Her hands were in the pockets of her robes, and there wasn't a book in sight around her. Her phobia was far from being conquered, but it was forgotten as she nearly skipped down the hallway.

Madison seemed almost as cheerful as Yvette as she headed down the hall. She was definitely looking forward to summer holiday, and was already planning out what to do and where to go. Catching sight of Yvette ahead, she ran to catch up.

"Yvette!" she greeted happily. "What's up? You looking forward to holiday?"

"Can't wait! We'll be full-out Muggles by the time we're back from California." Yvette replied with a grin. "You're sure your uncle won't mind?"

"Of course he won't mind! And you have to meet my cousins! Oh, I'll have to introduce you to movies and roller coasters...oh, and the beach, of course..." Madison stopped rambling for a moment and grinned. "This'll be so cool!"

"Moo-vees? Roll-your coats-urs? This is going to be so much fun..." Yvette laughed. "Well, at least we'll be tan when we get back!"

Yvette switched the subject randomly. "We sure are getting a ton of new kids, huh? It's almost scary. Lots of transfers. Hope not too many are from Beauxbatons..." She shuddered. "Most of them end up being like my sister."

"You mean there are more like her? No offence, but..." Madison winced at the thought of Estelle. "No, I know there's one from Sweden...I'm not sure about the rest."

She shrugged. "I guess we can meet them at dinner..." She grinned. "If you're able to stop inhaling food long enough to say hi..."

*******

Niki had spent the remainder of the day holed up in a dusty and disused section of the library, one where ancient Scandinavian manuscripts found at various archaeological sites were stored. A number of them had strange drawings of furniture, and the runes were occasionally referenced in more advanced Ancient Runes classes.

She had not, obviously, come there to read.

She was getting hungry, though. A glance at her watch necessitated a few quick blinks to clear the haze of tears, but it told her that dinner was starting shortly, and if she hurried she could grab a few bites to eat before her concerned classmates found her. She didn't want to talk to anyone, regretted spilling her heart to Dylan. She was still too young to understand that a grief left unspoken was all the more likely to fester.

And so Niki rubbed her eyes and pinched a little colour into pale cheeks and straightened her robes, and began on her way to dinner.

Niki cursed under her breath. She had miscalculated the time. Dinner was in full swing. There would be no slinking in and out again.

She chose a seat well away from Morticia--she didn't want to talk to anyone, but she didn't think she could take sympathy without collapsing into tears again--and began to eat, head bent low over her plate.

It was funny how hungry she was. A dull emptiness in her stomach. She hardly tasted a bite, tense all over with the effort of retaining her composure.

She could finish quickly, she could get out without anyone seeing her. She could. She had to.

**********

"Where IS he, Ivan?" Svetlana Rachinov sat in McGonagall's office, twisting her handkerchief nervously between her long fingers. "He said he was returning straight here!"

"I don't know, Svetlana," replied her husband, grim faced and sour. "Give that boy an inch and he takes fifteen hundred metres. This time he will feel the back of my hand. He's pushed it too far this time. You and I spend all these years trying to bring him up to be well mannered and polite,

and he abuses our trust yet again. Well, no more am I going to say nothing."

"Oh, NO, Ivan," said Svetlana, wretchedly. "He's only a boy."

"Only?"

The two stared at each other, some hidden words passing between them. Finally, Svetlana leaped to her feet. "I must go and find him, Ivan. He may be lost, confused, frightened!"

She did not wait for her husband's response, but simply ran from the room, bowling past Professor McGonagall on her way. She ran down the corridor, tears flowing from her eyes.

Ivan shook his head grimly. "That boy would not be frightened of anything. She refuses to see him as anything other than her precious little baby," he said by way of explanation to a bemused-looking Professor McGonagall.

* * *

"Piotr!" Svetlana ran up and down the corridors of Hogwarts, desperately searching for any sign of her son. "Piotr! Where are you?" She loosed forth a mass of Russian. "Oh, Piotr..."

Finally she stopped, out of breath and leaned against the wall. Where was her son? Why had he not shown up when he had said he would? She hated letting him out of her sight, hated the idea that she might never see him again.

She saw some students staring at her and asked if they had seen Piotr, giving a brief description. The students shook their heads and she, cursing roundly in Russian, headed off again. Before long, she was hopelessly lost herself.

Yvette snorted at Madison. "I'll do my best." She said dramatically, and noticed a Russian lady who looked as though she was about to have some sort of break down.

"Hello!" She called out cheerfully. "Hungry? We're heading to the Hall if you want to join us."

The offer might have been a bit...strange...for the moment, but as usual, she plowed on obliviously.

"This is Madison, I'm Yvette, and we're starved." She grinned at her joke.

Svetlana stared vaguely at the two girls, still wringing her hands together in abject misery. "I have lost my son," she said. "He is tall, dark haired, pale skin, wearing a black suit with a black overcoat. His name is Piotr. I must find him..."

She looked hopefully at Yvette and Madison. "Have you seen him?"

Madison shook her head. "Sorry, I haven't seen him. Dinner is about to start though...we're headed to the Great Hall. You can come with us, if you want, and we can see if he's already there." She shrugged. "Or maybe we can ask some of the other students if they've seen him..."

* * *

The precious little lamb was, in fact, rather enjoying a quiet stroll through the grounds of Hogwarts. The woods afforded him ample protection from the sun, which hurt his eyes so much, and he had found himself a tree to sit down against. He drew his knees up into his chest and sighed, almost contentedly. It was peaceful here. Piotr LIKED Peaceful. He liked quiet, and he liked being away from his parents.

Perhaps school wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

He thought back to Sarah. She had been...most interesting. He could not quite put his finger on it, but there was something about her that had set her apart from her peers. Piotr's unusual eyes and heightened senses often picked up on things that other people did not see. He would find out more about her, he decided.

And that little Japanese girl...bleeding from the eyelids. How deliciously foul.

He was going to have a good time here, he was sure of it. With that, he reluctantly decided he had better go back inside before his mother turned into a rabid rabbit, unaware that he was, in fact, several minutes too late.

********

Nimue was herself headed for the Great Hall and passed by Madison and Yvette talking with Mrs Rachinov, who was obviously distressed about her missing son.

"Hello, is there anything I can do to help? I am Elizabeth Hawkwood, one of the Prefects here. I think I saw your son with one of my friends, Sarah. Maybe she's giving him a tour or something - she is very friendly."

Svetlana turned as Nimue appeared, taking the girl in with one calculated glance, despite her own distress. "Sarah..." she repeated. "Da, I think I saw Piotr with her earlier on. Oh, I do wish I knew where Piotr was..."

She wrung her hands in concern again. "I am so frightened that he forgets to take his...medicine...he must take his medicine..."

"Do you take me for some sort of fool, Mother?" The casual drawl came from along the corridor, where Piotr stood, his arms folded firmly across his chest.

She turned to him, delight in her eyes. "Piotr!"

He held up a finger and waved it at her. "Now, now, Mother. Enough of this foolishness. Thank the nice young ladies for their help and escort me into the Great Hall. I believe Professor McGonagall has already shown...Father...the way there."

"Yes, yes, Piotr, at once..." Svetlana almost tripped over her own feet in her hurry to get to her son's side. She turned to the three girls. "Thank you most kindly," she said, a little shyly.

Piotr's dark-glass covered gaze travelled over the three girls, lingering momentarily on Nimue before he whirled around and strode off, his mother hurrying after him.

"Nice kid." Yvette remarked dryly in a low voice to her two friends. "Reckon he'll be a Slytherin."

She rolled her eyes and then smiled. "Anyway, speaking of happy things...food! We can't get to the Hall fast enough!"

Nimue gave an involuntary shiver at Piotr's glance even behind his dark glasses, and she addressed her Gryffindor friends.

"Gods - that boy gives me the creeps." Coming from a girl who voluntarily spent a few hours a week in the company of a certain Professor who most students thought of as rather 'creepy', suggested a rather extreme repulsion on Nimue's part. "Shall we go into dinner?"

"He does seem a little off..." Madison shrugged off the uneasy feeling she got as she watched him leave, then nodded. "Yeah, let's go..."

*********

Piotr continued to walk along the corridor, his mother tagging behind as always. He cast a glance over his shoulder to look at her briefly. As always, he felt the same mixture of annoyance and the swell of affection for her that so marked their relationship. He loved his mother, yet hated her for her constant mollycoddling and fussing. In her eyes, he was still her little baby Piotr. He hadn't been her baby for years now, and ever since the worsening of his condition, he'd grown even further away from her.

// That wasn't regret, was it, Piotr? //

He shook his shoulders vigorously to dispel the daydream. Failure to concentrate led to failure in keeping control of his self-possession, and that in turn could lead to any number of disasters.

He led Svetlana into the Great Hall, where his father and McGonagall were already seated at the top table, which had been magically extended to make room for the three visitors. In a surprising show of old-fashioned chivalry, he pulled out the seat so his mother could be situated next to his father. He himself took the seat at the very end of the table and leaned forward on his elbows, ignoring the looks of fury being shot at him by his father.

Sliding off his sunglasses, he turned his violet-eyed gaze out on the room. Ivan hissed something to him in Russian and he waved an impatient hand at the older man.

"Your father said you should put your glasses back on, Piotr," said his mother, softly.

"I understood what he said, Mother."

"I think you should, too. We do not really know how these people will react to..."

"To my abnormality?" Piotr sneered slightly, but picked up his sunglasses and put them back on again, hiding his unusual eyes from the room's view. Svetlana put her hand over his and whispered her thanks. She could feel the palpable tension between her husband and youngest son and feared for both of them as she always did. The idea of Piotr attending school, getting away from Ivan...it was all starting to appeal more and more.

She sighed and waited patiently for dinner to begin.

Oriana strode into the Great Hall with much grace. She fixed her hair and straightened her robes. She was famished. She walked over to the Slytherin table, but before she got a chance to sit down she noticed there were three extra people sitting at the head table.

One was a boy about her age, maybe a little older, and a lady and man she didn't recognise. She guessed that it was a new boy in Hogwarts and the man and woman were his parents. She sat down at the Slytherin table, looked at him, and smiled.

Piotr, from his vantage point at the head table (what a shame), he thought, (that I won't be this lucky when I come study here), had watched the various comings and goings with bored disinterest. His mother occasionally spoke timidly to her, but rarely did he respond. He was absorbed in the activity around him.

When Oriana smiled at him, one black eyebrow arched from behind the glasses. His mother said something else to him, and he snapped back at her in Russian. She shrank away from him in abject apology and returned to the conversation with her husband.

Piotr lowered his glasses and returned Oriana's smile with a slow grin of his own. As always, when Piotr smiled, the expression did not reach his eyes.

He let her absorb his violet pupils for a few moments, then put his glasses back on. He liked games.

Oriana smiled laughing a little. "Hi" she whispered. The new boy couldn't hear her, but hopefully he could make out what she was saying. There was something about his eyes...

Piotr saw the girl mouth a greeting to him and a flicker of a grin played around his lips. He kept her gaze for a few moments longer, and then, very deliberately, turned his head away from her, blatantly ignoring her. Such was the kind of boy he was.

"When will we be returning home?" he asked his mother, who, after several glasses of pumpkin wine was starting, finally, to relax.

"Oh...as soon as we have finished dinner," she replied. Piotr nodded vaguely evidently lost in thoughts of his own. So many pretty girls. So little time.

Time. His enemy. Marching ruthlessly on its never-ending road towards his sixteenth birthday. In spite of himself, and despite the warmth in the Great Hall, Piotr shivered. He was not looking forward to being sixteen.

In addition, he was also slightly ashamed of the fact that if he *were* to start at Hogwarts, his academic level determined he would be kept with those who were a year younger than him. He would start the new term as a fourth year, not a fifth year. He had known that from the beginning, but it somehow didn't make it any easier.

Very out of character, he sighed and stared at his half-eaten dinner. Svetlana, knowing instinctively what was wrong with him, squeezed his hand, and in an unusual show of solidarity he gave her a rare, genuine smile.

She was on his side - for what that was worth.

*********

"So Nimue, do you have plans for the summer?" Madison asked as they entered the Great Hall.

"Yes, we'll be staying on our old house in Tuscany for the summer. With grandfather's death we came away quite suddenly to return to England and my Mother wants to finish up her research. Be good to go back for a couple of months. Very relaxing. So how about you - going back home for a while?"

She noted the Rachinovs and their alabaster son were at high table. Her father appeared to be absent though she expected he was somewhere around. Probably caught up in a discussion.

Madison nodded and smiled. "Yvette's coming with me to visit my uncle back in California. I'm really looking forward to it."

She took a glance around, spotting Piotr and his mother, and another girl she had never seen before at the Slytherin table. "Where are we getting all these new students from all of a sudden?"

"That's Oriana, who came in at the same time as Magnus yesterday." she said referring to the new Slytherin girl. "She's from Durmstrang."

Nimue inclined her head in the direction of Piotr, "he probably is coming next year. Same with Magnus - he's only here to look the place over. You met him at breakfast."

"Oh. Magnus." Yvette repeated with a guilty expression. She had been rude to him during breakfast, but wouldn't apologise. No, he had deserved it. Still, it was most unlike her to make judgements about others so abruptly.

**********

Seeing that Professor Snape had just entered the Great Hall, Nimue remembered that there was something urgent she had meant to see him about before dinner. She'd been somewhat distracted by the upset Svetlana Rachinov as well as Piotr's oddness.

Therefore, she got up quickly and approached him before he had reached the high table. "Excuse me Professor, might I have a very quick word?"

Snape glanced up at Nimue, and almost smiled. "Miss Hawkwood," he greeted. "And may I say how good it is to see you in your normal setting. The last few days cannot have been easy for you. What is it that I can do for you this evening?"

He looked across the room to see the Rachinovs sat at the head table and his expression grew a little darker. He would have to speak to Dumbledore about that boy. But that was a job for later.

"Thank you sir. It is very good to be back to normality." replied Nimue quite genuinely. Professor Snape had proved himself a hero again in her eyes for his participation in the defence of Anders.

"I know you had suggested yesterday that I sit my examination for theoretical Alchemy following Potions tomorrow but with Professor McGonagall and Binns re-scheduling the other make up exams for myself and Randal for tomorrow afternoon, I wondered whether I might take the exam after dinner tonight. If it is no bother, that is."

She was pretty confident that Snape would be marking exams and preparing for the next day's exams in the evening or she wouldn't have made the suggestion.

She had no real concerns about the Transfiguration exam, which would be practical, but she needed to brush up on HoM. The other Third Years had shared the question with her on their exam but she expected Binns would change the question so at least she knew she didn't have to do any last minute revision on that topic.

Snape arched an eyebrow at her, but finally nodded. "If you feel you are up to it, Miss Hawkwood, then I will gladly arrange the test for you this evening."

He cast another glance at the teacher's table and something akin to a smile - or at least as close as Snape was ever likely to get - spread across his face. "I notice our DADA Professor is conspicuous by his absence," he commented. "A pity. I would liked to have spoken with him to discover how he fought off that curse..."

He shook himself, aware that he was showing An Interest in the young Professor when he had hitherto brushed him off. "Be in my office at 7.30 sharp, Miss Hawkwood," he said, brusquely, heading for the table and his seat, which put him next to Piotr Rachinov's father.

Nimue nodded her acknowledgement that she would be there at 7:30 and returned to the Gryffindor table.

"Strange that Professor Dumbledore isn't here this evening." she commented as much to herself as to the others there.

Turning to Yvette, "Oh I forgot to say earlier. The blouse that you kindly gave to Sirius has been returned. I have some doubts about that motorbike grease coming out of it by any normal means. I am sure there is a useful stain-removing charm that can be used or shall I replace it for you?"

Nimue thought the French girl had very good taste in clothes and hoped they might go shopping in Diagon Alley before start of term. Plus, she was a little worried that Yvette might not want to lend her anything again!

"Don't worry about it! I'm sure one of the maids can fix it in a flash." Yvette said good-naturedly, and then she grinned. "Better yet, you keep the blouse. I'm sure it'll bring back good memories." She winked.

"Thank you so much Yvette. It am sure it will." Nimue gave Yvette a hug.

Nimue finished her food and got up from the Gryffindor table. "Right, well I'm off to do some revision before this exam." I expect I'll be back to the dorm quite late. With that she left the Great Hall.

As she passed the Slytherin table Nimue exchanged a wave with Morticia who had already it seemed survived the Alchemy exam.