I obviously don't won something that I'm writing fanfiction for so yeah! Enjoy!

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November 18, 2100

Cathy's head bobbed to her chest then jerked up, her eyes opening wide as she attempted to stay awake. She had refused the sleeping draught that Dame Kissling had offered her and was determined to stay awake until Jason woke up. His shoulder was taped and bound together and his breathing had finally evened out after hours of struggle. What she could see of his skin was purplish and a sallow yellow color, and made her think of his little sisters spit up when she was sick. She did her best not to look at it, cause even though it had been cleaned and bandaged all she saw was the blood rushing from the raw, gaping, torn muscle that had gotten that way because he had saved her.

Her own arms were covered in bandages as well, since they had been covered in scratches and cuts, and her side had a large gash in it from when Jason had pushed her out of the way. Stupid git.

Cathy felt tears prick at her eyelids as she remembered what had happened. It was Saturday (was it still Saturday?), and the Gryffindor/Ravenclaw match had started after lunch and lasted until nightfall. Gryffindor had won, and everyone was laughing and cheering on their way into the Great Hall for Dinner. Cathy and Jason had been bickering good-naturedly with each other about who was going to win the Quidditch Cup, and their friends had long since rolled their eyes and left them behind. Neither had noticed that they were being followed by Harry Potter, who had taken an interest in the two first years for reasons he wasn't sure about.

All they did notice was a menacing growl from behind them that froze them in place, and then a heavy thud, like a body hitting the ground. They turned around and stared in terror as a werewolf tried to bite and claw at apparently nothing, until that nothing was thrown off to reveal Harry.

"Get out of here!" He yelled at them. But they just stood there, frozen to the spot. Harry threw off the werewolf and it landed on its back and rolled to its feet, snarling and growling. Cathy let out the tiniest of whimpers, and the werewolf's attention shifted to them. It sniffed and could smell the fear and youth on them. It liked youth, youth tasted sweet. The first one that it had attacked, its target, had smelled sour, rotten. It would have been enough if that was all the wolf could get, meat was meat after all. But now that the sweet taste of youth was on the air it wanted that. It stalked towards them, enjoying the taste of fear that radiated off them.

Harry pushed himself off the ground, ignoring the pain as he searched for his wand with one hand and watched the wolf stalk the two first years, who were frozen in terror. Stupid kids! Why didn't they run!

The wolf leapt, Harry found his wand and shot a silver pike out of it, Jason pushed Cathy to the ground and the wolf landed on him, sinking its teeth into the boys shoulder as it died. The look on Cathy's face changed from terror to fear for her friend as she was finally able to move and push the werewolf's body off him.

"Jason? Jason wake up! Oh, God, Jason, don't die! Please don't die!" She wailed as she cried. She didn't remember the trip to the hospital wing, or getting treated by Dame Kissling. She was focused solely on the boy who was like a brother to her, the one who used to make up stories with her, played pranks on and with her, had just saved her from being bitten by a werewolf. She didn't want him to die.

8 8 8

Cathy jerked as Brandon gently shook her shoulder, and she looked up at him blearily.

"Whah…" She asked thickly, her mouth feeling like it was full of cotton.

"Merlin Cathy, did you sleep in the chair all night?" He asked as he pulled up another chair to sit beside her. She nodded as she rubbed the last of the grit from her eyes.

"How's Jason?" She asked, then yawned loudly.

"Still sleeping. Dame Kissling says that he's stable."

"That's good." Cathy said dully, her eyes fixed on her friend. They sat there in silence for a few minutes.

"It wasn't your fault Cathy." Brandon finally said.

"Oh really? And why not?" She responded bitterly.

"You're not the one who attacked him."

"But I didn't do anything. I'm a Gryffindor, I'm supposed to be brave. He's supposed to be the intellectual one. I should have reacted, should have done something. But I didn't, and he's paying the price for it. I should be lying there instead of him." Brandon smacked her on the back of the head. "Owwww, what was that for?" She demanded.

"For being so stupid. If your positions were reversed Jason would be sitting here saying the exact same thing and you know it. So you're in Gryffindor and he's in Ravenclaw, big deal. He was telling me a couple of weeks ago that the Sorting hat had had a difficult time choosing between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw for him.

"So what? He was still bitten because of me." Brandon threw his hands up in the air.

"There's just no reasoning with you, is there? We're First Years Cathy; you and Jason are lucky to be alive."

"What's lucky? That he's going to have to go through pain every month? That people are going to be afraid of him when he's the sweetest person there is?" Cathy all but shouted, tears flying from her eyes. She was working herself up for a tantrum, but was stopped by a hand on her wrist.

"Stop it Catherine." Jason said as forcefully as he could, though with his injuries it came out as more of a wheezed whisper. Cathy and Brandon immediately turned their attention to him.

"I told you never to call me that."

"Then stop blaming yourself for my decision. You would have done the same for me."

"But I didn't…"

"Shut up Cathy. It wasn't your fault so stop blaming yourself." Cathy's eyes welled up with tears as she flung herself at him.

"I was so scared that you would die because of me." She said between hiccups.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere so stop whining about it. Besides, Dame Kissling said that I might not even turn." Cathy pulled back and looked at him reproachfully.

"And when did you talk to her when you've just woken up?"

"Actually, this is the second time that I've woken up, you were sleeping the last time."

"And you didn't wake me?" Brandon slipped out of the hospital wing quietly as they teased and bickered with each other. Whenever the two of them got like that he always felt like an outsider, and he hated intruding on people.

8

Harry watched the three first year students interact from under the safety of his invisibility cloak, feeling the pang of emotions that he had thought long buried. Remembrance, sorrow, jealousy, sadness, all rolled into one. Watching the Malfoy brat and the two Muggleborns interact was pulling dangerously on his own memories of himself, Hermione and Ron, memories that he had thought long forgotten. Apparently not, though, as he felt the all too familiar sense of loss. He had been running from it for so long, but was never able to quite escape it. But not for much longer. Come Easter they would no longer be lost to him or anyone, they would be reborn.

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December 18, 2100

"You're an absolute idiot, you know that?" Jason chided as Nurse Dame Kissling waved her wand over Cathy, who had several black and blue marks. Mavis Stonebrook was unconscious a few beds over, not only covered in bruises but tentacles as well. They had originally been five feet long, but after Dame Kissling gave her a potion they had shrunk down to three feet and would continue to shrink throughout the night.

"What was I supposed to do? She insulted my parents." Cathy shot back as Dame Kissling pronounced her fine and the two of them walked out of the hospital wing.

"Yeah, but now you have a detention for fighting. Again."

"So does Mavis. Once her tentacles disappear." Jason rolled his eyes as Brandon and Joseph came running up to them.

"Did you really give Mavis tentacles? Brilliant!" Joseph said as he pumped Cathy's hand up and down.

"So when's your detention?" Brandon asked. In the four months since school had started Cathy and Mavis had been caught fighting several times, starting when Mavis had called her a filthy Mudblood. At first it had all been fists and feet, but the more magic they learned the more they used, and usually got caught for it. Hence, the reason that Brandon already knew about the detention.

"Tomorrow after dinner." Cathy answered. "I have to polish all the trophies on the first floor without magic."

"Nasty. C'mon, we'd better hurry or we'll be late for DADA." Jason said, as the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had the class together.

"Yeah, we'd better run. Professor Quirke hates tardiness." Joseph said. The four of them broke out into a run, arriving in the classroom 2 minutes before the tardy bell rang. Professor Quirke took one look at Cathy and his eyes sparkled.

"Fighting again Ms. Nightly?"

"Yes sir."

"Did you use something that you learned in my class?"

"No sir."

"Good girl. Now, all of you take your seats and we'll get started." The class giggled, and Cathy had a hard time keeping a grin off her face throughout the lesson.

Professor Quirke was one of her favorite teachers. Everyday he wore a different color hat, which was usually a bright color no matter what the season and it always clashed horribly with his robes, which were always seasonal. The week leading up to Halloween he had worn orange and black robes with glow-in-the-dark skulls and carved pumpkins that made funny faces and cats that pounced and chased the skulls and pumpkins. His hat had been bright pink. Since it was nearing Christmas time he had taken to wearing red and green robes, with today's being alternating red and green stripes with silver stripes running diagonally over them. His hat was baby blue.

"Books away everyone, you're going to be taking notes today." His eyes sparkled as he saw that Jason already had his hand raised. "A question already Mr. Towley? You usually wait until I give you the information." The class tittered as Jason blushed. "Go ahead Mr. Towley, ask your question."

"Yes Professor. I came across a reference to Inferi in a book and was hoping that you could explain them. Are they alive?" Professor Quirke regarded him critically."

"That's a rather morbid topic, especially this close to Christmas. Are you sure that you wouldn't like to wait until after the holidays?"

"Please Professor." Quirke sighed.

"All right then. No, Inferi are not alive. They are merely reanimated corpses, and generally continue to decompose." There was a collective 'ewwww' from the class. "Ew is a very correct sentiment. Inferi are the result of people attempting to circumvent Death."

"Is there anyway to bring back the dead?" Cathy asked.

"NO." Quirke said so vehemently that most of the students jumped in surprise. "There have been those who have circumvented or delayed death, but you cannot be brought back from the dead."

"What about the Unita Ritual?" Brandon asked.

"That is used only to reintegrate a soul with a body after it has been stolen by Dementors."

"But couldn't it…" Quirke cut him off with a sharp hand motion.

"No more questions on this subject, start taking notes." With that he began his lesson, and Brandon, Jason, and Cathy only had time to glance at each other before they had to start writing. Their questions had been an attempt to gather information that they couldn't from books, and the Unita Ritual had been the only thing that they could find that came even close to how the weird students (as they had been dubbed) were behaving. It was a failed attempt, but they weren't going to give up.

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Fear was a positively wonderful tactic, Guthric reminded himself as he stood over the quivering mass that was supposed to be a Wizard. It was incredibly useful in gathering information, as he was doing right now. It was absolutely brilliant, really, no wonder the Dementors were so effective. Show even the bravest of people their worst fear and they crumbled like dry dirt. Even himself, and he was the most ruthless of Lord Potters Scar Brigade. A few well placed curses and humiliations in the beginning and all of a sudden rumors were being spread about how atrocious they were and eventually they didn't even have to use the curses to get their information anymore. People were just that afraid of them. Personally, Guthric felt that it took all the fun out of his job, but he did have to admit that there was very little clean-up involved, if any. Thankfully though, every once in a while he and his men came across a stubborn one and they had to 're-educate' him as to why he should fear them. But those were entirely too few and far between for him.

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Please Review? Christmas spirit and all that? I'm desperate for feedback!