AN: I am so, so sorry. I am idiot #1 which is my only excuse for missing my deadline so badly; I thought I would have adequate internet to post this chapter while I was on holiday but I didn't so it's been sat happily on my memory stick unable to give to you. So sorry.

Here's some of my dream-casts (I really did try to restrain myself):

Kian Alfredson: Theo James

Alice Avisana: Emilia Clarke

Bathsheda Babbling: Judy Dench

Cararon Blackwood: Hunter King

Cuthbert Binns: Ian McKellan (mainly because I want Ian McKellan to have some part in this rather than because he fits the role well)

Mia Casales: Zoe Saldana

Noah Elswood: Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Cecily Jordan: Hayley Atwell

Teddy Lupin: Luke Newberry

Astoria Malfoy: Amanda Seyfried

Jasper Moore: Colin O'Donoghue

Lily Luna Potter: Lucy Hutchinson

Liam Sanders: Jaime Bell

Lorcan Scamander: Jason Simmons

Lysander Scamander: Kristopher Simmons

Aurora Sinistra: Meryl Streep

Elizabeth Van Allen: Angelina Jolie

Septima Vector: Helen Mirren

Audrey Weasley: Karen Gillan

Dominque Weasley: Jemima West

Fred Weasley: Craig Roberts

Hugo Weasley: Kyle Harrison Breitkopf

Louis Weasley: Pierre Perrier

Lucy Weasley: Meibh Campbell

Rose Weasley: Francesca Capaldi

Roxanne Weasley: Willow Smith

Victoire Weasley: Nora Arnezeder

Lee Wright: Quvenzhané Wallis

I know, I know I didn't restrain myself very well at all but I got slightly carried away. Believe me; you're lucky I didn't include my dream owl casts as well.

Favourite Character of the Three Bloods series?

Chapter Eleven
Of the Second First Task and Replies

The eight friends sat in a careful circle in the courtyard. They hoped, with the open space, whoever had imperiused Professor Sinistra and tried to kill Cara wouldn't be able to watch them read the letter from Jayna's Great-Uncle Alexis.

Perhaps, as James was thinking, it would've been more sensible to meet up after Jayna had translated the letter as they were all sat in a rather chilly silence as she carefully worked through each line. However, as only Scorpius was aware, Jayna didn't want to be alone with any matter that regarded her family. He only knew this because he felt the same regarding his own. Not that he was going to tell anybody if more problems arose there. Even though he wanted to, there were some things (most things) that Scorpius knew to keep to himself.

'Care Jayna,

Quamobrem recte puto. Iam me putatis oblitus eram circuitu Iterum ego extendam consolantibus. Umeris caput video te scite; Roland Consuetudines nostra iam familiaria bona placebis ut ibi esset.

Vos altius quam me habere ideam inde. Nec aliter dicere ... sed expectavimus. Cum indice convenistin? Ajebant occulto permansit identitatis. Ego fateor, qui me tibi indicem, cum procul dubio exhor ego tui misertus sum anxius quod influit, sed non video tantum fratrem. Ne istaec itidem ut deprehendatur. Valde bene lusit xxi.

Martis habes, licentia Watchers plena permanere. Alioquin habebis me ad indicium servo created nobis.

Cum amore et reverentia

Alexis.'

Jayna scowled at the elegant handwriting that covered the parchment. Her relative was a paranoid bastard. He hadn't even sent it back with his own owl; holding her own owl hostage until he'd composed a reply. Every one of his words was carefully chosen apparently to piss her off as much as possible.

Finally Jayna cleared her throat. "Dear Jayna,

"I think you are correct in this assumption. I was beginning to think you had forgotten I was still around! Once again, I extend my condolences. I see you have a clever head on your shoulders; Roland would be proud that you've been upholding our family values.

"You have no idea how relieved this makes me. We hoped but… There was no way to tell. Have you met with our informer? They assured me their identity remained a secret. I must admit I did doubt you when our informer told me of who you were consorting with, I was worried about what an influence your mother had on you, but I can see so much of my brother in you. He would've done the same to avoid detection. Very well played niece.

"You have the full permission of the Night-Watchers to continue. Keep me updated otherwise we'll have to get the information ourselves.

"With love and awe,

"Alexis."

"What a lovely chap." James replied. Jayna smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes.

"That's it?" Sam asked.

"What do you mean?" Jayna inquired.

"He's not only given us permission but actually encouraged us to completely screw him over?"

"Basically." Lydjah agreed.

"What did he mean about your mother?" Molly asked. Jayna shrugged.

"No clue. As far as I knew she was just as Pureblood crazy as the rest of them, though I know my dad's family disapproved of her."

"You know he's wrong don't you?" Scorpius said sharply.

"About what in particular?" Jayna asked.

"You being anything like your arsehole of a grandfather. Because you're not." Jayna smiled at him with kind eyes.

"We do share blood you know."

"If you share anything more than a similarity in appearance I'll eat my broomstick." James said firmly. Jayna started at this unfamiliar display of outright friendship but James characteristically ruined it a second later. "Though I got to admit you do have the typical inbred squinty eyes."

"Piss off."

The eight of them stood in front of the old dusty door on Sunday the 16th of September with no small amount of dread. They all tried to hide it but there was no mistaking it; while they were going to go in there, none of them wanted to. Even Sam and James, who this time last year would've jumped at the chance of adventure, were beginning to learn that perhaps it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

The piece of parchment that Sam had copied down at the end of last year was still waiting for them.

'Congratulations on completing the final Starter test. You were wise to realise the Quintaped was a fight you could not win.

Please choose a category to proceed:

Charms
Riddles
Choices
Endurance
Illusions'

Jayna cleared her throat. "We choose Charms." She said, feeling slightly ridiculous for talking to the door. The words immediately disappeared, leaving them with only the blank parchment. "Erm…" She turned to face the others, who shrugged.

"I guess we just go through to the first task?" Sam asked. No-one could think of any reason why not so Albus hesitantly pushed open the door. They were greeted with a completely empty but normal sized room. The eight of them stepped inside but could find nothing even remotely remarkable about it.

After a good twenty minutes of searching they had to admit defeat and go back outside again. "I don't understand." Lien said quietly. Molly pulled the parchment off the door and frowned at it.

"Aparecium!" The door slammed closed and the thin spidery handwriting once again filled the page.

'Well done Molly. From now on, Charms and only Charms are going to be what get you through this. Not your wits, not your skills, great eyesight or appalling finding abilities; Charms. Charms are the only spells that will work beyond this door until you have completed all the tasks in this category. Your team can only use each Charm once throughout the entire category; for example; none of you will be able to use Aparecium again.

Choose wisely.'

After all eight of them had finally read it they turned back to the door again, only to find it locked. "Alohomora!" Sam twisted her wand and the door sprang open. They were back to being wary again, all of them remembering in horrifying quality how close they'd been to being eaten by that Quintaped last time. The same classroom greeted them again but now there was a second piece of parchment on the floor, with an empty glass wine bottle directly behind it.

'Change the colour of this bottle.'

"What?" Asked Scorpius incredulously. "Last time we almost get brutally murdered by a legendary creature and James still only just makes it, and this time all it wants is for us to change this bottle a different colour?"

"Maybe the tasks start out small?" Lydjah suggested but even she sounded sceptical.

"It's too easy." Sam agreed. "Maybe when we change the colour something else will happen."

"Probably." James said. "Stay on your guard everyone. Sam change it to a happy colour would you?"

"A happy colour?" Sam laughed but did as he said, changing it to a bright sunshine yellow. "Colovaria!" She immediately sprang up and joined the rest of her group's defensive circle, wand out.

Nothing happened.

"Seriously?" Jayna finally asked. Eventually they relaxed their positions, casting confused looks around the room.

"If that's it… Let's get out of here." James suggested. They edged back outside.

'I'm not going to applaud you every time you complete a task but for now; congrats. You've completed the simplest task I could have devised.

Instruction: Get the bottle.'

"What the actual fuck?" Lydjah swore.

"That couldn't have taken us more than five minutes." Albus agreed.

"It's probably trying to lure us into a false sense of security." Sam reasoned.

"Are we still keeping with the 'only do one task per session rule'?" Molly asked.

"Well yeah; no doubt later when we have to stay what feels like two days over the session we can remember the one and only time we could go back early." Lien smiled.

"Oh that's reminded me; because Sam and I got onto the Quidditch team we can't do Saturday mornings anymore." James said.

"I'm not complaining." Scorpius remarked.

"Pass your timetables over then guys; I'll edit them again." Jayna replied.

Later that day Jayna and Lydjah were strolling up to the music rooms for their Spanish lesson. Neither of them had the heart to mention that if it wasn't for these lessons they would probably never go into this wing of the castle. A few students were milling about, including the school band; Hogwarts Folk who were practicing their latest song; Unification of the houses in the third practice room. Everyone hated the school band, not excluding most members of the band, though no-one could put their finger on why. It wasn't that they were awful players… Maybe it was because they routinely showed up and made the Great Hall so loud no-one could have a civil conversation.

That was nothing compared to the hatred of the school choir but thankfully they only turned up near the holidays.

"Hey Professor Casales." The girls chorused, walking into her office.

"Hi girls. I've got a pretty fun lesson planned for you today. I thought we'd look at some Wizarding terms in Spanish; I've taught you the tourist basics for surviving in Muggle Spain but should you need to talk about the Wizarding World I'm afraid I've left you woefully unprepared." The two Ravenclaws sat down as she spoke, pulling their exercise books out of their bags and writing the date on the next clean page. It had been Lydjah's suggestion to get Muggle school books for this class to keep all the vocabulary in one place.

"You've got your books and a quill ready? Ok so there's no grammar today," Jayna sighed in slight disappointment while Lydjah grinned happily, "just vocab, so keep it to the back of your books yeah? Right; Jayna, can you give me a Wizarding category?"

"A category?"

"Yes a language category I should say; something that Wizards have and Muggles don't," a thousand of her family's racist jokes were running through her head, "that has specific words in it."

"Our blood system? Pureblood, Halfblood etc."

"Great. Perfect example. Lydjah could you hazard a guess to any of these?"

"Er... Blood is 'sangre' right?"

"Yes that's correct. I'll write these down on the board for you." Professor Casales flicked her wand and the chalk behind her stood ready to be used. "Pureblood is 'Sangre Pura' in Spanish, Halfblood is 'Sangre Mestiza' and Muggleborn is 'Muggle Nacido'." She waited until they had scribbled the three new phrases down before continuing. "Ok have I missed anything?"

"Squib?" Jayna asked. "I'm assuming Muggle is 'Muggle' if Muggleborn is 'Muggle Nacido'."

"Yes it is. Squib is just 'Squib'."

"Oh ok."

"Miss?"

"Yes Lydjah?"

"Does Spanish have a word for the common insult directed to Muggleborns? It's just that I have a feeling Sam, Sam Andrews that is, a friend of ours who's a Muggleborn, would appreciate knowing if she was being insulted even in a different language."

"Yes they do unfortunately. I won't say it aloud but I'll write it down for you, as long as you promise not to write it down in your books and just learn it for your friend." 'Sangre Sucia' appeared on the board behind their teacher with another flick of her wand. "I suppose I should add that 'Traidor a sangre' means Blood-Traitor. Lydjah, another category please."

"Wizarding money terms?" Lydjah suggested.

"Ok." The chalk moved to start a new column. "Knuts and Sickles are easy being spelt the same in Spanish 'Knuts' and 'Sickles'. Galleons however have a slight spelling change and become 'Galeones'. Another category? Jayna?"

Jayna, who had been staring into space, daydreaming about glancing at a certain new member of the Gryffindor house team started quickly, blurting, "Quidditch!" before she registered what the question had been.

"I didn't know you were interested in sports Jayna."

"It's not the sport that interests her Miss." Lydjah snuck in. Jayna threw her quill at her friend.

"Shut up!" The music Professor smiled, her eyes twinkling.

"Oh? Someone caught your eye Jayna?" Jayna huffed.

"No. I just know it's something that is bound to come up in casual conversation seeing as it's the only proper international Wizarding sport."

"That's true." The teacher allowed. "Right well we'll start with the equipment then? Quidditch is still 'Quidditch' and Bludger is 'Bludger' and Quaffle is 'Quaffle', then the Golden Snitch is 'la Snitch dorada' and broom is 'escoba'. Then the players-"

"We know them Miss."

"How?"

"We went to the Quidditch World Cup this summer."

"Oh right. Would you like to write them down just for reference?"

"Yeah. Would you mind writing them on the board anyway? I'm not 100% sure of the spelling." With this completed, Lydjah volunteered another category. "Magical creatures?"

"Let me think... Boggart is just 'Boggart'... Dementor; 'Dementor'... Goblin is 'Duende'. That's all the ones I can think of."

"Magical items or things?" Jayna offered.

"Ok well... Hmm... These are going to be a bit random I suppose. Give me an example?"

"Floo Powder?"

"Polvos Flu."

"Howler?"

"Carta vociferadora."

"Pensieve?"

"Pensadero."

"Sneakoscope?"

"Obscure, nice. 'Chivatoscopio'."

"Wand?"

"Varita."

"Remembrall?"

"Recordadora."

"Apparation?"

"Aparición."

"Portkey."

"Traslador."

"I'm out." Lydjah nodded her agreement.

"I think we're about out of time anyway girls. Make sure you get something to eat yeah?"

"We will Miss don't worry. See you next lesson!"

The spy slipped into the door as the two Ravenclaws left and pinned the music Professor with a particularly piercing stare.

"What exactly, Mia Casales, are you teaching those girls?"