N/A: I still don't own this!
The first month or so of classes flew by in complete chaos. Getting to classes was the worst. Everyone was constantly lost and lat to classes. The only one who always seemed to know where she was going was Addy. She claimed to have a natural sense of direction. Lily, however, thought it was extremely odd that Addy always knew where everything was, especially when she knew exactly how to get to the charms classroom before they even had their first charms class.
"How hard is it to find!" Addy protested, "It's the charms classroom, obviously it's in the charms corridor!"
"Yes, but how do you know where the charms corridor is?" insisted Lily.
"Yeah Buzz," said James coming up from behind them, "How do you know where everything is?"
"What can I say, it's a gift!" Addy answered stealing a glance at Lily was was blushing scarlet at the sight of James. Addy rolled her eyes.
Ever since James had rescued her from the lake, Lily had been looking at James in a more than platonic way. Maddi often caught her staring mindlessly at him during class or meals. James however, was completely naïve to her starring. He was constantly joking around with his friends.
Addy, Sirius and James had become fast friends and almost inseparable. They laughed and joked and talked. Often Remus was found with them. Addy often referred to him as the "Brains of the operation."
What the operation was however was a mystery. Lily and Amelia had spent much time trying to pry the information out of Remus during their after school study sessions. The only thing he would tell them was to bring nose plugs to the Halloween feast.
All of Gryffindor had become fast friends. Remus, Lily and Amelia set up an after school study group in the library. They had asked Addy, James and Sirius if they wanted to join but the simply laughed and refused. Remus assured Amelia and Lily that it was for the better, seeing as they could always count on their friends to do something stupid in the library like release an army of chocolate frogs and get them all a lifelong ban. Maddi and Peter however, would stop by from time to time. Maddi would stop by the day before charms to get the extra help she desperately needed from Lily. Peter could be seen the day before a test sitting at the round table biting his finger nails frantically trying to memorize everything for the next day.
Addy, James and Sirius spent most of their free time trying to find a way to sneak into the forbidden forest.
"I bet they keep dragons in their!" said Sirius hopefully.
"I doubt it," said Addy, "But I heard some sixth years talking about a heard of centaurs who live there. One of the only herds left in Britain!" said Addy excitedly.
"I want Dragons!" whined Sirius, "Centaurs are boring, and not to mention that I can't understand I thing they say!"
"Has it ever occurred to you that if you do meet a dragon in there, there is a very slim change of getting out alive!" said James acting as the voice of reason.
"You mean we could die?" stuttered Peter.
"Suck it up, Pete," said Addy as she turned around to peak around the corner, "Oh look," she said looking back at James and Sirius, "Our good friend, Snape."
Addy Sirius and James left to confront Snape leaving Peter sitting behind the wall the had been hiding behind.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" said James as he circled around Snape.
"Have you apologized to Lily yet?" asked Addy sharply.
"I will apologize the day they capture the Dark Lord!"
Addy and James exchanged a confused glance but Sirius seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.
"The dark lord will never rise!" he said pointing his hand at point blank to Snape, "So you can bend to your knees and swear allegiance to him but all you'll get in return is a life sentence to Azkaban!" Sirius backed away from Snape breathing heavily.
"What would you know about Azkaban?" spat Snape, literally. Addy, being the closest to Snape got it full blast.
"Ewe, Snape spit!" she said
"I would think spit would be something you are used to with thatratty lump of a boy following you around drooling over you all the time."
"Who, me?" asked a nervous Peter, who had just come out of hiding to check out the ruckus.
"No the other pathetic leech behind you," Snape said sarcastically, but Peter, being gullible, turned and looked. Snape let out an ear-piercing laugh.
"Hey," Addy shouted coming to Peter's defense, "he is not pathetic, you are, you don't even have enough decency to buy shampoo!"
With that that Snape sulked away seeing he could not win this one, being so out numbered as James and Sirius roared with laughter. Peter, however, had suddenly become immensely fascinated by the pattern of the grass.
"It's ok Peter," said Addy draping her arm around his shoulder, not that much difficultly as they were only a few inches part in height, Addy was the smallest girl in Gryffindor Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. She was also assuming Slythein although they also had an abnormally short girl and Addy and her had never checked who was taller. "Listen, don't let Snape bring you down," she continued.
It had become a daily job of Addy's now, to keep Peter out of trouble. Everyone enjoyed picking on him because he was smaller and he wasn't the handsomest, or the bravest or even the smartest apples in the bucket. She always stoke up for him ad made him feel better.
Addy, however, did not particularly like him herself, though she had only voiced this to Lily. There was just something not right abou him. Lily said she didn't feel anything, but then again, she didn't hang round him as much.
Ever since the run in with Snape on the first day of school Lily had become a study-holic. Lily's one goal was to prove that Muggleborns were just as smart as Purebloods. She lived to study. She would study with Remus and Amelia during their one hour study group after school and after they left she would stay there working on spells way over her league, determined to teach herself everything.
Finally, it was nearing the end of October and the Halloween feast and Lily still had not dropped her insane study habits.
One Saturday around lunch Lily was eating chicken noodle soup with one hand and flipping through Hogwarts a History, with the other.
"Haven't you already read that?" asked Maddi taking a seat next to Lily.
"Yeah, like two or three times?" added Amelia.
"Four times," Lily answered curtly, "but it never occurred to me to read in-between the lines! Think of how much I could have missed!"
Maddi just rolled her eyes at her friend pouring herself some soup as well.
Addy, James and Sirius walked into the great hall laughing at a joke that Sirius had just told. They came and sat down across from Lily Amelia and Maddi.
"Lily, earth to Lily, Lily this ground control, do read me?" Addy said trying to get her friend to talk. "That's it," she said turning to James and Sirius, "desperate times call for desperate measures!" she paused long enough to snatch the books away from Lily and hand them over to Sirius, "Take these upstairs and hide them then meet us outside."
James crossed over to the over side of the table. And picked Lily up and slung her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of potatoes.
"What why are you doing this! Unhand me right now!" Lily screamed banging on James's back.
"Don't worry," said James, "some day you'll thank me for this."
He carried her all the way to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. And dropped her on top of an extremely large pile of leaves. Leaves went flinging everywhere! Addy began to run around collecting the airborne leaves.
"I bet I can catch more than you can!" Addy challenged James and Sirius who had just joined them.
The three ran around collecting leaves giving them a remarkable resemblance to puppies.
Suddenly, Lily had an idea she beckoned Amelia and Maddi over to her. She whispered something in their ears and the three girls smirked. Just as Addy, Sirius and James were just about done with their piles, Lily Amelia and Maddi jumped straight into them.
"Hey what was that for!" Sirius spat at Lily. In response she just threw a hand full of leaves at Sirius. "Oh it's on now!" he said shaking the leaves out of his hair. He took and handful of leaves himself and began firing them at Lily. It wasn't long before the other four kids joined in the leaf war. Everyone was firing leaves at each other laughing hysterically, all of Lily's homework fears, for the time being, banished.
Remus, however was not with them. He stood looking out the window in the hospital wing, watching the sunset. He tore his eyes away from the orangey clouds and scanned the Hogwarts grounds. That was where he sited them. He looked down at his carefree friends throwing leaves at each other. He smiled. For the first time in his life, he had real friends. He would give anything write now to be down there having a good time with them. Suddenly he felt a hand resting on his shoulder.
"Are you ready?' asked Madam Pomfrey.
Remus nodded and allowed himself to be led out the door and out of the castle.
Lily flopped down on her back; her hair sprawled around her panting but smiling nonetheless. James lay down next to her causing he to blush like mad once again. Maddi, Sirius and Amelia also lay down on the most comfortable pieces of grass the could find.
"You know," said Addy, "If you look closely enough into the clouds, you can see shapes."
"Yeah, I see it," said James, "like that elephant over there," he continued pointing up at the sky.
"I don't know," interjected Sirius as he cocked his head a a different angle, "looks more like a dog to me."
"If it's a dog, why does it have a trunk?" asked James
"That's not a trunk that's a dog biscuit!" argued Sirus.
"Elephant!"
"Dog!"
"Elephant!"
"Dog!"
"Where did you learn that?' asked Maddi with turning away from the sky.
"We used to do it at the orphanage. When it got late, we would just stare into the sky. My the sky is so beautiful this time of year."
"Elephant!"
"Dog!"
"Elephant!"
"Come on guys," said Lily, "It's getting dark, we have to go in soon of Filch will be after our skins!"
"Dog!"
"Elephant!"
"Dog!"
The argument continued all the way up tot eh castle and into the common room, finally ending when the Prefect, Kingsley Shaklebolt, threatened to put a silencing charm on them both if they didn't stop.
Maddi was sitting on one of the couches nearest the fire flipping through her Teen Witch Weekly magazine with Amelia, while Mundagus Fletcher told Sirius all about his new pet tarantula. Lily and Addy had started a game of wizard's chess with James as the commentator.
"And the gorgeous Lily Evans snatches yet another piece from her incompetent opponent with a her amazing moves," he said, as Lily took a piece, causing her to blush and amazingly deep red.
"How come every time I get a piece all you say is "And Addy gets another piece, what a cheap shot!"? James just shrugged and Addy looked back at the board to make her next move.
Around nine o'clock Maddi, Lily and Amelia went to bed leaving Addy, James and Sirius some of the only few people still there. James and Addy plotted on either side of Sirius on the large couch closest to the fire.
"It's a good thing we got Lily to stop studying," said Addy to break the silence.
"Yeah, she was in danger of spontaneously combusting if she continued that way," agreed James.
Addy grabbed onto her hand to twirl around her ring as she often did while she was bored or nervous. However, the ring was not on her finger.
"Shit!" she cried, "I must have dropped my ring while we were outside!" she gasped.
Addy stood up and made her way towards the portrait whole closely followed by James and Sirius all the way to the spot they had been playing at earlier. They went down on their hands and knees attempting to find some glint of silver in the grass. Finally, Sirius spotted something under the shadow of a large tree. Addy rushed over the tree to grab it. Before she made it however, a large branch came at her and hit her in the stomach and began trashing around as if it was trying to fling Addy to her doom. Addy gripped on for dream life screaming at the top of her lungs. Sirius jumped up to come to her rescue as he tried to climb up the tree's trunk. However, the tree began to shake even more violently than before, forcing Sirius to grip on with both hands. Next James ran to help his friend. Just as he was nearing the tree, he tripped and landed on a knot in the roots. Suddenly, the entire tree stood still. Addy screamed one last time as she fell of the branch. Sirius climbed off of the trunk to join James who was crouched down next to Addy.
"You ok?" Sirius asked.
"Sure, I just fell twenty feet from the air straight onto my back, but other than that I'm just peachy!" Addy answered standing up and facing James, "How did you do that?"
"I don't know, I tripped and landed on this knot," James's answered pointing at the knot on the roots.
"Cool," Sirius hunching down to get a closer look.
Addy, however walked passed the knot and towards her ring that now lay under the shadows of the enormous willow tree.
She bent down to retrieve it when something caught her eye.
"Hey guys, come over here!" she beckoned.
"Sirius and James went over to see what she had found.
"Wow! What is it?" asked James
"It looks like some sort of secret passageway," said Sirius, "I wonder where it leads?"
"Well, there's only one way to find out!" said Addy crouching into the tunnel, "Lumos," she said lighting up her wand and heading down the passageway. Sirius walked right behind her with James bringing up the rear.
As they neared the end of the tunnel, a low growling could be heard. The color was drained from Addy's face and James stood petrified to the spot.
"What was that?" asked Sirius, fear evident in his voice.
"Only one way to find out," Addy whispered.
Addy set her jaw in place and continued the way, followed a little farther of by James and Sirius.
Finally they reached the last turn.
Addy went around the corner. A moment later a high-pitched petrified scream was heard and Addy ran for her life back up the tunnel.
"Go, hurry quick!" she ushered Sirius and James forward so they could get out before that thing caught them. They ran as fast as they could, finally plopping down on the grass outside the tree. The monster inside, still trapped beneath the maze of roots.
"What was that thing?" asked Sirius, panting.
"I don't know," Addy answered being the only one who got a good look at the creature, and she had scars on her cheek and chest to prove it, "Some kind of wolf!"
"Not just any old wolf," said James, looking up at the sky and pointing to the full moon, "A werewolf."
N/A: I'm going into surgery tomorrow and I'm going to be sedated so don't expect anything until at least Monday, unless they have a computer I can use in the hospital.