Lal woke up to a slightly bony body snuggled up against her. It took her a moment to figure out who it was, before she sighed and merely wrapped her arm around Luna.

In the span of a month and a half after the removal of Lockhart, and the poor girl was already being bullied.

Oddly enough, the dorms this year seemed to have split off and given Lal her own room. Apparently the first year was to get them used to being away from home, before it split up and gave them individual rooms that they had to then customize in order to show their ability to use magic properly. It was a system set up by a rather frugal head of Ravenclaw who didn't approve of how much gold was being spent by students on frivolous things, like curtains.

As it forced the students to actually work in order to have lavish rooms, the system stayed in place.

Lal's room was slightly sparse, as she had no need for a fancy room. However what little she did decorate with had solid enchantments and didn't come apart like the other girls. The second month back she had spent and entire week helping them with their charm work so that their rooms at least looked a little pretty.

Fortunately Flitwick was fine with Luna sharing her dorm, so long as her grades were kept up. A quick summoning charm proved the story that she was being bullied by the other girls, as they came flying from the dorms of the third and fourth years, which Luna had no access to.

Though by this point, the fact Luna was directly under the protection of "Lilac Potter" had become known so the worst of the bullying stopped. She didn't move back into her old bed however.

And so Lal had gotten used to the willowy blond using her as a teddy bear at night. She didn't mind it overly much...she missed Luna.

Two weeks later...

Ginny went down like a sack of bricks, though Lal was nice enough to use a cushioning charm on the floor immediately after stunning her.

With expert ease she stabbed the dagger she had coated with Nidhogg's venom into the diary, making sure to muffle the sound of the screaming, before calmly carrying the girl on her back straight to the hospital wing.

"Madam Pomphrey? I think Ginny might be an early bloomer because I found her in one of the lesser used restrooms freaking out over some blood," said Lal with a straight face. "She refused to calm down, so I had to stun her."

Madam Pomphrey took the girl off of Lal's back, and hit her with a diagnostic charm.

"What on earth? Ms. Potter, was Ms Weasley carrying anything...unusual?"

Lal produced the diary. She had stabbed it between the pages, so the damage wasn't immediately visible. However it looked quite filthy from the blood and ink that had come from the hole she had made with the dagger.

The nurse looked quite dismayed to see the condition.

"Thank you for bringing her in. I will be sure to alert her elder brothers about this, if only to avoid the teasing," said Madam Pomphrey.

Her job done, Lal went back to Ravenclaw tower.

It was strange, ending another school year without a 'life or death' mystery hanging over her head. Once again, Ravenclaw dominated the point spread, which made Flitwick happy.

She had already signed up for Runes and Care, which were the only two she actually liked (no way was she signing up for Divination twice).

She had the feeling that she would be 'volunteering' to act as Hagrid's teaching aid for the year, since she was far more well versed in magical creatures than half the class and he desperately needed someone to keep him from going overboard.

Case in point, those damn Blast-Ended Skrewts. She would happily aim an owl in Newt Scamander's direction in hopes of temporarily luring the Mythozoologist back to Hogwarts to help show off his magical creatures if it meant avoiding those awful things.

Odds are he would be all for it, since Hagrid loved the 'misunderstood' creatures as much as that man did.

Lal sighed and relaxed into her seat, a happy Luna sitting next to her.

"So what are your plans for the summer?" asked Luna dreamily.

"Same as last year, summer camp. The one I go to allows people to go until they're fourteen, unless they sign up to act as counselors. Most don't, since it means they have to babysit kids who have never been away from home much and by that time they're more interested in dating," said Lal.

Hermione looked at Lal with concern.

"Your family seems rather...quick...to send you off."

"It's an unspoken agreement between us. They ship me off to places I can agree with that wouldn't look out of place for 'normal' kids, and in exchange they can pretend I don't exist. I get to enjoy more freedom than most, do something I actually enjoy that's mildly productive, and they can pretend that their 'freak' of a niece was never dropped on their doorstep in the middle of fall like milk bottles without even asking if they wanted to raise me," said Lal dismissively.

Hermione was clearly appalled by how dismissive she was being. It was clear there was no love lost between Lal and her family.

As the train reached the station, Lal made a beeline for her uncle. After a short trip to Gringotts, once again dumping her trunk in her vault so that she didn't have to deal with it (this time she completed her summer homework before boarding the train...it took her all of an hour), she was promptly given tickets and sent off on a plane the next morning.

It felt good to be as far away from magic as possible.

Two days later...

Lal was rather happy that Vernon was more than willing to ship her off to the same summer camp just to be rid of her for several months. He seemed to rather enjoy their arrangement, since it meant she spent months away from his nice normal home, and he could honestly claim she was doing something normal that had nothing to do with magic if asked by the neighbors.

By this time most of their neighbors had figured out that the Dursleys wanted nothing to do with their niece, and were more than happy to toss her into boarding schools and out-of-country summer camps to spend as little time around her as humanly possible while still providing for her.

Petunia had even been so kind as to agree to sign her Hogsmeade slip, and the copy so that she could visit the village.

Though in reality Lal was planning to expliot a little known loophole in the system.

Namely the fact that nothing said they had to stay at Hogsmeade. So long as she was back by dinner, no one would be able to claim she wasn't at the village instead of somewhere far more interesting, like London.

The Knight Bus was a headache to ride, but more than worth the fact they would pick up stranded witches and wizards anywhere for a fee and take them someplace else within a minute or two.

"Hello beautiful!" said Cole cheerfully.

Lal blushed. She wished the blond didn't remind her so much of Colonello. It was almost painful to be around him sometimes.

At least she wasn't likely to see him after this year. The camp was only for fourteen and under, and Colonello was a year and nine months older than she was.

It was rather nice, being a normal girl for once. A pity Luna couldn't come, she was sure the blond would have had a lot of fun here.

And then Cole did something that threw her off.

"You did what?"

"I signed up to act as counselor next year," he repeated cheerfully. "This camp turned out to be way more fun than I thought it would be!"

The glint in his eyes said otherwise. He had signed up for her. It was strangely touching, but fortunately hormones had yet to make an appearance so she didn't embarrass herself.

Sadly that didn't last the entire camp. Lal woke up one morning and groaned in dismay when she realized she was experiencing cramps.

God, how she hated puberty. It wasn't bad enough she had to go through it twice (the second time being when the pacifier around her neck fell off without any warning), but a third time was really too much.

It took all of twenty minutes to be given a brief, if highly embarrassing talk, enough supplies to last her until the end of camp so long as she managed it properly, and she was sent on her way.

(She was mortified when she found out they had called her aunt to alert her of the fact she had started her first period. It was not going to be fun shopping for supplies before school, because it meant they had to spend actual time together.)

Cole, oddly enough, picked up on the fact she had just started the time of month every woman hated the second he saw her.

She said nothing when he discreetly slipped her a few chocolate bars.

"How did you know?"

"I am literally one of ten guys who hasn't married into the family, and I have a ton of female relatives. Trust me, you pick up on 'that time of the month' pretty damn fast in that environment and how to deal with it," grimaced Cole.

Lal stared at him.

"How many female relatives?"

"I have thirty cousins, seven aunts of varying degrees of relation, a mom and two sisters and I'm the oldest of the three. I happen to be attending school with my older cousin, and I often get roped as her chaperon for family reasons," he replied. "What about you?"

"Only child, have one close cousin and too many distant cousins for me to bother counting, and my aunt and uncle are more than happy to ship me off to foreign countries for months on end so that we can pretend the other party doesn't exist," deadpanned Lal. "My parents died before I was two."

Cole took it as a good sign that she relaxed while talking about her family.

"So you're not French? I couldn't tell because you barely have an accent."

"I'm British, unfortunately," said Lal. "Personally I plan to move to Italy and join the military there the first chance I get when I turn seventeen."

Cole's eyes perked up.

"You speak Italian?" he asked hopefully.

"I know most of the Latin-based languages," she replied in flawless Italian, to his delight.

The rest of her summer was spent speaking solely in Italian with him, which really made his day.

It was nice to speak a language she had spent most of her life using, rather than English. Most people thought it was her first language, oddly enough.

All too soon the summer camp came to an end and they had to part ways. However Cole was bolstered by the fact she planned to come again next year.

Lal took one look at "Aunt Marge" and was happy about the arrangement she made with Petunia.

In other words, Petunia sighed the permission slip, and Lal discreetly went to London for the duration of Aunt Marge's visit after the first day.

Petunia felt no small amount of dark satisfaction when, after Marge went after Lal and made some snide comments about how the younger girl was going to be 'single forever' after spending so much time in the Academy, the older woman backed down.

Lal discreetly set Nidhogg, who could change sizes apparently, after Ripper. She actually liked dogs, but that mutt was a complete menance and Marge refused to keep him restrained. She still vividly remembered Ripper's father chasing her up that damn tree and forcing her to spend four hours up it the first time.

Even if she avoided it this time by simply being in the academy.

The morning before she left, she heard the sweet sound of Marge having a heart attack from finding her 'beloved pet' dead in his sleep.

With any luck that obese bitch would croak alongside the dog and she would never have to deal with her again.

From the look in Petunia's eyes, she wasn't alone in hoping for that particular outcome.

It was as she was about to summon the Knight Bus that she saw it. A massive black dog that was all too familiar.

She was actually rather prepared for this outcome, which was why she had a collar and leash in her pocket.

Lal hid a smirk...she was going to prank the hell out of Sirius and enjoy it. The old Marauder would likely get a laugh, once he got over the shock anyway.

It was all too easy coaxing the 'stray' over to her, and to put the collar around his neck. What Sirius didn't know was that it was specially enchanted to prevent him from turning back.

This year was going to be fun.