(Jamie)

I had caught up with Taylor by the time we had reached the end of the forest and just realised we had a lesson together next, and with Tia, so we went to meet her as usual at our bench. Of course this wasn't really our bench, but it might as well be. We had been the only ones even nearby it at lunch and break times for the last 7 years!

'Did you do your homework for this lesson?' Taylor asked me suddenly

'homework?' I questioned,

'The path of Neptune on Jupiter thing' she filled me in, I paused for a second then realised

'Oh! That homework. Yeah I have, you?'

'No. Do you think he'll ask for it in?' Taylor asked me,by 'he' she was referring to our teacher, one of the best teachers in school and definitely the most interesting: Firenze the Centaur.

'probably not.' I said, 'but if he does you can make an excuse and I'll help you later.'

'really? You'd be a life-saver!' announced Taylor, she stopped and put a single arm around me, Taylor's attempt at a half-hug, although she caught me off-guard and we almost slipped back down the hill towards the forest again. In the confusion this had caused her I got a whiff of her hair, I loved the smell of her coconut shampoo, it's a rare occasion when I get a chance to smell it, the odd time or so when she hugs me, or attacks me with Tia.

'well you're usually good at making excuses' I laughed a little, comfortable still with her arm gripped around me, she tried to put me into a headlock for a joke but gave up after she had barely started. She let me go and we walked up to the bench, now late.

'Did you like the Snaggle Puffs this lesson?' she asked me,

'you mean the Snuggly Snaggle Puffs?' I joked, Taylor looked shocked rather than getting me into a headlock this time, much to my dismay,

'You heard me say that?' she laughed

'the whole class did, even Hagrid' I said,

'oh... oh well' she said 'so what did you think of them?'

'They're nice, I caught some for Tia. I thought she'd like some for pets'

'good idea! And talk of the devil!' Taylor said, I looked ahead, Tia was already at our bench, how does she get there so fast? Taylor broke into a sprint I followed suit, 'TIIIII-AAAA!' she yelled. Tia looked up at us and grinned, it was here that I presented her with the Snaggle Puffs, but I'm sure she'll explain that to you.

Afterwards we headed up to the castle, 20 minutes late for our lesson, time must be on a treadmill at Hogwarts, and it's getting good at it too! When we reached the classroom we silenced ourselves and made our way inside. As we went inside the forest-like decoration of the room surrounded us, we closed the door slowly, quietly and made our way to the clearing where Firenze likes to teach, a few of the other students looked towards us as we came in and sat down but Firenze, this lesson had chosen to lecture rather than give activities to do, which meant that he hadn't even noticed when Finley, from our birthday party waved to us and Ryden Ashdown, a guy from Gryffindor, turned to us and said hi to Tia, we three laid down in a line, Taylor between my sister and I. Tia was closest to Ryden, I knew she liked him as she had told me but I don't think he knew it at all.

'Mercury and Pluto are crossing the first quarter while Neptune is nearing it's mid-year solstice' Firenze continued oblivious to our interruption.

'ask lover-boy if Firenze has asked for the homework' Taylor hissed at Tia, who asked as requested,

'what homework?' Ryden replied, Tia turned back and shook her head, giggling a little then turned back to Ryden to talk.

'looks like I wont need your help after all' Taylor told me, 'Firenze wont stop talking now, he's in his trance state again! We could throw trees at each other and he wouldn't realise.'

'Do you think he'll talk into break time again?' I asked her,

'I say, if he does, we get up and leave anyway.'

'He'll never know we were here.' I told her concerned, we weren't whispering as we knew there was no point, but Tia was whispering to Ryden and I think Taylor was trying to distract me from listening in to their conversation.

'Who cares?' she replied, 'You can stay and try to tell him it's break time if you like, but I'm not.'

'But we'll be said to be absent and we could get in trouble.' I suggested, Taylor laughed

'are you kidding? The most we'd get is a detention and we'd end up sitting in here listening to him lecture again.' I shrugged and fell silent. I attempted to listen to Tia's conversation to see if Taylor had been trying to distract me but Taylor spoke again before I could catch onto their voices.

'do you want me to change the register? If he's taken it at all today?' Taylor said, spotting the register on the floor beside the centaur, I didn't answer, I wasn't sure if I wanted her to or not. She rolled onto her side, facing away from me.

'hey you two, stop the chatter for a sec' she said to Tia and Ryden, 'has Firenze taken the register today? Jamie's being a goody-two-shoes again.' Tia and Ryden laughed a little, I felt like an idiot.

'yeah' I heard Ryden reply eventually 'he has',

'thanks Hun' Taylor rolled to her stomach and looked at me, pulled her wand from her robe and pointed it at the register 'I'll mark us here, okay? Accio register' the register flew towards us and Taylor took out her quill to mark she, Tia and myself as present. Then she sent it flying back to it's place using a banishing charm. Tia soon after finished her conversation with Ryden, turned to us and for the rest of the lesson we held our own conversation, occasionally stopping to listen to part of the lecture. This is why we loved this lesson so much, apart from being able to be together and with the people we liked, occasionally when Firenze wanted to lecture us, we could talk freely even to somebody like Ryden who wouldn't often be seen with people like us- we were traitors of our houses and rejects of the school, to be close with somebody from the battling house of our own was considered to be the worst kind of betrayal.

As we had expected Professor Firenze talked into break and lead by Taylor, then by Ryden and his friend we all left the classroom, completely unnoticed. As soon as we had left the doors of the classroom Ryden and his friends left us without as much as a goodbye. Tia didn't seem to be too bothered about this, we both knew about his popularity, if he was seen to be nice to us he would be rejected too.

'I wonder if he'll still be talking when his next class come in?' Taylor laughed. We all headed down to our bench again, as usual the area was deserted, the way we liked it. I by this point was walking ahead of the other two but as I reached the bench and turned around I noticed they were talking about quidditch, this was a typical Tia conversation, I couldn't fly and didn't really understand the game but Tia loved it. I stayed silent until they finished the conversation, it hadn't taken too long but by the time they had finished we noticed somebody or something was moving around behind us. I turned around, expecting bullies or someone to just simply pass by barely noticing us. Hagrid had come out of his hut, about 5 metres away from us and was meeting three sixth years by his door. Everybody in school knew who these three were, for better or for worse: Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger.

Of course, Harry Potter is the-boy-who-lived a source of great detest in Slytherin and hope in Gryffindor. People say he's the chosen one too, chosen to defeat he-who-must-not-be-named and is taking lessons with Dumbledore himself to, according to rumours, teach him how to defeat the dark wizard. Hermione Granger was a nerdy bookworm who had clung to the boys from her first year, yet almost every guy in school had seen her differently from my fifth year, her fourth, when the Yule Ball came to Hogwarts, along with a couple of other schools including Durmstrang home to the quidditch player Viktor Krum as my sister had never let me forget. Of course this isn't the reason Hermione was seen differently, well it kind of wasn't, it was truly because the bookworm had gotten Krum smitten over her, suspected of using a love potion by many girls in my own year group, then turned up to the Yule Ball with him at Christmas in a perfectly flattering gown and suddenly had the whole population of boys in the three schools chasing her. She was almost the only girl in school, other than Taylor that I would look at twice. Ronald Weasley wasn't so interesting but was definitely the point of affection for Hermione. He was simply poor but loyal to his few friends that he had, and we definitely weren't one of those.

'urgh! Teachers pets!' Taylor announced as the trio went inside the hut. I turned back to the two girls I was sitting with, I couldn't help but smile at the look of anger on Taylor's face, she always gets worked up at the sight of the so called golden trio from Gryffindor, probably because they'd never give her or Tia a chance, though I've never seen them being particularly harsh either.

'Lets get out of here for a while before Taylor explodes' Tia suggested, she got up from the bench, Taylor and I copied and we made our way further towards the lake, although what we were going to do now I had no idea!