Okay so yes, despite promising an early update, we were late again. This was totally my fault but I did kind of change jobs and shifts in the last couple of weeks so I feel that it's a pretty good excuse.

Big love to the mighty Tenzo51 without whom this story wouldn't have even happened, let alone be anywhere near as good as it is.

This chapter's reading recommendation for you lovely people is ...

Holly O'Hair's Fanfiction Diary by thefanshipdarkhorse.

Don't judge me. I can feel you judging me, stop it! I stand by my affection for shows about cute girls doing cute things and Ever After High, although highly flawed, had great potential in this regard. It makes for some very cool, yuri fanfiction too.

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I'm not JKR and I don't make any money from this. Which is a bit of a shame.

DtR xx.

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The Excellent Adventure of a Wolf, a Loony and a Very Bored Heroine.

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10. Coming home For Christmas.

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After the excitement of quidditch, Halloween and rampaging trolls, life at Hogwarts settled down, once more to something of a dull routine for staff and students alike. Although there was a marked shift in attitude from the previous wary respect for a talented and intelligent witch to a kind of awestruck horror at the fact that she had killed a troll to save them all from bloody death. Somewhat brutally it had to be said, but she had still saved them. She may have been previously celebrated for something she had no say in or control over, but now Shelley was being lauded for her own achievements.

Finally.

Her highly embarrassed friends had also shared in the lime-light, which had pleased Shelley greatly for some unknown reason, but usually downplayed their own roles to better keep to the background. As most eleven-year-olds tended to. Most eleven-year-olds who weren't Shelley Potter, that is. Her ego was enormous and she most definitely enjoyed the feeding and stroking that it received all throughout the rest of the term.

Professor Aurora Sinistra was particularly guilty in this regard when they turned up at her tower each week-end but she just couldn't seem to help herself around her sweet (but definitely not so innocent), little, first year visitors.

Shelley and Artemis had been joined in their Saturday night games of chase and the subsequent Sunday morning breakfasts with professor Sinistra by Hannah and Luna. Much to the delight of the Astronomy teacher who thought that they were two of the cutest girls that she had ever met. Admittedly deciphering Luna's strange speech patterns was rather hard work but it was definitely worth it just to see how under her thumb Shelley Potter was.

She may have the arrogance and attitude of someone more than twice her age but it gave the teacher a huge amount of pleasure to see the girl-who-lived crumble before the peculiar, little blonde. The stern admonishments, the subtle touches and longing looks, the pouts when either of them didn't get things their own way, Aurora saw them all and struggled to contain her sniggers when she did. It was like the two girls were already married in a lot of ways.

Not that they were alone in their clueless and oblivious bliss. Hannah and Artemis were just as bad. And sometimes actually worse if that were at all possible. Professor Sinistra was just glad that she got to witness it as they were never this open around any of the other staff, even Pomona Sprout, as their Head of House wasn't granted her status as 'cool Auntie Aurora', and so missed out on a lot of their more adorable moments.

The girls had begun to look forward to these breakfasts almost as much as their professor did, all four of them seeing her as a much cooler and funnier version of their House Head. She was also really good at giving advice. For instance, when Hannah admitted that she was saddened by the distance that seemed to be growing between her and her previous best friend, Auntie Aurora had been the one to calm her down. The four of them had listened with rapt attention while the experienced, older woman talked them through the perils and pitfalls of friends, best friends and even girl-friends. Even Shelley was spell-bound by her and after this discussion none of them ever missed another one of their Sundays together.

Of course, sometimes they were more eventful than others.

They were joined on one of these morning breakfasts by a half asleep Nymphadora Tonks clad only in a too short T-shirt that revealed rather more of her than anyone wanted to see while they were eating. The sudden silence that this sight generated was so complete that it finally managed to alert the sleepy seventh year to the fact that something was very wrong this morning.

There seemed to be a lot more bodies in the tower than she was used to seeing. Next to her lover were the four faces of some of her more terrifying house-mates, their angelic smiles turning extremely devious as they realised what she and their teacher had been up to last night. And this morning to be fair. Twice.

"Oh, bugger me."

Luna's retort that they were more than happy to leave that to their professor had the smirking girls snorting and coughing in helpless laughter. A laughter which the two older witches eventually joined in thus, once again demonstrating their 'coolness' to their younger counterparts.

If the good natured, but merciless, ribbing of Nymphadora Tonks and her teacher 'girlfriend' couldn't quite be described as bullying, what the Slytherins attempted in mid to late November certainly could be.

Marcus Flint and Adrian Montague, not having been around to see the troll incident, had very unwisely decided to exact some vengeance on the Hufflepuff chasers for their humiliating quidditch defeat. They were targeting Shelley's House and the younger students within it in particular and the 'girl-who-lived' was never going to let them get away with it for very long. She organised a couple of 'posses' of roving Badgers all armed and ready to retaliate at the slightest provocation, along with some of their more innocent looking House-mates as the 'bait'.

Needless to say, it did not go well for the two bullying Snakes when they set off one of her traps and they landed themselves right back in the infirmary again in very short order. By the time they were released from Madame Pomfrey's, admittedly rather rough, care the two of them were conspicuous in their absence from all situations where they might meet any of the yellow robed monsters who had put them there.

They were a cautionary tale for all who tried to belittle the members of Hufflepuff House and their growing list of achievements. As opposed to a certain mentally unstable blonde witch who was widely regarded as being one of the most visible success stories of their stratospheric rise from obscurity.

Luna's test results were utterly spectacular.

Of course, they were always going to be pretty good, what with her own studies which she had been doing for the last two years and the tuition that she had been receiving from Shelley. When combined with her extreme motivation to join her coven mates, it made the end of term exams an absolute breeze for her. There was not a single mark below Outstanding for Luna Lovegood and she cemented her place at the school with a great deal of style.

Not that she was alone in this.

For the first time in Hogwarts long and illustrious history, the House of the Badgers had actually out performed every other House in a series of statutory testing. The Ravenclaws were not best pleased about this state of affairs but, along with everyone else in the castle, wisely decided to keep their mouths firmly shut on the matter.

They all knew who was responsible for the up-turn in Hufflepuff's academic performance and not one of them wanted to upset the four little monsters who had blown up a fricking mountain troll. Their reputation had soared as both insanely dangerous for killing the beast and stupidly brave and honourable for their damsel rescuing antics.

As he 'rescued' party, Hermione Granger had also found her treatment at the hands of her peers had improved significantly. It appeared that the majority of the school now widely believed that she was 'favoured' by the Hufflepuff Hooligans and the bushy haired, bookworm was experiencing a welcomed lift in her own reputation. People still didn't want to hang out with the annoying, little swot, mind you, they just stopped being outright mean to her and left her the hell alone so as not to incur the wrath of the frightening Badger firsties.

And it was this point that was worrying the staff. These four, deceptively sweet, eleven-year-old girls now effectively ruled Hogwarts.

Potter and Amarok were the iron fist, Abbott was the velvet glove and Lovegood was ... well ... Lovegood. ie. As mad as a box of frogs. Their combined awesome level of strength, intelligence, adorability and total insanity meant that absolutely no-one but the most un-perceptive or mentally slow stepped up to challenge them.

The infirmary was, therefore, mostly inhabited by upper year Gryffindors along with a few of the less cunning, more inbred Slytherins for the latter part of the term.

The entire teaching staff breathed a sigh of relief when it was noticed that the whole group was headed home to spend the Yuletide break with their respective families. The lack of Hufflepuff names on the list of those staying at the castle for the Christmas festivities was a very welcome holiday bonus indeed, for them.

Well there was one name on the list, Pomona Sprout noticed, but she wasn't very concerned about having to see that much of her.

Nymphadora Tonks was staying but she didn't exactly plan on spending much time in the dorms. Or out of a certain Astronomy professor's very comfortable bed for that matter.

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The train ride home was a lot of fun for Shelley. Mainly because she was being left alone to do exactly what she loved to do best; Thinking ... and plotting ... and planning. Which was just as well really since there was a lot of that to do with all she had learned in her first term. Only some of which was related to educational matters.

At least her understanding of what was happening with the useless DADA professor and all around idiot Quirinus Quirrell had been resolved. Once she had gathered the data of what set off her headaches in his classroom, because seriously there was nothing better to do there, she had sat down in the library and begun to research what might be beneath that terrible turban.

It had taken her two weeks after his, highly suspicious, fainting at the troll incident to find out.

It had been ridiculously easy to gain a pass for the restricted section of Hogwarts Library. Shelley simply went up to the Head Boy, a seventh year Ravenclaw, told him that she needed the pass for her research and then stared at him until he started sweating profusely and gave it to her. Then there was no stopping her.

She could (and had) owl order a lot of it, but there was still some gold buried in there. Gold that revealed a great deal about spirit possession and even hinted about how the man who had tried to kill her could have managed to survive his own rebounding killing curse. Hinted but didn't give any specifics which was just guaranteed to wind Shelley up. Worse still it wasn't like she could go searching for books on Dark possession or soul magics without the high probability of ending up being flagged by the authorities as some kind of Dark Lady in the making.

Even the Wizarding government couldn't be so incompetent as to ignore what their people were reading. Actually, they probably were that negligent and incompetent but she wasn't quite prepared to risk finding out for definite just yet. Not until she was powerful enough to simply not give a damn whether they knew or not.

Still, this information, although not one hundred percent complete, was still a good deal up on what she had known previously which was pretty close to nothing. At least now, Shelley knew that her DADA professor was being possessed by something or someone really Dark and that whatever it was had some kind of connection to her scar.

It didn't take much of a mental leap to get to the name of Voldemort. Even some of her mentally challenged minions might have been able to come up with that conclusion when presented with the available evidence. And if they could then it was damn sure a fact that that weird old Gandalf dude who ran the school could. Shelley was starting to smell a set up here. And a very, very stinky one at that. The old man quite clearly wanted her to run this magical obstacle course of his and the only reason that she could of why was so that she would end up having to confront Quirrell at the end of it.

No more stuttering great twat messing up her learning opportunities in Defence seemed like an excellent prize for figuring out whatever puzzles lay behind the three headed dog that guarded the trap door. And of course, she knew about that. That idiot ginger Gryffindor was just so loud. Even when he really, really shouldn't be. The moron had gifted her the first piece of the jigsaw and she was supremely confident in her ability to breeze through the rest of them, whatever they were.

And then Quirinus Quirrell would be gone.

Awesome.

It seemed like a bit of a win-win situation to her, the only downside being not knowing the headmaster's motives behind it all. She decided that she should take the benefits of a world without Quirrell and not worry about the old man or the time being. There was plenty of time for that, after all.

Shelley was roused from her thoughts as they pulled into Kings Cross.

Artemis had been watching her friend muttering her way through whatever mental gymnastics she was engaged with for a good few hours and was pleased enough to spend her time doing so. It seemed to keep the insanely brilliant girl amused, well that and stroking Luna's hair, and consequently putting the younger girl into a coma of happiness, while she thought her deep thoughts. As long as she was at peace, Artemis was happy.

She was especially happy to ensure this because of the simple fact that she was even here and able to do so. If Shelley hadn't invited her to stay over the holidays she would have been stuck at the castle with the other losers. But as it was her BFF had proved her worth once more and manipulated her relatives into sending Artemis an offer to spend the Christmas break with them. It might not be as good as spending it with her own family but she would definitely take it over hanging out with only her teachers for company for a fortnight.

Plus. she got to meet the people responsible for the amazing, colourful, collection of awesomeness that was Shelley Potter. They weren't quite what she expected. Not that she really knew what to expect but it certainly wasn't these jolly and emotional people who greeted her strange friend with such enthusiasm. Artemis was her best friend and even she would admit that Shelley could be a bit ... cold. How she could have turned out that way with the obvious outpouring of love that she was constantly subjected to by her family was a mystery to her.

It was incredibly weird to watch. Fascinating, but weird.

"Shell-Bell!"

The big man scooped her up and whirled his little princess around few times grinning like a fool before placing her into his wife's arms for a crushing hug. To Artemis' total astonishment she accepted all of this without complaint and even reciprocated to some small extent.

"Hello daddy, Aunt Tunie." She then turned to her smirking cousin. "Alright Dudders."

"Welcome home cuz, missed you."

He pulled her into a tight hug.

"Really?"

"Life's a bit boring without you around to threaten and intimidate me."

Shelley seemed to accept this as a perfectly valid reason for his overly emotional display, much to his relief, and punched him in the arm with the appropriate lack of real force or venom. Vernon smiled indulgently at his much prized children before turning to their even more prized guest for the holidays.

"And this must be the amazing Miss Amarok. For all that you've done for Shell-Bell, you are truly welcome among us, my dear."

By the time the odd group had reached their car and been strapped safely in, the true wolf had been pulled into no less than three hugs herself and lauded as the reason for their little girl's amazing, newly found state of bliss. She was confused though, since she thought that Shelley was being even more staid and stand-offish than usual. As she had previously noted, however, Shelley and her family were just really weird together. Fascinating and rather fun, but weird.

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The first thing the girls did on reaching number four Privet Drive was to run upstairs to unpack and change into something much more comfortable and this meant entering Shelley's bedroom. Artemis looked at the pink door with it's 'Daddy's Little Princess' nameplate and tried very hard not to laugh out loud. Her amusement did not go un-noticed and she found herself the victim of a vicious tickle attack that drove the pair of witches through the door and into a veritable palace of pink, girly, fluffiness.

It only exacerbated her problems trying not to giggle and her mental best friend re-doubled her assault upon the white wolf. There was a brief respite when Dudley arrived, puffing with their luggage and shuffling his feet about nervously on the threshold, but he was soon pulled in as well and the mayhem continued.

The thumping, banging and muffled squealing coming from upstairs drifted down into the kitchen, causing a little chuckle to escape from Vernon Dursley's mouth. How he had missed hearing that sort of noise around the house.

The sort of noise that mean only one thing.

His little Shell-Bell was home.

And in good humour too if her quiet, restrained, laughter was anything to go by. Vernon couldn't remember the last time that his precious 'princess' had expressed her feelings with an actual, honest to goodness laugh. His satisfaction at this welcome situation shone through his beaming smile and the energy with which he scooped his wife up into his strong arms to give her a very unexpected Christmas kiss.

"Oh Vernon."

It was only when they reached the top of the stairs that Petunia realised where he was taking her. And, more importantly, why. Not that she wasn't pleased and excited by his sudden, amorous intentions, it was just that they had a house full of inquisitive kids and she really didn't want to have to give them 'the talk' just yet.

"No Vernon, what if the children hear."

"What over that racket? You're jesting my love, surely."

And as he kicked the door to their bedroom open like a hero from one of her more trashy romance novels, threw her on the bed and growled seductively while ripping of his shirt, Petunia found that she really didn't care that much anymore. She was even prepared to talk to Shelley about sex (and that was an absolutely terrifying prospect for anyone) if it meant that she was going to get some loving from her big, virile silverback, Vernon.

"What's going on Shell?"

A slightly nervous Dudley approached his scary cousin and her friend both carefully and quietly as they listened intently at his parents' closed bedroom door. He very soon wished that he hadn't as Shelley said in a very matter of fact manner that he was only too familiar with.

"Daddy Vernon and Aunt Tunie are having sex Dudley."

"Oh my God."

Dudley swallowed the bile that rose sudden and swift to his mouth and ran for the bathroom while the two girls sniggered and high fived each other. He knew that he was going to be lucky to survive this fortnight with his health and his sanity still intact. There were two of them to contend with now.

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On the twenty fourth of December, the Dursley household went into full on Christmas spirit mode. It started with a special breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup, in honour of their guest, followed by a full, traditional, Christmas dinner and then finally ... presents. The true wolf was utterly gob-smacked at her gift from Shelley and the Dursleys and it's thoughtfulness took her breath away.

"Merry Christmas Arte'."

"What is it?"

"It's a two way portkey to Anchorage and back. I managed to .. er ... persuade the Ministry to let me have it. For a fee of course."

The present that the wolf and her fellow Hufflepuff firsties had clubbed together for now seemed very, very inadequate. Not that Shelley had seemed to think so as she had peeled off the bright, cheery wrapping paper earlier and opened the tall, cylindrical box to reveal a brand, spanking, new top hat. Her face was a picture of delight that had, likewise, delighted everyone else in the room.

"That's why we're doing our Dursley celebrations today, Arte'. So that we can spend Christmas and Boxing Days with your family."

"Wait. Did you say we?"

As much as Artemis Amarok loved spending time with her strange, brilliant friend, she wasn't sure how Shelley's rather unique personality and blunt nature were going to go down with the Royal Pack. Not that she could do anything about it now after the way that she had been made to feel so welcome and so well looked after here. She just hoped that her own family would be as sweet and patient with her BFF when the girl inevitably said something to piss them off.

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As they stepped out onto the wide lawns of Arte's home, Shelley Potter decided that, despite her annoying tendency to save damsels in distress, she could have done a lot worse in the way of best friends than her current companion. This place was absolutely amazing. The house looked like it had grown out of the Earth but was filled to capacity with all sorts of cool technology. There were labs and gaming rooms next to greenhouses and softly funished sun-rooms.

It was science and nature co-existing in absolute harmony. She loved it.

Being somewhere that it actually snowed enough over Christmas for Shelley to construct a proper snowman for the first time ever was pretty cool too. Even if she was being constantly interrupted in said construction by a parade of extremely shy, but extremely inquisitive, young true wolves.

They were an interesting bunch, Arte's family, and Shelley was just itching to get some interaction time with them so that she could study the differences between her friend and the rest of her pack. Annoyingly, however, they seemed quite wary of her. With a sigh she realised that she was just going to have to be patient and let the skittish and clearly pre-warned wolves come to her before she could conduct any experiments on them.

Unfortunately for them, Shelley Potter didn't really do patient. She had kind of got the hang of enticing nervous people closer through fun though.

Pulling her wand from her hair the black haired witch made a sweeping motion with it, muttered a few words and suddenly one snowman became five. Five snowmen who then were sprouting arms and legs and wearing a variety of different hats. A stetson, a builders hard hat, a bikers cap, a policeman's helmet and an indian head-dress. Artemis' ipod that Shelley had borrowed provided the soundtrack and her bashful audience were treated to a very wintry and festive rendition of YMCA.

As she had planned they simply couldn't help themselves and soon that part of the snow covered, lawn was alive with small true wolves all dancing their hearts out to the Village People led by the very strange witch that their pack princess had brought home with her. She may be a human and all kinds of odd, but they had to admit that she was a lot of fun. Well they would have admitted it had they not been so swept up in the whirlwind of her mayhem.

The Amarok and her little family stood in the large, picture window that faced the lawns where this insanity was occurring and shook her head in both amusement and wonder. The way this girl took to her pack, and them to her, was as incredible as it was unbelievable. The wizarding folk that she had come across in the past were never this free and outgoing with, what they considered, creatures. But then, Artemis had told her Shelley was quite ... er ... different.

"Your friend's not all there is she?" There was a slight pause before. "I approve."

Her grand-daughter's happy nod and beaming smile in response was all that she needed to see. It had clearly been a wise decision to send Artemis to Hogwarts. The powerful connections that she was making there would only strengthen the position of her kin across the World if their princess was seen to be so close to this heroine of the magicals. No matter how strange she was.

Artemis herself, wasn't thinking in those terms, she was just happy that her family seemed to like Shelley as much as she did if their reactions were anything to go by.

Her mum had that tight expression on her face which, when in conjunction with the slightly turned head and the shaking shoulders, meant that she was close to repressed but actual hysterics. Her dad had no such problems with repression and was literally howling out his laughter at the dancing lunatic and her new furry fan club who had now moved on from the Village People to Michael Jackson.

Of course, she would choose Thriller. And of course, that was the moment that the rest of the Royal Pack chose to join them. She buried her face in her hands to stifle the snorts and giggles as the elders growled and huffed for a while before slowly starting to chuckle as their cubs 'were-wolfed it up' with Shelley and her snowmen.

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Christmas dinner with the Royal Pack of the true wolves was an interesting affair. Not that they believed in Christmas, or Christ for that matter, but like the majority of beings on Earth they had adopted the holiday for their own purposes. Even so, it was pretty traditional fayre, with the turkey and all of the trimmings. They did have discussions of rather more import than usually occurred at the Dursley's table, mind you.

"It's important that you remain among the wizards for now Artemis. Tensions have been rising and we'll have need of the connections that you're making there."

"What's going on grandma?"

"Well some silly human girl went and got herself involved with a vampire clan in some hick town in Washington State."

"Why would that lead to tension between the wolves and the wizards?"

Roald continued the story, explaining how this idiotic, supernatural loving, fan-girl had somehow managed to involve the local shifter, wolf pack in an epic struggle between some powerful vampires. Blood had been shed on both sides and flags had been raised within the Statute of Secrecy Enforcement Department of the US Magical Congress.

It was a horrible, bloody mess.

Artemis got it. She needed to be careful. Diplomatic and careful. Glancing over at her gloriously quirky friend who was now trouncing one of the elders at chess and gloating about it, despite the danger of a true wolf's temper being let loose, and thought that diplomatic was probably a bit out of her reach. Especially with the company she kept in the wizarding world.

The Christmas present from her pack would certainly help with the careful though.

The polished mahogany, briefcase sized box was velvet lined and contained a pair of flat black Glock seventeen pistols, along with a professional cleaning kit and several boxes of ammunition. Artemis grinned widely at their lethal beauty and stroked the cold metal with a loving touch.

So cool.

Artemis slipped the pistols out of the box, tested the weight in her hands and then began to twirl them around on her trigger fingers. Faster and faster they moved in complex patterns before the grips slapped into her palms and the twin barrels pointed unerringly at an imaginary target on the wall. Well away from any of the other people/wolves in the room. Some lessons you never forgot.

The woman with the umbrella eyes watched approvingly as her daughter got good and familiar with her Christmas present, while not forgetting the first rule of handling guns. Never point it at somebody you're not prepared to kill. Ever since she had heard about this magically resistant troll that Artemis and her friends had fought at school, Alice had been determined on giving her this gift.

Okay, so her insanely brilliant, new witch friend had blown the damned beast to bits with her enormous magical power (which she had been only too glad to demonstrate for the awestruck pack) but Shelley might not always be around. Her precious little girl would not be left undefended if her magic failed to help them and she was somewhere that she could not safely transform. Hence the guns.

The Glocks were perfectly suited to Artemis, small enough for her young hands and to be easily concealed while at the same time being powerful enough to do some serious damage to any desired target. They were actually a great deal alike in that, her daughter and her new weapons. Small but deadly.

"Those look dangerous." Shelley qualified her statement so as not to be thought of as a wuss amonst the watching pack. "Fun, but dangerous."

It was an important qualification to make. Power and strength was everything to these proud creatures and she had to demonstrate hers to them. That she felt the need to prove herself worthy of Artemis' friendship was as much of a surprise to her as to everyone else.

The acclaimed physicist, Doctor Sheldon Cooper, (after whom she had always hoped that she had been named, even if it was chronologically improbable) had always said that; When it came to the business of success in science, friends were a distraction. And distractions didn't win you Nobel prizes.

She looked affectionately at her ... best friend ... all excited in her enthusiasm for the firearms that she handled in an exceptionally professional manner and couldn't help but smile. Yeah, the sainted Doctor Cooper could kiss her arse. Having friends like this was awesome. Just think of all the trouble they could get into and out of with these kinds of tools to supplement their magic.

"Don't they just? I don't know whether the bullets will penetrate a magical shield, mind you, but we could always ..." Artemis smirked knowingly at her BFF. " ... experiment."

The adults in the room were rather taken aback at the fire that was instantly lit in the eyes of their small, British visitor and chuckled to themselves as their giggling pack princess allowed herself to be dragged towards the door.

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The procession that the princess of the true wolves was leading through the dense forest, ten minutes later, was strange to say the least.

The witch, the white wolf, half a dozen animated snowmen and pack of at least ten young, true wolves all skipping along to Artemis' choice of music as they wound their merry way into the woods. On reaching a suitable clearing, Shelley set up the snowmen, moved a large fallen tree trunk to a position behind and to the side of her friend for the spectators and began to cast shields on the snowy targets.

Soon the distinctive crack, crack, crack of rapid pistol fire drifted back up to the adults at the mansion and proud smiles appeared on the faces of most of them. Princess Artemis clearly loved her Christmas present.

Their testing went on and on. It went on so long, in fact, that one of their eager little fan club members had to be sent back to the manor house for more bullets only to disappear. Instead of him, a slightly grumpy Roald Amarok was the one to arrive and chase them all back to the house in the deepening gloom. He was most amused by the conversation that his daughter and her mad friend were having on the way back though.

"So it went alright with some of the weaker ones you cast, but how do we get the bullets through a strong shield?"

"Oh, that's easy, my young padawan. Runes and Arithmancy."

"How are we going to carve runes on bullets? I mean, I'm no expert on ballistics but wouldn't that screw up the flight and accuracy a bit?"

"And therein lies the fun part Arte'. We need to figure it out first, applying mathematics and arithmancy to the rune-crafting process and then some extensive testing to get the best results ... which means?"

"Experiments."

"Bet your ass it does."

Artemis stopped in her tracks and stared at Shelley in confusion and not a little horror before asking as politely as she possibly could.

"What the hell was that?"

"Oh, I was trying out my American accent with one of your colloquialisms."

"Yeah ... so don't do that again please."

But her friend wasn't listening. She was off in her own little world again, probably thinking of ways to make nine millimeter bullets explode like grenades when they hit their target.

Shelley's green eyes glittered and a wide, dreamy smile spread across her face at the thought of all the in depth research she was going to have to do to make this work. What with this and her hat to enchant it looked like the Philosopher's Stone and the possessed professor were going to have to wait until after the Easter break now. This project definitely trumped dealing with the idiot Quirrell. They might even get to use Arte's new toys on him. Now wouldn't that be fun.

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After an awesome couple of days in Alaska, the girls headed back to Surrey and a pre-planned evening rendezvous with some more of their friends. An evening that would be making much use of pillows, popcorn, trashy movies and loud music. It was looking to be truly fantastic night spent with her best friends, introducing them all to some of her more obscure and risque Yuri anime series. Until somebody opened their big mouth without thinking that is.

She might be incredibly sweet and fun most of the time, but honestly, sometimes Luna was just a bloody liability.

"Doesn't Captain Cavegirl live in Surrey? I think that I heard something about that in one of her rants about how the Hogwarts Library should invest in florescent lighting like her local one in ... I want to say ... Crawley?"

"Where's that?"

Unfortunately, her Aunt Petunia, being heavily involved in the planning of this spectacular event was in the room and in a position to excitedly provide the answer.

"Oh, it's only about ten miles down the road. Did you want to invite another one of your friends to your sleepover Shelley darling?"

Shelley tried to explain that Hermione Granger was very definitely not her friend and that she really didn't want the girl within a hundred miles of her but ten would suffice for now, but no-one was listening by this point. Stunned at having been rail-roaded into the acceptance of a guest who she really didn't want here, Shelley wondered how it had happened. Then she saw the evil smirk on Luna's serenely smiling face and she knew.

Seriously, that girl was an absolute menace.

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Shelley's quite substantial bedroom was seeming a lot smaller later that evening. But then six pre-teen witches and all of their multifarious sleeping aids (mainly teddy bears and stuffed unicorns) did tend to fill the place up a bit.

Susan was here because Hannah was still feeling a bit bad about pulling away from her best friend and also the fact that the blonde had told her mother that she was staying at Bones Manor tonight. And definitely not hanging out with a bunch of muggles and were ...sorry ... true wolves. Even if she wasn't feeling guilty it would still have been incredibly rude to floo to Susan's home, use her as an excuse and then go on to the party without her. Hannah Abbott was the archetypical Hufflepuff in some respects and being rude to her friends was simply not in her nature.

Hermione Granger was here because Luna had somehow manipulated everybody into thinking that her dull and preachy presence was a good idea. Although to be fair to her, Captain Cavegirl had been mercifully quiet this evening, preferring to gaze in wonder at Shelley's small but exotic library.

Shelley rolled her eyes and huffed at the little bookworm's distinctly non party-like behaviour. Despite the fact that she would have been doing almost the exact same thing herself tonight if she felt that she could get away with it. There may have been a touch of frustration and envy that fuelled her exasperation with the quiet girl at her being able to do what she liked without interference. Just a touch.

She glared.

Then she grimaced slightly as she felt another, altogether different, type of touch on her shoulder. To be honest it was more of a punch than a touch and, being that it came from Luna's small fist, it was rather a painful one too.

"Be nice."

"I'm being nice."

"No, you're not, you're being a grump, now suck it up, paint a smile on your face and at least pretend that you actually want her here."

"Don't see why I have to."

"Because if you do this then I'll let you play with my boobies like those 'yandere' girls in your cartoons."

"Okay first; They are not cartoons, they're anime. And second; You're eleven, you don't have any boobies."

"A-ha! So, you do admit to wanting to play with them." Luna gripped Shelley's raised finger that had just been poking her in her hand as she crowed in her perceived triumph before looking thoughtful and continuing. "When I'm older and actually have some, obviously."

It seemed that their argument had escalated in both it's potency and it's volume to the point of having attracted the attention of the entire room.

"Anyway, Shelley's more of a 'tsundere' than a 'yandere'."

At Artemis' interjection the argument shifted from it's original source about Shelley's behaviour towards her guests and onto the much more interesting subject of her obviously 'yuri' and even lesbionic inclinations. And then on to who would be the top and who would be the bottom between her and Luna. Not all of the girls in the room understood all of what was being said or suggested but they did understand that the objective was making fun of their hostess so they joined in with great enthusiasm.

Inevitably this led to someone being hit with a pillow at some point after the phrase 'baby-dyke' was used once too often. And then it was on. Soon enough the pink walls of the crowded bedroom were all but obscured with the sheer amount of tiny, white feathers floating about in the air.

When things had calmed down somewhat and Shelley's Aunt had finally come in and called 'time' on their evening's mayhem, the six tired girls sorted themselves out and hit their respective beds. Hermione Granger lay on her back, stared at the luminous stars on the ceiling and thought about how much fun she had managed to have with these excitable lunatics.

It was pretty clear that Shelley herself still wasn't particularly enamoured of her and, to be honest, that feeling was mutual. She found the girl-who-lived to be more than a bit of a bitch. Okay, she was unbelievably intelligent (Hermione would grudgingly admit more so than her) but she was arrogant in the extreme and all around obnoxious in her clearly and oft stated belief that she was always right.

And then seeing her tonight, having fun with her friends Hermione had seen a different side of Shelley Potter. A softer, sweeter side. I mean, you really had to pay attention to see it, but it was there. Somewhere. She hoped.

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Reviews are our cookies and you wouldn't want us starve now would you. Seriously though the feedback would be very helpful on this one guys so do let us know how we're doing with it, and I promise that I will try and answer all of your questions. Of which I am sure there will be many.

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DtR xx.