Yes, I know. It's been a while and what can I say? Real life and quite frankly; Worst. Winter. Ever. Still, I finally seem to have shaken off the blues that have mentally crippled me and we can all put it behind us and get going with my stories again.

Quick content note, anything denoted with the symbol '~' is a mental conversation. And I do mean mental.

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 ...

well, not a reading recommendation but a viewing one. Some of the more cultured and educated among you will notice that in this chapter I have borrowed rather heavily from an awesome anime called YuruYuri. Specifically, season 1 episode 5. I urge you all to watch it. It is an experience not to be missed.

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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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12. Reflections on a Good Year.

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The end of the school year had rolled around faster than anyone had believed and for the first time in living history Hufflepuff had dominated both in academic and sporting prowess. The reason for this was, of course, the fact that Shelley Potter had been sorted into that House and, much to Albus Dumbledore's displeasure, had turned out to be neither downtrodden nor unintelligent nor humble.

He had kept a close eye on her since his first (and only) meetings with the 'girl-who-lived' making sure that he reveiwed all of her work in all of her subjects to gauge just how much of a problem she was going to be to his plans. She was probably the finest student that had ever trod the halls and passageways of the ancient castle, including her own mother and the exceptional wizard that had been Tom Riddle. Albus had quickly decided that he would have to alter his plans considerably to accomodate ths disturbing fact.

Not that he had done so at first, relying on her being excited at the all new (to her) magical world and being too busy with her friends and such like any normal girl of eleven going on twelve. Shelley Potter, however, was anything but a normal girl. And, it appeared that she was not to be distracted from her self apppointed mission to rid his school of useless and incompetent teachers.

After finding poor Quirinus Quirrell's bullet ridden body in the 'mirror room' on his return from the Easter break, Albus had decided that he really needed to sort out the rest of, what Miss Potter saw as, his less acceptable staffing appointments before she took them in hand as well. As such, he had finally managed to persuade dear old Cuthbert Binns to make this his last term as a professor and move to the next great adventure and was currently interviewing for the position. Which was a boon in some respects as he would now be able to fill the post with one of his many loyal supporters.

Potions and Severus Snape was really his main concern. Because of his enforced loyalty via oath and probable future position as a spy when Tom returned, the man was simply too useful to let go of. He therefore, reluctantly accepted that he had to allow Minerva, as his Deputy Head, to monitor and regulate the dour professor's teaching methods, punishments and behaviour as she should have been doing in the first place. The old cat had given a predatory grin when he had given her the news and set right to work.

That had gone down like a lead baloon with the man himself, of course. A situation that had only been made worse when Hufflepuff swept the board at the end of year feast.

First through third year had seemed to have a complete reversal in usual results of the end of year exams with the little 'Puffs claiming the top five places in all subjects. Even the upper years had done substantially better than anticipated, having clearly adopted some of Miss Potters study habits even if they hadn't sat in on many of her 'lessons'. Black and yellow banners adorned the great Hall and Hufflepuff were crowned the undisputed rulers of Hogwarts, topping the test results table, winners of the House cup and, most gallingly of all for many, the quidditch cup as well.

Unfortunately he couldn't even say that they didn't deserve it.

Diggory was an absolute superstar seeker and as for their chasers, they were just ... well, ruthless and brutal were the two words that immediately sprang to his mind. Even against the trio of 'nice' young witches that made up the Gryfiindor chaser line, they hadn't let up for an instant. Being about on a par with his old House team in terms of skill in all areas except the seeker, the flying Badgers had used the tactics of disruption and intimidation efficiently and to full effect. It quickly became a humiliating rout for poor old Oliver Wood and his team.

The strange thing was that, no matter how disappointed or upset they were about the situation, there were nothing but congratulations offered by any of the members of any of the other three Houses about their acheivements. Not a single niggle or cross word made it's way to the victorious Badgers. It was unexpected and odd. Well, until one actually listened to the rumours (which Albus was fully prepared to believe) about what happened to those who went up against Hufflepuffs in general and their de-facto Queen, Miss Potter, and her little gang of hooligans in particular. Their retribution was known to be swift and terrible.

Shelley Potter herself, still confused him. She was nothing like he had expected her to be. She was brilliant, confident and in her general school life as in her quidditch play, she was cunning, ruthless and sometimes even a little cruel.

Oh, not in regard to anyone weaker or nicer or less intelligent than her, which seemed to be practically everyone. In fact, she was something of a philanthropist in that regard, much like her mother, protecting or tutoring all those who wanted or needed her help without hesitation, no matter their blood status, reputation or House. No, it was the ones who habitually preyed upon the smaller, weaker or nicer that she set her incredible mind to destroying.

Not that he had a problem with her dealing with the perrenial problem of bullying that had plagued his, and every other, school since time immemorial, it was just her methods that concerned him. Where he had always tried to guide and reform these misguided individuals with understanding and kindness and second chances, Miss Potter was more of a 'stick than carrot' kind of a girl, apparently. Her first and only response to bullies was always violence, swift and merciless and ... yes, even cruel.

Cruelty was a trait that he associated with Dark wizards in general and Tom Riddle in particular and this was a big problem for Albus. Especially since it appeared to become more pronounced in the weeks after she and her little gang of miscreants had completed his test and disposed of poor professor Quirrell and his ... guest ... in such an un-necessarily violent manner. He was going to have to be very careful about how he dealt with her and how he allowed others to do so as well.

Thank Merlin she was going to be out of the country for a good few weeks of the summer. He badly needed a rest.

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One person who wasn't about to rest in her labours was Shelley Potter.

The fact that she now had a piece of Voldemort's soul that had been somehow previously buried in her head and now awakened by the the other piece in her hat, would have left most normal people scared and broken. As her headmaster had recognised, however, Shelley was not 'normal' and she had quickly decided to take maximum advantage of it. Talented and experienced Dark wizards didn't get caught in your brain every day, she had reasoned, and to not utilise this positive gold mine of information was simply not practical.

So, once 'persuaded', the Toms had become her reluctant tutors in everything from recent, magical history to parsel magic and the Dark Arts and Shelley Potter's magical training took another giant leap forward. They also had an absolute ton of useful information about the people currently in power and who she could and couldn't trust or manipulate to her own advantage at a later date.

Aware that this wonderful probably wouldn't last forever, due to him being a (reasonably) intelligent Dark Lord and him probably working out how to get out of his mental prison eventually, she worked as hard as possible to learn everything that she could. Even her supreme iron will was broken, however, when the middle of July came.

The second week of the summer holidays, the Dursleys had swept up their children and jetted off across the ocean to a surprise vacation in the place of their youngest's dreams, Japan. They were somewhat aware that her dreams had been fuelled by those comics she read and cartoons she watched now and again and thought that she was probably in for a bit of a disappointment when confronted with the reality but they just couldn't deny her.

It wasn't as if money were an issue as Vernon's job at Grunnings, while being awfully dull, did pay rather well and a three week trip to the Far East for his perfect, little family was well within their means. A week in South Korea for Dudders who had become quite obsessed with both Taekwondo and the emerging K-Pop scene, going as far as to have his scary cousin help him learn the basics of the language, then a week in Japan for Shelley and finishing up with a fortnight in Thailand for everyone to relax on the beautiful beaches there.

The first portion of their break had certainly been interesting for Shelley as she had got to test out her skills as a language teacher as well as picking a little of it up herself. Also, Dudley was right to be obsessed with K-Pop as some of the female idols were absolutely gorgeous. They knew how to sing too, however, no matter how lovely and talented these young ladies were she wasn't here in the land of the rising sun for them. As beautiful and as interesting as South Korea was, Japan was calling her.

Making her way through through Tokyo airport, Shelley did a very cute (but very mad) little dance and let out a highly out of character squeal of delight. She was finally here, in the promised land of Shoujo ai and Yuri.

She had dropped enough hints, mind you so it wasn't a total surprise.

What it was, however, was totally wonderful.

The next day, Shelley stood outside one of the numerous, anonymous convention centres in the Seitetsu District of Tokyo staring up at the huge sign with shining eyes. There was no disappointment or disillusionment over the bland choice of venue for this young lady. Oh no. In fact, Shelley Potter could not be more excited than she was right now. She was bouncing lightly up and down on her feet for the entire forty minutes that it took for the small family to move through the queue to the ticket booths and main entrance.

National Comuket.

"Really princess, this is all you wanted to come to Japan for?"

The positively wounded look on Shelley's face at his insinuation that this was anything other than the most important thing that was happening in the entire world this week had Vernon back-tracking like a madman.

"I mean, obviously if you think it's that important then it must be sweetie but wasn't there anything else that you wanted to do while we're here? ... after we've had our fill of this great ... er ... amine (?) convention, that is."

"I suppose we could go for a trip to Mount Fuji ... and visit the ... Grand Shrine at Ise ... ooh, and see the Minamiza Theatre in Kyoto ... but first before all of that ... it's yuri time! Yay!

"Y ... yay?"

"Yay!"

Shelley scowled at her family and repeated her battle cry more forcefully this time, puncuating it by thrusting her fist into the air. Knowing that their small relative could become extremely unpleasant if she didn't get her way, the Dursleys took her point and joined in with a great deal more enthusiasm that seemed to appease her for now.

"Yay!"

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Shelley was stood in front of a table containing four rather pretty local girls in their mid-teens all dressed up in cosplay outfits, two as magical girls, one in a sexy sailor uniform and the last as a kind of huge rubber ball with eyes. The most interesting thing to her, however, was the colourful Magical Girl, Mirakurun books that they were selling. Employing her well honed technique of being nice to people in order to get what she wanted from them, Shelley gave her most polite, disarming smile and bowed.

"Hajimemashite. Shelley Potter desu."

The pretty, green eyed, foreign girl in the colourful outfit and absolutely amazing hat introduced herself with perfect formality in only very slightly accented Japanese. It prompted a round of equally polite and formal greetings from the surprised young group.

"Dozo yoroshiku, Potter san. Funami Yui desu." (Pleased to meet you, Miss Potter. My name is Yui Funami.)

"Dozo yoroshiku, Potter san. Ikeda Chitose desu." (Pleased to meet you, Miss Potter. My name is Chitose Ikeda.)

"Dozo yoroshiku, Potter san. Sigiura Ayano desu." (Pleased to meet you, Miss Potter. My name is Ayano Sigiura.)

"Kyoko desu!"

The blonde girl's arm shot into the air and she grinned manically at Shelley.

"Oy!"

Yui, in the sailor suit, whacked the blonde magical girl on the back of the head and the purple haired magical girl shouted 'Toshino Kyoko!' with a look of outrage at her extreme lack of manners. Although there was something like a look of embarrassed attraction that crossed her face when the girl turned and pouted prettily at her. This action caused their last member, Chitose, to remove her glasses and bleed heavily from her nose.

My word, they were a lot of fun.

Shelley gave an honest to goodness giggle. She was very much enjoying the comedic interplay between the young women as it reminded her very much of another group of fun but slightly insane girls at home. The giggling turned to wonder, however, as she began to read the doujinshi that they were trying to sell. There was more subtext than actual yuri content but it was still a very exciting and very enjoyable read.

Of course, she would have been enjoying it much more if a certain couple of pieces of a dark Lord didn't insist on interrupting by chattering in her brain.

~Why are we doing this again Tom?~

~Search me Tom~

~You know, considering that you've lived her head for over ten years, you don't seem to have much insight into Potter's thought proceses.~

~Well what can I tell you Tom? The girl's just that bloody weird.~

~Yeah, no shit Sherlock. What the bloody hell is a Comuket anyway?~

~Oh Toms, you're going to love it ... or not ... I dont really care. The point is that we're doing it anyway, so just shut up and let me read this will you.~

~What's it about then?~

Horcrux Tom was rather intrigued with whatever piece of literature had managed to keep his strange hostess from her usual frenetic mental gymnastics and wanted to know more. So much so that he was willing to tempt both fate and the young Potter's wrath.

~Well, from what I've been able to read so far ... ~ There was a hint of reprimand at being interrupted in her voice. ~ ... this is about a magical school girl, Mirakurun, who saves the world from an evil sorceress, but she doesn't really kill her outright and the evil witch, Rivalrun, keeps coming back and causing her trouble.~

Having explained the general synopsis, Shelley proceeded to provide a handkerchief to the girl with the nosebleed who had now shed her 'rubber ball' outfit to avoid getting it dirty. Chitose was pretty and polite and smelled rather nice so Shelley decided to sit on her lap so that she could read properly and in more comfort before making her decision on whether to buy the book. In her head, there was another very pregnant silence for a good few minutes while shade spirit Tom digested the details of this story before he couldn't hold in his unexpected interest in it any longer.

~Er ... Potter?~

~Hmmmm?~

~That story sounds rather ... familiar ... if you don't mind me saying so.~

~If you're referring to our situation Tom, then yes, there are some similarities but there also seem to be quite a few important differences. The biggest one being that this Dark witch actually managed to keep a tight hold of her body ... unlike you.~

The silence was much more sullen and lasted a lot longer this time.

Shelley took maximum advantage of this deveopment by leaning back against her comfy human cushion and continuing to read in peace.

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Artemis was aware that she was being extremely unsociable this lunch-time but she did have the excuse that her phone hadn't stopped buzzing for a good twenty minutes. There had been a great deal of grumbling among certain members of the pack about the amount of time their treasured princess spent glued to her iphone but the Amarok's clear approval of her being able to keep in touch with her funny (and influential) friends kept most of it at a manageable level.

The reason for all of this telephonic activity was the obviously over-excited Shelley Potter and her insistence on sending pictures of her vacation every few minutes that she was awake. Then there were the discussions on the pictures that Hannah and Luna liked to have after Shelley was asleep and the continuous stream of images had stopped for the day. It was very time consuming and positively exhausting. Even to Artemis who, like her friends, was a.) in possession off an iphone and b.) actually shared her friend's interest in the serious art forms of manga and doujinshi. Well, the Yuri variety anyway.

She did manage to get in some other activities though. Like chasing her young cousins, who were all delighted to have her home, through the forest and the occaisional bit of target practice which were garnering quite the audience now.

While all of her family and the Royal Pack (especially her mum, Alice) had been most interested and impressed with the results of her rune enhaced bullets, Artemis was still not convinced that they were enough. She still loved her Glocks, since they were a present from her original pack, an expression of love and a symbol of their desire to protect her but she knew that she needed to go up in both caliber and stopping power.

Admittedly they were excellent against human targets, she was still rather in awe of the damage that professor Quirrell/Voldemort had sustained when she had let fly with them but what about the future? Having spent the last ten months learning as much as she could about the magical world as well as what it meant to be a witch, she now knew of other creatures. Giants, dragons, griffons, chimerae to name but a few and all of them were far larger and far tougher than 'puny humans' as one of her favourite comic-book heros called them. She was also aware that being friends with the strange and brilliant Shelley Potter she was almost guaranteed to come up against them sooner or later.

It was this thinking that led Artemis to send her insanely smart best friend a text that inadvertantly interrupted her reading at a certain doujinshi convention.

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Hey ShellBell,

So, I've been thinking that we need to up the ante with my guns and add to our armory with something a bit ... er ... bigger. It'd be cool to have more room on the bigger bullets for more runes and even put different tips for different threats. Just think of the fun we could have experimenting with that.

Check out the Hellboy comics to see what I'm thinking of ...

There was some furious tapping as she deleted this last part, shuddering slightly at what kind of nuclear reaction in a handgun that Shelley would produce if pointed in that particular direction and left to her own devices. Instead Artemis found a picture of an old 'Dirty Harry' style, Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum and inserted that into her message instead. It seemed safer.

I'm thinking of something like this but with a larger caliber. Why don't we brainstorm when we get together on the train.

Arte. Xoxoxo.

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In less than a minute her phone buzzed and the reply to her text caused her to wince slightly.

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OMFG. We are so doing that.

S.

;)

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Oh dear. Artemis had the sudden, irrational feeling that she had just made a very big mistake.

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The quiet girl, Chitose, now relieved of her rubber ball costume, was staring at two her arguing friends and seemed to be caught up in some sort of erotic daydream involving them that had resulted in her bleeding rather heavily from her nose. Shelley, being a helpful sort of a girl and not wanting to see her pass out from blood loss, possibly getting all these wonderful doujinshi dirty, moved to offer her assistance. A type of assistance that was obviuous to her but quite shocking to everyone who happened to be watching this little drama unfold.

She was also in an excellent mood after being gifted the promise of a firearms based project that would involve extensive experimentation. So Shelley decided to excercise all of that research she had done into 'human relations' last term, turned in Chitose's lap and kissed her. And despite her lack of experience in the art she found herself to be rather good at it. This was certainly the case if the cute little noises that her impromptu partner was now making while moving her lips against Shelleys were anything to go by, anyway.

~What's she doing now, for Merlin's sake?~

~She can hear us you know Tom so why don't you just ask her that?~

~I know, it's just that I'm ... er ... well ...~

~You're scared of her, you big poof.~

~Well duh, of course I'm scared of her, she's bloody mental ... also I don't think that it's very wise to be using derogatory terms for homosexuals since, considering what she's getting up to at the moment, it appears that she is one and all.~

~Wise? I'll have you now that I am the absolute epitome of wisdom, why when I was conducting my great pureblood revolution I ... ~

~Ran scared of a senile old coot with arthritis and a Gandalf complex? Got yourself beaten by an infant? Got caught and imprisoned in a hat ornament by a bunch of pre-teen school girls?~

~You dare to question my greatness you useless, little ... ~

~Will you two pack it in, I'm trying to conduct an ... er ... important experiment here and you're ruining the moment.~

~Oh, an experiment. Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays.~

The phenomenally powerful psychic crucio that followed the imprisoned shade spirit's sniggering and extremely unwise attempt at humour resulted in untold, excruciating pain for both pieces of Tom Riddle currently residing in Shelley's head. It was a recently learned skill for her and, as with all other magic that she attempted, it came to the 'girl-who-lived' with ridiculous ease. Also, as usual, she was rather good at it.

~I ... t ... told you we sh ... shouldn't have t ... taught her t ... that Tom.~

~L ... like we had a bl ... bloody ch ... choice in the m ... matter.~

All of this mental activity would have just made Shelley look even more deranged to her new Japanese acquaintances if she hadn't still been locked in her intimate embrace with their friend and was hidden from their view.

It was only later, when the crazy foreigner had left, after giving Kyoko her contact information and a downpayment on a commision for a special manga about her friends and her, that they realised that Chitose still wasn't speaking. The overly polite, sweet, white haired girl was in a state of stunned shock with a glazed look on her face. She was also sighing and drooling quite a lot. Still, at least her nosebleeds seemed to have stopped.

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The Grange was a reasonably sized manor house in one of the more rural parts of Somerset and the ancestral seat of the Abbott family. They were an old pureblood, old money, minor noble family with aspirations to continue their advance up the slippery pole of ambition in the status obsessed Magical society. It was because of these aspirations and ambitions that Sir Greville and Lady Euphemia Abbott had been pleased with their only daughter's connection to the 'girl-who-lived'. It was the same reason that they were not quite so pleased with her association with the rumoured werewolf, Artemis Amarok.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the Potter girl and the wolf were a package deal, being fellow chasers and best friends, so if they wanted the social boost of their heiress being friends with Shelley, they had to take her 'pet' as well. Although this did affect their standing with the more traditional and Dark families, it actually made them more acceptable in the eyes of the Light side and brought them firmly into postition as one of the leading Houses in the Neutral faction.

This made them treat their daughter with a great deal more affection than had previously been the case, leaving Hannah, who had been practcally raised by their put upon house elf, Mindy, more than a little bemused. She had never had so many dinners with her parents and, used to being left alone to find her own entertainment, was rather sufocating under the new 'caring' regime.

When Hannah Abbott finally managed to get herself free of the cloying attentions of her well meaning but now suddenly, over clingy parents she all but sprinted to her bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time. The reason for her hurry was that the time for her pre-arranged daily call with Arte' was fast approaching and she needed to retrieve her phone from its super secret hiding place under her bed.

After the now usual few minutes of 'I miss you so much' and without the intellectual influence (if sometimes tangentially so) of Shelley or the insane influence of Luna, the conversation between the two quickly slipped into the pattern of school girls everywhere. They spent a good hour and a half discussing the minutiae of the everyday lives of themselves, their friends and families before switching to the exasperating but interesting subject of the pictures of her trip to the Far East that Shelley had been bombarding them with for the last couple of weeks. Not that either of them minded. Their friend and fellow Hooligan had an odd style of photographic composition but it did make for some highly entertaining shots.

Also, Shelley's large cousin Dudley had rather bravely sent Artemis a video of her performing karaoke with four Japanese girls that she had met in Tokyo. That she was taking it very seriously just made it all the funnier and the white wolf had immediately shared it with everyone in her address book. Unfortunately, she had quite forgotten that Shelley herself was in that address book and had to suffer through an excruciating call from a quietly irate, almost psychotic, green eyed lunatic.

None of those who knew her and her knack for exating terrible vengeance, envied the poor boy who had started all of this but none of them could quite bring themselves to delete the entertaining clip despite the danger of not doing so. It was just too good to pass up having such a great piece of blackmail material.

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The Lovegood home was considerably less grand than those of either of her two pale haired friends. In scale it was much more like the Dursley's comfortable Surrey semi-detached although that was where the similarities ended. The Rook, as the house was called, was considerably skinnier and more vertical and didn't seem to have a straight line in the place. It would have driven Vernon and Petunia mad.

It was also filled with Luna's 'art'. Blurry photographs of extinct, mythical and sometimes, imaginary creatures covered the mis-matched furniture and walls, along with colouful paintings and posters made from seashells.

Her father adored it's quirkiness, but then he was rather quirky himself. He was just thinking that he ought to start supper soon, dirigible plums and turnip mash (yum) when he heard a now familiar buzzing noise.

"Is that another message from your beloved, dearest Moon Pie?"

"Really Daddy, she's not even my girlfriend let alone my beloved."

"Well, not yet anyway, little Moon."

"No, not yet."

Xeno tried extremely hard not to laugh at the dreamy smile that graced his only daughter's face when she sighed out that answer and nearly succeeded. The poor dear was just so obvious. Just like her mother had always been. When she settled on his lap and showed him all the pictures of her beloved's exciting holiday on that marvellous, muggle communication device of hers his restraint broke totally.

"My goodness but she does seem to be having fun." He chuckled delightedly at the exhuberant young woman who had captured his Luna's heart so utterly. "No nargles on that girl, dear."

"Not a one, Daddy."

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It was the end of August and Diagon Alley was full of excited eleven year olds and their long suffering guardians doing their first Hogwarts shop. The older children there were doing their best to be all cool and aloof but none of them were really making a great success of it. A portly, middle aged woman and her much younger companion took it all in from behind the safety of the little visited potions and apocathary section of the bookshop and smiled at the scene.

Once upon a time NymphadoraTonks had thought of joining the aurors, but after her final year at Hogwarts her plans had changed drastically.

Now it was a career in healing that appealed to her (much to her mother's delight and relief). Or more specifically an apprentiship with Madame Pomfrey that would keep her in Hogwarts school and close to a certain Astronomy professor with whom she had begun a tempestuous affair. Her mother would probably be slightly less delighted had she known that little tidbit, although her dad would definitely clap her on the back and congtratulate her before laughing his arse off.

Had he been there, Ted Tonks would have also been laughing his arse off at the scene that occured in Flourish and Blotts that afternoon as the extremely unwise future Hogwarts DADA professor attempted to capitalise on his most famous student's presence in the bookshop.

Shelley Potter, while shopping for her school books, had been distracted by a fracas occurring at the back of the shop but her reaction upon being grabbed by a large man she didn't know was instantaeous and spectacularly violent. It was a photo opportunity, to be sure, just not the kind of one that Lockhart had been going for. Grovelling on the floor with his hand a crumpled, broken mess in her vise-like grip and the wrong end of the 'girl-who-lived's extraordinary wand hovering less than an inch from his right eye made for a fantastic front page picture.

It wasn't really the type of publicity he had been hoping for although in a later interview with The Daily Prophet he claimed that they had set it up to demonstrate his revolutionary, new teaching techniques. Luckily for him, Shelley hadn't bothered reading the newspaper since last summer, having very quickly decided that it was pretty much all gossip and fabrication and so didn't notice that he had done so. Her response would probably not have been either very reasonable or very polite if she had.

Watching this episode from the stacks, that was the only part of returning to Hogwarts that slightly worried Tonks, if she were being honest. She could and would cope with all of the cat-calls and ribbing that she would almost certainly receive for her sudden career u-turn and her relationship with the lovely professor Sinistra with her usual nonchalance. No, it was the thought of inadvertantly crossing the scary leader of the Hufflepuff Hooligans that gave her pause. In the year that she had known her it hadn't escaped Tonks' notice just how powerful she had become.

And, if that little scene with Lockhart was any indication, how much less tolerant of being accosted by glory seeking morons she was. Not that Shelley had ever been particularly tolerant of that before, but she seemed to be much quicker to resort to violence as a first response. She was sincerely hoping that it was hormones that were making her so ... tetchy. Unfortunately, she had seen that mischievous joy in the girl's glittering, emerald eyes as she inflicted pain on the ridiculous fop and knew that it was something far more dangerous.

Thank Merlin she would be safe (ish) behind the sweet and substantially stacked buffer of her girlfriend. She pitied the fool that didn't have that kind of protection and still managed to piss her off, although it might be quite fun to watch from a distance as the undisputed Queen of the Badgers, and so the school, went to work on them.

Okay, now she was looking forward to returning to the castle again.

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Platform Nine and three quarters was as crowded as ever but a sudden space seemed to appear (as if by magic) when a small family came trotting through the muggle entrance preceded by a twelve year old girl in a crooked, black and yellow top hat. For the three other girls who had arrived earlier and been waiting, a touch impatiently it had to be said, this was the starting gun for chaos.

"Belly Boo, you're here!" A blonde missile threw herself into Shelley's arms almost bowling her over. "I've missed you so much."

"Well of course you missed me. How could you not? Life's always more interesting when I'm around."

Artemis took in the dull, flat but utterly serious tone of her friend and grinned widely as she saw the ghost of a smile pass across her usually expressionless face. If she wasn't very much mistaken (and she wasn't) then the scarilly intense girl had just cracked a sort of joke. Shelley's holiday had clearly done her the world of good. And to be honest, hers had as well. Just spending time with the pack she grew up with, in the forest she grew up in, had been amazing ... but, it was good to be back. She missed her family like crazy when she was away from them but, by the Great Wolf, it was good to back. Here with all of her strange, sweet, mental friends. Here with her pack.

She, for once, took on the role of 'mother' and herded them all onto the Express, directing Shelley's two large relatives to 'pick a couple of trunks each and follow us' and was rewarded by a hand entwining itself in hers and a small, possessive kiss on the neck.

Yeah, it was most defintely good to be back. Back with her mate. Back with her pack.

A few yards down the platform a small girl with bright ginger hair watched the group with envious eyes until her older brothers swooped in, as if from nowhere, and carried both her and her meagre amount of luggage up and onto the train. Deposited in an empty carriage and abandoned by the twins in favour of meeting their friends, Ginny Weasley pulled a care-worn, leather bound diary from her pocket and smiled. Retrieving a small, cheap, self-inking quill she opened up a blank page and wrote.

Hello Tom, I'm on the Hogwarts Express now.

Most people would have been both surprised and suspicious if a diary wrote back but for the lonely girl in the second-hand robes this was not her first rodeo with the highly magical artifact. The reply just made her smile even more bright ... and significantly more creepy.

That's exellent Ginny. Are you ready for your great adventure?

And an adventure is just what Ginny Weasley was going to get. Although possibly not quite how she had imagined.

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(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((()))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

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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.