Have my munchkin friends returned for more? No? Well, at least the humans are still with me. Right, guys? Right? Guys?

'Nyways, I have finished my apple juice, and now own exactly nada.

Enjoy, my lovelies, and don't forget, reviews are my lifeblood, if the reviews cease to arrive, I will die, and my stories will stand unfinished, as a testament to the deadliness of no reviews (unless someone hacks my account and replaces everything with 'ass ass ass balls 8=========D', in which case there will be no warning to the fair citizens of the FanFiction world, and many more will fall as a result of not getting reviews). So basically, please review. I'd like to know what you think.

Now, an anonymous reviewer made a very good point. Iggy is blind and therefore cannot read. Thank you, I had forgotten, most likely as a result of his blindness being so trivial in the books, since he can practically do everything. Anyway, it has been fixed.

Nine: Home Again

Iggy lounged on one of the sofas in the Ravenclaw common room, and smiled to himself. In his right hand was a Sugar Quill, which he sucked on idly as the fire crackled in the corner, and in his left was a letter not unlike a Howler, but much nicer. It was from Ella, saying that she missed him and hoped all was well. It was so nice to have some time to himself, to just relax.

Hogwarts was amazing, in his opinion. Even if it was the cause of some fighting between Nudge and Max (personally, he was siding with Nudge on this one), he adored his new home. The people were nice, no one questioned him, or his right to be here. He had a bunch of friends, and he was learning magic.

Best of all, he'd found something almost as amazing as flying.

Flying. Only, not with wings, with broomsticks.

Nick, who was in Iggy's dorm, second bed from the right (and inevitably reminded him of darker times, when Fang had developed the alias 'Nick', or, as Iggy preferred, 'Fnick'), was a Chaser on the Ravenclaw quidditch team, and had offered to teach Iggy to fly.

Iggy, of course, had accepted, and proved to be quite a brilliant flyer. He had natural balance from what he called 'real' flying, and controlling a broom came fairly easily.

Second best was, of course, that he had met Tess.

Again.

He remembered her from their school days, back when the Flock was living with Anne. Tess had been in his class, and they'd gotten on well.

From what he had gathered, she had moved to England after the Flock made their great escape, and Hogwarts had discovered her magic. Apparently the American system was a lot dodgier, and tended to skip over muggleborns. She, like him, was a Ravenclaw, and it was her footsteps that entered the common room now.

'Hey.' she greeted him.

'Sup?' he returned, standing up and stuffing the letter into his pocket.

'Not much,' she sighed. 'Bloody potions homework.'

He laughed, and asked, 'Anything I can help with?'

'Yeah.' she replied. 'Everything. You know I'm rubbish at potions.'

He laughed again, and let her lead him to the library.

-o-o-o-o-

'I'm sorry.'

'What?' Nudge said, confused, sitting up.

'I'm sorry.' Hailie repeated. 'We shouldn't've been so mean. I didn't want to...'

'Oh, um...'

'It really wasn't my fault. I'm really sorry. I just feel so bad! But Aya said she'd never talk to me again if I talked to you, so... I'm sorry.'

Nudge considered. Surely it would be better to have one friend in her own house than to have none...

'It's okay.' she said.

'Really?' Hailie looked up, 'Can we be friends?'

'Yeah,' Nudge nodded. 'Yeah, we can.'

'Uh, hey, I'm going to play Exploding Snap with Lydia and Sara. Do... do you want to play?'

'I don't know how to play.' Nudge admitted.

'Oh, I can teach you! It's super fun.'

-o-o-o-o-

Chantez had sent word ahead, and some of those cool horseless carriages had arrived to deliver us back to Hogwarts, like one big, lovely package all tied up in brown paper and string.

Well, four medium-sized lovely packages, if the package referred to the number of carriages.

Anyway, that's not really the point. The point is, we were going back to Hogwarts, at long last, even though it had only been three days.

I would like to say that I climbed nimbly into the carriage, but I didn't. I was still kind of nauseous from apparating, and really tired from three days of dealing with Swan and Lockhart, so I all but collapsed in a dilapidated (what can I say? spending time around Remus and Lily will inevitably end in learning. Besides, dilapidated is a cool word) heap next to Lily.

'Well, that was certainly interesting.' Rose said, as she pulled herself inside.

'If by interesting, you mean a narrowly avoided disaster, then sure, it was interesting.' Peter replied, climbing in after her.

'Any more of Lockhart's bragging and I would have to use an Unforgivable on him.' James added, plopping himself down next to Lily, who inched away a little.

I let out a tired chuckle. 'I'd say 'Ditto with Swan', but I'm too magically-retarded to know what an Unforgivable is. Sounds like something she deserves, though.'

'No one ever told you about the Unforgivable Curses?' Rose asked, surprised.

I shrugged. 'They might have mentioned it, but I don't think I was paying attention.'

'When are you ever?' Fang asked, joining us.

'Well,' Lily began, 'there's these three curses: the Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, and the Killing Curse. They're called the Unforgivable Curses, and if someone can prove you used one, it's Azkaban for life, or the Dementor's Kiss, depending on how friendly the judge is feeling. They're pretty terrifying.'

'What are they?' I breathed, mesmerised by horror of three Curses so bad that using one could get you as good as killed.

'The Imperius Curse is used to control people.' Lily told me. 'Severus told me that one of the Seventh Years walked down the wrong street in Knockturn Alley, and ended up under the curse, because some lunatic wanted to steal a bunch of stuff, but was too scared. Anyway, apparently it's the most amazing bliss, you're only vaguely aware of what's going on, and you want to give in, because it's like a drug. The bliss is addictive, you want more and more of it. Of course, if you have the willpower, you can break free, but it's only rarely that someone manages it.

'The Cruciatus Curse is really horrible,' Lily continued, 'of course, they all are, but this one is the most painful. It's a torture curse. I read somewhere that it inflicts the most painful sensation in the world. And the worst part? It's all in your mind. It will never kill you, it will just break you. There's cases of people going insane after being tortured, sometimes for hours.'

'Wow.' I said. 'Those sound terrible... What's the third one, the Killing Curse, like?'

'Every book I've ever read calls it the worst curse of all. It kills you, just like that. Boom. Gone. There's no blocking it either. You can't fight your way out with your mind, you can't use a shield charm, and it will smash through most things you hide behind. The only way to avoid it is exactly that. Avoid it, run as far away as you can. We can only be thankful that the creator of these Curses didn't invent a target-seeking version. There's a theory that he was working on it, but one of his experiments went awry, and he was killed before he could finish the project. But don't take my word for it, that's only a theory, because no one could figure out if his death was a murder, or suicide, or what.'

Fang whistled. 'Damn.' he said, summing up the chaotic flurry of thoughts whirling around in my head in one word.

'But don't worry too much.' Rose put in reassuringly. Evidently I was not as good as hiding my outright terror as I had hoped. 'Only powerful wizards can pull them off properly, and not many of them do. The consequences of being caught is an adequate deterrent for most people.'

'I'd hope so.' I said, suppressing a shiver. Defense Against the Dark Arts had taught me that Dementors were definitely not something I wanted to mess with.

A slightly grim silence fell, like the Dementors had affected us without even being here.

It was, however, soon broken by Lily slapping James.

'Keep your hands off me, Potter!' she shrieked.

'Hey, my hand slipped!' James said, holding up his hands defensively.

'Slipped my left sock! How dare you?'

'Look, I'm sorry okay? I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have done that! Please, just calm down! I'm sorry!' James begged, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

Lily scowled at him, but relented and sat back down.

'I'm sorry. Please forgive me? Please?'

'Fine, Potter. Just don't you dare do anything like that ever again.' she said, lips pressed tightly together in what I assumed was barely controlled rage.

Soon, the atmosphere relaxed, and we began reminiscing and cracking jokes.

Just as Rose finished telling us about the time her father had jinxed their shower to spray cake mix instead of water, we pulled into Hogwarts.

I smiled at the sight of the castle. Just three weeks here, and I already felt at home.

Well, except for all the times I got lost, but you know what I mean.

-o-o-o-o-

When I entered the castle, Iggy and Nudge were waiting to greet me. Iggy waved, and Nudge had an anxious expression on her face.

'How've you guys been? Have fun?' Iggy asked, and Fang began filling him in on the details, no doubt in one word sentences.

'Did you get my message?' she asked worriedly. 'Please say you understand.'

'I don't understand, not at all.' I said, and her face fell. 'But I accept your decision. You're not a baby anymore, so I'm trusting you to make your own decisions. Well, some of them.'

Instantly, she beamed at me. 'Oh, thank you so much!' she said, hugging me tightly. I smiled, and hugged her back.

Despite how exhausting being the 'mother' of the Flock was, whenever we're separated, I can't help being worried. These guys aren't a burden, they're my family. And lover.

Does a lover count as your family? Might as well, mightn't it? It's like being married, only without the married part.

Wait. I must be delirious from lack of sleep and proper food. I did not just think that.

Actually, you know what?

To hell with that.

I can love someone and be scary and tough at the same time. What rules say I can't?

And if there is a rule that says that, well, rules are made to be broken.

So guess what, world? I, Maximum Ride, non-girly-girl and badass extraordinaire, am in love.

With Fang.

So there. I said it. What're you going to do about it?