So, you supporters of Oliver and Aly, whom I'm trying to come up with a celebrity couple name for, (I already know Carden and Deans, for all of you who reads 'Dance with the Devil,' is Cardean. It's just the only way I think it works.) are going to love this chapter.

Actually, you're going to love the next, like four chapters. And hopefully the rest of the series, but these next four or so definately.

"So," Siren sat next to me, clad only in a bikini top and very short shorts, despite the nippy weather. She ignored the goose bumps on her arms as she flipped her hair at me, "Rumor has it Wood told you he was going to give you a-" She paused for comic effect, flipping her hair again and looking fake-sultry, "Real detention."

I groaned, "Why does Wood hate me?"

"Cause the sex is always better in a love-hate relationship," Willow explained casually next to me, sitting in her one piece.

"Now there are some girls who are angry at you and your-" Penny paused, imitating Siren's affect and flipping her nut-brown hair in my face, "Real detention. That you don't deserve it."

"So we," Susan continued, kneeling in front of me and smiling cheekily, "Think that you should show them you definitely deserve the most bang-worthy teacher in the school by shaking what your mother gave you over in the lake."

I groaned again, this time at my friends, "I wish I never taught you guys the phrase, 'shake what ya mama gave ya.' You don't even use it right."

"But you did teach it to us, and we're using it to our advantage, so come on," Siren said, grabbing my hands.

"No, guys, you know how I am, I hate swimming," I complained.

It's true - I just happen to be one of those girls who hates putting her body on display like a piece of very tender and yet worthless meat by wearing a bathing suit made only of ropes the diameter of my pinky finger. Go figure.

"Come on, the water's really nice, Wood put a charm on it, it's like a hot tub," Penny gushed, "And you know soaking is no fun if you aren't there to tell us what actually happened when the sixth years were caught snogging after lights out."

"Gee, I feel appreciated," I muttered.

"Come on, or we'll force you in," Siren begged, pouting at me.

"Guys, go on, I have this essay, and now this detention. I'll shake what my mama gave me another time, alright? And there will be no doubt that I deserve my detention."

"When are you going to wear a bathing suit in public?"

"The... end of the year bash in the lake," I suggested feebly.

"No such thing," Willow responded, giving me a look that scolded 'that's-the-best-you-can-come-up-with?'

"Well, we're going to start that tradition. Can you imagine how fun it would be? You know the squid would attack, and we can just roll and laugh in the shallo-"

"Aly," Susan pouted at me.

"Guys, really, another time, I need to get at least an A on this essay so Wiggins won't kick me out of his class, and I don't even know what a-" I glanced at the paper where I'd written town my topic, "A Price Removal Draught does. And even I can't do ten inches on one night of research."

"Well, fine, we'll just sit and distract you he-"

"No, guys, really, please, just leave me be, I'll come on in when I need a break," I said hopefully. My friends learned this new thing the other day - persistence. It's worse than when I taught them 'shake what ya mama gave ya.' I'll forever curse myself.

"Alright," Siren said, and I looked at her with wide eyes.

That was it? That was all I had to do? Say please? Oh God, now they've got a plan - I can tell, Penny has that look in her eyes. I'll kill whoever taught them to plan - that was not my doing.

They stood at once, and I eyed them for a moment , reassuring myself that they weren't going to interfere anymore. Potions is an important subject no matter what you want to do. It shows how well you follow directions to future employers.

It doesn't matter that what I want to do - which is raise and breed dragons - really has nothing to do with potions. It's the impression it makes on the employers that makes all the difference.

Sighing and wishing I could be almost anywhere but sitting on the beach of a beautiful lake, working on a potions essay, I picked my Handbook to Every Elixer, a book generally frowned upon by Wiggins, but it's really great when it comes to these essays so I deal with his annoyance. Every potion has its own three 

pages, full of very organized and specific charts that tell me everything I could possibly need to know about the potion.

I set the book in my lap, reading silent to myself. A Price Removal Draught is composed of thirteen and a half feathers of Griffen, four eyes of newt, a t-

Suddenly, arms scooped me up, and I instantly recognized them - how many times had they scooped me up at Susan's house and dumped me into the pool there? I could hear the girls' laughs as I started to flail, "Brendon, this isn't even close to funny, put me down right now!"

"Aw, Darling, just a little dip, you'll like it, I promise."

Something about the way he said that made me shiver with disgust, and it was during the shiver that he dropped me into artificially-warmed lake water. My butt hit the rocky bottom almost immediately, leaving me to flail back to the surface.

I stood, my jeans dripping, my face getting red as I caught sight of the pompous ass who seemed to think he was worthy of being called a person, "You little weasel!"

I dove for him - I didn't care much about the repercussions. I was working, working, and I have been working since I got up this morning. All I ask is for an hour of peace to finish my writing, to finish with my essay that, despite my laid-back attitude towards everything work-related, has been worrying and will continue to worry me until I get it back and see how I did.

And what does the do? HE THROWS ME IN A FREAKING LAKE!

I caught him on his jaw, punching him and pushing at him 'til we were back on shore, screaming profanities at him as he stood there, quite obviously unsure of what to do. That is, until he came up with the perfect comeback to me telling him he had such a small penis he was barely considered a man.

"Ah, so you think about my penis on a regular basis, do you?"

I swear, a vein in my neck popped, and a few in my forehead too. I screamed like a banshee, halfway through jumping up to claw his eyes out when two strong arms wrapped around me, holding me to the ground, "I really think that's enough, Darling."

I recognized the voice immediately, my arms breaking loose and pushing against the body that had me pinned as I turned to face him, "AND YOU! You just LOVE make everything worse, don't you? Not only do you have to insist upon attempting to be a part of every bit of my personal life, because that isn't enough, no, you insist upon PROVIDING MORE INSANE RUMORS! You knowingly do it, I know you do! And you know why?" Oh shit, I think this might be going too far. "Because you like the attention! Whatever happened that made you quit professional Quidditch, you came back to relive the glory days, when you were winning the Quidditch cup and allowed to walk around like a-"

"Darling," Wood said in a warning voice, effectively cutting me off.

The way he looked at me said it all - I had touched some sort of nerve, and I wouldn't get out of this one with a cute curtsy and some crocodile tears. No, no, Wood was pissed, and I'd attacked Brendon. Yeah, yeah, I'm in for it.

"Well," I started, tugging at my hair desperately. There's always hope! "I think this was a really good experience. It really, erm, you know, brought a lot unknown stressors in this delicate Hogwarts social-balance to light. I really think we will all benefit from knowing how I feel and, more important, how hurtful words can be wh-"

"Darling," Wood growled, "My tent, now."

Oh fuck, he might murder me. "Yes sir," I squeaked, following him along.

Wood stormed in front of me, not bothering to even grab my wrist and drag me along behind him violently. I don't know it that makes things better or worse, but I'm going to assume worse.

His tent was directly in front of the fire pit, and so it was a relatively short walk up the sandy hill and into the cover of trees. He walked through the opening, throwing the opening flaps aside angrily and, I swear, twitching as he rounded back on me.

I stood as close to the door as I could without looking suspicious, and Wood turned on me, "Darling, you are to never, never talk about why I quit professional Quidditch." I tried to keep a cap on my anger at being ordered around as he continued, "And I don't know where you got this idea that I'm some deranged glory-hog, but I must say I'm disappointed in you." He paused, letting his eyes fall and no longer looking so extremely crossed, "Well, I guess I do know where you got that idea, but really, I expected more from you. To just take me at face value like that. Really - I'd always thought better of you, Darling." He fell silent, thoughtfully.

I honestly didn't know what to say - really? That's it? Disappointment and a reminder that assuming makes an ass out of you and me? Cause really, if I did that in front of any other teacher, I would be in serious jeopardy of losing my title as Head Girl. That was definitely not model-student behavior.

"You could lose your position as Head Girl if McGonagall finds out about this," Wood mused to himself, looking at me. I nodded, not quite sure whether or not I was allowed to speak, and not finding any amusement in the parallelism. He sighed, "Well, then I'll just take care of it myself. Uh, I guess just a hundred points from Ravenclaw and... three more detentions."

I snorted, unable to contain my thoughts, "You aren't very good with this punishment thing."

He smiled awkwardly, "Not really, no."

"But you manage to pull detentions out of nowhere when you're angry at me."

"Yeah, sorry about that, you don't have to come to that one," Wood admitted, almost blushing as he rubbed the back of his neck.

I looked at him, torn between helping him and escaping while the punishment was bearable. I thought of Ginny's opinion, and how she had spoken about him, and I finally gave in to a kinder instinct, "Well, as far as punishing goes, there are very thin lines, with a very narrow section of 'fair.' When I have to punish someone, I take into account three things: first off - how it reflects on the school; next is how many priors the person has had; and the last is how many technical rules it's broken. I've always thought of it like a point system - one point for every rule it's broken, for how many priors, and then how it reflects on the school is a one to ten sliding scale."

"And that works?"

"I've never had anyone complain to me about my punishments. I mean, I have, but they never can actually prove that I'm being unfair."

Wood smiled, "Alright, so you broke... about six rules, let's say?"

"More like four, but alright," I corrected, trying to ignore the fact that all I wanted to do was laugh at him because he was being so cute about this whole thing.

"We'll go with five - but you gave a horrible impression of the school, so that's a ten."

"Yeah."

"And I don't know of any priors in violent outbursts with you, so I'll give you a two on that, just because I know you've had detentions."

"That's fair."

"So that would be a ... seventeen."

"Which would be worthy of two weeks of detention and a hundred-point reduction."

"Alright, then, that's what we'll do."

"Great," I said. Crap, detention for two weeks. I should've just left well enough alone.

"But I guess for helping me out and being honest, I'll take off a week."

I smiled, "Thanks, Wood." Maybe he's not so bad after all.

Later that night, I sat under the canopy of trees, the fire crackling in front of me and, past a few trees and in a valley that we'd all had dinner in, I could make out the night-whispers of teen lovers and their beaus. I knew deep inside that I should go and break up the couples, give them a detention and send them back to their tents.

But who am I, the girl who just got away with attacking another student and telling off a teacher and still managed to keep her title, to go and break up a couple caught in the midst of what might be true love?

Alright, so that was the most unlike-me thing I've ever said, but on a night like this, when the sky is clear and there are a billion stars and you can make out each and every one, you can't help but think that everything is just fine, and that true love can hit at any time, including when you're no more than seventeen.

In the lake, I heard a fish flop out of the water and splash back in. Moments later, Professor Wood fell half out of his tent, his hair mussed up from sleep and landing on the ground with a distinctive crash. He looked around for a second, obviously confused.

Finally his eyes landed on me, and he whispered in a voice, still mostly-asleep, "What was that?"

"A fish, Wood," I smiled, rolling my eyes. I was almost charmed but the adorable expression of confusion on his face.

"Oh," Wood said, finally crawling out of the tent and sitting next to me, "So, what's keeping you up?"

"I'm supposed to be patrolling the woods," I explained as, right on cue, a distinctively girlish giggle rang through the trees.

"So shouldn't you go break that up," Wood questioned, smirking down at me.

I shrugged, sitting on my hands in an attempt to keep them warm, "Nah. They'll be fine, we learned contraceptive charms at the beginning of the year."

Wood shook his head at me, "How did you ever manage to become Head Girl?"
"It was slim pickings, I think."

"Well, if you're not doing your job, why don't you just go to bed?" I pointed up at the stars and, wordlessly, Wood let his neck hang back, making his Adam's Apple look tight and painful in his throat, "Oh, wow."

"Yeah, it's beautiful," I replied.

"Reminds me of the view from the Quidditch Pitch," Wood said automatically, and I snorted in laughter at him.

"Do you ever think of anything besides Quidditch and flying?"

"Yes," Wood smiled.

"Like what," I teased.

Wood bit his lip thoughtfully, "My family, the war, lots of things." He glanced at me for a moment, his brown, shaggy hair falling in his eyes.

And in that brief moment, him looking at an awkward downward angle at me, the firelight flickering in his unnervingly dark brown eyes, I think I might have saw what Ginny was talking about.