Chapter Six

A bone-chilling gust cast itself along the rustic path that lay ahead of her. Rae pulled her cloak closer about her as she slid down the cold stone. A hard landing greeted her, and a dull thud echoed about the tunnel.

When will I learn?

Once again, Rae landed on her backside. She stood, once untangled from her cloak, and dusted off what she could see of herself before lighting her wand and beginning the walk. It would take quite a while to reach the other end of the passage, but it was well worth it. Wizarding chocolate was much better than Muggle chocolate.

Her mind gradually drifted from one thing to another. Chocolate was first on her mind, then came what kind of it she would try today; and then there was the question of how she was going to get from behind the counter without being seen. After all, this wasn't a time when the students would be out and about.

Perhaps luck would be on her side today. It had, after all, helped her out at breakfast.

Roots were showing all about the tunnel, mostly overhead. Dim wand light illuminated claw marks and gashes in the wall, as if a beast of some sort had been driven into a panic in the limited space. If an animal as large as the one that made them had once gotten in here, could more do the same? A bead of cold sweat began to run down the side of her face, and she was reminded of a dream.

On the edge of the Forbidden Forest, she sat on a low hanging limb - the product of stunted growth and awkward weight balance. A golden-red sunset lay out in front of her, reflecting itself across the lake. She raised her gray eyes to gaze at it from her new Pink Floyd shirt. Something had moved to her left. Frozen, she caught her breath and listened - strained her ears, more like - for any more signs of movement.

Lo and behold, a large black animal showed its face from around the underbrush. His teeth were pearly white - and big. Grinning at her, the beast began to move his head up and down, as if nodding to confirm her fears that she was his prey. Horror gripped her, and she wanted to look for a place to run to, but found she couldn't take her gaze from those black eyes and big teeth.

The animal had not yet moved, but continued to grin at her - his grin was at first like a horrid laugh, but it had seemingly transformed into a snigger of malice. She pulled her legs up to her chest and began to whimper. Her eyes clenched themselves shut, forcing back the tears of fright - and then ending her dream.

When she awoke, she had found herself shaking and cold, and drenched in sweat on the couch of the Room of Requirement. Although this surprised her, it was not as strange as the feeling that a pair of eyes was on her. Perhaps it had only been aftershock of the dream. She had never really bothered to wander about it.

Ahead of her, a flight of steps began to appear in the wand light. Reality claimed her again, and she looked at the walls. There were no longer any gashes on the walls, nor were there scratch marks. A cloud of dust arose at her feet upon climbing the steps, and an even larger one appeared when she opened the trap door above her.

Rae held her breath and took a quick peek around before slipping up into the cellar of Honeydukes.

Albus Dumbledore was in quite a fret. Elsie Julienne had left for Christmas break, as had a few other teachers. Although, by this time, the rest of them had arrived back at the castle fully ready to regain control of their students. The Potions Mistress, however, had not returned. Nor had Dumbledore been able to make contact with her for quite a number of days - two weeks, to be exact.

He feared that she and her family had fallen victim to current dark activity. The final decision was to wait a few more hours for a reply, if none showed, then the call would go out for a new Potions Master at Hogwarts.

The snow, although stopping during the greater part of the night, had still managed to pile up into five-foot drifts against the castle walls. A distant line of smoke on the horizon crawled closer every moment. The Hogwarts Express would be there soon.

In the mean time, the castle was left to enjoy the last leisurely hours before classes the next day. A harsh wind blew from the west, and the clouds began to visibly thin out. A crack of blue shone. Then a gap. Half the sky was now bared. Icy wind moved the rest of the clouds aside and let the remaining evening sunlight penetrate. A brilliant reflection of the reddening sky crept over the lake. To the east, blue darkened to a royal color, and turned purple with the red of the west.

The first day back happened as all first days do. Sitting still during class, for instance, was a near impossibility. Double classes were terrible on the students as well as the teacher forced to keep them for ninety minutes.

But of all the students, the seventh years came back, perhaps, worst of all. To some of the sixth years, it was mealtime entertainment to watch the frantic seventh years putting in extra practice wherever they had a moment to spare. Occasionally, they were in such a hurry that complete concentration could not be achieved - this usually resulted in explosions and the showering of sparks upon unsuspecting bystanders.

On the train ride back, James had been deep in conversation with Remus, and was now confident that he had figured out why Lily Evans despised him so. Maybe now he could increase his chances of gaining her acceptance. Remus figured that it had something to do with his 'fun' - defined as sending hexes down a crowded corridor and hitting the target dead on - the target usually being Severus Snape, or another of his fellow Slytherins.

Peter could not, for the life of him, figure out why James was so interested in her - a mudblood. There were scores of other girls in the castle - other pureblooded girls. Evans was such a goody-goody. It just wouldn't do to have his best friend and master prankster in league with the girl who was first in line for the female head student position at Hogwarts.

A trail of red hair came to her lower back, and was kept tucked away behind her ears. Large almond shaped, emerald eyes shone out from behind a thin outline of black eyewear. Few intruders were allowed to see what lay behind them.

Good grades came naturally to her, even though she was the first in the family to be accepted into a magical school such as Hogwarts. Charms were her specialty. She had achieved an 'O' in the previous year's O.W.L. test. History of Magic, however, was another story. As much as she tried to focus herself, she found it nearly impossible, especially with those audacious four that never seemed to do their work, yet always passed in flying colors behind her.

Lily Evans dearly despised James Potter. Yet, it still seemed to be his goal in life to either humiliate her or sweet-talk her into a date. The latter had been more popular as of late. During classes, his eyes often traveled in her direction. She tried not to look back at him, fearing to get his hopes up. It always seemed to fail.

Professor Binns, ghost though he may have been, was still the most boring person, alive or dead, within the walls of Hogwarts. Rumor had it that he never even changed his lesson plans from year to year. The same notes were read to different students each year. In James's opinion, whoever the moron was that first noticed this, must have had a lot of time on his hands.

Remus's quill scratched occasionally across a bit of parchment to record anything that seemed important enough to consider fair game for an upcoming test. James, Sirius, and Peter sat playing with a folded up triangle of paper. One would give it a flick and send it flying into another's outstretched fingers. It was quite amusing when it struck Olivia Carmen's ear, but her reaction wasn't.

She swiveled around in her seat, deep brown eyes searching the room for the source of her infliction. They came to rest on Sirius Black. His eyes gave it all away - even if he wasn't looking directly at her. James was looking rather guilty himself. His ears seemed to be turning pink as, she guessed, he tried not to laugh. Olivia narrowed her eyes into a threatening glare before turning back around to face the front of the room. She leaned to the left and put her mouth close to her best friend's ear.

"It's them again," she said in a whisper.

Lily rolled her eyes. She wondered if it had been James trying to get her attention. It wouldn't be unlike him to do so.

"Potter or Black?" she replied.

"I think it was Black. Potter looked ready to laugh, though."

"Could have been either one."

Olivia nodded in response. She reached up and pulled her dark brown hair around to the right. Her fingers wound themselves into the mass and began to pull out stray knots that had formed throughout the day. The natural waves soon began to loosen themselves out.

A/N: Sorry for the wait! I kinda got sidetracked arguing with MuggleNet about my fic (they said it was too out-of-canon) and I forgot to update. But I made the chappie nice and lengthy. So please review! Thanks!