April 14th, 1996. Sunday

Selena stuffed her Transfiguration textbook into her burlap bag, walking down the empty corridor. The messenger bag was bulging with all of the library books she had to return. One of them was surely overdue, which would no doubt earn her a lecture from Madam Pince.

Just as Selena rounded a corner, a hand grabbed her arm, making her gasp.

She pressed a hand against her heart, keeling over. "Anne! You-"

"Sorry," Anne apologized, shrugging, not looking at all apologetic. She looked frazzled, curly red hair gone frizzy, eyes slightly manic.

Selena furrowed her brows, staring up at her cousin. "Have you slept at all?"

"Exams," Anne simply sighed, leaning back against the stone wall behind her. "I think Longbottom is about to have a mental breakdown."

"Ah," Selena said simply. The Fifth Years had been up to their eyeballs in homework for the past month. Wendy was hardly around she was studying so much. O. were coming up, and the fact that Umbridge was presiding over them probably did nothing to help. Selena found herself slightly thankful she was only thirteen and not yet taking advanced exams. She frowned. "Is that all? Why aren't you smiling? Easter break starts tomorrow - no class!"

"And yet mountains of homework to look forward to," Anne said, scratching her head, only mussing her hair further. "I wanted to talk about the... the erm, the ear."

Selena nodded, glancing to either side of them. Not a living person was around, just a pearly ghost floating down near the end of the corridor. Evening sunlight flooded the space, making Anne's pale skin look slightly ghostly itself. Selena fidgeted with her robes. "So, when should we collect it?"

"I don't know," Anne answered. "Umbridge is watching everything so closely now..." She huffed, looking away, glaring down the hall. "Fred has plans."

"Plans?"

"Yeah, more pranks."

Selena laughed a bit, more out of surprise. "Wait, something other than the fireworks? I mean... well, isn't that good? You know, resisting the Ministry and all?"

"He and George are going to get themselves kicked out," Anne said, glancing back at Selena. Her eyes glowed with what Selena figured was both admiration and frustration. "I dunno when they decided to actually go through with it. When he told me, I thought it was just a joke. I was all for it, of course, anything to peeve Umbridge. But they're actually going to do it! He won't tell me what, it's a surprise."

Selena cringed. "Oh no, she's going to skin them alive this time."

Anne waved her hand dismissively. "They'll be fine... I'm just mad, I guess. I want him to stay here until the end of the year. And he didn't even talk to me about it first." She sighed, folding her arms, robes swishing. "I have half a mind to break up with him."

"Do you even like him?" Selena blurted. She clamped her mouth shut when Anne gave her a calculated look. "I mean... er..." A memory surfaced, back the year before during the Second Task, when Harry saved Anne as one of the hostages. How Anne had looked at Harry over Fred's shoulder.

Anne rolled her eyes, relieving some of the stress. "I'm not in love with Harry anymore."

Anymore.

"That was a while ago," Anne said, her face relaxing. "And I do like Fred. Just not when he acts like a..." She scrunched up her mouth, finally sighing.

A bright smile lit upon Selena's lips.

Anne frowned, scanning her warily. "What're you so happy about?"

"Sorry, it's just-" Selena bounced on her toes, "this is the most girl talk we've ever had."

Anne made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, already stepping away. "And that ends this conversation."

"I'm sorry!" Selena called after her. "I won't say it again!"

"Go study or something!" Anne yelled back, hurrying off.

April 20th, 1996. Saturday.

"I don't believe this!"

"What?" Renee asked through a mouthful of porridge.

Selena reread the letter from her family again, making sure it said what she'd thought. "My brother is working at the Ministry! Cody is going to be moving to London in a couple of weeks to begin his new position as part of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"That's one of the biggest offices, isn't it?" Alisson asked, drinking from her goblet.

Selena shook her head in disbelief, folding up the letter and shoving it back into the envelope. Over her mother's beautiful cursive was the red mark that was written on all mail now: INSPECTED AND PASSED BY THE HOGWARTS HIGH INQUISITOR.

"Yes," Selena said, "I think so. B-but he's working for the Ministry of Magic. Under Fudge. Who placed Umbridge here."

"Not all the Ministry is like her, Sel. Besides, that department is headed by Amelia Bones. She's quite the lovely lady, my mum knows her," Elizabeth said, smearing some toast with jam. She had a textbook propped in front of her.

"Wasn't it you who called them the stupid Ministry just the other week?" Selena asked incredulously, arching an eyebrow.

Elizabeth regarded her coolly. "Yeah... Perhaps I spoke too quickly. But there is some hope that not all of them are like Umbridge." She turned a page in her textbook.

Alisson wrinkled her nose at Elizabeth. "Why are you studying? It's break!"

Elizabeth glanced up, taking a bite of her toast, raspberry jam staining her lips red. "Oh, no, this isn't for class. I'm reading about the history of goblins. For fun."

"Who reads for fun?" Alisson muttered, returning to her scrambled eggs. Tess sighed beside her in disappointment.

Footsteps skipped up behind Selena, a familiar giggle meeting her ears. She turned to find Ivy standing behind her, blue eyes glittering. Linking arms with her was a boy wearing a Ravenclaw sweater over his T-shirt.

"Selena, I'd like you to meet my boyfriend, Stewart Ackerley," Ivy said, motioning to the boy. He waved nervously to Selena. "Stewart, this is my big sister, Selena."

"Nice to meet you," Stewart said with a Scottish accent, nodding.

Selena stared at them for a moment before blinking, smiling quickly at Stewart. "Hi. Nice to meet you." She glanced at her sister. "Ivy? Can I speak with you in private for a moment?"

"You can just talk to us both," Ivy said, twining her fingers with Stewart's.

"Yeah, Malast," Anne called from a few seats down the bench, a wickedly amused look on her face. She tilted her head. "I thought you liked girl talk."

Selena shot her cousin the most lethal stare she could. Anne just laughed, turning back to her breakfast. Selena glanced back at Ivy. She took a deep breath. "No offense, Stewart, but how old are you?"

"I-I'm in second year," he answered.

"Right, well, you're young too. Ivy, you're just eleven. Don't you think that's a little young to be dating?"

"No way!"

"Um, does mum know about this?"

"No. What? Are you going to write to her and tattle on me?"

"I'm not a tat- are... are those heels?" Selena looked down to find glossy, two-inch black heels on Ivy's feet. She stared up at her sister, still sitting at the Gryffindor Table, aghast. "Where did you get high heels?"

Ivy sighed, seeming to regret walking over. "They're just shoes, Mum."

"You're eleven, Ivy," Selena said. She looked at her friends to back her up but all of them suddenly seemed very absorbed in their breakfast. Alisson leaned over to read Elizabeth's book. Cowards, Selena thought, turning back to her sister and the girl's boyfriend. "That's too young to date."

Ivy made a big show of rolling her eyes. "Of course you'd say that, seeing as you've never even had a boyfriend."

Selena gasped, Alisson suddenly laughing.

"I'll see you," Ivy said, turning and pulling Stewart along with her, heels clicking against the stone floor of the Great Hall. Selena turned back to her friends, cheeks turning scarlet.

"Thanks for the help, guys."

"I love your sister," Alisson laughed, grinning.

Selena huffed, scrunching up her sweater, waiting for her face to return to its normal color.

"Everyone!" another familiar voice called, Sasha squeezing herself and a boy onto the bench beside Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown. "I'd like to introduce you all to my boyfriend."

"Not again," Selena sighed, Renee hugging her quickly with a chuckle. However, Selena quickly recognized this boy as the one Sasha had been flirting with at the D.A. meeting back in December. A quick glance at Renee and Alisson told her that they recognized him too. Alisson began fixing her long hair, smoothing the brown plaits.

Sasha smiled at the boy. "This is Lennick Prewett."

He smiled at the Gryffindors, grey eyes sweeping over them. Seeing him up close, Selena had to admit that he was handsome. His hair was strawberry blond, shimmering a bit in the morning light shining through the Great Hall windows. Lennick ran a hand through the slight wave in his hair, glancing at Selena. For a moment, she couldn't look away, something about his gaze seeming too perceptive.

She glanced at his emerald-striped cardigan. Maybe it was just a Slytherin thing.

Distractedly, she noticed how tall he was, lean but not without musculature. Sasha placed a hand on his arm, smiling at him again, making Selena glance over at her. "We just wanted to say hi."

Elizabeth was the only one who seemed unfazed. She reached out her hand, practically as pale as Lennick. "Nice to meet you. I'm Elizabeth."

Lennick gave her a warm smile back, shaking her hand. "Nice to meet you, too. I've heard great things about you all."

"Oh boy, what has she said?" Alisson tossed Sasha a look.

"So, how did you two meet?" Tess asked instead, smiling brightly.

Sasha moved a bit, dark curls falling over her shoulder. "I met him through a friend actually. Okay, so, Angelina Johnson knows this girl on the Ravenclaw team. And I used to see Lennick coming to watch at practice."

"I'd been dating Chambers for a few months," Lennick piped up, nodding.

"Right, and we became kinda friends around Hallowe'en. Then in November, he and she broke up. Johnson told me, actually. Chambers wanted to focus on her OWLs."

"It was mutual," Lennick clarified.

"And so we didn't see each other for a while, but then I stumbled across him in the library before Christmas holiday. We got to chatting and decided to meet up to study Potions together. Eventually I invited him to the... well, you know the D.A. meeting. After holiday, we just started hanging out and one day we - um..." Sasha searched for the right words, getting flustered for a moment. "We got to talking and he asked me out to go to Hogsmeade next trip."

Lennick glanced at her, a smile tugging happily at his lips.

"That's really cute," Selena said, grinning. It was sweet to see Sasha so happy. "Sorry about the D.A. meeting, by the way..."

Lennick shrugged, glancing back at her with those piercing eyes. "It's okay. I managed to get away, and my name wasn't on that list. I should be apologizing to you all. Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad gives a bad name to Slytherin."

Alisson muttered something into her goblet that sounded suspiciously like Slytherins manage that name themselves. Elizabeth elbowed her lightly.

That Night

Gryffindor Tower

"Has anyone seen my alphabet cone?" Tess asked, looking around her bed.

Alisson look up from her magazine - Seeker Weekly - with a frown. "What kind of cruel and unusual punishment is that? Something for when you misspell words?"

Elizabeth paused folding her ties to give Alisson a strange look. "It's a type of seashell, Liss."

"Oh." Alisson sighed, reaching out stroke Sierra, who was napping soundly by her ankles. "That's way less interesting. No offense, Tess."

"None taken?" the girl replied, her voice distant as she crawled under her four-poster bed.

Selena sat up from her own bed. She'd been lying down, too awake to go to sleep, but penning a letter to her mother in her mind. A letter that she wouldn't send, because she was no tattler. Her mind kept coming back around to wondering how her sister had found heels. Not that she was jealous or anything... not at all...

"What does the shell look like?" Selena asked.

Tess shimmied out from under the bed, her grey knee-socks and shirt sleeves trailing dust. "It's like a cream-colored cone with a swirl at the top."

Renee paused sorting out her Gobstone collection. "Uh-oh."

Tess raised her eyebrows. "Uh-oh?"

Renee gave a nervous, guilty laugh. "Okay, so Shorty may or may not have eaten that a couple days ago."

"HE WHAT?"

"You fed your bird a shell?" Elizabeth asked, her tone seeming to imply that was a new level, even for Renee.

"I didn't feed him it!" Renee cried. "He escaped, and knocked over Tess' seashell collection. I thought I'd picked them all up, but I'd seen him chewing something later near my trunk before I could catch him." She bristled. "And, anyways, he's my owl. Not just my bird."

Tess leveled a glare at the girl. "Renee Pierce, you owe me a shell. That was from my family trip to Blackpool when I was nine."

"I'm sorry..." Renee replied, her head drooping a bit in shame. Next to her, in his cage, Shorty hooted once.

Tess sighed, standing up. "It's okay."

"How did he even eat the shell?" Alisson asked. Selena glanced at her, Alisson staring at Shorty's cage, her fingers still stroking Sierra's spine. "The shell would be like... like the size of his head."

The dorm was quiet for a moment before Tess laughed. Alisson grinned, Renee tentatively looking up. Selena giggled too, watching as Crescent peeked an eye open. Even Elizabeth laughed.

"I guess it's a weird ending to a rather weird day," Alisson finally said, crossing her legs. "I mean, breakfast was kind of strange. I wasn't expecting Sasha to introduce that guy."

"Lennick," Selena supplied.

Alisson snapped her fingers, pointing at Selena. "Thank you, Sel, that's the one." She gave a laugh. "And did you hear Sasha? We just, uh, we got to talking..." Alisson shook her head. "I believe snogging is the word she was looking for."

"I was wondering," Elizabeth said, "why would Sasha even start dating him? She's graduating in a few months. He's a Fourth Year."

Selena nodded. "True."

"But you can't stop true love," Alisson said in a mockingly sappy voice.

Renee gave her a Cheshire grin. "That's right, Mrs. Wolpert."

The girls exploded into laughter as Alisson sat up, throwing her pillow at Renee in a flash.

"That was two years ago!" she yelled, her cheeks turning dark pink. "Let it go! I didn't even save his valentine this year!"

"Oh really?" Elizabeth drawled. She leaned back, looking at Alisson from behind her glasses. "Then why did I see you put it in your drawer?"

Alisson gaped, her mouth moving silently as she tried to find words. "W-I... Well, I... How... How do you know that?"

Elizabeth grinned. "I didn't. You just told me."

The girls cracked up again. Alisson stayed staring at Elizabeth in surprise. Finally she blinked, shaking her head a little. "I don't know if I'm more furious or impressed."

Selena smiled, all her concerns with Ivy suddenly forgotten.

So, hello!

Hi, how are all you guys?

So, it's been a long time... let's see... I think over six years since I started this story originally, four years since it was deleted and I reuploaded it, and then over three years since I've updated it.

It's been a while. I'm sorry.

But I haven't given up on this story.

It's kind of crazy for me to be typing again, writing this A/N. I had fun writing with all the characters again and getting back into their world! I've missed it.

So, for the past year or two, I've been going back through and editing the chapters. I've been polishing them, though rarely changing the plot, if at all. It helped me get back into things and remeber information about the characters, as well as plot threads! I'm nearly done with all the edits, but yeah, I just wanted to upload this chapter. I'm really excited for it!

Thank you to those of you who have stuck around, and messaged me about the story and offered to read my material. A lot has changed since I began this story, since I last uploaded, and I'm a very different person from who I was then. I've made new friends, had to leave behind old friends, fell more in love with reading again, fell in love with music, went through a lot with God, started going to therapy, and started college. It's been a bit hectic. :) But I'm glad to be back!

Alrighty, I'll go ahead and end this A/N.

Thanks again for everyone who has stuck by this story and clicked on it. I hope I do the characters justice! :D

Bye!

~Loveableheart