Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the stuff J.K. Rowling created.

Chapter Eleven

A Howler Causes Me to Get Detention

Soon a week had gone by with really no excitement. Even Weasley's lessons on shape-shifters grew boring when it seemed like I already knew it all. I wasn't too awfully bored though because Remus and Sirius forgot to "ignore" me. Potions, strangely, was one of the best classes, mainly because we joked around and talked our way out of trouble. Today I "accidently" blew a potion up in Professor Damant's face when I had the whole class's attention since he had (snidely) asked for me to show them how to do it, thinking I would fail miserably. I don't know how I evaded detention there, but I think it was because he couldn't prove I'd done it on purpose, which I had. I mean, how else could you mess up a simple healing potion? I got extremely high marks on the real thing when I turned it in at the end of class.

It was lunch time, and all of us were in a pretty good mood. According to James, today was the day that he predicted Lily would cancel his promise, whatever it was. Neither he nor Lily had told me exactly what their deal had been. Not like it would make any difference, because no matter what his excuse, he'd already broken the promise over a thousand times, and we all knew it, including Lily, who, along with Tonks, seemed to be losing some of her spite towards the Marauders.

"First Quidditch practice is next month. I've already put in our practice schedule," James, who I'd recently found out was a complete Quidditch freak, said. He was counting down the days. Literally, he was, Sirius had said. Marked right down on his calendar in bright red marker.

"Don't forget the trips to Hogsmeade start too!" Sirius added.

"What's so special about this Hogsmeade?" I asked, remembering the very little that Lily and Tonks had told me about.

"It's got almost everything. The second best joke shop is there," Remus said, as if that explained everything.

"What's the first best?"

"Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes," James, Sirius, and Remus said in unison.

"That's in Diagon Alley, so you don't get to go there often," James said in a dissatisfied way.

"We'll show you around Hogsmeade, if you'd like," Sirius offered.

"Umm, not to be the party-crasher, but do you think they'll allow her to go? Her permission slip hasn't been signed by…" Remus trailed off.

"What? Family? Guardians?" I asked, slightly disappointed. This Hogsmeade place sounded fun, especially if they would be my tour guides. "I guess it's fine. You guys can just tell me about it."

We stepped into the Great Hall and headed over to sit with Lily and Tonks (hopefully for the last time, Sirius had joked, earning a glare from me, Remus, and James).

"Nice potions work this morning," Tonks congratulated me. No matter what she had others thinking, she was as much as a trouble-maker as I was.

"I kinda slipped up…definitely an accident," I said.

Lily rolled her eyes at us. "At least he couldn't pin it on you," she finally said.

"No way! Is the Perfect Lily Evans approving of 'bad behavior'?" Sirius asked in fake shock. "Someone write it down! It's history!"

"Shut-up Black," she snapped, making him smile.

Everyone ate in a waiting silence. Sensing we were waiting for her, Lily took a drink and said,

"You better keep her out of really bad trouble. If not, I'll be the one putting jinxes on a select few guys. So you can leave us alone now, and Nike can hang out with you guys if she wishes to."

Since we still had thirty minutes left of lunch, Remus started to talk about Hogsmeade with the guys, and surprisingly Lily and Tonks joined the conversation, adding in details or their opinions.

"Stupid letters. You'd think that woman would give a poor old owl a break. We're not machines," a raspy voice huffed, complaining. I looked up to see who had spoken and saw a pitch-black owl with yellow eyes fly through the window-type-arch-things close to the ceiling. It was carrying a wicked red envelope that looked ready to explode.

"What's that?" I asked. They paused in their argument about the joke shops and looked.

"It's a…Howler," Tonks said.

"Bloody hell! Can that woman ever lay off?" Sirius snatched the envelope and ran probably as fast as he could as a dog out of the Great Hall. The doors slammed shut and the owl collapsed in front of me.

"You poor creature," I muttered.

"You're Nike," it (he) muttered, and then fell asleep. Then out of nowhere I heard screaming.

"BLOOD TRAITOR! DISGRACE TO THE FAMILY NAME!" It sounded like a woman's shrill voice.

"Well it looks like my dear brother has received the weekly letter from our sweet, caring mother," a boy said. The screaming faded into the distance so I couldn't hear the awful words anymore.

I turned around and saw a boy that resembled Sirius just a little bit.

He was smaller than Sirius, and he had hard brown eyes. He too had black hair, but it wasn't wavy or long, it was very straight and short. He had Sirius' good looks, but to me he didn't look as good as Sirius, and that was probably because of the next thing I noticed. Instead of the markings of a Gryffindor, he had the ones of a Slytherin. Standing next to him was my enemy: Malfoy.

"You should really do something with the trash in your household Regulus," Malfoy sneered.

"I agree cousin. But unfortunately I cannot do much at the moment." He sounded sad about that. I did not like this guy. Already I hated him more than Malfoy.

"You two are just jealous of him because he's got everything you two don't," James snapped. I could tell he felt the same way about him as I did. One look at Remus and I saw the same.

"Potter," Regulus said disdainfully. "Purebloods like your family are going to get tainted when you mingle with halfbloods and date and marry mudbloods."

James turned red in the face. "You have no right—"

"Oh I have all the right in the world."

"Don't forget that thing that your brother hangs out with now," Malfoy added, looking at me with hate. "What do you think your mother would say about that?"

Regulus turned his cold eyes on me and smiled crookedly. "My brother has strange tastes, but not all of them are bad." He looked at Malfoy like he was a loser. "This is the girl that beat you up?"

"No, that ass—"

"Enough!" I yelled, leaping to my feet. "Leave him alone." Anger was swelling up inside of me, and my mind wasn't thinking clearly. Magic was building up, waiting to be released.

"Calm down Nike," Lily said, although she didn't sound like she meant it.

"They're not worth it," James agreed, placing a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged them off.

"You don't like the truth about my brother Nii-k?" Regulus taunted. "Do you want to hear more?" Malfoy's smirk got bigger.

Just then Peter walked in, muttering, "…cry-baby…"

Not in control of what happened next, magic and anger flew out of me at who I happened to be looking at, Malfoy, wiping that stupid smirk right off his face. The magic flowed slowly and triumphantly back into me and I was able to think only partially clear. The red-hot anger was still there.

"What did you do?" a girl shrieked. I looked down at Malfoy and saw he was a big ugly baby, bawling its fat head off. He had a sagging white diaper on and was flailing his legs and arms around in a major temper-tantrum.

Regulus observed me with calculating eyes, like I was some kind of experiment. He smiled arrogantly at me and said, "See you later." And then he walked off.

I heard laughter and some people yelling encouraging things at me, like "turn him into something else!" I turned and was surprised to see even Lily was laughing slightly.

"How dare you!" hissed a dry voice. I stared up into the face of Professor Damant. "How dare you use magic on another student!"

"He was asking for it." I shrugged.

"You will not speak to me in that tone and you will never again—"

"And who says I have to listen to you?" I demanded. "You're not my Head of House!"

"I am a professor, the deputy headmaster, and more importantly, an adult," he snapped.

"Yeah? Try acting like it then, why don'tcha?"

"DETENTION!" he bellowed. The room was quiet, so his voice bounced around the room.

"Like I care!"

"Good! You'll have one month—"

"One week, I should think," Weasley cut in from his seat at the professors' table. Other than that, the rest of them were silent, watching like they had nothing better to do.

Professor Damant ignored him. "Change him back!"

"No thanks. I like him better that way." James coughed behind me.

"CHANGE. HIM. BACK!" the professor repeated.

"Get it through your abnormally thick head! N. O!" I stalked out of the Great Hall, hiding my smile.

That felt good.

A/N: I don't know about you guys, but I like the rebellious Nike better. I might have to keep her sarcastic mode turned on almost 24/7. What do you think? And then there was Regulus…you'll be seeing a lot of him and Dominatrix (my version of Bellatrix, except she's going to be way worse).

Okay, I'm trying to keep my author's notes short, so that's it. Next chapter: Nike meets a new friend. Who could it be? Any guesses?

Let me know what you thought!

R&R please!

Nike