My first three weeks at Hogwarts passed unexpectedly quickly, I realized as I woke up on certain Sunday morning. I'd spend them by small, pleasant talks to Remus, whom I grew to like quite a lot, and, very surprisingly for me, studying. It was just the fact that there was nothing else to do...Lupin spend most of the time with his friends, with whom I wanted to have nothing in common – and these feelings were apparently mutual, after my so-called confession at the first Charms class.

I remember a talk with Remus after I'd been at school for about a week. Sirius and James were out practicing Quidditch, and Peter went with them to admire them. Remus stayed behind for once, so we had an opportunity to talk. But the fact that we could only talk when they weren't there was obviously troubling him, for he asked: "Why do you hate the boys so much?"

"I don't hate them, Remus. I just dislike them, and prefer avoiding them."

"Well then, this. Why?"

"I have already told you, because they're arrogant and childish prats. Because their favourite past time is making fun of people, and preferably of weaker people then themselves, in some aspects at least. They're bullies painted noble. All the Gryffindors pretend they take their jokes in good humour, but many don't, and the boys should know that. And I don't even mention the Slytherins. What I really wonder is why do you stick with them so much."

"They're not so bad..." he said apologetically, but I could see he didn't really believe it himself.

I was not going to budge. "Yes, they are, and you know it just as well as I do. I can see your face every time one of them performs some nice hex on a Slytherin. But you chose your company, it's none of my business," I paused. "Let's talk about something else." I was not in the mood for arguing.

The rest of my schoolmates was exactly as silly and uninteresting as I predicted. I didn't know what it was about Remus, that he was much more mature...he was the only one of my peers with which I was able to talk for a longer period of time. The only I had ever met to that date.

Back to the aforementioned morning: I got up, took a shower and descended to the Great Hall. As usual, I was one of the first students down there. When I had almost finished my breakfast, the object of my previous musings came in. I stopped at mid-move at the sight of him. He looked terrible. He had big black bags under his eyes and seemed to be very tired.

"Remus! Oh my God, you look terrible. Are you ill?"

"It's just cold, it's going to be all right."

"Are you sure? You look really worn. I don't want to interfere, but perhaps you should go and see Madame Pomfrey."

"No, it's okay, really."

I shrugged. It was his problem. "As you wish. But when you die of stubbornness, I demand the right to say 'told you so'."

"You have it." Said Remus and faked a weak smile as I left.

Later that day, I sat in the Gryffindor Common room and I was trying to concentrate on my Defence homework, but it was simply impossible. Instead, I was thinking about the teacher. He was just as brilliant and attractive as I thought he would be when I'd first met him. He seemed to know literally everything about his subject, and presented the facts with such grace, insight and lightness – especially the last adjective was exceptional in the sphere – it was really remarkable. I could clearly feel my growing fascination with him, although I had to admit that he was, undoubtedly, an arrogant jerk. His cocky smirks bore clear testimony to that. But that's just the thing about hormones and attraction...you can't choose who you are drawn to. And in my case, when hormones came to play, it was always an arrogant git.

Not that I was that special in that particular respect, it was rather a common occurrence. Perhaps that was what I hated most about it – how I always found myself to be one of a host of fan girls. Even here at Hogwarts – from what Remus told me, I figured Causens was a new teacher, and already I could see the girls from my class looking at him with that dreamy look in their eyes, sitting in the first row, their eyes fixed on him non-blinkingly. I'd wondered many times already whether they really thought this was the way to make him interested. And I'd heard my dorm mates complain that had they known Causens was teaching it, they would have taken Defense on the NEWT level. Apart from me and Lily, there was only one other Gryffindor girl in the class, and that was Elen Sloper, who was half boy anyway. She, at least, didn't seem to be interested in Causens in the slightest. Well, neither was Lily, but I didn't expect her to be. She was such a motherly type, I fully expected her to date some poor, bullied boy...maybe she could try Peter Pettigrew. I he hadn't had the luck to be associated with Sirius and crew just by the chance of being on of the four Gryffindor boys in the year, he would have been the perfect material.

Merlin – I was astonished to realize I was actually contemplating Lily's love life. Hogwarts really was boring, if I sank that low. And to think I started with Cousens...I returned to my previous occupation, which was inventing plans to get him to talk to me more – for starters, that is. One never got rid of the hormonal stuff unless one gave in to it. That was the easiest way. What I never got was the need some people had to call this love. Not that I didn't believe in love – I just though that should look rather different. My parents, I believed, loved in other very deeply, and their relationship had nothing to do with my little hormonal affaires back home.

I was disturbed from thinking when I heard loud shouting. I raised my head and saw Lily Evans bellowing at James Potter. Watching the scene for a while, I smiled for myself, for I could read two interesting things from it. Firstly, that Lily Evans belongs to the second group of Oh-so-nicers. The first group is formed by people who are so warm and kind by nature and there is no way to help them. But the second group are just normal people who have been raised in oh-so-nice atmosphere and were banned from using bad language at home, so they're a bit weird, but can be helped. According to the words Lily was using at the moment, I was positive she was from the second group.

And secondly, that Evans was an embodiment of denial at the moment. She wouldn't have shouted at anyone else that much for such triviality – it was something about breaking the rules and loosing house points. And her burning cheeks were another proof. Contrary to my expectation, Lily had a thing for arrogant jerks, too. I suppose it had something to do with the first observation – if the oh-so-nice mask was just that, a mask, then my motherly-type assumption was obviously not valid. The mask just ensured that she couldn't face the prospect of dating a jerk for a while. I knew there was some deeper problem between Lily and the boys from the start...now I saw what it was.

I went to sit next to Remus to ask him what was this all about. He smiled, apparently very amused, and told me that it was a miracle I hadn't witnessed one of their rows before, and that they were one of the favourite Gryffindor past times. I watched for another while and then decided to shock him a bit. "Why don't they snog instead?" I asked.

"What? James would certainly like to, but as you can see, Lily is rather opposed to the idea. She hates his guts"

"No, she isn't. She's just in denial."

"Why do you think that?"

"I don't think that, I know it," I said confidently. "You can tell that from one look! Why would she hate him? She thinks he's an arrogant jerk, but so do I, and I don't shout at him in the middle of the common room. Were she indifferent, she wouldn't be so rude. And I very much doubt he could have ever done something so bad that she would hate him, not even such a jerk as Potter is. Not to mention that she's probably not able to hate somebody at all – she's just too nice for it."

Remus grimaced, apparently hearing irony in my voice. He disapproved, I knew, but he let it pass. "I won't pretend I am a connoisseur of human psychology. I'll take your work for it. " I smiled. "You'd better. Time will show I was right."

I was walking back to school one warm afternoon after spending a free period outside, enjoying rare nice weather, having a strange feeling that in this country, I might very well not meet another beautiful day in half a year. I was aprroaching a yard I meant to cross to ge to my Defense class, when I heard the noises. Apparently, there was some kind of commotion there.

I didn't know if I should believe my eyes, because despite everything bad I had thought about Potter and Black, I would have never expected this. Severus Snape was laying on the ground, flat on hic back, and James Potter had his foot on Severus' chest. Sirius was behind his best mate, and I could see the wand behind his back, with which he kept Severus bound to the ground. But the noises I've heard weren't from the two of them. They were talking, but not that loudly. The noise was being made by the crowd which gathered around, laughing. I felt physically sick.

The moment I entered the yard, Potter, his back to me, was saying: „You're thrashing about like a fish out of water, Snivellus. Just lay calm, you aren't afraid of us, are you?"

My blood boiled. I had to use all of my restraint to force myself to walk slowly and quietly towards Black. Nobody seemed to notice me, they were too captured by the performance. I had the element of surprise on my side, so I managed to get a wand out of Potter's robes without him noticing and then get Sirius' wand, both by a very silent disarming spell – I wasn't quite that good at the wordless magic just yet, and I couldn't afford any failure now – and then I Stupefied Potter, thus freeing Severus. Sirius immediately launched at me, intending to assault me the Muggle way, but Severus, still partly on the ground, caught his ankle and Black stumbled, giving me the necessary time to dodge him and smash him to the wall, the wand forgotten. Magic with wand was stronger, but there were some things you couldn't do with it. The Others' magic was exactly what I needed at the moment. He was pushed to the wall by the pure force of the Twilight.

"So we're little bullies, aren't we?" I asked, seeing red. "Maybe you should get a taste of your own medicine." I turned around. "Severus, would you mind?"

"Not at all," he replied, and I used the Twilight to force Sirius to the ground. He could have easily defied me, if he had the wand. But then, I would never be so stupid to use The Others' magic on him when he had a wand. Severus, enjoying his moment, straightened his shoulders and stood up, one foot on Potter's back, the other on Black' chest.

"The statue of liberty," I commented.

The crowd, which was watching silent, started to murmur and dissolve. I turned around to see fuming McGonnagal. "Miss Schwartz! Come with me. And you too, Mr. Snape."

I saw Sirius throw me a triumphant look. "Do you think I mind, Black?" I called to him while following McGonnagal. "I don't give a damn. I would gladly get myself expelled it meant I would stop bullies like you."

It was true, I wasn't being noble or something. Things like this made me sick to my stomach. My last glimpse of Black and Potter was as they were laying on the ground, looking extremely sour.

By the time we arrived to the office, McGonnagal seemed to calm down. "What did you mean by your last comment, Miss Schwartz?" She asked.

I shifted my eyes to Severus for a second. I had no scruples concerning telling on the two idiots, but I was sure Severus wouldn't appreciate me saying what was his role in this.

"Well," I said slowly. "The two of them were bullying someone," I said, emphasizing the word, "really bad and me and Severus, well, we decided to give them a taste of their own medicine.

McGonnagal was silent for a long while, and then she nodded, her lips such a thin line they were almost invisible. "You may go," she said curtly. And we did. "Thanks," Severus murmured once we were out of the door.

"It was my pleasure," I replied. We parted without another word.

That Defense class, when I finally got there, was truly interesting. Causens seemed to be in a rather ironic mood, and as usual, he was using his wit on me. We were practicing non-verbal Defence in that class – shield charms and disarming spells and the like. I was paired up with Remus, who was trying his Expelliarmus on me, and I was supposed to be shielding him. But since I knew he had troubles with this particular part of curriculum, I hadn't bothered with the shield charm, and instead, I was occupying my time by trying to disarm Severus at the other side o the room. That was when Causens came by. Instead of commenting on Remus' unsuccessful attempts, he turned to me: "Now, Miss Schwarz, you surely are my favorite student, but that doesn't mean you can do nothing in class." He smirked, looking at me challengingly. Bastard. He knew very well what I was doing and why I was doing it, he read the first part in my mind and figured out the second easily. But he also knew that to oppose him, I'd have to say aloud that there was no point in holding up a shield charm against Remus, and that I wouldn't do that. I fought the urge to stick out my tongue at him. He continued: "But perhaps you aren't fit for dueling...You should buy a one size bigger uniform, Miss Schwarz, you'd be more nimble then." And here the smirk goes again, but this time, I had an intensive feeling that he was staring at my boobs. I suppose he appreciated my little uniform adjustments, after all. He ended the talk, and with it, the rather unsuccessful class – most people were incapable to manage either of the tasks - by saying: "One day, I shall go mad and I shall kill all the students in the school for their ineptitude...but I shall spare you, Miss Schwarz, it would be a real loss to have you dead." I'd almost swear I saw a wing after that one. I've said the class was rather unsuccessful, but for me personally, there were upsides enough.