Chapter One:

Quick Loss of Breath

"And please bear in mind that Boris the Broad of the second goblin rebellion was barely involved in the banshee wars, with exceptions only appearing in 1732 and 1736, when he led his army..."

Students stared like zombies at the ghost of Professor Binns. Few of them were still actually paying attention to the History of Magic lesson. Most of them were outside, in their house common room... elsewhere. Then some disturbance would occur in the classroom, someone would sneeze, one of the few diligents would scratch louder with their quills... and the students would be jerked out of their daydreams, back into reality.

Angelina Johnson focused blearily on the transparent form of the Professor. She picked up her quill, and attempted to concentrate on what he was saying; to copy down something at least that would help them in their exams. Within the next minute, she had put the quill down again. It was too hard to concentrate on the ghost's monotonous voice. Looking around the room, she noticed almost all her students were as bored as she was. With the exception of a few Ravenclaws, whom they shared the lesson with, her fellow students were bored, tired, their minds elsewhere.

Angelina caught the eye of her friend Alicia. Alicia looked from Angelina's face to the hourglass, dragging Angelina's gaze with her. The hourglass read with twenty minutes to go. Sighing, Angelina put her head down on the desk, facing her friend. Alicia was writing something, which she levitated over to Angelina.

"History of Magic is definately never this boring. Did'ya hear the Chamber of Secrets had Salazar's wand in it? A powerful wand that was so powerful, it burnt anyone's hand who touched it except Salazar's and Dumbledore's. They had to lock it up in the Ministry of Magic somewhere." Alicia's note said.

Angelina smiled slightly.

"Lol who told you that? Chamber was opened last year; anything new about it now is probably invented. I even heard Harry Potter fought off like fifteen dementors without a wand a while ago. No way he could do that, the kid's scared solid of dementors. Did ya see him on the train?"

Alicia took the note and read it.

"Nah, didn't see him, heard of it though. Don't really blame him. I probably would've done similar thing really, if dementors came into our compartment. Hate 'em. Kinda feel sorry for Sirius Black slightly, having dementors after him."

Angelina recieved the note, and wrote back.

"Yeah, I reckon no one really deserves dementors, even Sirius Black who blew up like fifteen people. Perosnally I think the guy needs St. Mungo's not Azkaban. If he wanted to kill, why didn't he just go round to houses and Avada Kedavra the lot of them? Why blow them up where everyone could see?"

Alicia wrote back.

"Maybe he's not mental. Just an ordinary person, misunderstood. Maybe there was a completely logical reason for why he killed all those people. If he's smart enough to escape dementors for this long, I think he'd be clever enough to know how to kill a few people."

Angelina was in the middle of writing a reply when the bell went. Shoving her books into her bag, she followed the rest of the students into the corridor. Accoumpanied by Alicia, she quickly moved off to the next lesson.

And so the day went. An ordinary, hogwarts school day. The cool early evening air found two girls strolling down to the quidditch pitch.

"Ok team, we're playing Ravenclaw tomorrow. They have a new seeker..." Oliver's pre-training speech was almost as soporific as Professor Binns's. Angelina didn't feel better until she was up, in the air, flying... wind slashing at her cheeks, filling her with a cold sensation that stole her breath.

Glancing around her, Angelina saw Fred and george Weasly, notorious pranksters and identical twins, their red hair reflecting the sunshine.

Fred turned his head slightly and the light gave him an almost angelic look, masking the true devil inside. Smiling, Angelina looked over to the goal section of the massive pitch, where she knew the one and only Gryffindor keeper, Oliver Wood resided. She scanned his features, the thin lines marring his brow, eyebrows knit together in fierce concentration.

Harry Potter suddenly obscured her vision as he darted around the pitch doing wronsky feints and whatnot.

Katie Bell made a quick dive for the quaffle, hair streanimg out behind her, tanned skin seeming to glow in the waning light. Angelina turned as she heard her name being called, to see Alicia Spinnet smile. For some reason all the breath she had in her was expelled from her as she saw her best friend there winking at her. Then she was falling, down, down, down, towards the hard packed earth only to be caught moments before impact.

Still Angelina couldn't regain breath and this was starting to worry her.

"I'm so sorry!" gushed Alicia as she landed down beside them

"What happened?" questioned Angelina, gasping for air.

"You missed the quaffle." replied Fred, touching down opposite Alicia.

"I guess it knocked the wind out of you." said their dashing captain who was hovering above them.

"Just glad you're ok." Sighed Alicia, patting her on the back.

Angelina offered a weak smile for her friend then turned to George.

"Thanks George." she smiled.

"T'was all in a days work m'lady," he grinned at her, dropping a kiss on her hand. A slight tingle went through her spine at his gesture, but brushed it off quickly. George had always been a friend to her, nothing more.

It was actually Fred whom she fancied rather a lot, his boyish charm intoxicating.

But then, who had ever been able to tell the difference?