AN: Reviews and the such are appreciated!

It was at the end of my first week at Hogwarts when my friends finally asked.

Saf, Bella and I were eating breakfast together as per usual, accompanied by Tessa on this particular day.

"By the way, Daisy, where have you been disappearing to during the evenings this week?" It was Bella who asked gingerly.

Oh I had been dreading this. Not because I didn't want the girls to know, I honestly did want them to know. But I had absolutely no idea how or what to tell them. I'd never really had to explain my skating to anyone before, my parents had made sure to keep every single member of our extended family updated on my skating, and I'd known most of my friends back home since I was a kid. So I had no doubt in my mind this exchange would be incredibly awkward.

"Um I –, I have – " I stuttered out.

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want, we're just curious." Saf assured me.

"No, it's not that," I quickly assured her. "It's just weird." Ugh just spit it out, you dumb bitch. "I'm an athlete, I've been training."

"Oh, you mean like Quidditch?" Saf asked.

"No, no. I grew up around Muggles, so it's a Muggle sport."

All three girls looked at me expectantly.

"Well, what is it then?" Bella asked.

I avoided their eyes. "Uh figure skating."

"Huh, that's like ice skating, right?" Saf asked.

I nodded. "Actually, part of the reason why I never came to Hogwarts was because I didn't want to give up skating, but now Dumbledore provided me with a space to train so." Okay I did not enjoy lying to my friends but when the story came out this perfect, I couldn't help it.

"How long have you been skating?" Bella asked.

"Um almost fourteen years."

Tessa raised her brows. "Wow. That is so... cool."

The other girls nodded along enthusiastically. I smiled.

"So you must be crazy good, then." Saf said.

"I'm alright."

"Well you gotta show us sometime." Tessa said excitedly.

"Oh my god, we can all go skate on the lake one of these days, I fancy myself a pretty good skater, but I'm absolutely sure you'd kick my ass." Saf said.

I laughed.

After a particularly disastrous Potions class, where my cauldron had ended up in a minor explosion, and Black had ended up fuming at my antics, I was most certainly sure I was in trouble when Professor Slughorn asked me to stay behind after class.

"Miss Edwards, are you familiar with the game of Quidditch?" Slughorn asked straight away.

Wait, what? What did that have to do with anything?

"Uh yes, more or less." I'd known the few things Lily had told me, but James had been quite set on me knowing everything about it before I came to Hogwarts, knowledge which had not proven productive so far.

"Well, you see, we've been struggling to find a proper permanent Quidditch commentator this year, and I figured since you're an athlete yourself, you must know a thing or two about sports commentary, and well, I've noticed your classmates seem to find you funny." He looked like it physically pained him to say that last part. "So, I thought you might be interested."

I had a quick debate in my head. On one hand, I was supposed to be lying low, and although I was an athlete, I knew absolutely nothing about sports commentary. But on the other hand, it was a high school game, I doubted they needed stellar commentating, and I, as the most opinionated person I knew, was giddy about the idea of the whole school having to hear my opinions and not being able to do anything about it. "Sure, I'll do it."

"Very well then, I will let you know when we can do a trial run. Due to past incidents, all commentators must be approved by the Deputy Headmistress first."

"Okay."

On Sunday, Saf got her wish of all five of us skating together.

"Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod, I'm going to die. Daisy, don't let go of me." Nat crushed my fingers, her legs stiff in her skates, trying to plant herself in the ice.

It was an odd experience for me seeing her like this. Usually Natalliya was poised and her presence imposing, I'd never seen her so much as trip, but right now she couldn't do as much as skate one centimetre forward without falling. It humanised her.

"I'm not gonna let go, Nat. But you need to relax a little or you're going to bring us both down." I said coolly.

The rest of the girls were proficient enough skaters to enjoy themselves, the only one apart from Nat who had never skated before was Tessa, but she had taken to it way quicker and easier than Nat.

"Nat, let go of Daisy, we want to see her skate properly!" Tessa shouted over at Nat.

Saf came up from behind Nat and I. "Come on, Nat, let Daisy skate for a little bit." Saf offered her hand.

Nat seemed upset. "But Dais is the professional one, I trust her way more than any of you bitches."

Saf rolled her eyes. "Stop whining, come on."

Nat was then taken away by Saf. And I was left alone. I skated towards the rest of the girls.

"Come on, Dais, we want to see you do the cool stuff." Tessa encouraged.

I laughed. "I don't want to run you guys over though."

"We'll stay out of your way, promise."

I sighed. This was happening then. I skated away from the girls, picking up the pace slowly. I did a few spins for their amusement, but when I heard their loud cheers I figured I could do at least a few jumps.

Not gonna lie, landing a good jump perfectly and hearing your friends freaking out in supporting cheers at the same time was pretty exhilarating. I couldn't help the wide grin on my face as I skated back towards the girls, who were still in a cheering frenzy. I was bombarded with 'that was so cool's and 'you were amazing's.

The one who seemed the most in shock was Nat. Bella tried to hold her back from giving me a hug, but Nat could not be stopped, and yep, we all went down. All five of us. There were a few grunts of pain but it quickly turned into a laughing fest.

Nat was the only one still gaping at me. "But –, I – I just don't understand. How does one just – do that?" Nat gestured with her hands.

I shrugged. "Practice."

"Come on, Nat, just accept that we have the coolest friend ever." Tessa gave Nat a little shove.

We got off the ice pretty quickly, as it was pretty cold.

As we took off our skates, Saf turned to me and said, "Daisy Edwards, you are officially the coolest person I have ever befriended."

I smiled and looked down. It seemed like now was as good time as any. "You guys can call me Rainbow, by the way. It's what my family and friends call me."

The girls all turned to look at me.

"Okay." Saf agreed. "Can I ask where it comes from?"

"Uh when my mum was pregnant with me she and my dad decided to name me Iris and my older sister, who was three at the time, asked them what it meant and they told her Iris was the goddess of the rainbow, so my sister got fixated on Rainbow being a better name than Iris, but my parents thought Rainbow was a bit too hippie. But when I was born, for some reason my mum ended up naming me Daisy, but my sister insisted on calling me Rainbow only, saying that it fit me better, and well my whole family sort of gave in and ended up calling me Rainbow. I actually didn't know my name was Daisy until I was like six." I explained.

Saf smiled. "I like it."

Regulus Black hated my guts. I knew it pretty much since the very first Potions class when I first sat next to him. I wasn't sure if it was because of my blood status, my personality, or my incompetence in Potions, but I had a growing suspicion it was a combination of all three. Luckily for me, we hadn't had any pairs assignments yet. Until today.

So far, my interactions with Regulus had been limited to almost zero, we pretty much ignored each other, but I knew he was one of the most skilled students in the class, which made me unbelievably nervous about working with him.

"Listen, I know that you are unbelievably terrible at potions, so how about you let me handle this, and you just sit there and hand me ingredients when I ask." Regulus wasted no time in giving me his condescending monologue.

"Okay, I realise that I suck at this, but I came here to learn, so I would appreciate it if we could view this as a team effort." I could tell Regulus wanted to curse me.

Regulus didn't reply. He only scoffed at me and started grabbing ingredients in silence.

I analysed the book page for the potion we were making, seeing if any of Lily's annotations could help me seem like I knew what I was doing. I stopped Regulus just as he was about to attempt cutting the manticore root in half. "I think if you crush it instead of cutting it, you can get way more juice."

Regulus's eyes narrowed. "You've literally blown up more than half the potions you've made this semester."

Well, he had a point. "I know, but logically, if you crush the root instead of cutting it, it's far easier. But okay, you don't have to do it if you don't want to, I was just saying."

With a roll of his dark eyes, he sighed and did as I suggested. And it worked! I let out a tiny smile.

"Oh my god, Bow, can you help me?" A freaked out Nat turned to me from her seat right in front of Regulus and I. Bella was nowhere to be found. Regulus frowned at the nickname. "I literally just lost my wand and Bella's in the loo, and we need to charm our potion right now or it's going to be ruined. Can you please, please help me?" Nat spoke a mile a minute.

My heart started racing so bad I felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. I knew this would happen eventually, I would be put on the spot to perform magic and everyone would find out my secret. Well I lasted almost two weeks.

I took out my wand and pointed it at Nat's and Bella's cauldron. I knew Regulus could tell I was flustered as he stared at me with a hint of curiosity. I stared at the girls' cauldron as if that would make my non-existent magic work. So this was it then. Well, it was good while it lasted.

Suddenly, the dark liquid inside the copper cauldron started bubbling and turned a soft lilac colour. What the actual fuck. I looked at Regulus out of the corner of my eye. His wand was out beneath the table. Had he?

"Oh thank you so much, Bow. You saved our bums. I owe you one." Nat sighed with relief.

Why had Regulus done that? I was afraid to look at him, in case he had any questions as to why I hadn't been able to perform a simple piece of magic. I hoped he just thought I was that stupid.

Regulus and I didn't speak for the rest of the class, and as soon as Slughorn dismissed us, I bolted out of the classroom.

By the time dinner came around my mind was still on one Regulus Black. Would he figure out I was a Muggle? If he did, what would be do? Would he curse me? Would he try to kill me?

But most importantly, would he figure it out? I knew he was smart, he was quite good at both the classes I shared with him, but although being a Muggle was technically an explanation for me not doing the spell, I doubted that would be the first conclusion a wizard would jump to. Right?

I mean, he had no other reason to believe I didn't have magic. After all, I was an official Hogwarts student, and I owned a wand, and not a single Muggle has attended Hogwarts in over a thousand years. So out of all the logical explanations Regulus could come up with, me being a Muggle would be pretty far down the list. Yes, yes, of course it would.

Actually now that I think about it, I doubted he would ponder on my little Potions incident enough to come to the outlandish conclusion that I was a Muggle. I bet he barely cared about it. He would probably even forget about it in a few days. Huh. Yes, I've probably been worried over absolutely nothing.

" — we should do for the assignment, Bow? Bow? Rainbow?"

Bella's voice brought me out of my trance. What was she talking about again?

"I'm sorry. What were we talking about?" I asked my friends.

Bella gave me a funny look as she took a bite out of her chicken. "The Music class assignment."

"Oh, right! I have a little something I think we can work with. I'll show you later in the dorm."

Bella smiled. "Great!"

"What were you thinking about just now?" Saf brought up.

I looked down to my almost untouched plate. "Nothing, just uh, what do you guys know about Regulus Black?"

The girls shared a look.

"Oh I didn't know you — I guess he's kind of cute." Saf said straight up.

My eyes widened. "Oh no, it's not like that — "

"No, I get it, he's handsome, though not as much as his brother, I just didn't think you'd go for a blood purist."

"No, I don't fancy him. I just want to know, is he really," I lowered my voice, "a Death Eater?"

Saf and Bella shared a look again.

After a brief moment of thought Bella spoke up. "Um I actually don't really know. He's not very vocal about his views. I guess most people just assume because he's a Black and a Slytherin and he is friends with actual blood purists that he is one too. But I guess he's never really done anything to confirm it."

Huh.

"Honestly, I feel like the fact that he associates with and condones the actions of the confirmed You-Know-Who supporters is pretty damning in itself. So I prefer to stay away from him." Saf explained.

She had a point.

Bella looked at me curiously. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh it's just something he did during Potions. It wasn't anything bad, but it just got me thinking." I told them the truth for once.

"Well, what I can tell you is that it's not worth it going down that road. Boy has issues." Saf shared her last thoughts on the matter.

On this day I was proud to say that I had gotten my very first detention.

I knew what I tried to do was kind of stupid and there was a 76% chance that I would get caught, but after getting away with it the first time, I had definitely pushed my luck way too much. To be honest, I did think two weeks' detention was a bit much, especially with Filch.

So my sister was now scolding me through our magic mirrors. Her freckled face all scrunched up.

"Lily! Come on, it's not that deep. Everyone's gotten caught out after curfew, it happens to the best of us!" I tried to cool my sister down.

"Oh but you did not just get caught out after curfew. You also tried to fool Filch into thinking you were actually allowed to be out."

I tried to hold back a tiny grin to not make Lily angrier.

Half of James's face suddenly pushed against Lily's in the frame. "Bow, I just wanna say that I am so proud of you. I have taught you well, young one."

Lily pushed James out of the frame. "Don't encourage her!"

"I would just like to say that it's not my fault that Filch got confused with the days of the week." I tried to defend myself a little.

"Oh but he didn't 'get confused', you tricked him into thinking it was actually a different day." She had a point.

"Sirius is gonna freak when I tell him. That was so good, Bow." James said in-between laughs.

I ignored him. "Well what was I supposed to do when he caught me? Just let him punish me?"

"You shouldn't have been out in the first place, Rainbow!" Oooh she called me Rainbow, that meant business.

I shrugged. "You know I need my midnight snacks sometimes, and since James told me how to get into the kitchens, I just figured."

Lily's mouth opened in shock and disbelief. I could see her glaring at a spot above the frame, probably her boyfriend. "Well, just get something before curfew and eat it when you get hungry next time."

"Okay, but if I want something more substantial? I can't just take a bowl of soup up to my room."

Lily exhaled sharply. "Just don't go out after curfew again. You're lucky Dumbledore's still going to let you train late three days a week."

I was out past curfew again.

It was one of my allotted days, but midnight was quickly approaching. Professor Vablatsky had kept me late today. She seemed peeved at my limited ability to channel my inner eye through Seer mediums, but she still said she believed I was a Seer, just not a regular one.

On this particular day I had failed spectacularly at tarot cards. I was somehow supposed to tell Vablatsky her future by randomly shuffling a few cards and letting my inner eye pick. But my inner eye had taken a vacation at this particular time. I could tell Vablatsky was a little disappointed, but she assured me all Seers were different, and channeled their abilities differently. So next time we would be trying crystal balls, which I honestly found the most comical of all Seer paraphernalia.

"Hey!" A voice called after me on the somber corridor. I stopped in my tracks. "Oh, it's you."

It was Regulus Black. I hadn't talked to him since my little incident at Potions a few days ago.

"It is me. Do you need to see my permit again?"

"No." He gave me a curious look. Please don't ask me about the Potions thing, please don't ask me about the Potions thing. He looked me up and down. "Are you ever going to tell me what you need to stay out past curfew for?"

Thank god. A barely there smile etched onto my face. "Nope."