A/N: Well, much thanks to my lovely reviewers; wilddog14, Lela1694, QFan, Wolfy, and casui. Oh, by the way, casuiyes, this is Harry Potter, but it's more about Layla's life than anything else. "Life as Layla knows it" sort of thing. Won't see much action, sorry. But there is the Triwizard tournament to look forwards too ... so who knows? ((chuckles evilly)) She won't be participating, though ... too young.

We arrived with a thump, a bang, an "Ouch!", several Arabic curses I can't spell, and a large cloud of coal dust. Looks like the chimney sweep decided to skip our house again. Not that I can blame him – our house is seriously creepy.

Mom, with a quick flick of her wand, cleared away the dust – from everywhere save our lungs. I hacked for probably a good minute or so, trying to get the annoying soot out of my throat. Randi thumped me on the back. I think she was trying to help, but all that served was to nearly knock me over.

When I finally recovered, I looked up to see my father standing in the doorway to the sitting room, watching us with an amused smile on his face. My dad is extremely handsome – his black hair is nearly as long as my mom's, and is always held back with a gold hair tie that he used to tell me belonged to Bastet (Goddess of cats). When I was, like, six.

"Daddy!" I squealed happily. Cue deliriously happy daughter gracefully leaping and/or flying into her father's welcoming arms.

Whoever that daughter is, she sure as hell isn't me.

Here's what happened when I tried that:

I started forwards, still half-bent over from my coughing fit. Managed two steps, then tripped over my own big feet. Stumble, then trip again, this time over the bags my mom had set down on the floor while she'd been cleaning out the soot. Cue immensely embarrassing pratfall as I land, completely without anything resembling grace, in a jumble of oversized legs and arms about five feet from my destination, a.k.a. Dad. Go me. I manage to make a complete and total fool of myself within five seconds of seeing my father. I have yet to inherit that natural, easy grace that all vampires seem to possess.

"Hey, Daddy," I managed from my twisted, pretzel-like position on the floor, half-sprawled across the coffee table. I heard him laugh softly from somewhere above and to the left of me. I scowled. "It's not polite to make fun of your daughter," I informed him crossly, as I attempted to realign my miscellaneous, rebellious limbs into their proper positions in relation to the rest of my body. This is more difficult than it might sound, as the rest of me has yet to catch up with my legs and arms.

"It's lovely to see you too, Layla," he replied. He has this voice that's half-way between a baritone and a mid-tenor. I love listening to him talk. When he's not making fun of me. Which is annoying, even if it is required in most all father/daughter relationships.

"Guh," was his only reply as I finally managed to arrange myself in the proper position to begin standing up.

He turned to my mom, obviously happy to see her. He'd been away for two weeks or so on business in Scandinavia. It was great to have him back. "Hello, Najila. It's wonderful to see you again."

She smiled at him – Najila is his pet name for her. It means "eyes that glisten" in the old language. Her real name is Thurayah. "It's good to have you back, Jihan," she replied warmly. Some people think vampires can't love. That is utterly false – when you live forever and are hated by almost everyone and feared by everyone else, you tend to appreciate things like love a whole lot more.

Ugh, did I just wax romantic? Someone give me a good sock in the jaw.

…

Nevermind.

Anyway, Randi and I crept off to my room so that my parents could … go and be mushy together. Or rather, I crept and Randi crashed. She fell. Loudly. Up the stairs.

I didn't know it was possible to fall UP a set of stairs.

You realize this just goes to show what crazy people are capable of?

But then, maybe I'm just jealous because I can only fall DOWN the stairs. On a regular basis. Like, every time I use them.

…Nah, that can't be it. She's just a danger to society in a new and interesting way yet again, that's all.

You may have gathered by now that I'm a bit of a klutz. It can be pretty embarrassing at times. Like, once I tripped on a cobblestone in the Potions classroom and fell into Randi's color-changing potion … I was bright purple for a week before they finally figured out everything that deranged werewolf tossed into the damn potion. Snape still brings it up every once in a while as an example of looking where to walk in the classroom. He'll never let me live it down, I swear.

Why couldn't I have fallen into Danielle's cauldron? She would never put poison ivy and that weird little weed that grows outside our dormitory window into her potion.

Mom says I'll grow out of it. I told her I didn't want to grow anymore, the reason I'm so clumsy is because everything is suddenly all out of proportion! If I grow anymore, I'll be a giantess!

Not a good thing.

Dad called up to us, causing me to trip over Randi, who was in the middle of trying to be a Slinky going up the stairs; "Don't forget to pack, tomorrow is September first!"

"'Kay, Daddy," I called back. "Okay, Mr. Sakhmet!" Randi yelled in accompaniment from somewhere in the vicinity of my left elbow.

"What are you talking about, Randi?" I asked her as we worked on untangling ourselves without falling down three flights of stairs – my room is at the top of the house, in a small tower on the fifth floor. I insisted on it when I was seven. It's such a cool room, but it means five flights of stairs every time I go up and down until I'm allowed to Apparate.

"Whaddaya mean?" she replied in typical Randi fashion, wriggling out from underneath my left arm and right leg as she did so.

"You're already packed. Your suitcases are in my room, remember? You're sleeping over tonight, remember?" I prompted, trying to jog her decidedly unpredictable memory.

"Oh yeah!" she said in the same fashion one might say "Eureka! I have found the meaning of life!" She can be like that.

I rolled my eyes, clinging to the banister as we finally managed to untangle ourselves and proceed upwards once more, Randi continuing her quest to do the perfect reverse imitation of a Slinky.

"Did'ja see that movie?" Randi asked me suddenly on the fourth staircase, pausing upside down to ask me. Before we had set out to the stairs, I had managed to convince her to tuck her t-shirt into her corduroy jeans, so this didn't look as strange as it could have.

"What movie?" I asked incredulously. "I haven't seen any. I'm not a Muggle, Randi. Unlike you."

"Half," she corrected, starting to crabwalk up the stairs with her feet first. This was extremely distracting – the staircase was a spiral one.

Very interesting to watch, to say the least.

"Whatever," I sighed. "My point is, why would I go to see a movie?"

She shrugged, a considerable feat considering her current position. "I dunno. Cuz you felt like it?"

"Well, I didn't."

"Oh. Dang. I didn't, either."

"Feel like it?"

"No. See that movie."

"What movie, Randi?"

"The one with the thing."

"With the what?"

"You know, the thing! The … the thingy-thing!"

"Oh," I said dryly. "That movie. The one with the thingy-thing. Huh. I feel so enlightened."

"Yeah! That's the one!" she exclaimed happily, oblivious to my blatant sarcasm. In fact, I've found that, for Randi, ignorance really is bliss. But dangerous to those around her.

I shook my head and managed to get to the top of the stairs without any major mishaps occurring – a remarkable feat, as I had to navigate around Randi, who seemed to be undecided which way forwards was when one was crab-walking.

We reached my room (finally) before Randi had a chance to try and chat about the movie – the one with the thingy-thing – thankfully, because I generally don't watch movies. I get a good kick out of Star Wars every now and then, though.

Randi flopped down on my bed, giggling as she bounced up and down. My bed is huge. I could situate all the girls in our dormitory on that bed, and still have room left over for various boyfriends and sundry.

Not that I have a boyfriend. Pathetic, isn't it? Me, Randi, and my other best friend, Amy, are the only people who don't have boyfriends. Well, Conner doesn't either, but he's a boy. He's the fourth (and final) member of our little group. Only guy. Poor him. But he doesn't have a girlfriend either, so we're all in the same boat.

Anyway. What was I talking about?

Oh yeah. My room.

It's got a slanted-upwards roof, with a spinning dragon mobile hanging from the top that Conner got me for my twelfth birthday. It's painted with these really soft greens and golds, and on one predominately green wall opposite my bed, I painted a large, rearing black motif of a unicorn, about two years back.

Oh, didn't I mention? I can draw. And paint. Pretty decently, too. It's my one talent, besides being an excellent dress-up-doll for my mother. I would love to be an artist.

But. Anyways.

My bed is one of those canopy deals, with dark velvet curtains. On the wall across from the door is a large window, complete with window-seat (more like window-bench, really). A large bookcase sits next to my bed, mostly full of photographs, shiny rocks, pretty conch shells, half-finished moving models, and a fair amount of miniature dragons and unicorns wreaking havoc across the shelves. The few books I have (that aren't about ancient history or art) were presents from family and friends.

Randi's suitcases were piled at the foot of my bed. I deftly avoided them, giving the pile a wide berth just in case, and opened the curtains of my window to see a cloudy, overcast night sky with no moon or stars in sight. Bummer. I closed the curtains again, sighing. I like to look at the night sky. Maybe it's the vampire in me – I don't really know.

"You got all your books?" Randi inquired as I began tossing things into a huge suitcase covered with a bunch of stickers saying things like, "I am a Taurus – you are an asshole", "Beauty is only skin deep – ever seen a dissected swan?", and "Insanity is a necessary commodity in a crazy world". Randi took me to this Muggle store once, and I saw a binful of the things. Of course, I bought a ton and stuck them all on my suitcase.

"Yes, Randi," I replied, tossing said books carelessly atop of my school robes before returning to my perusal of my underwear and sock drawers.

"Your cloak?"

"Yes," I said, grabbing it from a coathanger in my wardrobe and throwing on top of the books.

"Your potions kit?"

"Yes, Randi," I growled, snatching it from where it lived, slowly mutating into a semi-intelligent life-form, under my bed.

"Your-"

"YES, Randi, for Merlin's sake!" I shouted, tossing the rest of my portable belongings into the suitcase and reaching for my drawing and painting supplies.

"Oh. Okay, then." She then reached over to my dresser, grabbed my multi-colored nail-polish, and began studiously painting her fingernails a swirly mixture of blue, purple, and yellowy-orange.

I growled incoherent mutterings in Randi's general direction while sitting down on my suitcase in order to get it closed enough so I could zipper it. Yes, it zippers. Big whoop. While I was struggling with the Ra-cursed thing (the zippers were intent upon rebellion), Randi started chattering about our new teacher in DADA – Alastor Moody, some retired, paranoid Auror. I was only half listening – it's difficult to zipper something closed when you're sitting on it.

Finally! I quashed the zipper rebellion, managed to get all my sleeves stuffed inside, and zippered the damn thing shut. I flopped backwards over the top of it, sighing in relief. I heard a "mrroww" and a "thump" as my cat leaped onto the suitcase next to me.

"Hey, Cosmo," I said happily, sitting up and scooping him into my arms. "How's my kitty-cat?" Cosmo purred happily and batted at my bangs. He's such a cute cat. He's small, for a cat anyways, and mostly black, with a white chest and muzzle, and little white mittens on all four feet. His talents include shredding Potions essays, using my Transfiguration homework as a litterbox, and shedding all over my clothes. Other than that, he is the cutest, most friendly and adorable little cat there is.

In case it isn't obvious, I absolutely adore him – he was my Christmas present last year from my parents.

"Hey, kitty," Randi exclaimed happily, spying Cosmo purring in my lap, reaching over to pet him. He's one of the few cats who come near her – as such, she adores him.

I handed him over to her, where he became immediately absorbed in sniffing her newly painted nails, trying to lick them occasionally. I flopped onto the bed, rolled over onto my back, and sighed. Tomorrow, I'd be going back to school.

I'd get to see my friends again.

I'd get to eat all that great stuff they have again.

I'd get to see my all-time crush, Erin McCoy, again.

Life is good.