Swinging his legs out of bed, he was a little perturbed to realise he was feeling a bit sick. He took several deep breaths and that made him feel a little better. One of the advantages of his parents paying the extra money and giving him a room of his own, meant that he also had the world's tiniest bathroom where he could perform his morning ablutions privately.

After he came out of the prehistoric - but functional - shower, he stood in front of the mirror and examined his reflection. A few swift moves with the comb and his damp black hair was in position. He looked down at the comb and realised that there were more hairs that had come out than usual. He scowled. Still, he had plenty to go round, he could spare a few hairs.

Pulling on his robes, he took his first dose of potion of the day and grimaced again. The stuff was foul.

The feeling of nausea did not totally leave him as he walked down the corridors heading for the Great Hall, and he wondered, idly, if perhaps it had been something in that pumpkin juice that hadn't agreed with him.

**********

Magnus was not one for being seen first thing in the morning.

He always liked to look his best, regardless of the fact that he was in a dormitory full of only boys. Once awake, he stretched and peered through the gap in the curtains surrounding his four-poster bed to see if anyone else was around. A few beds were empty, indicating that he wasn't the first up for breakfast, but there didn't seem to be an awful lot of activity. Grabbing his bed-robes and towel, he headed for the shower. The few hundred strands of hair remaining on his pillow went completely unnoticed.

Sleepily washing in the shower, Magnus got the feeling that all was not entirely as it should be. He was standing in a good couple of inches of water already, and it was rising. He washed the soap out of his eyes and looked down. The plughole was full of hair. He inwardly cursed the lack of hygiene of whomever it was that had taken a shower before him.

He quickly finished washing, towelled himself off, and returned to his bed, drawing the curtains again so he could preen in privacy. Once dressed he took out his extravagant brush, and started to work on his hair, his pride and joy. He pulled the brush briskly through the knotty mass, and heard a sickly tearing sound. Curiously, he disentangled the brush from his hair, thinking he must have broken it somehow, and brought it closer to his face to look at it.

The brush fell to the floor with a clatter. With it fell a large wad of wet golden hair.

Magnus' reactions came in short sharp bursts. As he registered what had happened, he spoke out loud, in Swedish, with words that probably didn't translate directly as "Oh no!" Then, to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him, he put up his hand and tugged a few locks. Sure enough, they came away in his hand, and he stared at them for a few seconds. Then, he put both hands on top of his head, as if in an attempt to hold the rest of his hair on.

*Don't panic, Magnus* he told himself. Inside his head, a voice screamed.

Painfully loudly. *It must be magic. I've been tricked* he continued

The voice in his head continued to scream maniacally, but seemed to be in agreement at least.

*So. Who could it have been?*

He thought back over recent events. He discounted his dormitory-mates immediately. They were Gryffindors, and whilst he wasn't entirely au fait with the whole "house" thing, he was fairly sure one Gryffindor wouldn't do this to another. So it must have been last night. Who had he seen.

It came to him in a blindingly obvious flash.

"Piotr Rachinov!" he spat.

The voice in his head stopped screaming, and a picture of the Slytherin he had "walked in to" the previous night emerged clearly in his mind. He could here murmurs of agreement now from the previously screaming voice.

*I knew he was dangerous* he thought.

He had heard Piotr muttering under his breath at Magnus' back as he walked away. He hadn't heard what he had said. Had the Slytherin worm had the audacity to cast a spell at him when his back was turned?

*Just like a Slytherin* he thought.

Pulling on his over-robe he burst between the curtains, determined to find and punish the person responsible for this heinous crime.

********

Piotr, of course, had no idea that Magnus Prytz was braying for his blood. He was quietly walking down the halls of Hogwarts, absorbing conversations going on around him, his mind entirely on anything but rampaging Gryffindors.

He had already put his sunglasses back on, finding the daylight too much to bear, and was more or less entirely lost in his own private little world.

"RACHINOV!!!" Magnus yelled down the corridor. He had seen Piotr's unmistakable, bespectacled form slithering down the corridor. Never before had he felt so much hatred and loathing for a group of people. These Slytherins really were as bad as he had been led to believe! But wait, Arcadia was as Slytherin wasn't she? He shook his head to clear such a confusing thought.

A few wispy strands of golden hair drifted slowly to the floor.

Focussed once again, the red mists were well and truly descended. How *dare* anyone cause harm to his person, especially his lovely hair! He began to run down the corridor, the crowds parting ahead of him and closing in his wake. Gasps came from all around, and some smaller girls made pitiful shrieking noises (as little girls do).

The Slytherin was vaguely aware of the sound of his name being called and paused in his casual stroll down the corridor. He turned, just in time for Magnus to barrel into him, knocking the wind out of him, and sending them both crashing to the ground in a shower of blond hair and, rather disturbingly, dark hairs as well.

"What the..." began Piotr, totally baffled by this turn of events, then he saw the dark hairs that were floating gracefully to the floor, swaying gleefully in the air like malevolent snowflakes.

He stared at it in horror, then holding onto his shades with his left hand tried to push Magnus back with the other. "Get off me!" he yelled.

Magnus either didn't see the floating hair, or simply ignored it. He also ignored Piotr's attempts to push him off.

"What have you done! My hair!" He shouted into the Slytherin's face. He grabbed old of Piotr's hair with the intent of shaking his head off, but instead he came away with a couple of handsfull of gloss black hair.

The momentum threw him backwards until he, too, was lying on the floor a few feet from Piotr. By this time a circle of excited students had gathered around the pair.

He stared at his hands.

He stared at Piotr.

He stared back at his hands.

"What the...???" he started to say...

Somewhere in the fall, Piotr's shades had come off and he covered his eyes with a whimper. Therefore, he did not notice the clumps of hair in Magnus' hands. He scrabbled around desperately on the floor for his blessed sunglasses and with some relief, his fingers closed around them.

Putting them back on, he turned to look at Magnus who was holding what looked like chunks of his hair. In abject horror, Piotr put a hand up and felt the patches where Magnus had seemingly ripped his hair out.

"My hair..." he began, then studied Magnus more closely. "Your hair..."

"Our hair?" Magnus finished questioningly.

Something wasn't right here.

"Something isn't right here" he said across the floor to Piotr. The crowd had begun to disperse now, realising that there probably wasn't going to be a fight and not wanting to be around in case Professor Snape should turn up.

"If it wasn't you" he said, pointing ridiculously across the room with a black hair covered hand, "and it wasn't me" he continued, putting his other and up to his rapidly becoming hairless head. (The mingling of the black with the blond that this resulted in looked like a bleaching disaster) "Then who was it?"

The two stared at each other for a moment.

"The PUMPKIN juice!" they both yelled out at the same time, in true dramatical fashion.

"Oriana!" Magnus added. "Oh why did you have to go and do that, I was just starting to like you again!"

Piotr said nothing for long moments. He was too busy mourning the loss of his hair, his beautiful, rich, raven-like tresses that he had so carefully cultivated over the years. On top of that, the brief exposure to the sunlight had left him feeling shaken and sick.

"The pumpkin juice," he repeated, bitterly. "I thought it had disagreed with me, but this is beyond the pale." He considered for a few moments. "Looks like it was lucky I only took a sip. How much hair have you actually lost?" He slowly got to his feet and stumbled a little. His retinas felt like they were on fire.

"Too much" he shuddered "and it's still coming out. I'll be bald by the end of breakfast time!"

A steely resolve crossed his face.

"Look. We can't let her get away with this. We need to get her. Together."

He looked carefully at Piotr to see if the boy was in agreement. All thoughts of Slytherin-hatred were now out of his head. It was just that Oriana that was to blame.

"Let's go get some breakfast, and I promise, no pumpkin juice this time!"

"You have a deal," said Piotr, furiously. Slytherin or not, this Oriana person had resulted in the potential loss of his hair, and that was not to be stood for. Piotr had no interest in house loyalty whatsoever, and he'd found a common link with Magnus Prytz.

They were joined together in a single cause.

Revenge.

[OC: Magnus has already lost enough hair for it to be noticeable to those at breakfast. Piotr, bless him, hasn't. But he's not looking at all well. Fancy knocking his SHADES off!]

*********

There was something you did in this situation. Forks. All he could think about were forks. Forks, floating in concentric circles, doing a bit of a jive, a dance in the moonlight... oh, wait, there was a song playing in the background... some of those bits of cutlery could really dance...

"Okay," Raphael murmured to himself, "there is something horribly wrong. I should not be seeing forks."

From the back of his mind, another voice answered, and it sounded suspiciously, thought Raphael, like the absinthe fairy: "There is no spoon, so use the forks, Luke..." Raphael shuddered and tried desperately to wake himself up from the bad joke nightmare. There were some things that should not be uttered. Like: 'it won't hurt at all, I promise,' or 'I think it's dead,' or even the dreaded 'gosh, well, it didn't feel like that last night when I could see it properly...' Wake up, he thought to himself, for goodness sake! IN a futile effort to get himself up, Raphael tried to get his extremities to annoy themselves. His hands. That'd be good: move his hands.

"Urgh," he muttered as he readied himself. Then, Raphael rolled sideways and fell off the infirmary trolley and cracked his jaw on the bedside table. "Urgh," he said once again, with more force, but from closer to the ground.

He opened his eyes. It wasn't a pretty sight. What a morning. Urgh. Sunlight baaaad. Sunlight soooo baaaaad.

Rubbing his eyes, and finding himself in strange room, for just a second Raphael wondered where the forest had gone: where the trees he slept under were, where the dry drifts of leaves were, where he was. Amnesia. Where was he? Wasn't he meant to get up early today to go and see his uncle about sending him somewhere tomorrow?

Then his mind caught up on present events and he groaned a little more. Headache. Headache. Skipping past the Leaky Cauldron incident, Raphael soon got onto the train, and then... the sorting. Which was blanked out in his mind. He ignored that and went onto the slightly embarrassing talk with Sarah, the Quidditch test (at this he rallied a little) and then a bed that he wasn't in, or even under. He was in a dormitory, or a hospital, or somewhere. What a nightmare.

And then he turned around and got Madam Pomfrey in the face.

- - -

A few minutes later a Raphael was cannonballed out of the infirmary and smacked into the wall opposite, bruising his other jaw. Twisting around at double speed, Raphael shouted "I'm alright I'm alright I'm alright" before sprinting off into the castle.

A minute later he was against a wall and trying to catch his breath. Right. Okay. Now... where was the common room? He needed to get changed... he was in a smock for gods sake...

A pair of blue eyes blinked at him from the darkness. Then, the decision reached, Raphael and Zephyr threw themselves at each other, their version of a friendly punch on the shoulder being more like a small scuffle... which was cut off when a group of first year Slytherins started coming down one of the staircases loudly towards him. Raphael looked at Zephyr in panic: he could take off what was essentially a dress, and be in his boxers, or he couldn't. What was the choice?

Zephyr grinned and tapped his nose. Then, kicking one of the bookcases delicately, he opened a passageway that extended into darkness. "Cool," was Raphael's only comment as he threw himself up the small passage. It was luckily a quick route.

A good fifteen minutes later, Raphael found himself walking down the stairs and into the great hall, and strutting calmly towards the Ravenclaw table, trying to look cool, even with the bruise on his forehead being joined by dual bruises on each jaw. Sitting down at the table next to Nathaniel and Sarah, and only a slight grimace crossing his face at the jarring, he asked them both: "wazzup?"

Only then, however, did he notice the piece of paper on his place. And although the plate was soon full of cold dairy custard (sometimes only custard would do) he was slightly more interested in what Sarah and Nathaniel had to say, and the piece of paper which he'd only just started to translate...

Sarah was astonished to see Raphael - he appeared to have gained some more bruises since the previous evening.

"Hey aren't you suppose to be in the Hospital Wing under the care of Madame Pomfrey and having wonderful hospital food and resting your poorly head? Did you stage an escape or did she pronounce you well enough to leave?"

Sarah cast an eye in Kat Black's direction. Naturally if Raphael had tried to escape medical treatment, Kat would not be pleased and Sarah wouldn't blame her.

Kat noticed as Raphael walked in and sat down. She glanced at Sarah with a 'what is he doing' look. She waited to see what he would say about being out of the Infirmary.

Sarah returned Kat's look. She was completely perplexed as to what was going on with Raphael.

************

Unusually for a Sunday, Arcadia was already at the Slytherin table, buttering some toast.

She had purposely sat with her back to the main door, but Pantalaimon was at her side and watching as Magnus came in. Arcadia smiled.

She was not so pleased when she saw he was with. She didn't like Piotr Rachinov. There was 'something' about him, Something she didn't understand, didn't like, and didn't want to get in the way of. Just like the Hawkwood Girl.

Her chain of thought was broken by some giggles from the Hufflepuff table. She smiled and continued to butter her toast.

Carina had followed Arcadia's advice and put on the strongest privacy charm she knew on her bed, as well as an alarm hex that would give anyone trying to disturb her rather nasty friction burn. Unfortunately, no one had tried anything. Pity really, she'd have to prove she was a force not to be messed with some other way.

That morning she swept into breakfast quite late, not a hair out of place. Looking down the Slytherin she found a place by Arcadia.

"Morning." she said bluntly, piling breakfast onto her plate. Carina Darnell was not known for being a social figure at any time before 12 noon. Not a morning person didn't begin to cover it.

"Oh. Hello Carina. Sleep well?" asked Arcadia. Pantalaimon continued to watch Magnus and did not move. Arcadia looked at the pile of food on Carina's plate and raised an eyebrow slightly while continuing to butter some toast.

Carina looked up from her plate of bacon, sausages and toast with sleepy eyes. "If by that, Arcadia, you mean was I disturbed, no I wasn't. Though I was prepared should my dorm mates have decided that it would be funny to wake me."

"I wouldn't worry. Most of them will have seen you with me now, so you’re pretty safe." Said Arcadia.

She looked down at her timetable with mild interest, then looked back at Arcadia. "What extras have you taken?"

Arcadia looks over to Carina's timetable. "Extras? We have to pick Extras?" She hadn't even looked!

Carina nodded. "You have to take 5 optional subjects. I've chosen mine. I've taken Hidden Talents, Sport, Ancient Runes, Magical Languages and Magic, Folklore and Myths. Anything to avoid Muggle Studies."

From where he was chatting with Morticia a little further down the Slytherin table, Drake looked up and threw Carina a rather hurt look.

"I guess I'll just take the same as you," said Arcadia.

Throwing Drake a sneer in return for his look, Carina turned her attention back to Arcadia. "I thought you'd want to take Alchemy, you being good at Potions. It clashes with Astronomy."

Arcadia looked at her timetable closely, her brow furrowing. "Erm.. ya, your right. And I'll get rid of Arithmancy and have that as a free period."

She scribbled some more. "There. That should do it"

Carina then looked at Pan. "And what is he looking at?"

Arcadia smiled, "Oh Pan is just checking out 'Oh I'm so handsome Magnus'. Looks like he's having a bad hair day." Arcadia giggled as she buttered her toast.

Carina looked over at Magnus and barely suppressed howls of laughter.

Snorting, she turned back to Arcadia, eyes glinting. "Is this what you wouldn't tell me about yesterday?" She whispered. If it was, she knew that Arcadia would want to keep it secret for a while.

Arcadia leans in closer to Carina. "Oh yes. Just you wait and see. I'll explain later... oh yes, that reminds me.."

She winked and sat up and started to talk in an obviously loud voice, so almost everyone can here.

"Did you hear about Niki and Nathan? We found them asleep, she was sitting in his lap, in the common room this morning! And he wasn't wearing anything more than his boxers! And she was in her night-gown...well...Mostly..."

**********

Alpha joined the others at the breakfast table. She looked forward to Monday, happy that school was starting again. She noticed a new face next to Arcadia's, but noticed also that the two girls were a bit alike. Better not sit next to them, she thought.

After introducing herself to the new girl : "Hello, I'm Alpha Rich, 5^th year" she sat a short distance away from the two girls.

She glanced around who was already in the room. She saw Sarah at the Ravenclaw table and waved to her.

She had to talk to Prof. McGonagall about taking 12 subjects instead of 11. Then she had an appointment with Madam Pince, the Librarian, about which afternoons and evenings she had to assist her. Busy Sunday ahead of her, but she liked that.

*********

Dylan had managed to slip into the Great Hall mostly unnoticed, and was at his usual spot at the Gryffindor table, eating eggs as if he might never have a chance to eat again when he heard Arcadia's little announcement.

Under his breath, he swore softly in every available language, dropping his fork. It clattered to his plate and he felt his cheeks redden. No one had told him that Niki and Nathan were a couple, or that they had been...no, Dylan refused to think about that. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair, it wasn't kind, it wasn't honourable...not that he felt like being any of those things at that moment.

Dylan sighed. This wasn't his problem. He just had to keep telling himself that. Niki, obviously, was no longer interested in him, and that was that. No big thing. Deliberately, Dylan picked up his fork and began again on his eggs, scanning his timetable.

Somehow, though, he didn't feel very hungry anymore.

*********

Giggling at the sight of Magnus again, Carina shook her head quietly as she ate her sausages. Before she started her bacon she looked at her new found friend and muttered quietly.

"Being new, I haven't the faintest who Nathan is, other than the fact his is Morticia's brother. And by the looks of it, Dylan isn't all that happy with your announcement. Care to explain?"

Arcadia face changed slightly for a second at the mention of Nathan.

"Oh Nathan.. Well he had this MAJOR crush on me. and I ... sort of... liked him. But then that... Niki Decided to steal him from me. She used to go around with Dylan, but dumped him. She's just a little tart really, I don't see what they see in her. I'd say she uses a charm or something, but I don't think she is clever enough for that!"

Carina grinned. "Not one to hold a grudge are you Arcadia."

Looking at her timetable again she took in her subjects. Transfiguration. That would be ok. Then there was Hidden Talents and DADA. She was *extremely* glad she didn't have Potions yet. She was dreading Thursday.

Looking back up at Arcadia, she smiled. "So, what's the usual routine in Potions? Work alone or in groups?"

She hoped it would be in groups. She could at least trust other people to get theirs right. She was bound to mess up. She was scared stiff of cauldrons and everything to do with them. She did have a right to be.

Alpha was used to be ignored by Arcadia, but she raised an eyebrow over the fact that the new girl Carina was so rude to ignore her as well.

After she 'd eaten her fruit she decided to stay a bit longer at the breakfast table and enjoying her coffee, she began to study her timetable. "I really need to discuss this with Prof. McGonagall" she mumbled.

Finishing her coffee, she went over to the teachers' table. Shyly she asked Prof. McGonagall: "Please, Professor, may I interrupt?" because the professor was talking to Hagrid.