Hey everyone! I liked the last chapter a lot…I can only hope that you did also! wink wink

See, what took me so long to update were names. It is so difficult to create names for a story that somebody else created. I am trying very hard to stick with the kind of names that I thought JK Rowling would pick. For instance, some of my names are Latin, and the meanings of them are associated with their characters.

Note: I noticed in the last chapter, after I had submitted it, that Thomas reappears from the infirmary and in the Great Hall without introduction. He just sort of…comes back. But in case you were wondering, Thomas left the infirmary feeling much better. He bumped into Moaning Myrtle on his way to lunch, and after a few minutes, he realized that they were soul mates. He quickly pledged his undying love for her, and the two of them made passionate love in one of the girls' bathroom stalls. Then he went to lunch.

JUST KIDDING!

Disclaimer: My name is a nice name, but it is a little too English and proper for an American high school, even one as cool and unique as mine. So when the teachers call my name on the first day of school, I always correct them and tell them the name I would like to go by. And guess what? The name that I tell them is NOT JK Rowling! So obviously, I am not JK Rowling, and so obviously, I don't own Harry Potter.

Get it? Good.

Lily met up with Ari and Thomas outside of the Potions dungeon. Ari was twirling her wand around like a baton, but had yet to notice that it was emitting sparks.

"Hey!" yelped Lilac Finnegan nearby as a few sparks flew onto her robes. She extinguished them with her wand and glared at Ari.

Thomas was staring off into the distance with an odd look on his face. Lily followed his gaze and saw Fiona staring innocently out of the window.

"Oi! Tom!" Lily waved her hand in front of Thomas' face.

"Huh?" he blinked rapidly, regaining focus. "Oh, hey Lils."

Lily shook her head. "Look, you've been staring at Fiona all day. Why don't you go and chat her up?"

"Really? You think I should?" Thomas asked in amazement.

Lily giggled. "You great idiot! Go talk to her before Vintigo greets us with her loveliness." She sighed and leaned against the wall, watching Thomas practically skip towards Fiona. To her left, Ari was waving her hands and looking frustrated as Lilac was now saying "And it's not just you lighting my robes on fire. You also lit my duvet on fire at the end of last term from twirling your wand around!"

Ari stomped over to Lily, breathing heavily. "She drives me insane!" she huffed, her face red. Mumbling to herself, Ari absentmindedly pulled out her wand and began twirling it. Lilac immediately saw this, clomped over, snatched Ari's wand, and threw it on the ground.

"You'll set us all on fire if you keep doing that!" Lilac yelled dramatically. Ari was about to respond when, thankfully, the dungeon door swung open.

An emaciated woman stood in the doorway, regarding all of the assembled Gryffindors and Slytherins with a bored expression on her face. Professor Venity Vintigo was highly disliked by everyone, except for maybe the Slytherins, since they tended to like the teachers that everyone else hated.

Professor Vintigo had shiny black hair that hung in her face and was swept back in a slick tail, as if she could not decide on cutting her hair short and shaggy or keeping it long and one length. Lily and Ari suspected that Vintigo had not actually trimmed her hair, but had taken a wand and hacked off random parts of it without using a mirror or paying attention. She was pale and looked starved to death, which was no surprise because she never joined the rest of the school during meals, but preferred to lurk the hallways and her own room. She had an air of being born pretty but had let herself go to seed: her eyebrows were overgrown and bushy, her nails were short and uneven, and her lips were dry and cracked. But her humble—though at the same time eerie and frightening—appearance did not fool anyone.

"Into class, now!" she snapped to the students. Her eyes fell on Lily, and a malicious look spread across her face.

Thanks again, Sirius. Lily thought to herself. Lily and Sirius were quite possibly the most loathed students by Professor Vintigo, all thanks to Sirius and his attitude. When Sirius saw the parallels between his Potions teacher and his father's Potions teacher, Professor Snape, he had practically laughed aloud. He hated Vintigo automatically, but tried to hide it. When Vintigo learned who Sirius' father was, she quickly treated him worse than all of the other students. The reason for this was because the Vintigo's were an old, pureblood family that was closely related to the Gaunts, who were the direct line of Salazar Slytherin. But what was most interesting was the fact that the Vintigo family was even more closely related to the Prince family—Severus Snape's wizarding family. And so, Professor Vintigo automatically disliked Sirius Potter with a great passion. Sirius tried very hard to not make things worse on himself, but he finally cracked when Vintigo apparently knocked over his cauldron on purpose, earning him a failing mark that was a large part of his grade. He decided it would be sweet revenge to enchant a load of water balloons to hang in the ceiling of the dungeon, and fall on Vintigo when she entered the class. The entire class laughed hysterically, and Sirius, who stood tall and proud, earned himself two months of detention and 100 points from Gryffindor. He accepted his punishment with humility, as if he were accepting and award.

So thanks to Sirius, Lily received even wore treatment than she would actually have had.

Lily went to sit at table with Ari—who was still fuming over Lilac—and Thomas—who was gazing at the back of Fiona's head.

"Look at Vintigo," she whispered to Ari. Though the class had already settled and quieted, Vintigo was too intent on glaring at Lily. Lily glared back.

"Did you have a nice holiday, Professor Vintigo?" Ari yelled out. The class tittered, used to Ari and her outlandish behavior.

Vintigo snapped out of her angry trance, and regarded Ari with a cold, steely gaze.

"Do not display your buffoon manners to the rest of the class, idiot girl. And a point from Gryffindor for yelling."

"Thanks," Lily whispered to Ari, already sick to her stomach at the thought of a year of staring contests with Professor Vintigo. Ari had taken it upon herself in their first year to distract Vintigo if she looked ready to attack Lily.

Professor Vintigo did not give the usual "welcome back" and "you will be learning…this year" speech. Instead, she tapped her wand on the chalkboard. A series of complicated lines appeared.

"This year, I will have you all attempting difficult potions simultaneously. Some may take months, while others you will finish that very day. For the longer ones, I will be checking your progress frequently." She suddenly slapped her hand on her desk, causing some the contents on top to jump. The class did not flinch: they were used to this sudden, angry movement of hers.

"Any questions?" she sneered at the class, daring someone to complain. Even though Lily thought in her head that what she was asking the class was too much to ask of third years, she kept her mouth shut and glared at Vintigo.

"I will pass out your scrolls containing your potions. Once you have them, begin!"

When Professor Vintigo reached Lily, she stopped and stared at her for a long moment. "Let's see what I have for you, Potter…" Vintigo rifled through the scrolls she was holding. After a moment she pulled out a rather thick scroll and practically threw it at Lily. Thankfully, Lily had inherited her father's reflexes and caught the scroll neatly before it could slam her in the face.

"Thanks, Professor," Lily said, false sweetness dripping in her voice like syrup. She unrolled her scroll and glanced at the first potion.

"Veritaserum!" she groaned to herself. She scanned more of the scroll. "Polyjuice Potion? The Draught of Living Death?" She looked up at her friends with a frightened expression. "I can't do any of these!"

Thomas took the scroll out of her hands briskly. "Nonsense, Vintigo wouldn't assign you those…oh," he muttered as he read the scroll. After a moment, he exclaimed, "Wolfsbane Potion? You've got to be kidding!"

Ari and Lily slapped their hands to their foreheads. "I can't do any of these!" Lily repeated, and threw herself on top of her desk. Ari patted her back consolidating way.

"Don't worry, we'll help you out. Right, Thomas?" Ari shot a look at Thomas, who was already reading his own scroll.

"Oh, er, right. Yes. Of course we'll help you," he said.

Lily decided to tackle Veritaserum first. But one glance at the first ingredient—hair of newt—sent shivers down her spine. Not that Lily was afraid of newt hair. It was merely the fact that she would be creating this incredibly difficult potion while her friends stood around her, brewing Hiccupping Solutions and calming potions. With a sigh, she returned to her scroll.

Half an hour later, Lily was stirring the beginning of her potion—a thick black paste—while reading her potions book. It said that by now the potion should have thinned out from the dragon talon dust she had just thrown in, but the paste seemed to be getting thicker and thicker.

Professor Vintigo was prowling the aisles, glancing into people's cauldrons. Naturally, Thomas had finished his potion, and Vintigo had only complained "There is far too much potion in your cauldron. Next time this happens, it'll be ten points from Gryffindor."

Ari's potion, which was supposed to be a Sleeping Solution, had made a small explosion in Ari's face. She had black smudges on her nose and smears on her face. She grinned through the black soot anyway.

"What on…I thought you were creating a Sleeping Solution!" Vintigo exclaimed in pure astonishment.

"Is that not what that is?" Ari peered into her cauldron. Sunny yellow liquid was bubbling merrily.

"No!" Vintigo yelled, still astonished. "You didn't create a Sleeping Solution; you created Sunup Potion! That's for waking people up, not putting them to sleep!" Professor Vintigo was so shocked at Ari's mistake that she completely forgot to yell at her or take off marks. She moved down the table towards Lily.

With a desperate attempt, Lily grabbed a vial of powdered ginger root and shook it in. The paste miraculously changed from thick paste to a water-like substance just as Vintigo approached it.

"Well," Vintigo looked into the cauldron. "I see that you did not get very far." Vintigo looked up with a vicious look in her gleaming eyes. "I see that you are already slacking off," she said softly. "I will have to take ten points from Gryffindor to teach you to take this class seriously."

"But I didn't do anything wrong!" Lily protested angrily. "I got about as far as I could get, it's such a difficult potion! It's N.E.W.T. level, and I'm not even old enough for
O.W.L. level yet!"

"How dare you question my authority!" yelled Vintigo. Behind her, Lily saw Malfoy grinning at her, enjoying this exchange between Vintigo and Lily. "Another ten points from Gryffindor, and I am assigning you homework. Write me a detailed essay on the ways that Veritaserum changes consistency and color with each new ingredient, due next class."

Lily opened her mouth again, but Ari kicked her under the table.

"Don't!" she hissed, waving her hands behind Vintigo. Lily glared but kept her mouth shut. She gritted her teeth and took her cauldron to the storage cabinet. After labeling it, she set it on the top shelf and packed up the rest of her things.

Wordlessly, she left the room, followed by a silent Ari and Thomas. The three trooped upstairs, each immersed in their own thoughts.

"I can't believe her!" Lily yelled suddenly as they passed a picture of a bunch of trolls trying to play the cello.

"I know, it's really unfair," Ari said soothingly.

"I mean, of course she's doing it on purpose, but there has to be some rule against a teacher purposely trying to fail you!" Lily continued angrily.

"Even if there was, Vintigo wouldn't care. She'd just go on treating you the way she always does," said Thomas. Somebody laughed behind Thomas. Lily turned around to see Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini, and Rayna Perfusus close behind.

Lily whirled on Malfoy and opened her mouth, but Thomas grabbed her shoulder and spun her back around.

"Come on, it's not worth it. We're too close to Vintigo's classroom, and you know that any confrontation with Malfoy will end in disaster."

Lily gritted her teeth but heeded Thomas' words. She dug her fingernails into her palms and continued walking.

"Just one more class…" sighed Ari.

The final class of the day was Divination, which Lily hated almost as much as Potions. Ari, sadly, was very good at Divination, which prompted her to pay attention in the class. But luckily, Thomas thought the class a waste of time and chose to partner up with Lily so the two could make fun of the class together.

The Divination teacher for the third years was Firenze. Though he was handsome, Lily did not fawn over him the way that Lilac Finnegan did. The only thing she liked about the class was the classroom. She had to admit that being in a miniature forest at night while still being in the castle was pretty cool. And if she happened to fall asleep on the soft grass while staring up at the night sky, Firenze would not scold her. He would simply think of her as a simple human being with absolutely no self-reserve.

"Hello, Lily Potter," Firenze bowed his head to her as she entered the room. It was late afternoon in the classroom-sized forest, but the soft muted light had no effect on Lily. She was still seething from Potions.

She slouched over to the base of a tree at the back of the room along with Thomas. Ari shot them a look that clearly asked them to move towards the front, but Lily and Thomas put their bags down and stared indigently back at Ari.

"Fine…" Ari mumbled and threw her bag down next to a tree that was only a little bit farther up. Grant Rothen and Olivia Harrow, another Gryffindor third year, were already leaning against this tree. Grant and Olivia were Lily, Ari, and Thomas' favorite Gryffindors. To an outsider, they could be considered as good of friends to Lily, Ari, and Thomas as Neville and Luna were to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"Hullo Olivia!" greeted Lily. "I haven't had a chance to talk to you all day."

Olivia had dark skin, black curly hair, and rosy cheeks that gave her a look like she was constantly in excitement.

"Lily, how nice to see you again! Good summer?" Olivia responded. "And you too, Ari!" Olivia shot a look to Thomas. "Oh, and hullo to you also, Thomas," she said in a quieter voice.

Ari and Lily traded looks with each other. They had their suspicions that Olivia had a crush on Thomas, but Thomas had yet to notice the suspected infatuations coming from Olivia.

Before Lily, Ari, and Thomas could answer, Grant broke into the conversation. "Hey you three! I am so excited for this year, it's going to be great!"

"I'm sure it…will be…exciting," Ari looked rather taken aback. "What's with the enthusiasm?"

Grant looked fit to burst. It was obvious that he had been waiting for one of them to ask him that. "Well, it's rather a secret, but I suppose I could tell you…" he gestured for Ari, Thomas, and Lily to lean closer. They did with expectant looks on their faces.

Grant looked around at the class, his light brown eyes burning behind his glasses. "Well, I overheard some of the ghosts talking on my way to Potions. And they were saying that there will be an end-of-term dance this year!"

"That's all?" Lily asked disappointedly. She had been expecting some incredible life-changing news, like another Tri-Wizard Tournament, or maybe the Chamber of Secrets being opened again.

"Yuck, a dance?" Ari said with disgust. She screwed up her eyes in agony. "I can't dance! This is an injustice! What about the poor witches and wizards that can't dance? Did the professors ever think of them?" Ari slammed her hand down on the grass. "I will be taking this up with Forte, mark my words!"

"I think a dance sounds nice…" Thomas was staring dreamily at Fiona Featherstone again, who was seated in front of Lily, Ari, and Thomas again.

"Yes, it does, doesn't it?" Olivia smiled shyly at Thomas, who ignored her by continuing stare at Fiona's "amazing hair."

"Class, lie down on your backs," began Firenze. The class did as he instructed. They could not contain their gasps when Firenze changed the room from day to night. Lily had to admit it was a beautiful sight.

"Observe the heavens. Notice that Saturn," Firenze gestured to a faraway shining dot, and the planet zoomed in closer towards the students, "is closer to the Earth more than it should be. Who can tell me why?"

Lily turned her head towards Ari, but Ari was still fuming over the idea of an end-of-term dance. When nobody answered, Firenze began to ramble about how he had expected nothing less of his students, but only because they were mere humans. It took a full ten minutes for him to finally explain why Saturn was an inch closer to the Earth than usual (or so Lily thought it looked).

Beside her, Thomas was struggling to stay awake and listen to the lesson. Lily could already hear the soft snores emitting from Grant Rothen, who like Lily found Divination a waste of time.

Maybe I could close my eyes for just a second…Lily thought to herself and lowered her heavy lids. Why does this class have to be so boring? It's not my fault I want to sleep; it's Firenze's…I wonder if Michael likes Divination.

Lily began to dream that Michael was whirling her around the Great Hall. It was the first day of school, and there were no Christmas decorations, but everyone was in dress robes. Even though Lily and Michael were dancing, everyone else was going about their business and ignoring them.

"Ari!" called Lily as she danced pass her. Ari grinned at Lily and changed her hair to green.

"I'm a Slytherin now!" yelled Ari to Professor Vintigo, who was leering expectantly. She was holding an armful of scrolls.

Lily decided that if Ari wanted to change her house, then so be it. In fact, it seemed like an entirely normal idea.

"Perhaps I should be in Ravenclaw now?" Lily asked Michael.

Michael laughed a rather sinister laugh but did not respond. Instead, he released Lily, and she spun towards the Gryffindor table. Robby and Paul were there, punching and slapping Connor Weasley's shoulders.

"He's a Hufflepuff now!" shouted Robby.

"Yeah, not a Gryffindor, but he's a little bit closer!" Paul also shouted. Beside Paul stood Olivia and Thomas, playing with a large toad and giggling.

Lily laughed loudly, feeling very excited. Suddenly, she felt a tug at her navel, and saw that Michael was there again, pulling her away from her fellow Gryffindors. He gave another dark laugh and did not say anything.

Something didn't feel right to Lily. "No, please, don't…!" Lily struggled to be free of Michael's grip. She felt herself being dragged away from her friends and family.

Lily felt herself being pulled into a darkness that had not been in the Great Hall before. She turned her body and tried to twist away, but she was only hurting herself and was no closer to being free of Michael.

"Michael!" gasped Lily. She felt herself slipping deeper into the swirling dark hole.

"Noooo!" bellowed a voice. Something seized Lily's flailing hand and wrenched her out of the darkness. White light burst around her, and she could swear that she saw the faint outline of a phoenix fly past her. The white light became brighter and brighter, and Lily could see someone standing over her, their bright red hair glaring and dancing in the light.

"It's okay," sang the figure. The last thing Lily saw before she screamed was swirling, calming blue smoke and something wet, metallic, and sweet upon her heart.

"Lily!" somebody slapped Lily's face. "Stop screaming!"

Lily opened her eyes, panting. Sweat dripped down her face; her robes were twisted and clung to her. She sat up slowly, breathing heavily.

Ari and Thomas were sitting in front of her with anxious and scared looks on their faces. It became evident that Ari had slapped Lily, because Thomas was holding down Lily's wrists.

"Did you have to slap me?" asked Lily groggily, feeling her heart slow down. She wrenched her hands from Thomas and brought a shaking white hand up to her face.

"You had a horrible nightmare, Lily," Olivia spoke next up, somewhere to Lily's right.

"You were screaming and twisting like crazy," Grant said, looking more in awe than shock.

"It was just a scary nightmare, no big deal," Lily said calmly, but shot a significant look to Ari and Thomas not to ask any questions until they were safely away from everyone else.

Firenze was standing calmly at the front of the class, watching her with a bored expression.

"Sorry 'bout that," Lily mumbled. "I didn't mean to interrupt the class."

Firenze nodded. "This nightmare happened for a reason. But only you will be able to tell what it means. Try to decipher it as soon as you can, but first you must open not only your mind, but your heart."

"Load of rubbish…" mumbled Thomas, shaking his head, but Lily instinctively raised her hand to her heart. The beating had slowed down, but something felt odd about it. It felt sweet and sad and melodic, far more than Lily could explain or put into words.

"Class is dismissed," Firenze said, and retreated away from the students.

Lily struggled to stand up, and gladly accepted her bag from Ari. Suddenly, she noticed somebody crouching behind a tree.

"You guys go ahead…I'll catch up…" Lily mumbled to her friends. She went over to the person hiding behind the tree.

"Fiona?" Lily gaped in amazement. Fiona did not look cool and collected as she usually did. Her hair was a mess, she was breathing rapidly, and her was face pale. "Are you okay?"

Fiona shook her head but whispered, "I'm fine." She looked up at Lily was the saddest eyes she had ever seen. "That was so close. Too close."

"What…?" Lily began, confused, but Fiona quickly stood up and silenced her.

"Thank you for your concern…I had a nightmare also. I was merely frightened, but I am fine now." Fiona brushed past Lily and left the room.

Lily was not convinced. If Fiona had had a nightmare, how had she moved to the other side of the room without stepping on anyone? Nobody had noticed her disappearance, and nobody had complained that somebody had trod on him or her.

Lily swung her bookbag across her shoulders and left the classroom to catch up with Fiona. But when she got outside, Fiona was nowhere in sight.

Perhaps she went into the Great Hall Lily thought to herself and entered the Hall, which was right outside Firenze's first floor classroom. A quick scan of the Gryffindor table told Lily that Fiona was not present.

"Hey," Lily said to Ari and Thomas as she slid into her seat.

"Going to tell us what your little dream was about?" asked Thomas as he spooned shepherd's pie onto Lily's plate. "Eat up, you look as pale as death."

Lily quickly told Ari and Thomas about her dream, and then about her short meeting with Fiona. "And then she just disappeared. She moves very quickly; I was only a few paces behind her out of the classroom."

"I didn't hear or see Fiona having a nightmare," Ari said. "Maybe she was just frightened by your actions? It was a bit unnerving."

Lily shook her head. "I doubt it. Why would she have been such a mess when I found her? If I saw you screaming in your sleep, I wouldn't become pale, petrified, or weak. I would probably just slap you in the face."

"Apologies, mate," Ari blushed and began shoving carrots into her mouth.

"So that's another thing for you to worry about?" asked Thomas. "First, you have Malfoy's little 'warning.' Then you have Vintigo's new form of torture. Now you have this ridiculous nightmare and Fiona to think about." He shook his head. "Pretty eventful first day, don't you think?"

"Yes, interesting, isn't it?" Ari piped up, swallowing her carrots. "I mean, I wouldn't expect anything less out of Vintigo, but you have to admit that all the other stuff is unexpected. I wouldn't ponder so much on what Malfoy said though; he's probably just trying to syke you out."

"And don't worry about Fiona, either. Worry about all the homework you have to do for Vintigo," Thomas said sternly to Lily. "Trust me, there is probably nothing going on."

Lily sat there, unconvinced. She knew that there had to be something more to Malfoy's little comment earlier, just as there had to be something more to Fiona.

Later that night, when she was lying in her bed and listening to Lilac's snores, Lily realized that Charlotte's old bed was empty again.

I hope you liked this chapter! I did not enjoy trying to work out the schedules for the students, but I felt that it was necessary.

I am almost 98 sure that you saw some parallels between the two Potions teachers, Professor Vintigo and Professor Snape. I had meant for another teacher to hate the Potters, but because of Snape I found that I disliked Potions class very much, and so it needed a sour teacher. Trust me, had Professor Vintigo been teaching the other class I had had in mind, she would not have seemed so much like Snape, while another teacher would have.

I will be introducing more new characters in the next chapter, because the next chapter contains:

QUDDITCH!

(I know you are just a little curious to see if Lily and Sirius are even onthe team)

So please read, and as always: REVIEW!!!