Arch of Wand (x2): You were my one-hundredth reviewer, yey! Go Risa! claps And Tim Taylor and Mark Taylor have dressed up as women to cheer Jill on… hee hee. Silly Tim Taylor. You do know what I'm talking about, right? Oh dear….

"blahblah": Idn't he, though? We love our Sirius. grin

Autumn Darkness: Yes, I am marvelous, aren't I? accidentally falls out of her chair

Snowfire the Kitsune: Your mischief must have smacked him in the face, because I went a bit rambly in this chapter. Oh well. I think it's funny. grin

Niniane, Lady of the Lake I sure took a while, didn't I? sigh And I obviously didn't go to the "Dress for Life" thing… feels sheepish

nexiumchick Meh heh. He is hot, isn't he? bats her eyes dreamily at an increasingly disturbed Sirius

Haldir's Elven Archer: weilds her new Mutant Vacuum and watches carefully for the Mutant Dust Bunnies Um… um… darts behind Sirius Thank you for the support about my little friend. She just something installed in her chest so that she won't have to be on an IV all the time.

MauraMellon Thank you for the compliments. I don't normally read these types of fics either. In fact, I've only read a couple, and I don't like them. Too bad they're what I like to write. Lol. grin I hope you keep reading!

Jack Sparrow's Only Love: Thank you! I hope you keep reading!

DistinctVagueness Lol. Don't you just love ranting about PoA? I don't, because I don't particularly like being angry… anyway. Sirius is fun to write about, because for as much as people write him one-dimensionally, he's really very complicated.

SlvrDragon325: Thank you for the review, and I hope you like this chapter!

Plumkin (x3): Zoe, Zoe, Zoe. Don't look every day for an update, because you know me, and therefore, you should know that my updates are very sporadic. I would change this if I could, but I cannot force myself to write. Anywho… hope you had fun at camp!

"merlindamage": salutes And I listen to my fans! Just not about timing, sadly enough. Thanks for the review!

Panny Savage: I hate it when people instantly fall in love with each other. Sirius's obsession is just that: an obsession, nothing else. He somehow got it into his head that he wanted Casey, and thus, he must have Casey. Casey, on the other hand… well. chuckles

"Jessie": Lol. Sirius and his pick-up lines. He's got a few more up his sleeve, I'm afraid.

Tapdancing Parakeet: Thank you! I love reviewers who don't say something somewhat meaningless like, "Great story update soon," and actually pick out something that they like. Casey has been developed a great deal more than any of my other original characters. I hope you keep reading! (nice penname, by the way!)

Lady Phoenix Slytherin: Thank you; I hope you keep reading!

TonksIsMyHero (x2): Lol. I was inspired by "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson, I believe, is her name. Very good book. nods sagely

esteledhel LOL. Unfortunately for you, I stole Sirius and married him long, long ago. Before the beginning of time, actually, because I stole a time machine and had a Neanderthal priest marry us. MWAHA!

Taffy C. Hedgehog: gasp GIRL SCOUT COOKIES! Are they samoas (or however you spell it)? Those are my favorite. grin

love eternity: I'm glad you think it's good. Thanks for the review!

"Julia1524": Lol. He'll have enough sense by the end, I assure you. Thanks for the review!

Sorry that this took so long. I did submit my two weeks notice on the 29th of July, though, so I should have more time for writing soon. YEY! claps

"A paradox is not necessarily a bad thing." – Wilson Wilson.

December 30, 1976 continued…

Not long ago, Casey would have told you that Sirius's sheer brilliance would have overshadowed his stupidity. She would have argued for his honor, and fought for his resurrection.

Casey never thought she'd been very smart, anyway.

By the time she had stomped her way back to the library, some of her annoyance with Sirius had evaporated, and what was left disappeared when she realized something very neat.

She'd very likely caused a paradox. Not a large or important one, to be sure, and she couldn't be positive… but wasn't it likely possible that Grown Up Sirius had only known not to write things in letters because she'd told him in his past that he'd known? As mind-boggling as it was to think about, Casey was by this time very nearly convinced that she'd caused a paradox, and was feeling quite good about herself.

Now, by chance, Casey had long ago learned the words to "I'm Too Sexy," and at times like these, when she was sure of herself, the tune began to blast relentlessly in her head until such a time as she could relieve it by belting out the lyrics. She was itching to do so now, but as she had just made it back to the library, singing at the top of her lungs would be considered only a bit inappropriate.

Instead, she sang quietly, "I'm too sexy for my love, too sexy for my love, love's going to leave me… I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts…"

"What's that?" someone asked loudly from behind her.

Casey shrieked, dropped a book she'd been examining, and turned in irritation to face Sirius, who was watching her curiously. And that was how Sirius happened to learn the song "I'm Too Sexy" before it was ever created. By some coincidence, an English band some years later produced an identical song, which became very popular, and remained so for years after.

January 2, 1977

Dear Journal,

Everyone thinks that 1977 is an achievement. I'd like to see what they think of my coming from 2003, where any of them that survived are now forty-three years old. Actually… that sounds quite appealing.

Anyways, the rest of the students got back today, and as the Marauders seemed to feel that their New Years party yesterday wasn't quite destructive enough, they're downstairs in the common room wrecking more furniture and just generally wreaking havoc. I'm surprised McGonagall hasn't dropped in to shut them up yet; they're awfully loud. The last time I was downstairs, Sirius had jumped onto one of the tables and was stripping to "I'm Too Sexy." Too bad that he didn't grasp that it's a stupid song… neither did most of the girls, as they were all giggling like cows (don't ask) and blushing like clowns. Weird metaphors, but that's what they were doing!

"Supper" was… annoying. I kind of sneaked in with Lily and hid on her left side while she introduced me to Alice (who I'll tell you about later). Most everybody was too preoccupied with greeting everyone they recognized; they just sort of glossed over me until they'd settled in. The Slytherins aren't much for civilities, I guess, because they were the first to notice. 'Course, they had Snape to tell them, but nevertheless, they saw me first, and it kind of spread after that.

Disease among the Slytherins spreads fast, I've heard, and it's the same when there's something for them to plot against. I've been keeping an eye on Snape since he stopped me in the corridor the other day (I'm not sure that Sirius only hexed him), so I saw it when he nudged the Slytherin next to him and nodded in my direction. I tried my best to look nonchalant and as if I'd been at Hogwarts for years, but I never could act. The next time I glanced over at their table, every Slytherin was looking at me, and boy, can they look. They're evil, I tell you!

It didn't take even a minute for most of the school to latch onto the idea. Dumbledore (batty old man, anyway) just had to help them along by making an announcement about me. He did a fine job of it; he's got to be one of the best liars of all time. He told them all about how my parents were researchers for "Muggles: Behavior, Watches, and General Misconceptions of the Blender," which apparently means that I traveled a lot (ironically, mostly in America). Apparently, my parents decided that it was high time for me to become a properly socialized Brit. This, quite obviously, is why they called an old, favorite professor of Dad's (remember, to everyone else's knowledge, I was born in 1960), Dumbledore. Now, obviously, as I'm to research Muggles myself after school, I won't be needing to use magic, just understand the concepts and have a generally well-rounded education. Thus, I was brought to Hogwarts with the plan that I would emerge with the basis for which my research on Muggles will be grounded.

This is all news to me.

Good story, though.

So here I am, a Muggle studying to study Muggles, and all I'm thinking about at the moment is that they should make the spell on chocolate frogs last longer so that they wriggle around in your stomach. I read earlier that a wizard named Bing Garhattenbug (what a name) caught a frog, knocked it out, dipped it in chocolate, and gave it to his ex-wife as a pseudo make-up present. When she bit the frog's leg off, it woke up, croaked madly at her, and took off, spurting blood everywhere. The ex-wife leaped up on her chair and shrieked, like anyone might. The next day, she sued her ex-husband for the prank, and the chocolate frog manufacturers for giving him the idea in the first place. She is now very rich and living in Corsica. Bing went bankrupt from his revenge and now lives in St. Mungo's, having daily discussions with his thumb. Apparently the shock of having caused himself to lose all his money made him go a bit insane.

Maybe he'll make friends with Lockhart someday.

But I promised to tell you about Alice, didn't I?

Maybe later. At the moment, I'd like to discuss naming your child Bing. It's bad enough to be named something bland like Gertrude, or Leslie when you're a guy… but Bing? Okay, so there was Bing Crosby. Not all Bings can be famous or Chinese or Chandler, or all of the above, for that matter. This Bing (the Ex-Husband Bing) was a boring old Scotsman who apparently thought it was terribly clever to change things around and call girls "laddies" and boys "lassies." Mrs. Bing probably got taken in by this seeming cleverness, but divorced him when she found out that he was really rather stupid. So why would his parents name him Bing in the first place? Perhaps he was an ugly baby, or they decided to wait until he talked to give him a name. The first word he ever said could have, oddly enough, been bing. Or maybe his parents were also the sort to gives themselves the illusion of cleverness in naming their kid something weird, in the hopes that it would make him famous. That plan worked to a point; he is infamous.

Anyway, as I've gotten terribly off track, I'll move back along, shall I? All right. Alice. She is most definitely the future Mrs. Longbottom. She's got a plump, healthy face and large eyes. She's also got blonde hair, which I suppose makes sense, as when the Golden Trio see her in Mungo's in Fifth Year, she has white hair. Maybe being tortured turns your hair white…

Alice is a very nice girl, I guess, but it's hard to tell as I've only met her once, isn't it? She greeted me as you would any stranger. She was polite and hid her curiosity well. What else is there to say? It's a bit lonely now that she's back, though, because she and Lily are friends, and they have a lot to talk about. It might die down in a few days, but oh well. There's not much I can do about it, is there?

And now I've gotten dull. Good-bye.

- Casey

P.S. Sirius is an idiot.

January 3, 1977

Strangely enough, school turned out to be entirely worse than regular school, in Casey's opinion. This was mostly due to the fact that she'd missed the first five and a half years of basic education, but she was also entirely unused to being stared at while she was trying to concentrate. In Transfiguration, she was paired up with James, who spent most of the class attempting to impress her, and looking over his shoulder to see if Lily had noticed that he was devoting his time to "helping" a new student. Apparently James was the best in the class, and this must have been why McGonagall paired him with Casey, but he was a crappy teacher, and only served in making her feel more lost than she probably was.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Casey had Transfiguration first, Divination second, and Muggle Studies last (which Casey didn't entirely understand, as Dumbledore arranged her schedule, and also claimed that she had been living among Muggles her entire life… who did he think she was, Hermione?).

When James found out that she had Divination next, he clapped her roughly on the back and announced that so did he and Sirius and Peter. The trip up to the Divination tower was a complicated matter. Casey was what you would call lazy, and the trek from the Transfiguration classroom to the other side of the castle was a bit long. More than once, the boys stopped to give her time to catch her breath, which of course only made her irritated with her own inability to keep up, and she failed to understand why it was important for Sirius to think well of her when she didn't want his attention in the first place.

By the time they made it up to the tower, all four of them were nearly fifteen minutes late, but the boys got them out of that easily. James claimed to have had a premonition that someone was in trouble, and Sirius made this story even more exciting by saying that it had been a linked premonition, as he'd had it too. They had both felt that someone was in trouble, apparently, and followed their Inner Eye(s) until they found Casey, who was hopelessly lost.

The Divination instructor, Professor Plank, thought that this was very good news, and applauded the boys for continuing their education in the art of Seeing outside of the classroom. Casey was welcomed hospitably and supposedly comforted with the knowledge that over time, she would learn, through Plank's teaching, how to find her way using her Eye. Casey only pinched her lips together to keep from telling the Professor quite matter-of-factly that she had two eyes, and she could use them very well already, thank you very much.

Muggle Studies was the only place that she did not feel lost, and welcomed the change with open arms. She had the class with the four Marauders, and by the end, had resurrected her failing courage in the realization that she was better at some things, and that those things were just as important as the things that she was lost in. The only classmates that she considered formidable opponents were Remus Lupin and Lily Evans, though with the former, Casey saw more competition, as Lily had also grown up as a Muggle.

So HA! Casey scribbled in her journal at the end of the day, when she had finished her homework and felt accomplished. Maybe she would make it after all.

Be sure to check out my new Yahoo!Group, URL http:(two slashes)groups(dot)yahoo(dot)com(slash)group(slash)travelers(underscore)universe . Hope to see you there!

Review if you like, and let me know what you thought about this chapter! It helps me know what to write next, and what styles go over best.