-Chapter 6

Breakfast the next morning was going as usual. When the mail came, Serene took her letter excitedly and opened it.

"Mum and Dad got a new horse for the farm. Her name is Sacrifice and she's really pretty and runs really fast, apparently. Uh…we're going to the Californian coast. We're allowed to bring whoever we want… Hey, Maxey, you going anywhere over break?"

"No, I was actually planning on staying here," Maxey said, picking up a sausage and eating it in one bite.

"Well, now you're not. You'll have plenty of opportunities to stay here. This break, you're coming with us to the States," Serene said.

"Yo, Paris! Come to the States with us over break?" she continued, asking a fourth year of her acquaintance.

"Sure, I'd love to," Paris replied excitedly.

"You doing anything?" Remus asked James, Sirius, and Peter.

"No."

"Maxey's not, so I guess I'm not."

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Want to come to the States with us?" Remus suggested.

"Sure."

"Yeah."

"Sounds good to me."

"Great. Lily, Jade, Mika, want to come to the States with us?" Remus continued. The girls nodded excitedly and went back to breakfast.

"And Curt'll bring Wendi and Nora, right Curt?" Serene asked.

"Yeah," Curt replied.

"Great. So that's Maxey, Paris, James, Sirius, Peter, Lily, Jade, Mika, Wendi, and Nora," Serene said, writing the names down on the back of the parchment and giving it to the owl. "Bye-bye, birdie!" she called.

"Hello, class! I have a great lesson planned for you today - Oh, what's this?" Valvorez said the next day as an owl flew through her window.

"Miss Lupin, the Headmaster requests your presence in his office immediately, if not sooner," she said, glancing at the letter.

"Me?" Serene asked.

"Yes, you, Miss Lupin," Valvorez sighed, exasperated.

Serene walked out of the room and made her way to Dumbledore's office.

"You wanted to see me, professor?" she asked as she walked into the office without knocking - the stone gargoyle entrance had been left open.

"Yes, indeed, Miss Lupin. Please sit down." After Serene was comfortable, Dumbledore continued. "Your professors all seem to have the same opinion of you; that you'd do well in a more advanced class."

"Really?" Serene asked, overjoyed.

"Yes. Professor McGonagall was under the impression that you could do just as well in a more advanced class than you do now, Professor Hill told me your potions were always the first done and the most accurate, Professor Valvorez said you need foreign languages about as much as you need English, and the others all said similar things."

"Even for arithmancy?" Serene asked.

"Yes. You clearly understand the concept. The many mistakes you make are just parts of life. You seem to have your homework always in either early or on time, and it's almost always a perfect paper. We were trying to solve this conflict, and a solution arose."

"What is this solution, professor?" Serene asked, already thinking she knew the answer.

"Next year, you will begin your fourth year. We don't move students up if we can come up with something that won't affect them as much, and, really, no one wants one less year of Hogwarts, no matter how much they say they do. Therefore, if you would like, every day after school, if you don't have Quidditch practice, you will leave Hogwarts to do some more advanced work. However, and this is important, you must still keep up in your classes at school. If your schoolwork threatens to go down the drain, you will withdraw from these more advanced classes."

"Oh, thank you, Professor! What kind of advanced classes?" Serene asked. She felt as if she could fly.

"Well, first off, I believe I have heard that you wish to be an Auror. Is that correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well then, we have an Auror who has just signed on to Auror ranks. There are no big cases she needs to work on, so she's just been filing paperwork. I'm sure she'd be happy to help you achieve that goal. In fact, I know she'll be happy to do that, as I've already spoken to her. That will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays and Wednesdays, you will go to a house of a teacher. She will instruct you how to become an animagus. I hope this suits you. You will have Friday afternoons off," Dumbledore finished, his eyes twinkling furiously behind those half-moon spectacles.

"I'd love that, Professor! Thank you so much," Serene said as she grabbed a lemon drop sitting in a bowl on Dumbledore's desk.

"You're very welcome, Miss Lupin. Have a good day, and come to my office every day after school other than Fridays to Floo to your destination, alright?"

"Okay, sir. Thank you so much!" Serene cried as she left the office, swinging her bag onto her shoulder.

Dumbledore chuckled as she closed the door. That girl was definitely going places. She would be a good thing, when she graduated, for the Order of the Phoenix. He'd have to keep her in mind. Better yet, he'd have to add her onto his list of possible people. He took out a slip of paper from his desk and looked over it.

Rubeus Hagrid

Alastor Moody

Aberforth Dumbledore

Curt Lupin, Gryffindor, 7

Wendi Gigliotti, Gryffindor, 7

Nora Cook, Gryffindor, 7

Arthur Weasley, Gryffindor, 5

Molly Prewett, Gryffindor, 5

Kingsley Shacklebolt, Gryffindor, 6

Elphias Doge, Hufflepuff, 7

Dedalus Diggle, Hufflepuff, 6

Emmeline Vance, Ravenclaw, 5

Sturgis Podmore, Hufflepuff, 5

Hestia Jones, Ravenclaw, 6

Mundungus Fletcher, Hufflepuff, 5

Frank Longbottom, Gryffindor, 5

Alice Pritchard, Gryffindor, 5

Marlene McKinnon, Ravenclaw, 6

Benjy Fenwick, Hufflepuff, 5

Edgar Bones, Hufflepuff, 6

Caradoc Dearborn, Ravenclaw, 7

Gideon Prewett, Gryffindor, 4

Fabian Prewett, Gryffindor, 4

Dorcas Meadowes, Ravenclaw, 7

Andromeda Black, Ravenclaw, 7

Dumbledore smiled slightly as he added not one, but two names onto his list.

Is that - no, surely not - a PLOT! gasp It can't be, it must be something else!

Well, this chapter might not be much reading material, but I was anxious to get it up. I don't know why, I just was.

So anyway, this chapter took a lot of research on my part. I couldn't find Alice Longbottom's maiden name anywhere, then I saw on this site that I 4get, it said: Though we don't know Alice Longbottom's maiden name, we can guess. And, well, I guess I didn't feel like guessing! I just made one up. It worked, right?

And if I got a house or age wrong (I used my OotP book for names, but not ages, houses, etc.) and you know the real house/age, you can tell me in your review, that's great information, but I'm not going to bother fixing it. You might get brownie points, though!

I just did a lot of math on my week off to figure this out, so you better appreciate it! It can help in a lot of different kinds of fics. (MWPP, trio-era, Nymphadora Tonks, etc.)

Harry Potter (HP) 11 in 1991, born in 1980

James Potter (JP) 20 in 1980, 11 in 1971, born in 1960

Sirius Black (SB) 20 in 1980, 11 in 1971, born in 1960

Nymphadora Tonks (NT) 11 in 1985, born in 1974

1995 - HP - 15

1995 - NT - 21

1980 - HP born

1980 - NT - 6

1980 - SB - 20

Andromeda started Hogwarts in the early to mid 1960s, making her older than Sirius.

Therefore, when the Marauders were fourteen, Andromeda was out of Hogwarts and had a daughter, Nymphadora. 6 years later, Harry was born to 20-year-olds Lily and James, making them 21 when they were murdered.

Please say this info is interesting/useful, because my brain might explode! (This is all information I probably could have found on the internet, but I didn't feel like it!)

Lib