Hello fellow humans. Please post your bitchy comments or your pleasant comments, because it feels as though I am talking to an empty auditorium. And for anyone who has done that before it sucks. You are being like a Thursday matinee, don't be a Thursday matinee... you can throw fruit if you have to... I haven't slept in a while...

Enjoy

Chapter 5

Holly:

They had to be joking… right? This had to be a joke, it just had to. It was too cruel and unusual to not be a joke. The last few weeks had been bad enough with all the giggling and squealing and other unspeakable horrors that Holly had just assumed that it had to be a joke. That was until she was woken up by Ashley Lennox and Stephanie Bagby talking about how they thought Holly had a niffler nesting in her hair. She hadn't even really talked to the girls in the past three week but they still felt the need to make nasty comments about her. She interrupted their delightful gossip session by noisily grabbing her shower kit and heading off the bathroom.

"Do any of you know any good hexes?" Holly said as she flopper onto the bench in the great hall. Teddy looked up from his Quidditch Weekly, "What for?"

"Is it those girls you room with?" Sawyer said as he put more food onto his plate.

"They're just so… icky." She followed Sawyer's example, putting food onto her plate.

"What'd they do now?" Teddy was genuinely curious.

"They were blatantly talking about me when I woke up this morning!" She stuffed some bacon in her mouth angrily. "Do I look like I have a niffler nesting in my hair?"

Sawyer looked at her, "Why don't you ask to be moved to a different dorm?"

She caught their lack of response to the question, but she was too mad at the other girls to care. "There's only one room for first year girls…" She sulked and ate some more before noticing they were missing someone… or someones, "Where's Phoenix and Audrey?"

Teddy and Sawyer burst out laughing.

"What?"

Teddy laughed as he spoke, "We changed their clocks, and figured out how to make it look dark out. They'll wake up and think it's the middle of the night. It'll be great."

"Won't they miss classes?"

"We'll let them copy our notes later, it'll be fine." Sawyer and Teddy seemed rather pleased with themselves.

"How did you make the room darker? Did you charm the windows?" Holly's interest in their magic overtook her displeasure in their pranking the other boys.

"I found a charm to tint the windows. It was a bit tricky, it had to have been at least a second year charm." Teddy said smugly.

"You're such a nerd, Lupin" Sawyer chuckled, before noticing the confused looks the other two were giving him, "What?"

"What's a nerd? I feel like I should be offended." Teddy said.

Sawyer felt a bit awkward having to try to explain muggle things to Holly and Teddy. They had both been brought up in magical homes and seemed to not know too much about non magical life other than it was 'not near as exciting'. Sawyer liked it when Phoenix was there because he would generally help to explain these sorts of things. Phoenix was a good guy, a bit nervous and awkward, but he seemed to have the best intentions. He didn't really understand why the boy's parents lived like muggles, he had lived with muggles and it hadn't been as interesting as Holly or Teddy's upbringing.

Holly loved to hear Sawyer explain muggle things, though it seemed strange coming from him, he looked too magical. If she didn't know better, she would have assumed him to be a pure blood. He had the aristocratic features most pure bloods did- high cheek bones, angular jaw, and pale as death skin. His face had a sort of grace to it that most wizards didn't. He looked like a Black or a Malfoy only with softer eyes- not as cold. Holly wondered if maybe somewhere along the line a pureblood family had a squib, disowned it and Sawyer was the product… She would have to look into it.

"What are you looking at Wiggins?" Teddy laughed as Holly blushed. She had been starring at Sawyer, not that she like liked him, that would be gross.

"I was just thinking. I zoned out." It was true… mostly.

"You just think I'm sexy, don't you?" Sawyer struck a pose, causing the three of them to burst out laughing.

"In your dreams!" Holly said, causing Sawyer to put on a rather overly dramatic pout, which brought on a new bout of laughter. Teddy suddenly stopped laughing, with a look of pure horror on his face, the others stopped too, concerned about their friend.

"What's the matter Lupin?" Holly felt a slight serge of panic.

"Dean- I mean Professor Thomas is going to kill me. I didn't finish my defense against the dark arts homework…" the other two began laughing again as Teddy pulled out his homework to hastily finish it.

"You lot are awfully cheery considering the ungodly hour," Quinn came over to the table looking rather tired.

"You look rather miserable this morning, Finnigan" Teddy said as she flopped down on the bench next to him and began to pile food onto her plate. She glanced over at Teddy's DADA homework as she grabbed some bacon, "You know question four is wrong." She said smugly as she began to tuck in to her breakfast.

"No it's not…" Teddy said, not even glancing up at what question four was.

Holly glanced over at Teddy's work, wanting to see what he had said for question four, "Yeah… I doubt the answers 'hedgehog'."

Sawyer burst out laughing and leaned over to look now too, the three of them reading over Teddy's shoulder as he wrote.

"Would you all bugger off!" he looked less than happy. The other three went back to their breakfast happy they had managed to make Teddy lose his cool (which rarely happened).

Quinn looked around before realizing Phoenix and Aubrey weren't at the table. "Where are Aubrey and my favorite leprechaun?"

"Sleeping… We charmed the room to make it look like it was the middle of the night." Sawyer said with a snigger.

"Favorite leprechaun?" Teddy asked, not looking from the page.

"He reminds her of the homeland." Holly laughed.

"The homeland?" Quinn snorted, which led to another bout of laughter.

After a few more minutes of banter and bacon they decided to head off to class.

Phoenix:

Phoenix woke up to the dark dormitory. It was only five in the morning? It had to be later than that? He felt unusually well rested for having just woken up at five.

He got up to use the bathroom and saw that Sawyer and Teddy weren't in bed which was a bit peculiar… Maybe they had gone off to put dung bombs in the common room before anyone woke up, or something. Phoenix went into the bathroom and noticed there was an awful lot of light coming from the frosted window… too much light. He went into the empty common room, where large patches of sunlight were coming in through the windows.

"Damn it!" he ran up the stairs to the dormitory and quickly got dressed before waking up Aubrey and hastily explaining the situation at hand. He grabbed his books, and wand, and homework, and what was he forgetting? Too late to worry about it, he'd figure it out later.

He ran down the stairs, through the portrait hole and all the way to the DADA classroom, stopping for a moment at the door to catch his breath before knocking as calmly as he could on the door. Sawyer opened the door only to receive a death glare from the rather flushed Phoenix.

"Any reason you're late Mr. Flannery?" Professor Thomas said from the front of the room.

"Someone charmed our windows to make it look like it was night time." Phoenix said it more to his shoes than to anything else.

"Did you're clock stop working?" the professor was working very hard to not smile at the prank.

"They also changed my clock, sir. But Lupin and Thompson somehow managed to make it class on time." He glared daggers at Teddy and Sawyer who were working very hard to keep a straight face.

"Take a seat, Mr. Flannery… and ten points from Gryffindor for both Mr. Lupin and Mr. Thompson." Professor Thomas said as Phoenix took his seat.

Teddy put his hand up, "De- Professor Thomas, why did you take points from us, we weren't the ones who were late."

"You didn't think to wake up your classmates." He gave them a smile that was slightly mischievous in its own way.

Phoenix smiled smugly. He could tell that the man knew it was Teddy and Sawyer, but was reluctant to take points from his former house. According to Teddy, Thomas used to play on the Gryffindor quidditch team. The boy seemed to know a lot of the professors when Phoenix thought about it. He had no idea how… He would have to do some asking.

That evening Phoenix was sitting in the common room thinking about maybe starting on his homework perhaps. He was looking over at Holly and Teddy who were playing exploding snap and debating over the very controversial Snitchnip incident of the 1586 world cup. Phoenix had the best intentions to concentrate on potions but the small explosions were making it difficult, so he closed his book and turned to face the heated debate.

"Hey Lupin…" his voice sounded smaller than intended, though it always seemed to.

"What's up Flannery?" he said turning to look at the nervous redhead, secretly glad he could stop listening to Holly correct him on every historical quidditch fact he knew.

"I'm just wondering about your family…" This seemed to catch the other boy a little off guard.

"What do you want to know?"

"Why do you live with your granny?" it was Holly who piped up as she looked at Teddy.

"My parents are dead… died in the Battle of Hogwarts." He looked away, not really wanting to see the look of pity he knew was now residing on both of their faces.

Holly did look rather pitying while she sputtered apologies for being so impolite.

Lupin gave a weak nearly reassuring smile, "It's alright. I don't even remember them. My granny is nice and I have a lot of other sort of family and a godfather, so it's not like I'm really alone."

"You have a sort of family?" Phoenix had to know. What in merlin's name was a sort of family?

"Well we are technically related I guess, but they're so far removed it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Cause my granny is a Black, but-"

"You're related to the Blacks?" Holly seemed to not believe him. Phoenix supposed she had heard all the terrible things about the Blacks that he had heard; the insanity, the dark magic, the blood supremacy… the list really goes on. Maybe he was really rooming with an axe murderer, or at least the descendant of one.

"Well technically, my granny got disinherited from them when she married a muggle born. I'm also related to the Greengrass family on my father's side, my grandmother was one, but on a similar note got disinherited when she married a half-blood." Teddy seemed almost uncomfortable being related to purebloods and Phoenix didn't blame him, after the war there had been a lot criticism of the old families and now they were almost shunned.

"So, how did you get a sort of family?" Phoenix really wanted to know.

"Well my Aunt Molly and Uncle Arthur, who're not really my aunt and uncle, but whatever, let me stay with them sometimes during the summer or holidays, or if my granny wanted some peace or what have you, so her family sort of became my family. Then my godfather married my Aunt Molly's daughter and I became more sort of part of the family… I know it's a bit hard to follow." Teddy scanned their faces to see if they were taking it all in, which he seemed to conclude they were.

"What family is your Aunt Molly from?" Holly had a honest look of curiosity on her face.

"She's a Weasley, I think she was a Prewett before, but my Uncle Arthur is definitely a Weasley." Teddy seemed to be thinking for a moment, "As much as my Granny likes to act like she doesn't care about the practices of the noblest whatevers of Black, she sure got me to learn a lot of silly family stuff, like her gran made her do. Weasleys are nice though, least the ones I know." The boy smiled as he tacked the last bit on at the end.

"Wait so do you know about all the wizarding families?" Phoenix wanted to know all of this. He envisioned something like a large tapestry that took up a whole room just filled with names and who they were related to within all the wizarding families, but that would be silly, who honestly had that much time on their hands?

"Not really, just the old ones. When I learn about them I imagine it to be like a story, like a… I don't know the word for it, where there are lots of seemingly unrelated bits that come together in the end. Like that. With some families there's not enough drama to make up a story, and I forget it all."

Phoenix had at least a million questions, "Is that how you know all these random people? Because of family ties?"

Teddy laughed at this, "You can say that."

"What do you mean?" Holly looked intently at him.

"Well between my godfather and the Weasleys, and all their events, and they do have a lot of them, I've met a lot of people. They were involved in the Order of the Phoenix," he took a moment to look at Phoenix and smirk, "and so they had all sorts of connections to different people."

The Order of the Phoenix? Were their professors members? Was Teddy a member?

As if reading his mind, "The reason I know Professor Thomas and Professor Longbottom is because they're good mates with my godfather and my Uncle Ron, same with Quinn's Uncle Seamus now that I think about it. They were all in Dumbledore's Army together. I don't know if they ever joined the order… I've never been told too much about that."

Holly and Phoenix looked at one another, a bit shocked. Order of the Phoenix? Dumbledore's Army? It all sounded so exciting…

"Your family was in the Order of the Phoenix?" Holly was somewhere between awe and skepticism.

"Yeah…" Teddy didn't seem sure of how to react to her tone.

"That's bloody brilliant! And they were in Dumbledore's Army? " Phoenix said, yet again, leaning forward grinning.

"Yeah, my godfather started it with my aunt and uncle." Teddy seemed more amused by their reactions than anything.

"But it was started by…" Phoenix was too busy looking confused to see Teddy's grin. He had read in one of his books on the wizarding war about this. He knew that DA was started by Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron… Weasley. Good God, Teddy was related to Harry Potter. He should have guessed at the first mention of Weasleys, he knew they sounded familiar.

"So your godfather is Harry Potter…" Holly obviously came to the same conclusion that Phoenix just had.

"Yeah." Teddy said as he began to pack up the game.

"Holy shit…" Phoenix couldn't help himself at that moment, it was possibly the coolest thing he'd heard all day.

"So your parents were close with him?" Holly said as she watched Teddy.

"My dad was really close with his dad. And my dad became friends with Harry after my dad was his defense against the dark arts professor" Teddy said it as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world, having your godfather be the one who defeated the most evil wizard in history… twice!

"That's so cool." Holly was looking at Teddy intently. Phoenix probably was too but he didn't care, he now had a million more questions but of course Aubrey took this particular moment to saunter over, "Hello ladies," he smirked, "Sawyer and I are going to investigate this secret passage some third year told him about. Want to come?"

"Yeah, that's awesome!" Teddy jumped up and grabbed his things, "You two coming?"

"Yeah," Holly was already holding all her stuff and grinning, she looked a bit wild at that moment. Phoenix noticed she would look almost a little feral at times, and it made him feel a little uneasy.

"I'll stay here, I've got some work to finish up." Phoenix wanted to go, but he always felt anxious wandering around the halls in the evening, even before curfew.

"Suit yourself," Aubrey shrugged and the three of them galloped out of the portrait hole, flinging wild speculations as to where the passage led as they went.

Phoenix sat back in his chair and sighed. He remembered he had some film he wanted to try to magically develop. Hopefully this batch wouldn't explode like the last batch had. He got up and headed to the dormitory, thinking about magical families and secret orders as he went. He wondered why his family couldn't be half as exciting as Teddy's.