I'm soooooooooooo uberly sorryyyy for the lack ofupdateness, and the lack of action in this chapter -hides- I'll update even more often if people review moreeee Thanks muchly for those who did review. You all get cookies and muffins.

Disclaimer: Still not mine...

! Once again, just a reminder that there will definately be HBP spoilers in this fic.

It would have taken the marauders and Alanna less than five minutes to walk down to the Great Hall, had they not been moseying along, laughing at things James, Sirius and Remus said, and normally things that Peter did, rather than anything he may have said (not excluding when he ran straight into a wall while laughing at something Sirius had said).

Finally, they walked through the giant-sized doors leading to the Great Hall. The moment Alanna's eyes met the sight of the magnificently charmed ceiling -- Now, a starry, cloudless night, she stopped dead in her tracks and gaped in wonder.

James grinned. "It's neat, eh? It's still cool to me after five years here." If Alanna were to choose a word to describe the ceiling, and the room in general, 'neat' would most definitely be on the 'wayyy understatement' part of her mind, but she wasn't paying much attention to him anyway. Sirius and Peter had run off to the table so quickly that one might be put under the impression that the food would disappear if they ran any slower, and Remus and James began to walk after them. Alanna tore her gaze from the ceiling and followed slowly, still taking in the scene surrounding her.

Alannawas snapped rather abruptly out of her reverie when a strong feminine voice yelled, "Potter!" She looked at James just in time to see his hand fly to his hair, ruffling it up messier than it was before.

"I know you missed me Evans, but if you're going to reject me so much you shouldn't seem so obvious," He grinned lopsidedly. Sirius shook his head, raising his eyebrows but still smiling and Remus was pretending he couldn't hear them. Peter didn't have to pretend; he was utterly engrossed by his food.

"YOU -- STUPID -- BLOODY -- ARROGANT -- PRAT!" Lily Evans bellowed. Her dark red hair was down and shifted on her shoulders as she stomped up to him. Her green eyes seemed electrified with fury. It was obvious that she didn't notice that by now most of the Hufflepuff table as well as some of the Ravenclaws and Slytherins, were staring at her; Though it wasn't an uncommon spectacle to see Lily Evans reaming at James Potter, it was unusual for her to do it in the middle of the Great Hall during dinner. Alanna wondered what James could have possibly done to make her so infuriated. He had seemed pretty normal in the time she spent with him. It seemed as though he felt by being arrogant he was impressing her. Alanna was definitely not getting that kind of vibe.

James seemed relatively unfazed, and didn't move as she advanced toward him. "That wasa lot of adjectives, Evans. I thought you normally phrased your sentences more eloquently." Lily's face grew more red, and for a moment it looked like she was going to smack him. There was a split second silence.

"Eloquent my arse! I know that you're behind all of those dungbombs in the fifth year girl's dormitories. Do you know how long it took us to clean that up!" By this time her face was so red that it was clashing wildly with her fiery hair. Suddenly her gaze caught Alanna's and she double took. "And I bet you've been annoying the new girl. Argh. Just get away from me!" Without waiting for an answer, she strode over to Alanna.

"Hi, I'm not always like that, I mean. Urgh, he just sets me off! Sorry though. I'm Lily Evans. I'm a fifth year and a prefect, so if you need any help with anything, you can always talk to me." Her face was returning to it's normal pale ivory and she smiled slightly.

Alanna was stunned into silence for a moment. She knew that Lily Evans was not afraid to speak her mind, but she had never expected her to be so loquacious. "Er, Hi. I'm Alanna Reese. It's nice to meet you," She once again was unpleasantly reminded that she was speaking with someone who was no longer living in Alanna's own time. She stole a glance at The Marauders. James had given up on having any kind of sane conversation with Lily and was sitting next to Sirius and across from Remus and Peter, talking in hushed tones and throwing the occasional glance at Lily and Alanna. Alanna felt bad for ditching them, but didn't feel as though she had much of a choice as Lily continued to speak.

"I'm sorry Alanna, why don't you come and sit with my friends and I? I'll introduce you to everyone." She smiled and Alanna uncertainly nodded her head before following her to the table. Suddenly she thought of home again, and wished she could just go back and everything would just be normal, but she knew things would never be normal again, even if she did somehow miraculously go back.

Back at the table, two girls were chatting and laughing. One was very short and petite. She had straight, shoulder-length hair that was so white that Alanna wondered briefly if she was albino. Her eyes were a pale blue andthere was a certain feeling resonatingfrom her that made oneknow she was not one to be messed with.In contrast to the first girl, theother girlhadolive skin and dark wavy hair down to her waist. She had high cheekbones which rested below slightly slanted eyes, which were so dark that Alanna couldn't make out her pupils. They stopped talkingas Lily and Alanna approached and both smiled.

Alanna smiled back, suddenly wishing she didn't have boring dark brown hair, gray eyes and her stupid nose that curved up at the end. Her brother always made fun of her, saying it looked like a ski-jump.

Lily sat down, motioning for Alanna to do the same. "Hey guys, this is Alanna Reese, she's new here. Alanna, this is Emily Sullivan," She gestured to the fair girl. "And Sarah Marino," She nodded to her other friend.

Both of the girls smiled, Emily's "Hello, nice to meet you," was almost drowned out by Sarah's "Hiya!"

"Nice to meet you guys too," Alanna momentarily forgot about her head's dull throbbing but she had to force herself to smile. I shouldn't feel happy, my parents are dead andI'll never see Dan again. I didn't even get to say good-bye to them... She suddenly felt so guilty for not having gone to their wake and funeral, and her headache returned with a vengeance.

"Are you all right?" Lily enquired, looking as though she thought she'd done or saidsomething wrong.

Alanna blinked and nodded, her smokey eyes took on a glassy shine and she prayed tears wouldn't escape her eyes. Talk about a bad impression! Think about something else... magic, isn't it going to be so great to learn magic? She blinked several more times. "Yes i'm fine... just thinking."

"So, when did you come here?"

-----

At the other end of the table, James suddenly put his fork down halfway through eating a large piece of meat. He stole a glance toward the side of the table that Evans and Alanna were sitting, and thought back to the morning before.

"She's very strange," He said, suddenly remembering most of their conversation. Remus seemed to understand, but Sirius beat him to words.

"Hustrange?" He said through a full mouth. Peter laughed, almost spraying pumpkin juice out of his nose (which, of course, only made him laugh harder.)

Before Sirius could make another attempt at the question, Remus cut in. "You mean Alanna? How so?" He hadn't been eating much to begin with, as he was still getting over the full moon, but at the prospect of reasonable conversation, he pushed his plate slightly aside.

"Well... I mean..." James squinted, as if that would aid him in remembering. "She seemed to know about magic... I mean, no, she definately did. I mean, I don't know if she did a lot, but... You know what I mean?"

Remus laughed and Sirius blinked several times. "Not really..."

"...Three..."

"What Moony?" James gave his friend a look.

"I was counting the amount of times you said 'I mean' in that horribly formed sentence of yours... It's actually four if you count the last one..." He showed a shadow of a smile but nothing more, considering how serious James looked, for once in his life.

"James, mate, you feeling all right there? You haven't said a smart arse remark or askedEvans out for almost five minutes," Sirius was still grinning. James rolled his eyes.

"Seriously though, I never mentioned anything about magic, and she asked me to prove I could do it. But then, she asked to see Dumbledore. How would she know about him?"

Remus was silent for a moment, eyes calculating. "That is strange. Are you sure that you never mentioned anything about magic though? I'm sure there's a reasonable explaination."

James wracked his memories and sighed, "You're probably right, I'm probably said someth-"

Seeming to have finally picked up on the conversation (or at least just talking for the first time) Peter cut him off. "I don't like her. Did any of you notice that she didn't directly adress me at all? Except when she said hello. That was it."

"Really? That's--"

Sirius was cut off abrubtly by Dumbledore's start of term speech.

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