A/N: This was a very weird chapter to write. I read it over about a dozen times trying to figure out how I could make it shorter and clearer, but it just kept getting longer and more complex. It's a bit jumpy; in some ways, I think a bit too much happens, but I've been writing for the past five hours or so, so that might just be the crazies talking. Tell me what you think. :)

The next two weeks seemed to fly by. History of Magic continued to be the class in which to daydream; Teddy was getting more seriously distracted now by his near obsession with Transfiguration and the upcoming Quidditch tryouts. As a result, he quickly became the best student in Transfiguration and among the worst in History of Magic, which Teddy was perfectly okay with... until it came to homework.

Harry taught me all I'll ever really need to know anyway, was the excuse he kept repeating to himself as he frowned down at the latest impossible essay, his hair the deepest black of concentration.

Oliver, on the other hand, was having the opposite reaction; he was doing wonderfully at History of Magic and Herbology, while his marks in courses that involved wandwork suffered in comparison. It wasn't that he was particularly bad at Charms and Transfiguration; he did better than some of the Slytherins simply because he paid such close attention to what he was supposed to be doing while they goofed off in the other corner of the room; but he really never seemed to develop the knack for waving the wand about in such a fashion to yield the desired result. He took it jovially most of the time, but finally lost his temper when Teddy perfectly transformed a Muggle traffic cone into a witch's hat in his second try.

"Who needs that many hats? No one! If you need a hat so badly, go to the store and buy one," Oliver said after Teddy had done his third one, jabbing him in the chest with his wand. Teddy promptly grew leafy tendrils out of his chest and had to be escorted to the Hospital Wing by Winnie, who was nearly hysterical with laughter.

"Just because you're good at everything," Teddy muttered, his hair the now familiar shade of red as he carried the plants protruding from his ribcage in his arms.

Winnie was, indeed, thriving in nearly every subject. Despite her knack for not paying attention, she always got her assignments done, getting good passing marks in every class. Even in History of Magic, the class in which she usually caught up on her beauty sleep, her mark was far better than Teddy's. She wasn't necessarily best in the grade, but by no means was she doing poorly in any of her courses.

Julia, however, was struggling. Potions was the only course that seemed to strike her fancy; she always yielded the best potion out of the four of them, and it was often the best in the class. Professor Wendall always muttered run-on compliments to Julia that no other student seemed to receive. In all other courses, though, Julia was a mess. Hufflepuff was apparently still not treating her well, though she refused to talk about it; she came to nearly every class looking distressed or, sometimes, actually afraid.

The Quidditch tryouts were scheduled for the third Friday of term. Teddy walked into the common room that morning and saw Winnie sitting in a cushy chair by the fire, wearing Puddlemore United Quidditch robes and reading the latest issue of Which Broomstick. It was very apparent to Teddy that Winnie had been up for hours. As he walked in, she rose excitedly from her seat and hugged him very tightly without a word.

"Easy, I'm not feeling terribly well," he muttered weakly into her robes.

"Oh, don't worry, it's just nerves," she said, letting go of him and wringing her hands as they heard the portrait swing open. "It's all right, there's still Potions before..."

"And breakfast," Teddy said, grinning. "And lunch. You've got to eat, okay?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah, sure. What kind of broom do you think the school will let us use? I use the latest Shooting Star at home, but I'm not sure if they'll have that here..."

"Hey," Oliver said from the bottom of the dormitory stairs. Teddy turned to greet him, but Oliver wasn't looking at either of Teddy or Winnie; he followed Oliver's line of sight and saw Professor McGonagall walking into the common room, followed closely by--

"Julia?"

Julia peered around the common room and raised her hand in a hesitant wave. Teddy grinned at her and glanced at Professor McGonagall, who was also wearing a rare smile.

"I received an owl from your godfather this morning suggesting that we simply ask Ms. Wright which house she wanted to be in, as the attention she was getting in Hufflepuff was clearly... less than adequate," McGonagall said to Teddy, "so here we are."

"You're here? Like, here, here?" Oliver asked Julia incredulously.

Julia nodded and smiled shyly. Winnie raised her eyebrows.

"I was wondering why there was a new bed in our room," she said, smiling. "Good to see you, Julia."

"I imagine I can trust you three to show Ms. Wright around, then?" McGonagall asked. Teddy noticed that she looked very tired.

"Yes, Professor," Teddy said immediately. McGonagall nodded, informed Julia that her trunk and other belongings would be taken into her room during class, and strode hurriedly from the common room.

Teddy grinned lopsidedly at Julia. "So, this is the Gryffindor common room, up there are your quarters, and it's ruddy fantastic to have you here. Good morning, how are you?"

Julia grinned and bounced slightly on the balls of her feet. "I'm good," she said, though the expression on her face suggested that this was an understatement. "I like that people talk to me here, I walked in and Riley actually said hi on his way down to breakfast."

"So everyone was still ignoring you in Hufflepuff, huh?"

"They talked when they had to. I asked for the potatoes at dinner the other night and one boy handed them to me and I said thanks and he said you're welcome, but that was pretty much the extent of our conversation. It was never mean, just..."

"Demoralizing?" Teddy suggested.

Julia nodded. "I clearly wasn't a Hufflepuff. They're all outgoing and proud and I'm quiet and... modest, I guess. Professor McGonagall and I talked about placing me in Ravenclaw, but then she took a look at my transcript and asked delicately if I wouldn't rather be with my friends. She's a bit off today," Julia added in a whisper. "I went to her office like she asked me to and there were some pretty up-there ministry figures there, arguing with her over the house-elves. I guess they think she's not making a good enough effort to fix things."

Teddy waved it off. "She'll cope, she's got Dumbledore's portrait in her office to help her through it."

"How can a portrait help someone?" Oliver asked as the four of them started down to breakfast.

"Oh, loads of ways. Portraits are great; they're always pretty similar to their portrayals in personality, only not quite as mobile and a bit less dynamic," Teddy said, putting a hand unconsciously to his churning stomach. "There's a portrait of Fred in the back room of the Diagon Alley branch of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes that keeps shouting out suggestions for improvements on products and calls George and Lee idiots for some of the business choices they've made. It really helped George get back on track once Fred was put up."

Teddy caught a glimpse of Winnie's expression as he finished and immediately regretted bringing up the subject; he'd forgotten that Winnie was pretty much the twins' biggest fan. Oliver, Julia and Teddy were subjected to trivia on the latest line of Instant Darkness Powder that would be coming out around Christmas on their way down to the Great Hall.

"...And it provides starlight only to the one who cast the powder..."

"Do you hear that?" Teddy asked suddenly, stopping dead. Oliver and Julia frowned as they listened; voices were echoing down the corridor from the Great Hall.

"...And it doesn't stain your fingers black like the old stuff did..."

"Winnie," Teddy said softly, holding up a hand to silence her. He started forward, straining to distinguish what the voices were saying. Winnie's rant finally faltered to a stop and she listened, too. A crash punctuated the shouting; the four of them jumped, exchanged looks, and ran down the corridor toward the source of the noise.

The chaos was immediately apparent as they screeched to a halt in the doorway of the Great Hall. Sixth- and seventh-year Gryffindors and Slytherins were standing on top of their respective house tables, all shooting curses at one another; what had evidently began as taunting quickly seemed to have become a large-scale duel.

Teddy started forward without thinking to try and get a better look, but was immediately pulled back by the neck of his robes. "Stay there!" Professor Everard shouted as he passed, pulling out his own wand and starting into the battleground.

"Search going swimmingly, is it, Rimstone?" a Gryffindor shouted, wordlessly shooting a hex across the hall toward the nearest Slytherin. Evidently this was an offensive question, because the Slytherin ducked and shot an even more aggressive spell back in the direction of the Gryffindor, a look of fury on his face.

Teachers were scattered between the two tables, trying both to disarm students and dodge the curses flitting just barely over their heads. Everard stepped forward, waved his wand wildly around his head and shouted, "Expelliarmtotalus!" Immediately, wands flew out of every hand in the room and neatly formed a pile in front of Everard. Teachers, too, found themselves disarmed, and stared at Everard in shock.

"Everyone, sit down!" Everard shouted, though there was really no need for him to do so anymore; the hall had fallen silent. Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws peeked hesitantly out from under the table; the Gryffindors and Slytherins continued to stare one another down as they stepped back, slowly and simultaneously sinking down into their seats. Everard twirled his wand around again; about half the wands began to glow as they flew into the air and pointed to the students involved, each just out of their owner's reach. "If you do not have a wand floating in front of you, you may go. Now," Everard added sternly when everyone hesitated. Teddy hopped out of the way to avoid the stampede of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws exiting the hall, who were followed by many younger Gryffindors and Slytherins.

Teddy was vaguely aware of Oliver and Winnie bickering behind him as Everard magicked the doors to the Great Hall closed, effectively cutting off any sight and sound as to what was happening inside. "What are you two on about?" he asked distractedly, still staring at the doors.

"Julia's gone," Winnie said.

"What?" Teddy looked around. "Where?"

"That's what we're talking about, we haven't the faintest," Oliver said. "She was running beside us the whole time, we stopped, and then she was... just gone. It's like she disappeared through a hole in the floor or something."

Teddy stared off, thinking about some of the stories Harry had told him about hidden passages out of the castle. Maybe Julia kept sneaking off to meet someone in Hogsmeade. But who would she meet? Maybe her parents were staying nearby... but she hadn't mentioned it, and he didn't really see why she wouldn't if that was the case. Plus that didn't explain her fearful reactions of things. Maybe she discovered she had a long lost sibling and they were staying in Hogsmeade with horror stories about what her parents were really like. Or maybe--

The doors to the hall burst magickally open and an extremely cranky-looking Everard strode out, leaving stunned students sitting at the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. They looked too astounded even to scowl at one another; they exchanged looks between themselves and then between the tables, not saying a word as the rest of the students filed hesitantly back in.

"What d'you suppose that was all about?" Winnie asked, shrugging once inside the hall, temporarily forgetting about the Julia predicament.

"Probably just a taste of all this Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry I was starting to think was a myth," Oliver said, sitting down at the far end of Gryffindor table and helping himself to Rosmerta's famous breakfast pastry that had appeared as they sat down. "Guess I was wrong."

"Everard sure was angry, though, wasn't he?" Winnie said, grinning unconsciously down at her plate of bacon and eggs. Teddy rolled his eyes at her and searched around the hall for any sign of Julia. Instead his eyes found Professor McGonagall, who had just hurried into the hall, wand out. She was met at the entrance by Professor Sprout, who seemed to be explaining something to her very carefully. McGonagall's expression relaxed steadily, her wand hand falling to her side. Then she frowned and became animated once more; Teddy saw her lips form the word "Everard" before she strode determinately from the hall.

"Bit slow on the uptake, isn't she?" Winnie said through a mouthful of eggs, following Teddy's line of vision. "She's the Headmistress, what took her so long?"

Teddy privately agreed, but didn't say anything. He also thought it was a bit off that she seemed to be upset with Everard for dealing with the situation; there had been other teachers in the room at the time, Flitwick included, and they all seemed to have let him do whatever he wanted... whatever that had been.

His thoughts on the subject were interrupted when Julia finally scurried into the hall and sat down beside Teddy, lips pursed. "Hey!" Teddy said as Winnie and Oliver looked up. "Where were you?"

"Bathroom," Julia muttered, pouring herself some cereal. He frowned suspiciously at her, but backed off once he noticed that her hands were shaking.

"You all right?" he asked concernedly.

Julia looked up at him with wide eyes and an unusually pale face, but nodded and attempted a smile. "The... the fight caught me off guard, I couldn't watch it so I just..." she trailed off into an exclamation of frustration as she completely dropped the box of cereal onto the table, spilling everywhere. She tried to clean it up clumsily, looking as though she was about to cry. Teddy noticed this and gently moved her hands aside to take the job over. She smiled at him gratefully, but got to her feet moments later and grabbed her bag. Teddy was about to ask her where she was going; before he was able to, she had grabbed a piece of toast and was backing hurriedly over the bench. "I've got to finish my Potions essay, I just remembered that I... I forgot a conclusion, so I'll see you in class." She turned and half-jogged out of the hall without another word. Teddy watched her go with a look of complete confusion etched on his face.

"It's like she's always just seen a ghost," Oliver mused aloud while putting marmalade on his toast, "except that we all see ghosts every day, so that can't be it."

"Maybe she's just gone mad," Winnie offered offhandedly.

"Winnie!" Teddy exclaimed accusatorily.

"What? I like Julia, I do, but either she's sick all the time or she's crazy. It's just a possibility, it doesn't make her a bad person or anything. And the fact she never tells us anything only proves my theory."

"She's not mad," Teddy said firmly, massaging his temples in an attempt to dispel the headache that had accompanied his nausea. "Something's going on with her, and if she's not willing to talk about it, then we should help her through in whatever way we can rather than say 'maybe she's gone mad'. Honestly."

"I'm not saying we shouldn't try to help, I--" Winnie trailed off and widened her eyes. "Hey... maybe she's a werewolf."

Teddy almost laughed. "I doubt it," he said honestly.

"No, listen, Frieda told me about werewolves when I was little... she was trying to scare me but I just got really interested... she said they're pale all the time, and they never feel well, especially close to the full moon, which is probably pretty soon... they get the mad temptation to eat raw meat... hey, that's probably where she's gone right now," Winnie said, still wide-eyed.

"She's gone to finish her essay," Teddy maintained firmly.

"But--"

"No, enough," he said quietly. He felt his hair change colour with his struggle to keep himself calm. "Stop speculating on what the matter is with Julia and just offer to help her. It's all we can do, and it's not fair to talk about her behind her back, so just stop."

The rest of breakfast was eaten in somewhat stunned silence, but by the time the three of them wandered down to Potions together, they'd gone back to talking animatedly about Quidditch. Oliver had gotten used to Quidditch well enough to know the rules and even to make the occasional joke; the topic lasted all the way to class, where Julia was sitting at their usual table. Teddy watched her closely for the first while of class and saw that she was still pale, but seemed a lot more together; as soon as they started making the day's potion, she was back to her usual self. Teddy didn't understand, but decided to take his own advice and leave it alone.

After lunch, Julia and Oliver accompanied Winnie and Teddy down to the Quidditch pitch and went to sit in the stands, leaving them to stand awkwardly around and look like they knew what they were doing. Winnie talked rapidly while they waited about the model and the instability of the school broom she was "being forced to use"; Teddy nodded in response and meanwhile tried to quell the monster in his stomach. He hadn't eaten anything at all; neither breakfast nor lunch had seemed remotely appealing, and he still wasn't hungry, mid-afternoon though it was. Winnie had made quite the fuss at lunch, turning his earlier words to her back upon him, but had stopped after she noticed the way Teddy's hair was drooping. It had reverted to mousy brown, and no matter how hard Teddy tried, he couldn't seem to be able to change its colour.

"Just relax, Teds," Winnie had said through a mouthful of sandwich as she bounced in her seat, unable to sit still. "We're both going to make it just fine. We'll be famous! I can see our names on plaques now... Winnifred Wood and Theodore Lupin: First-Year Quidditch Extraordinaires."

"No pressure though," Oliver had muttered beside Teddy, grinning.

Now that Teddy was actually standing in line on the pitch, surrounded by other Seeker hopefuls, his stomach was churning worse than ever. He caught the eye of Riley, who was standing near the back of the line for Chasers; Riley looked nearly as nervous as Teddy felt, and they both waved weakly to one another as Winnie took the field.

Being the second in line for Beater tryouts, Winnie was already halfway into the air, equipped with a Beater's bat and looking thrilled to be flying again. Teddy almost laughed aloud; she looked absolutely disproportionate, soaring in large circles around the pitch and carrying a bat that was nearly her own height. She was strong, though; she hit the Bludgers with surprising speed and accuracy toward the other team. Despite the shakiness of the school broom, she flew extremely well. Teddy immediately felt outdone; he'd done quite a bit of flying, but Winnie had clearly clocked a lot more Quidditch hours than he had. Finally, she dismounted her broom and strode confidently toward the end of the line for Chaser tryouts as Samantha, the sixth-year captain, scribbled something on her clipboard, nodding approvingly.

Teddy barely paid attention as the next few groups took flight; he decided that many of them were probably better players than he was and wanted to avoid psyching himself out more than he already had. He only brought himself out of his thoughts when it was Riley's and Winnie's turn to try out for Chaser.

Riley dealt with the Quaffle very well; his reflexes were amazing, and he always threw the ball at unexpected times, tricking the Keeper more often than not. His flying, however, was less than to be desired. Despite having gotten hold of a fairly new model of broom, the handle kept slipping out of his grip; more than once, he did a loop through the air without meaning to. He was grinning when he dismounted, however; he had stayed on his broom for a whole three minutes and scored four goals. "Better than I usually do," he grinned to a laughing Winnie.

Winnie proved just as adept at being Chaser as she did at Beater; she made more than one tricky catch and scored a couple of goals in the three minutes she was in the air. She was grinning widely this time when she flew back to the ground, passing Teddy on her way to the end of the line for Keeper. "Good luck," she said quietly, slapping him good-naturedly on the shoulder.

Teddy realized suddenly that he was at the front of the line. Samantha looked up and nodded at him. Teddy mounted his broom slowly, taking a deep breath before pushing himself off the ground and soaring into the air.

The old Comet model tended to drift left and shook a bit under his grip, but Teddy quickly got used to the broom's quirks as he took a lap around the pitch. He caught a glimpse of Julia and Oliver in the stands; they got to their feet and clapped loudly as he passed. This sight cleared Teddy's head a bit and he put on a burst of speed, wind running through his still droopy hair. He exchanged grins with Riley as they passed each other in the air; Riley had been asked to try out again because there were no other Chasers to be tried, and Samantha seemed to want to see if he could get better control of his broom. Teddy closed his eyes against the wind, soaring freely for a minute before embarking on his search for the Golden Snitch.

Teddy's attention was drawn to the ground after a few laps around the pitch; a Chaser had fallen off his broom and--Teddy almost didn't dare to believe it--the Snitch fluttering just inches away from him. Teddy's stomach lurched in excitement rather than nerves and he nudged the broom into a dive, all the while keeping an eye on the other Seeker. She was on the other side of the pitch and was at the wrong angle to see the Snitch; the Chaser's head was blocking her line of vision. Teddy swooped low, stretching out a hand--

His stomach lurched powerfully. The sensation was nearly enough to knock Teddy off his broom; he closed his eyes and hung on for dear life, instinctively pulling out of the dive and flying flat for few moments while he regained his composure. He glanced fleetingly behind him as he sat up straight and turned the broom slowly around; the Snitch had disappeared.

"Seeker, he's under control!" Samantha yelled at Teddy, beckoning at Madam Hooch who was running hurriedly across the pitch. "Get moving!"

Teddy stared at Samantha for a moment. The blood was pounding in his head rather loudly, and it took him a moment to process what she was saying. He finally realized that he was simply hovering in mid-air, staring at the fallen Chaser. He put on a burst of speed and held tightly onto the broom as he resumed flying. Teddy couldn't ever remember feeling quite like this before; he got sick every so often, sure, but this was entirely different. In some ways, it was almost... pleasant. Teddy leaned forward, gaining speed and trying to clear his thoughts enough to remember his usual seeking strategy. He found he was having trouble focusing, though--his eyes kept rolling back into his head. Teddy thought fuzzily that this was a sort of odd thing for them to do. It would be difficult to find the Snitch again if his eyes were only seeing the inside of his head. The logical thing, Teddy decided, would be to give up on trying to find the Snitch and just keep flying. There were some Seekers who hadn't even seen the Snitch when they were trying out, even though it was bewitched to go more slowly than usual for the sake of tryouts. Teddy had seen the Snitch, so he was ahead of them already. That meant he still had a chance, right? Maybe if he flew faster, though, he'd have an even better chance--

Teddy swooped over Madam Hooch's head at such a high speed that she screamed and ducked as he passed. Another violent jolt suddenly hit his stomach hard, and he pulled up in surprise; he nearly slipped backwards off his broom as he shot further and further up into the sky. He was too distracted to realize how high his broom was taking him; there were a whole bunch of dancing dark spots in front of his eyes, and one nice, golden spot right in the middle. It was very pretty, Teddy thought; he reached a hand out in front of him and pulled it out from among the dark spots.

Suddenly his grip slipped from the broom, and he was falling backwards through the air. He watched his broom continue to fly upwards (and slightly to the left) without him before the dancing spots in front of his eyes multiplied, and the world went dark.