I've been watching a lot of the show "River Monsters" with Jeremy Wade. It makes me wonder if fish have alien abduction stories…


Bree envied Alice. The two of them were almost the same. They had the same childhood memories, the same body, the same face, but Alice had been born from an accident on a day full of chaos and senseless death. Despite her beginnings, Alice had not actually seen anyone die, the closest she had come was hearing Buzzer scream. It wasn't the same as what Bree had experienced.

Alice had only heard death, she hadn't seen it. Bree envied her for that, because being haunted by a dying scream had to be better than haunted by the images of Ganger Buzzer's lifeless body falling to the ground and of acid eating through Jimmy's chest as the life slowly slipped from his body.


"My, my, someone is having a rough night." Not-Bree said, wearing her usual too wide grin, but it wasn't just her canines that were pointed this time. Every tooth in her mouth had been replaced by a set a pointed teeth that would have been more at home in the mouth of a cat. It gave Not-Bree's grin a more frightening look.

Bree sighed. She had woken up from a nightmare in the middle of the night and moved down to the common room. When she had fallen asleep she had found her strawberry blond other self grinning down and her from on top of a giant daisy. Bree was sitting in the middle of a gigantic spotted mushroom; the surrounding area was full of flowers and blades of grass the size of trees.

Not-Bree jumped down from the daisy and landed on the mushroom, causing Bree to bounce into the air before coming down and landing in roughly the same spot she had been before. Not-Bree bounced to the center of the mushroom and flopped down next to Bree.

"When are we going to have her killed?" Not-Bree asked.

"It'll have to wait 'till she's out of Hogwarts. Less likely to on the suspect list that way." Bree answered.

"I guess, but I really want her to go away." Not-Bree pouted.

"Until then we can make her life hell." Bree said.


"That cat is taunting me." Dean mumbled to Seamus. It was the morning after Umbridge had inspected Hagrid's lesson. Bree was sleeping on the couch closest to the fire; Muffin was nestled in Bree's cleavage.

"The cat is not taunting you." Seamus replied.

""Yes it is. It knows." Dean said.

Seamus knew he was going to regret it, but he asked anyway. "What does it know?"

"About boobs." Dean said in a way that sounded as if he believed he had just revealed the secret of the universe.

"What?" Seamus asked incredulously.

"Bree has them." Dean replied.

"So to all of the girls in our year." Seamus pointed out.

"They don't have cats that taunt me." Dean growled.

Seamus sighed. Dean's circular logic would get them nowhere.

"Why don't you ask her on a date instead of obsessing over her cat?" Seamus suggested.

"That's brilliant!" Dean exclaimed. "I'll ask her out. Then we'll see who gets the boobs then you stupid cat." He hissed, pointing at Muffin.

"What have I done?" Seamus muttered to himself.


"I thought she was over this." George said as he watched Bree sleep. After he and Fred and chased Dean and Seamus out of the common room that morning they had woken Bree up and gotten her down to breakfast, Bree had spent the rest of the day dozing off in her classes before stumbling up the common room and crashed on one of the couches.

"Well…" began Hermione, "yesterday Hagrid taught us about thestrals."

"Yeah, we covered them today. Of course we couldn't see them, but…" Fred said.

"Bree could see them." Hermione stated.

"What!" George exclaimed, looking over at Bree in shock.

"But that means that she saw someone…" Fred trailed off.

"Yeah." Said Harry. "Umbridge was inspecting the lesson and she asked Bree who she had seen die and Bree reacted… badly."

"That's an understatement." Ron muttered. "She told Umbridge off and I think she might have actually growled at her."

"So Bree's nightmare must have been about that and not the end of the Tri-wizard tournament." Lee stated.

"Has she said anything to you?" Hermione asked.

"No. She seemed like her old self." George answered.

"It was almost as if last June hadn't happened at all." Fred stated.

Meanwhile, over on the couch Bree was having another nightmare.

"Stop! Oh! Ah! He's dead!"

"We call it "decommissioned."

"Oh Percy, it's going to get worse before it gets better."

"The acid's eating through."

"I'm...sorry. I'm the fake. Adam deserves his real dad."

"Bree wake up!"

Bree awoke with a gasp.

"Relax, it was just a nightmare, you're safe." George said.

Bree stood up and headed for the girls dorm.

"I'm going to bed." She muttered.

"Bree." Hermione called out. Bree paused and looked back. "We're here for you if you ever want to talk."

"Thanks." Bree said before heading up the stairs.


The next morning the headline of the daily prophet read "SCANDEL IN THE MINISTRY". It alleged that Umbridge had gotten her position in Hogwarts (that she was completely unqualified for as she knew nothing about education and had showed a hatred of children in the past) was because she was having a "torrid affair" with the Minister. It also suggested that "Perhaps the reason "Professor" Umbridge has her students read from the textbook without giving any actual instruction is because Umbridge herself is incapable of performing any defensive spells."

The article was, of course, written by Rita Skeeter. The students were gossiping about it all through breakfast. When Umbridge read the article, after finally making it to the Great Hall, she was furious and sputtering with indignation. Bree decided to have the article framed.


About a week later Bree finally got around to talking to Draco.

"Oh Draco." She called out sweetly. Draco tensed up and turned around slowly to find Bree smiling at him. This set him even more on edge.

"What is it Smith?" he asked somewhat shakily.

"I need to talk to you about your performance and of course your houses performance during the last Gryffindor/Slytherin match." Bree answered, her tone still sugary.

"What about it?" Draco inquired

"Well, you seem to have forgotten a very important," Bree began, her tone suddenly dark. "I could kick your ass. I could jack your jaw. Put you flat in the dirt boy. Yeah I'd have a ball. So go ahead and act tough, like your John Wayne's son. But things can change fast. I can kick your ass."

And with that Bree walked away.


322. Not allowed to sing "I Could Kick Your Ass" by Justin Moore to Draco.

- even I could.


December arrived, bringing with it more snow and a positive avalanche of homework for the fifth-years. Ron and Hermione's prefect duties also became more and more onerous as Christmas approached. They were called upon to supervise the decoration of the castle ("You try putting up tinsel when Peeves has got the other end and is trying to strangle you with it," said Ron), to watch over first- and second-years spending their break-times inside because of the bitter cold ("And they're cheeky little snot-rags, you know, we definitely weren't that rude when we were in first year," said Ron) and to patrol the corridors in shifts with Argus Filch, who suspected that the holiday spirit might show itself in an outbreak of wizard duels ("He's got dung for brains, that one," said Ron furiously). They were so busy that Hermione had even stopped knitting elf hats and was fretting that she was down to her last three.

The last D.A. meeting of the year began with the announcement that they weren't going to start anything new because of the holidays.

"We're not doing anything new?" said Zacharias Smith, in a disgruntled whisper loud enough to carry through the room. "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have come."

We're all really sorry Harry didn't tell you, then," said Fred loudly.

Several people sniggered.

"- we can practice in pairs," said Harry. "We'll start with the Impediment Jinx, for ten minutes, then we can get out the cushions and try Stunning again."

They all divided up obediently; Harry partnered Neville as usual.

The room was soon full of intermittent cries of "Impedimenta!" People froze f or a minute or so, during which their partner would stare aimlessly around the room watching other pairs at work, then would unfreeze and take their turn at the jinx.

Neville had improved beyond all recognition. After a while, when Harry had unfrozen three times in a row, he had Neville join Ron and Hermione again so that he could walk around the room and watch the others. Bree was better than most of the other D.A. members, but, then again, Bree was the only one getting any defense instruction from a competent teacher.

After ten minutes on the Impediment Jinx, they laid out cushions all over the floor and started practicing Stunning again. Space was really too confined to allow them all to work this spell at once; half the group observed the others for a while, then swapped over.

At the end of an hour, Harry called a halt.

"You're getting really good," he said, beaming around at them. "When we get back from the holidays we can start doing some of the big stuff - maybe even Patronuses."

There was a murmur of excitement. The room began to clear in the usual twos and threes; most people wished Harry a "Happy Christmas" as they went.


There was a commotion sometime in the night and the next morning all of the Weasley children and Harry were noticeably absent from breakfast. Umbridge was quite unhappy with this. Bree found out later that Mr. Weasley had been attacked and was in the hospital, she had no time to dwell on this because she was soon heading home.

Most of Bree's holiday was to be spent at her grandmother's house, but there were a few days for Uncle Vince to teach her and Alice how to shoot a gun. Alice had come back from Arizona for the holidays. Her skin was darker and her hair was lighter from being out in the sun. Even so her parents' employees would make the mistake of calling her "Bree… er, I mean Alice. Sorry."

Bree' s marksmanship was better than Alice's, not by much, but it was still noticeable. Alice hadn't had to call in a new defense teacher and Lisa and Vince were reluctant to give her the same lessons as Bree because they were trying to let Alice develop as an individual instead just existing as a copy of Bree.

After Bree left for her grandmother's, Alice spent a lot of time with Percy, who was staying with Alice's family over the holiday at Lisa's insistence.

Alice was lounging on a couch in her family's media room (which was really more like a miniature movie theater) while Percy paced up and down the room. It was Christmas Day, Alice's parents, Vince and Lisa (though it was hard to think of them as her parents), had left to visit family and planned to be back in a few hours. Alice hadn't been able to go, for obvious reasons.

"I should go see how he's doing." Percy said.

"Then go." Alice replied.

"But he probably won't want to see me." Percy stated.

"Then don't go." Alice said.

"But he is my father. He could have died thinking that I hated him." Percy said. Alice sighed.

"Go get your coat." She ordered. "We're going out."

"Where are we going?" Percy asked.

"Where do you think?" Alice replied.


Alice practically had to drag Percy in St. Mungo's. She went up the help desk to ask where was. She glanced at the floor guide as she waited in line.

ARTEFACT ACCIDENTS… Ground floor Cauldron explosion, wand backfiring, broom crashes, etc.

CREATURE-INDUCED INJURIES… First floor Bites, stings, burns, embedded spines, etc.

MAGICAL BUGS… Second floor Contagious maladies, e.g. dragon pox, vanishing sickness, scrojungulus, etc.

POTION AND PLANT POISONING… Third floor Rashes, regurgitation (uncontrollable), etc.

SPELL DAMAGE… Fourth floor Unliftable jinxes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms, etc.

VISITORS' TEAROOM AND HOSPITAL SHOP… Fifth floor IF YOU ARE UNSURE WHERE TO GO, INCAPABLE OF NORMAL SPEECH OR UNABLE TO REMEMBER WHY YOU ARE HERE, OUR WELCOME WITCH WILL BE PLEASED TO HELP.

"We're here to see Arthur Weasley." Alice told the welcome witch when it was her turn.

"Arthur Weasley?" said the witch, running her finger down a long list in front of her. "Yes, first floor, second door on the right, Dai Llewellyn Ward."

"Thank you." Alice said politely, dragging Percy after her.

When they got to the ward Percy hesitated outside the door.

"What if he doesn't want to see me?"

"Percy-"

"What if he's sleeping? He needs his rest after all."

"Percy. I'm going to the tea room, when you're done visiting your dad come and get me." And with that Alice shoved Percy through the door.

When she got to the tea room she took off the hat and scarf she had been using to hide her face on the off chance that she ran into someone that Bree knew. She ordered a frothy mug of hot chocolate and was sipping on it when Fred, George and their older brother Bill. Fred and George looked surprised but happy to see Alice and they invited themselves and Bill to sit at her table. Alice was mortified.

"Hey Bree!" Greeted George.

"Didn't expect to see you here." Fred stated.

"You remember Bill, right?" George asked.

"Er-well." Alice stuttered.

"We're here to visit dad." Fred explained, not giving Alice time to get a word out.

"We had to get out of there because that git Percy showed up." George said.

"Percy's not-" Alice began to protest, but was once again cut off by Fred. "He said something about how it was Dumbledore's incompetence that got Dad hurt and that really set Mum off."

"So how's your holiday been? I thought you were visiting your grandmother?" George said.

Alice took a sip of her coca before speaking. "Bree is visiting her grandmother. I'm her cousin, Alice. There was an awkward silence. The twins both look horrified and embarrassed while Bill looked amused by the faces his younger brothers were making. Alice just sipped coca and avoided making eye contact with anyone.


Bree was back for New Year 's Eve.

"How was your Christmas?" Alice asked.

"Larry told all the same stories as usual, Fran complained about the food, the decorations, and everything else and there was almost a repeat of the mashed potato incident." Bree answered.

"So, the same last time" Alice summarized.

"Pretty much." Bree replied.