The school was abuzz with theories about Sirius Black over the next several days. Oddly enough, no one seemed to wonder why he had come to Hogwarts and were more concerned with how he got in. During care for magical creatures Mina asked Harry if he was all right; he assured her he was and that he was still not very worried about Black. He and Mina were both more concerned about Hagrid, who was growing more and more depressed about Buckbeak's situation every day, and doing nothing but bringing out flobberworms for his lessons. They, Ron Weasely, and Hermione Granger stayed behind to try to cheer him up, but to no avail.

As Wednesday passed the topic of conversation turned to the upcoming first Quidditch match of the year. It was considered scandalous that Gryffindor and Hufflepuff would not be starting out by playing their rivals in Slytherin and Ravenclaw, respectably. As word spread that it was because of Draco Malfoy's injury that Slytherin would not be playing the Slytherin Seeker found that the whole of three houses blamed him. The consensus was that it was all a ploy to avoid playing in the current weather conditions.

It had been rainy and windy for nearly the entire week before, but on the game of the game itself there was a full-fledged thunderstorm, complete with lightning, gale force winds, and a torrential downpour. In an effort to keep his players dry, Diggory had made it a practice for the team to cast the impervious charm on their Quidditch robes before every practice. It had made their clothes water-repellent during practice, but was less effective in the middle of a gale.

When the four balls were released the Gryffindor chaser, Katie Bell, was the first to grab the quaffle and zoomed off towards the Hufflepuff goalposts. Mina raced after her, but her broom couldn't accelerate to full speed against the wind. This was only Mina's second Quidditch game, as the season had been canceled early the year before, and she had never played in weather comparable to this. Though she was the first Hufflepuff chaser to reach their end of the field she was too far behind Katie to have any chance of stopping Gryffindor from scoring.

As she was the closest chaser the Hufflepuff beater threw the quaffle to her. Mina turned her broom around and took off towards the Gryffindor goalposts. The wind in this direction pushed her broom, causing her to fly faster than she ever had before. She had to make a sudden stop in order to not overshoot the Gryffindor goalposts. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Angelina Johnson, another Gryffindor chaser, rushing her from the side. In an instant, without thinking, Mina tossed the quaffle a little bit into the air in front of her and smashed it with her hand the way she used to hit a volleyball. With the aim and strength that had been the bane of many an opponent of hers in volleyball Mina tied the game at 10-10.

Wood threw the ball to Johnson, who flew again towards the Hufflepuff goals. This time Mina was able to start off at the same time as Johnson and stay neck and neck with her the entire distance of the field. Johnson attempted to pass to Bell, but it was intercepted by another Hufflepuff chaser who used the wind to his advantage. He and the third Hufflepuff chaser passed the ball back and forth between them to keep it away from Bell until one of them could shoot, and be intercepted by Wood, the Gryffindor keeper.

Bell again took the quaffle down the field. This time Mina was back on her end. She flew into Bells's way to block her from getting a good shot off. It worked, as Bell was forced to dive and throw the ball up at the goalposts, an easy save for the Hufflepuff Keeper.

He threw the ball to Mina, who thought that she had figured out how to use the wind. She laid herself down on her broom with the quaffle under her stomach and shot off towards the Gryffindor goals. Her speed rivaled or possibly exceeded that of the Nimbus under normal conditions. She came at Wood so fast that he had no chance of saving the goal, putting Hufflepuff ahead for the first time.

It was a lead Hufflepuff would not relinquish. The second year chaser scored on an alley-oop pass from Mina. Mina herself scored a third goal, though her fourth attempt was stopped by a near collision with Harry Potter on his Nimbus 2000. Gryffindor then managed to score its second goal of the game.

As Mina slowed down to try to shoot her fourth goal again she heard a voice behind her yell "watch out!" She turned her broom just as a bludger bared down on her, courtesy of one of the Weasely twins, its speed increased by the direction of the wind. The wind carried her broom, causing it to continued to turn, so that her foot was in the perfect position to reflexively lash out at the bludger. She kicked the infamous ball so hard that it zoomed pass Johnson and began to chase the poor Hufflepuff second year. The other players, and the fans who could see through the rain, just stared with their mouths open. Had it been a clear day the field would have been silent.

No one there had ever seen anything like that before.

Mina didn't notice that anything was strange until Wood seemed to not be paying attention when he tried to stop her from scoring. He then didn't go after the ball, allowing Mina to score yet again. A flash of lightning seemed to bring him back to his senses, and he called for a timeout.

Mina and the rest of the Hufflepuff team met quickly under a large awning. Without the immediate thrill of the game to distract her Mina became aware of how cold she was and how much she was shivering. Diggory and the rest just stared at her for nearly five seconds. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Never mind. We're playing great, but the pressures going to be on me now. Woods' going to be having Potter redouble his efforts to end this quickly. I could tell that he can't see a thing through the rain on his glasses. How he hasn't hit anything is beyond me. I'd hate to face him in good weather. But if they use this time to fix his glasses we've got trouble. Chasers, keep on playing like you're doing. Beaters, target Potter. We've got to keep him occupied. I'm going to be concentrating on nothing but the snitch."

The game started again. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff each scored once, then Mina scored her sixth goal of the game. Wood started pointing and yelling at Harry, and all the players turned to see Diggory chasing the snitch with Harry hot on his heels. The chasers and keepers stopped, as their jobs were no longer important.

But something was wrong. The crowd should not have been so silent at the climatic moment of the game. Mina turned a little, and her heart sank from what she saw.

Dementors.

Hundreds of them, baring down on the Quidditch pitch.

The silence was broken by a single person shouting and the entire field erupted in panic. The dementors crossed into the field of play, and the cold Mina felt became so all encompassing that she literally froze in her spot. Images began to flash before her eyes. One dementor came towards her, and she had the sense to take out and think of the power of her wand and cast the patronus charm at it. The silver smoke stopped the dementor in its tracks, but it was only one dementor out of many, and the images in her mind became overwhelming. The patronus flickered out of existence, and Mina found herself somewhere else./

She swung the great sword back and forth, killing all that stood before her. A brief moment was all it took to prepare her one handed attack. The energy exploded against the ground, destroying everything in its radius, which happened to be in front of her, and giving her an opportunity to survey the battle.

To her left she could make out one of her comrades, the one in red and white. The fire soldier was fighting her way towards a tall man with long brown hair. She knew that her sister-in-arms did not stand a chance against the general.

She dropped the sword and put her hands together to unleash her greatest attack. The energy expanded as it blasted closer to the general, clearing a path to him.

She grabbed the sword before it even hit the ground and was off as fast as she could run towards the general.

She was a half second too late.

Her comrade was cut down just before she reached the general, just before her blade pierced his side and killed him. She knelt down, the battle be damned, and took her fallen ally's head in her arms.

"Mars…"

The soldier looked at her not with fear of death, but with sadness. "I'm sorry, Venus….I failed."

Her eyes rolled over, dead./

"No!"

Mina awoke screaming. Madam Pomfrey came over with a box of chocolate to calm her down. Once Mina, realized that she was lying on a bed in the hospital wing, and surrounded by her friends and the Hufflepuff Quidditch team she was able to accept the chocolate. Harry Potter was lying a few beds away; he and his friends were staring at her.

"What happened?" Mina asked.

"You and Potter fell off your brooms." Diggory said.

"But Dumbledore did something, made you both fall slower." Hannah said. "Then he shot something silver at the dementors to make them go away. He was scary."

"We got your broom." Diggory said. "It crashed into the lake, but Professor Flitwick summoned it out. It'll be all right once it dries off."

"What happened to the game? Was it rescheduled?"

"I got the snitch right after you two fell. We won 230 to 30. I wanted a rematch, but Wood wouldn't hear of it. He thinks he lost fair and square and doesn't want favors."

By the time all the well-wishers had left Mina had found out that Harry had woken up two hours before her, that his broom had been destroyed by the whomping willow, and that there were some who were already trying to have the move where she had kicked the bludger officially named 'The Aino.'

After they left Harry asked her "what was that thing you shot at the dementors?"

"It's called a patronus. It's an anti-dementor spell, but I don't do it very well."

"How do you do it?"

"It's a really difficult spell. Professor Lupin has been trying to teach me to do it-"

"What?" Harry yelled. "He's been teaching you to fight dementors? Can he teach me too?"

"I guess. Maybe you'll do better than me."

Mina stared at the ceiling. Under other circumstances, she would have made a comment about spending the night alone with Harry Potter that would have led to the boy feeling awkward. But that night she was far to troubled to joke.

"What did you see this time?" she asked.

"I didn't see anything. But I heard him, Voldemort, murdering my mum. What did you see?"

Mina hesitated for a few seconds. "I saw my dad getting killed."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"I just wish those dementors would go away. They didn't stop Black from getting into the castle and all they do is make us relive these things."

"Yeah. I hate dementors too. They could have killed us today. Done Black's job for him."

Mina giggled.

"What?"

"Sorry. Guess I really needed a laugh, even though it's not that funny. But it is really ironic."

There was silence for a minute.

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"D'you think that they don't have a lot of control over the dementors?" She was very worried about this point.

"I don't know. I hope not."

"Me too."/

The next morning, when Mina was released from the hospital wing with Harry, they exchanged compliments on each other's Quidditch skills and went on their way. Mina did not go to the great hall like Harry did for breakfast. She hadn't felt hungry even for the chocolate Madam Pomfrey insisted on giving them that morning. Instead she walked to the seventh floor, to the room of requirement.

Inside this time was a single mirror against one of the walls. Mina stared at it long and hard.

"Venus." she whispered.

Nothing happened.

"Venus!" she shouted.

An aura of orange light enveloped her, blocking her vision. When it dissipated, it was an entirely new person looking back at Mina from her reflection.

She now wore a skintight white and red shirt with a blue collar and a pink bow on the chest, a blue mini-skirt, blue heeled shoes, white gloves, a pink bow in the back of her hair, a mask over her eyes, and had a glowing crescent moon on her forehead.

The aura must have not dissipated completely, for through her mask Mina no longer looked like she was of Asian descent.

The most striking change however, was in how she felt. She could sense the power that now coursed through her body, far greater than the power she had felt when she first held her wand. And yet she knew somehow that even this power was a fraction of what she had the potential to become.

And, god help her, everything she had seen in her visions and dreams, everything she had doodled, was true.

She wept, not the tears of a child stubbing her toe or throwing a temper tantrum, but the silent tears of one whose childhood had been cut short all too soon./

Hannah can be taken to be Hannah Abbot, or not. The purpose of her is really just to have someone for Mina to drift away from. As a result I admit that she's not as well developed as I would have liked, but I found it hard to give her her own voice independent of Minako's. She's a friend who likes the same things and goes to the same places. In reviews that's what I think I need the most help with, finding a voice for her. But other criticisms are welcome. Just be civil and remember that I have feelings.

As of now I plan to go at least through book five.