saw it on the girl who turned to look at her, and then saw it change to one of confusion.

"Alice Howard, what did you do to yourself?!" Marie squealed.

Alice laughed. "I became Alice Prewitt."

Marie looked at her, more confused than ever.

"I think I'll leave you two to talk." Lily said quietly, squeezing past the other two girls and leaving the room.

Alice thanked her once more before dealing with Marie. She told her everything, in more detail than she had discussed it with Lily and when she was finished Marie squealed again.

"Well I have to say, Alice Prewitt looks very good."

The two giggled and went to find Lily after that.

AN: Thanks for bearing with me, my computer is now fixed and the...whatever it is that blew up, been upgraded to a bigger...whatever it is to, hopefully, stop it blowing up again (I'm so good at explaining computer stuff aren't I?). So basically I can update...obviously! And should have more up before the end of the week. Enjoy it.