Chapter 4:

Potions was the same with batty old Snape giving us the same old lecture we'd been hearing for practically forever and then he gave FINALLY gave us a potion to work on. Like all my other classes, it was filled with third years from all houses but there were a lot of people. Snape didn't seem to be happy about the fact that some people had to share cauldrons; but he didn't give us any other option.

We were brewing some sort of liquid crystals and when poured over hair, would change the color. I was about to put in black-petal-milk when a voice behind me spoke up. "Hello there,"

I jumped back, spilling half of the vial in there when only three teaspoons were required. It immediately began bubbling and the smell made me dizzy. Luckily, Professor Snape was only a cauldron away and noticed what had happened. He waved his wand over it and it disappeared.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Maybe if you'd focus on your task Williams you wouldn't be making careless mistakes." He barked at me with narrow eyes and turned away with a swish of his robes, his eyes already going for another student. "Weasley!"

I sighed; I had been working on the potion for half an hour now and I had almost completed my task. "Oh, I'm so sorry." Hotaru said who had been the one to startle me. "I didn't know you were in such deep concentration. It's my fault. I should probably go tell the professor so he doesn't-"

"No, no. It is fine," I said getting the ingredients to start my potion over. "I'm a little clumsy most of the time. Don't worry about it,"

She smiled and helped me carry half of my ingredients back to the cauldron. Halfway through my potion, I realized something was missing. "Hey," I asked her. "Where's your cat?"

"Oh, you mean Luna?" she asked and then looked around for a moment then looked back at me and shrugged. "She must have gone off exploring somewhere. I'm sure she'll be fine." She told me, waving it off like it was no big deal. "But I probably should make sure she's not gotten into any trouble," She was about to leave when she turned around again. "Have you seen Sailor Ven- I mean Mina anywhere?" she asked.

"Sailor… who?" I asked trying not to laugh; but something about the name sounded like it should ring a bell.

"No, I meant Mina, my cousin. Have you seen her at all today?" she asked her voice a little hard.

"No, I have one class with her but that's my last class of the day." I told her, pouring in three teaspoons of black-petal-milk. "Why did you call her Sailor?" I asked her; 'Sailor' seemed like an odd name.

"What're you talking about?" she asked me in an aloof voice that said she didn't want to talk about it.

I raised an eyebrow and asked again. "You just called her Sailor something by mistake. I was just wondering why you called her that."

"Oh, it's just this Japanese myth about this super hero and um, Mina resembles her a lot so I just call her that for a nickname." She said, her face looking a little worried. "Um, I really should go look for Luna, nice seeing you Serena." She said disappearing.

I decided she was weird and that I'd ask Mina about that Sailor thing later. A moment after Hotaru had disappeared, Snape appeared behind me. "Where is she going?" he asked me.

I looked up at him, confused. "What do you mean?"

He narrowed his eyes at me in annoyance. "Do not play games with me Ms. Williams. Is she not a student?"

I shook my head no. "I thought she was your assistant or something. I'm pretty sure she's not a student, Professor." I told him, and a confused look crossed his face but he just nodded.

"Keep working," he told me and left.

I tried to concentrate, but my mind kept wondering about Hotaru. 'If she's not Snape's assistant... and she's not a student… what is she doing here?' I thought. In the end I thought of three possible solutions; but they were all ridiculous.

In transfiguration I tried to talk to Mina about it and she just said that maybe Dumbledore had forgotten to mention it to Snape. We didn't talk that much because Transfiguration was Mina's favorite subject and she didn't want to miss a word of notes from McGonagall.

I was so relieved when we were finally done with notes and were now doing book work. At least we could talk a little. "Psst! Mina!" I whispered to her for the 5th time that day

"What?" she whispered back quieter, trying not to get caught.

"What's that nickname that your cousin calls you?" I asked her, and she frowned, her hand flipping through the book as fast as Granger to find the answer.

"What nickname?" she asked.

"You know… Sailor something."

Her quill stopped moving and she turned to look at me. "What are you talking about? Hotaru does not call me Sailor anything!"

"Who is that talking in the back? Do I need to take away some points from Slytherin Ms. Aino?" McGonagall called over to us. A blush tainted Mina's cheeks as she borrowed her face in the book and got back to work.

"Yes she does," I whispered back. "She said she calls you that after some Japanese superhero. Sailor… Ve- something."

Mina shook her head. "I don't know what you're- Oh!" Mina's confused look faded and her eyes glazed over a little, but maybe it was just the trick of the lights. Smiling, she said, "You must mean Sailor Venus."

"5 points from Slytherin!" McGonagall said from the front, staring right at us. People began to snicker around us and Mina's cheeks heated up. "Come sit up here Aino." She said, pointing to a seat in the front. Biting her lip she gathered her stuff and shot me a look. After that, the rest of the class was really quiet and I rushed to Mina as soon as we were dismissed.

"What were you saying about Sailor Venus?" I asked her. Something about that name; those words; brought something up in my memory, but I just couldn't place it.

"Hm?" she asked me, that confused look back on her face. "I think I need to go see Madame Pomfrey, Serena. My head hurts and I'm not feeling so well." She said heading to the hospital wing, missing my disappointed expression.

"But what about dinner?" I asked her, this would be the only time we would actually get to talk, and I had so many things to catch up with her about.

She shook her head and shrugged. "Maybe, if I feel better." I nodded and walked her to Madame Pomfrey's and then went on my own to lunch. I knew plenty of people, but I wasn't as close to anyone as I was to Mina. I ate and made small talk with a couple of people and decided to go to the library when I got bored.

There was only the librarian in there and as usual, it was eerie quiet. But when I smelled in the fresh scent of parchment, the quiet didn't matter. My feet took me to the 'Muggles' section and I searched for myths. In my research, I found one about something called 'Venus'. I flipped through it and it gave a lot of interesting facts about something called a 'planet' but nothing about a 'Sailor Venus'. Sighing, I put it back and kept going through the shelves.

Finally, I came across a group of books labeled 'Muggle myths'. I checked through them and read some I recognized and some that seemed insanely weird; why people make wishes on shooting stars, why wolves howl at the moon, why cats can see in the dark, why some people are cross-eyed, and a whole bunch of stuff.

I put the books back and sighed. This was way too much info. 'It would be so much easier if I had Google or Bing.' I thought annoyed that I hadn't learned anything about Sailor Venus during the hour I had been in the library. Then, I remembered that we had someone here who taught Muggle Studies. I quickly asked the librarian for the directions to the room and rushed there.

When I knocked, thankfully someone was in there and opened the door. It was a lady, with short golden hair and blue eyes. She looked pleasant enough and her eyes widened a little at seeing me, as if surprised or something else I couldn't tell. And I felt my eyes widen a little as well, she looked familiar.

"A-are you okay?" she asked me, that look still on her face.

"I'm fine," I said, but in reality, I felt dizzy and my head started to pound; this was so unusual. "Are you?" I asked her. "You look a little surprised to see me," I said, wondering why I was speaking so formal, almost as if I should recognize her.

She didn't look upset about my straight-forwardness and said, "A little; I was actually waiting for someone else." She said. "Why don't you sit down," she encouraged me motioning me to a chair. "You look pale. Did you have dinner?"

I gratefully took a seat and tried to massage my pounding forehead. "I did," I said and then looked up at her. "You- um, are you the professor who teaches Muggle Studies?" I asked her and she nodded.

"I'm Professor Tenoh,"

"I'm Serena Williams; I'm in my third year. It's nice to meet you Professor."

"Is there something you need help with?" she asked me.

"Yes, um I was wondering if you had any books on Japanese myths." I asked her.

"Myths?" she asked confused. "I'm sure the library has a ton."

"I did, actually. But it wasn't that much of a help, do you think you could help me?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have any books. I usually teach from a muggle device called 'a laptop'." She said leading me toward her desk.

I beamed as she turned it on. "Does it have internet connection?" I asked her, excited. She stared at me, puzzled and I smiled sheepishly. "I'm muggle-born; I know a lot about things like that."

She smiled at me as she signed in and then handed it to me. "Well, I'll leave you to it. If you need anything just ask," she told me and started looking at papers.

I pulled up the internet and went straight to . First I typed in 'Japanese Myths'; but I knew that would be too vague of a search. Deleting it, I typed in 'Sailor Venus'. At first there were a lot of websites about a type of comic called 'manga, but I wasn't looking for cartoons.

I tried again and typed in 'Sailor Venus – myth'. The first one was the same as the manga comic but this one talked about other people as well. I saw a picture of them in black and white, and recognized the one at the bottom; she looked a little like Hotaru. I thought about reading through it and I skipped down to 'Sailor Venus'. To my shock, it said 'Sailor Venus/Mina'. MINA! Her name was on this website! And they even had the birthday right! I gulped and a chill went down my back.

I went back and went for the second one. It was creepy how that website got it right, but I didn't want to check that one anymore. The next one was more religious and a 'temple of Venus'. Biting my lip, I scrolled down and began to read. Some of it in the beginning was in a different language and then it translated. I read through it twice and shook my head, but then scrolled down. I read a little and began to scroll faster. Then at the bottom, showed a picture of that Sailor Venus again.

It also said something about 'Sailor Moon' and that nagging feeling came back. I recognized it as the manga name and decided to check it in the library later. The rest of the article had nothing else important and I went back to Google. I decided to check out pictures because Hotaru had said this character resembled her. I pressed 'images' gasped.

They looked smack alike! That long blond hair and large blue eyes were the same! This was so weird! Deleting what was in the search bar, I typed in 'Sailor Moon'. Biting my lip, I was about to press search when the door opened; to reveal Hotaru.

"Hey there," Professor Tenoh greeted her, getting up to give her a hug. "What took you so long?" she asked.

Hotaru rolled her eyes and was about to say something when her eyes landed on me. She smiled and I smiled back but closed all the internet browsers because her gaze made me feel creeped out. She whispered something in the Professor's ear and then came to me.

"What're you doing here, Serena?" she asked.

Ms. Tenoh looked back and forth between us and asked before I could reply, "You two know each other?"

Hotaru smiled and looked at her saying, "Yes, Mina introduced us on the first day." As I looked at her, I realized there was something about her smile that didn't reach her eyes. "So, what are you doing her, Serena?" she asked, turning her attention to me.

I had turned off the laptop and put the screen down, so I handed it to Professor Tenoh. "Oh, just some research the Muggle way." I turned away from her and smiled at the Professor thanking her for letting me use it. After that, I got the hell out of there; Hotaru gave me the creeps.

That night, it took a lot of difficulty to fall asleep but when I did, I had the weird dream again with that bald guy and that evil lady. Only this time, the ladies protecting the castle kept screaming about a Princess.

Sorry about this chapter. I'll try to make it more exciting, but you'll have to bear with me till then. Review if you want :)

~S.N.