Several days of making friends with Lily's group later, Ariadne awoke long after classes had started for everyone else. She wandered outside to bask in the sun, knowing that winter was coming soon and she should enjoy the sun while she could. She found her favourite tree and sat beneath it, before noticing that she was not alone. A boy who looked about seventeen was sitting in the tree, writing something. He had long, black hair and pale skin, with a hooked nose. Having seen Ariadne, he was frozen, quill poised above the paper.

"Hello," she said pleasantly. "Don't mind me."

"I know you," he said bluntly. "You're that goddess girl. You're not even a real witch. What are you doing at Hogwarts? What year are you in?"

"I'm not in any year. I'm just staying here as Dumbledore's guest until I figure out what I want to do in the mortal world," Ariadne said, the smile fading from her face as she felt the open hostility towards her.

"That old fool wouldn't know his hat from a dead cat," the boy said cruelly. "He's too forgiving, too trusting. How does he know you're not going to obliterate us all with your weird powers? And how old are you anyway?"

"If I was going to do that, I would have done it by now," Ariadne said. She didn't like this boy. "And I am eternity," she said acidly.

"So that means..." the boy started. He purposefully knocked over the goblet of pumpkin juice he had perched between two branches, and the liquid cascaded down onto Ariadne's head while the heavy goblet hit her shoulder. Blood sprouted from her shoulder where the sharp rim had hit her. "… I can do this, and you won't do anything about it?"

"I never said that," a furious Ariadne said, her eyes blazing. She took a moment to connect her mind with the essence of the tree he was in. A branch came down and scratched his paper badly, so that pieces of parchment fluttered to the ground.

"That was my essay!" He shouted angrily.

"That was my shoulder!" Ariadne replied, equally furious. She used her mind powers to shake the branches he was sitting in, and he slipped down, narrowly managing to catch a branch with his hand to avoid falling to the ground. Ariadne concentrated, and a branch with several thin twigs at the end flipped around to thwack him on the rear end. She repeated this a few more times until she got tired of it, then sent another branch to hit him on the wrist, making him lose his grip on the branch and fall to the ground. He sat there, angrily muttering to himself as his massaged his wrist. She walked away, satisfied with her revenge. She had only gone a few metres when the four boys from the other night's dinner popped up in front of her.

"That was awesome," said Sirius. He waved his wand at her and the pumpkin juice vanished, which she was incredibly grateful for. "The way you got Snivellus. We didn't even realise he liked to sit in that tree. Thanks for the tip-off."

"Is that his name? Snivellus?" Ariadne asked. The boys laughed.

"Well, not really…" James said. "It's Severus, Severus Snape. But we call him Snivellus. That was really cool, what you did. Pranking would be so much easier if we were all gods, like you."

"If you were gods you would be in heaven, and you would get exiled for pranking," Ariadne said, remembering her trial. "Like me."

"Oh, is that what you did?" said Sirius. "We actually had a bet on. Remus thought you'd offended the head honcho. Peter agreed with him. Me and James thought you must have had relations with another god, or something."

"Nope, I caused a tidal wave. Killed some people," she said offhandedly. The boys gaped, shocked. "Oh, don't look so surprised. I've been around since before the human race even existed. We created you. I've seen an uncountable number of people die. I figured a few more wouldn't hurt. Besides, the god of death thought it would be a good idea."

"Yeah, I thought it had something to do with the god of death," Sirius said. It was Ariadne's turn to look surprised. "You were dozing in an armchair in the common room and you kept saying 'god of death, all his damn fault, never again…' and stuff like that. That's why me and James created our theory about you."

"Are you kidding? Me, sleep with the god of death? I don't even think he has reproductive organs. He's pretty much just a big old skeleton with a hooded cloak," Ariadne laughed, as they walked back up to the castle together. "Most of the gods I wouldn't go near with a ten-foot pole. Half of them are old, and the other half are so insufferably egotistical that you can barely get a word in inch ways, what with all their yapping about all the stuff they did. Like, so just because you can cause a drought in Australia I'm supposed to find you attractive? No way."

The boys laughed and James held open the front doors for her. She cast him an amused look to say 'I could have done that', but he ignored it and bowed to her, a lopsided grin on his face.

"Besides, we don't get exiled for relations with other gods. It's all cool in the heavens," she continued.

"But what if you have a baby or something?" said Sirius, shuddering at the thought of small children.

"Never came up," Ariadne replied shortly. "Gods can't have children, I don't know why. Probably because we don't need to. We never die, if we could reproduce the heavens would be horrifically overpopulated."

"Really?" Sirius said in a voice he clearly thought was suave, as he put an arm around her shoulders. Ariadne rolled her eyes and shoved his arm off.

"Yes. But a lot of things changed for me when I fell to earth, so don't get your hopes up. Now I do a lot of human things I didn't do before, and getting pregnant could well be one of them."

-----

Back in the Gryffindor common room, the four boys and Ariadne were sitting around the fire. They had been talking for quite some time when Remus looked at his watch and swore.

"We're late for class!" He said, gathering his books into his bag and running out of the portrait hole. The other three boys barely moved, but Peter shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Why weren't you in class before?" Ariadne asked, the realization suddenly striking her.

"Free period," James replied. "Now Moony has –"

"Moony?"

"Er… yes. We kind of have nicknames for each other. Remus' is Moony. Mine's Prongs, Sirius' is Padfoot, and Peter's is Wormtail."

"Cute," she muttered, cocking one eyebrow.

"So anyway, now Moony has Defense against the Dark Arts, which he loves. He's always saying he wants to be an Auror, but I don't know how that's going to work, what with his furry little problem."

"James," Sirius said sharply, then turning to Ariadne, said "Moony has… a rabbit. It's not exactly well-behaved. Its magical, so it will live for a really long time… and he loves it, so he can't bear to send it away…" he trailed off.

"Really? A rabbit?" Ariadne replied, interested. "What's its name? Can I see it? Is it a boy or a girl?" She loved animals.

"It's… a boy. It, um, it doesn't like meeting strangers, it makes the little guy go crazy. Its name is… um, its name is…"

"Rabbit," Peter jumped in. "Moony isn't very creative. Its name is Rabbit." Sirius and James sent silent 'thank-you' looks towards him and Ariadne nodded, apparently satisfied.

"Look at the time! Moony was right. Time for class!" James said loudly, jumping up and rushing out of the room, followed by Sirius and Peter. When they were a good distance away from the common room, Sirius punched James in the arm.

"What the hell, Prongs? You almost told her his secret, which would lead to our secrets, which would lead to Azkaban," Sirius said, shuddering. "You know just thinking about that place gives me the willies."

"Sorry, I just forgot…" he apologized profusely until Sirius and Peter had to ask him to please shut up.

-----

After classes were over for that day, Ariadne went to the Great Hall to have dinner with Lily. She waved to the Marauders on the way to where Lily and her friends were sitting, causing her to get a quizzical look from Lily.

"Why did you wave to them?" She asked when Ariadne sat down and took a mouthful of potato.

"Got to talking with them today," Ariadne said after swallowing. "They're not as bad as all that, they were very nice to me. It was strange. They were asking all these questions about what it was like back in the heavens."

"Of course they were, they always do that. They pretend to be interested in everything a girl says just to get into her pants," Lily said. Ariadne stared at her.

"So the only reason someone could be interested in the things I say is because they want to get into my pants?"

"That… I wasn't… I'm sorry, Ariadne. I should never have said anything," Lily said. She hated to offend anyone, though privately she thought that if she was one of the boys she would have said anything too, to get closer to Ariadne. She was very beautiful. Lily herself didn't like Ariadne as more than a friend, but she could understand how many boys would. She went back to her dinner, thinking. If she wants to be friends with them, that's nobody's business but hers. Who am I to say otherwise?