A/N I took all the (three) reviews on board, (thats Devilyian21, Tom and sabrina-luna-potter - I know you were only joking, hun)and had a think. But... as my writers block has sort of gone away, at least I have solid ideas for the next chapter and so for the mo will be carrying on with irregular updates. I'll just have to write it in the dark with Christmas music on :D. Anyways, here's the next chapter, I don't own Harry Potter, enjoy!

"It's here." Albus said as he sat down next to Rose and Mouse by the fire, and both looked up expectantly at the rolled up parchment in his hand.

He had written to his mum straight after their meeting with Nat and Minna, and it had taken two agonising day's for the response to come back.

"Read it out then!" Rose said, bossily.

Mouse sniggered as Albus looked at her.

"Yes Miss. Okay..." He cleared his throat and began to read aloud.

"'Dear Albus,

I'm not quite sure I know why you're asking about how it feels to be possessed. And frankly, I don't think I want to. In any case I'm not falling for the 'it's for a school project' line one bit. But, and this is the only reason I'm telling you this, is because you seemed genuinely worried in your letter and your dad seems to think it's to do with what you mad lot ended up involved in at Halloween, and can I just say, I am still not happy with you about that young man! We will be having words when you get home for Christmas. Anyway, that's enough mum stuff.

Possession isn't an easy topic for me to talk about, and I don't think it helps that I was possessed by a certain Dark Lord that your dad ended up killing.

"Your mum was possessed by Voldemort?!"

"Shhh!"

'The thing is, you don't really have a memory of being possessed. You just get large patches of your memory missing, and I often ended up coming to, as it were somewhere I had no memory of going to.

"That bit's like you Mouse!"

"Great..."

"Carry on reading Al!"

"Sor-ree! Jeez. Ahem."

'There were other things too, like 'waking up' with blood and chicken feathers (the crow of a rooster kills a Basilisk) on my robes and no memory whatsoever of how they got there. That was probably the worst part.

Anyway, I really, really, hope that you were only asking because you wanted to rule it out and not that you know someone who you think might be possessed. Gawd. In these situations I envy muggle parents...Unfortunately you are your dad's son, which no doubt means you have somehow found yourself some sort of danger, although according to mum's clock you're not in actual mortal peril at the moment. Excuse me while I have a nervous breakdown after writing that. Stay safe, and if you can't manage that, please don't try and do anything stupid, Al.

Love you, and we can't wait 'til Christmas either

Mum xxx

She says that nowbut just wait 'til January - Dad

P.S. Rose, of course we can talk about that 'stuff' over Christmas, and why you wouldn't want to talk about it with your mum. She's a wonderful person, but you're right she's not the best person to talk about it with. Maybe Auntie Phlegm might have some tips as well. See you soon sweetheart.'

"What's with the P.S?" Albus asked his cousin curiously.

Rose smiled enigmatically.

"Not much. I wrote too, that's all."

Albus and Mouse looked at each other and rolled their eyes. If Rose wanted her secrets, they both knew that it wouldn't be worth the effort to find them out; she could be more enigmatic than a Sphinx when she wanted to.

The rest of November passed with little incident. Professor Longbottom had finally allowed Mouse and Albus back on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, after six weeks of constant begging and immaculate behaviour records. However, thanks to the driving sleet which had plagued the Gryffindor practices, through which Mouse and Albus did practically nothing except try and hold onto their brooms with frozen fingers, Mouse reflected that Professor Longbottom was possibly highly sadistic, and that maybe they shouldn't have begged quite so hard.

The worst part was that there had been no change in Becky's behaviour, unless it had worsened, although her new found 'friendship' with Chloe Dixon seemed to have become rather rocky.

Neither Mouse, Rose or Albus, had spoken to Becky since the argument, and it made Comparative Cultures very awkward. If Professor Longbottom had noticed they weren't partnering with Becky in Herbology, he chose not to comment. But it nearly caused a disaster in Potions...

"Honestly I've never seen such a ridiculous display of ineptitude in all my years! What on earth did you think you were doing?"

"Sorry Professor." Both Becky and Mouse muttered heads hung low, as the remains of their shared cauldron smoked sadly.

"Sorry is not what I asked either of you!" Professor Hendricks turned to Mouse, eyes flashing, nostrils flaring. "Don't tell me you added twice the usual amount of antimony."

Becky and Mouse looked at each other guiltily, eyes wide as they realised their mistake.

"I added the right amount Professor, honest!" Mouse said, feeling horrible as he realised this meant he was essentially grassing on Becky.

"But I did as well Professor..." Becky said, quietly, sheepishly.

Hendricks glared at them again

Great...now we're really in the dragon dung.

"Why?" The professor's voice was dangerously low as she looked between the two first-years.

"We've not been speaking, Professor. I'm sorry. It was my fault. I should have asked Mouse if he'd put the antimony in first."

Mouse looked at her aghast. First he'd told on her, and now she was covering for him. Hendricks sighed noisily, a hand held up to her forehead.

"That is exactly why you are supposed leave your petty squabbles at the door in this room. You are just lucky no one was injured." she took in Becky's singed robes and Mouse's lack of eyebrows. "Except yourselves and your property. You will be reimbursing each other for the damages caused and I expect to see you here tomorrow evening at 6 o'clock sharp, and you will serve detention every evening until I feel you have learned your lesson."

Mouse thought about protesting, but didn't bother.

She'd only think I was a brat. And since I'm reserve I can't imagine she'd let me off for Quidditch...

"Understood?"

"Yes Professor."

As Mouse and Becky left to go Charms (the telling off from Hendricks had taken all of their break time), Becky took a breath as if she was going to say something, then frowned as if she had never intended to open her mouth in the first place.

Mouse spent the rest of the day distracted. Luckily, however, both Professor Sinistra and Nat were sensitive not to bring up his more than usual lack of focus, and in his DADA class, lack of skill.

All in all, Mouse thought he'd never been so glad to leave Nat's classroom when the bell finally sounded.

"What's up Mouse?" Rose asked after they had returned their bags to their respective dormitories and found their usual corner in the Common Room. "You're not still mad about the exploding cauldron, are you?"

Mouse leant back in his chair and gave a huge sigh.

"Not really. Well, not just."

"Not just?" Albus asked, cocking is head to one side.

"Becky covered for me. Took the blame for me in Potions. Then I thought she was going to say something, but it was like someone hit her with an Obliviate.

Rose raised her eyebrows.

"Interesting. But cheer up Mouse - there's not exactly a lot we can do. Anyway, I had an idea about your Forest adventure."

"I really wish you wouldn't call it that..." Mouse complained.

"What did you have an idea about oh most almighty and enlightened cousin?" Al asked, grinning.

"Shut up Al. My idea was to ask Hagrid."

"Hagrid?" the boys chorused, glancing at each other in confusion.

"Who knows the forest better than anyone? Who might probably know if weird things, like disembodied shadows have been floating around in it?"

"Hagrid!" Al said happily.

"Oh..." Mouse said latching on to Rose's thought process.

The little cottage looked very welcoming in the foul November sleet, and the three of them nearly ran to its door, which swung open almost immediately.

"Hello you lot, been a while! Come in and have a brew? Kettles just boiled." Hagrid beamed at the three of them, his arm held out to welcome them in.

"I still think this is weird." Mouse whispered to Albus as they sat down, unwinding scarves and loosening cloak fastenings.

"Here yer are then." said Hagrid, plonking down three steaming earthenware mugs on the table. "Yeh've all bin well, I hope? I'd have invited you again sooner, but what with teachin' and all, I've been pretty busy. What abou' you, Mouse? Keeping out o' trouble after Halloween? Funny business, that was."

Mouse blushed.

"Er, yes, Professor."

"Prefessor? Call me Hagrid like yer friends do, I've told you an' the lass that enough. Speakin' of, where is she Albus, Rosie? Yeh've not fallen out with her have you?"

"Um she sort of fell out with us Hagrid. She's not been herself recently." Albus said hurriedly, seeing Rose's face darken at the mention of Becky. Becky might have been being controlled by an ancient dark witch, but Rose was still angry with the other girl.

"Ah well, yeh'll make up soon enough no doubt." Hagrid said, nodding his head sagely. "I remember your Mum and Dad Rosie, spent half their schooldays arguin' and the other half not speaking to each other after third year. An' now look at 'em!"

"Maybe." Rose said mulishly.

"I'm sure you're right Hagrid." Albus said, trying to hide his smile at Rose's glower.

They were quiet for a while, as Mouse tried to push Killer, Hagrid's dog off his lap, her slobbering chops leaving a glistening trail over his robes. Rose and Albus were having a whispered conversation, trying to work out who should broach the subject first.

"A'right you two, what's the matter?" Hagrid eventually said, smiling as they abruptly stopped, blushing in embarrassment.

"We were wondering whether you could help us with something, Hagrid. See, Mouse here reckons he saw something in the Forest not so long ago, and we were wondering, since you know it better than anyone, if you'd noticed anything strange lately." Rose said, seeing Albus wasn't going to speak any time soon.

"Get on with yeh!" Hagrid said, blushing himself. "Hang on, what were yeh doing in the Forest?"

"We weren't exactly in the forest." Mouse spoke up, seeing Hagrid looked unlikely to tell them anything if he thought they'd broken the rules. Or at least Nat and Minna's Rule No.1

Don't get caught.

"We were on the edge of the Forest, Becky and I, and we thought we saw something strange. A shadow or something, but it didn't look like it belong to anything... that must sound ridiculous." Mouse finished, ignoring Al and Rose's bemused looks, as they both knew this differed vastly from the story he'd told them.

Hagrid leant forward, making the table creak alarmingly, and rubbed his beard.

"Well." he eventually said. "I don't think I've seen anythin' like that, but the animals have seemed a bit edgy lately. S'pose I could ask the centaurs if they've seen summat." he carried on in a lower voice musing to himself. "Not they probably will've done, mind you. Usually too focused on the stars to see what's under their noses."

Mouse, Rose and Albus looked at each other, and tried very hard not to laugh.

"Anyway, that aside, how've yeh been doin' I hear you two lad's have got yourselves back on the Quidditch team."

The resulting talk had the added effect of driving more unpleasant matters from the three friends minds, and instead created a warm cosy feeling, in which bad things didn't seem quite as threatening. It wasn't until much later, when Hagrid gave a cry of 'blimey, it's almost dark out! You three better get back to the castle before you miss yer dinner!' that they finally left. It was on the way back to the castle that Rose broached a topic that had been nagging at her since the moment had happened.

"All right Mouse, why didn't you tell Hagrid what really happened? You can trust him you know."

Mouse looked at her surprised, then realised what she meant.

"You can trust him. He likes you, and your families. Unfortunately, I think my father was rather awful to him when he was here, and I don't suppose my grandfather was much better. I didn't know whether Hagrid would have told us if a) he knew Becky and I had actually broken the rules, and b) If he knew everything that had happened,"

"And as much as Hagrid's awesome Rose, you know he's not exactly great at keeping his mouth shut – Dad, Uncle Ron and Aunt 'Mione managed to get half the stuff they knew about the Philosopher's stone from him." Albus pointed out practically.

Mouse raised his eyebrows.

"That's a new one."

Albus grinned at him.

"Like I said back in September, dad doesn't like us bragging...but if you ask very nicely, I might tell some of the other stuff dad's told me later. It's pretty cool."

Rose rolled her eyebrows and then ran up the steps to the entrance hall.

"You can tell Mouse your over exaggerated stories later Al, come on, I'm hungry and if we don't hurry up, all the decent food will be gone."

As they ran into the Great Hall, laughing, none of them noticed a blonde Gryffindor first year looking at them a wistful expression on her face.

A/N So, another chapter of plot thickening, don't worry stuff will start happening soon, I promise! Please read, review, and PM me with any suggestions for side plots you might have, something to do with pranks, more of a certain character, something you like, something you hate. Til next time!