Zidane grinned in response. Though he was confused by Raphael's sudden disappearance and equally quick reappearance, he did not mention it. People all had their quirks.

"Well." He crossed his arms across his chest and put on a furrowed-forehead look that indicated he was deep in thought. "I do things with fire, you see. I can barbecue them. Ah, no. Or I can heat them up to the point when they are nice and dry, like autumn leaves. You want them to look like they're varnished or something?"

He looked around the group. "I can't assure you about the pouch though. If someone wants to do something to leave the petals suspended in the air, then it won't be a problem."

Sarah was not going to let a remark like this pass without comment. "Zidane, what sort of things can you do with fire? Is it a muggle thing?"

*********

He was alone and they were all against him.

Luis Verga stood in the middle of a secluded clump of trees at the farthest end of the lake, surrounded by six opponents. His eyes were narrowed in concentration, his feet planted apart with knees bent, weight more on the right leg; his arms were held out halfway with palms open and wrists tense.

He was ready to "dance." Already the Capoeira singsong chant was playing in his head.

The opponent right in front dived grotesquely, as if in attempt to pin him to the ground. They were all slow. So slow.

He retaliated. In a matter of fifty to fifty-five seconds, all his opponents were on the ground. Defeated.

Luis blinked, still locked in a tackling position. Six down in less than a minute. He knelt on the ground and examined one of his fallen artificial "opponents," pieces of logs and twigs that he had magically bound together and enchanted to assume the form and movements of human attackers. The logs were all badly scraped and half broken-down. He would need to find new, stronger ones if he wanted to have another decent workout.

He stood back up and retrieved his wand, nestled in the folds of his shirt that he had discarded and thrown beneath a tree to make his workout more "violent." He could not risk going back to the castle with a torn shirt. People would think he had lost his marbles or had wrestled with a troll in the Forbidden Forest.

He pointed the wand at the pile of defeated wooden "opponents" and said: "Finite incantatem." The logs all broke apart from their magical bonds and turned back to their harmless wooden state. One more wave of the wand made them all fly into a neat pile under one of the trees. His gift to Hagrid, if ever the groundskeeper found them.

He picked up his Limp Bizkit shirt and put it back on. He undid the rubberband of his ponytail, allowing the long black hair to fall onto his shoulders. He felt warm but the workout did not really make him sweat much. He knew what he needed. Real, strong opponents. But where to find them...

He tucked the wand into the back pocket of his jeans and began the walk to the castle, hoping to run into someone interesting along the way.

*********

"It's what the Muggles called an abnormal thing," Zidane answered, with just the slightest touch of bitterness in his voice. "So no. It's a magic thing, Sarah. It's something like //this//."

As he said the last word, his voice with its relaxed West Coast accent suddenly became deeper and more disembodied. The air around the group at the lakeside suddenly became infused with a rush of heat and the distant squawks of startled birds.

Zidane's red hair was now flowing around his head like liquid fire. His normally hazel eye colour was now the bright red of the purest ruby. He was floating an inch or so above the ground, surrounded by an aura of fire, sizzling quietly.

"This is the //thing//," his disembodied voice explained with amusement.

"Don't let Marvo catch you doing that." she said with a grin, "he'll foam you."

"So, what kind of magic is it or is it 'just you'?"

"It's just me," Zidane answered, reverting to his more normal human form in the blink of an eye. "Professor Flitwick, whom I met over the summer and invited me to Hogwarts, said it's magic. I can do things with fire since I was three years old, but, I dunno, they still say its magic."

"The Muggle doctors told me I was a mutant," he added. "But there's nothing wrong with my genes or anything. So magic it is. And about that Marvo person--" he shrugged negligently with a smile--"his 'foam' will just bounce off my fire shield. It even keeps out rain, you know."

"I read books on powers like mine over the summer. The closest thing I found out was a fire wizard, but it's gotta be just a special ability. Me, all the magic I can ever do is fire. It's pretty limited, as far as I know."

"Yeah, but are you likely to burn down anything or anyone? I mean those birdies felt something when you transformed and the trees in the forest and stuff will take objection if you're likely to be a danger to them and their creatures."

Sarah, seemed more serious - concerned. "Let alone the teachers....."

The conversation was going too quickly for him... Raphael still had questions about the first few things that Zidane had said... but Sarah was animated. It was actually kinda worrying. For a girl who wasn't allowed to do fireballs, she really had a thing about fire... like a kid playing with matches... Raphael grinned at her back.

He watched the passioned conversation between Zidane and Sarah, and even when Zidane himself lifted off the ground in a ruby bubble of fire, he didn't move much, instead just watching curiously. Magic... was so exciting... sometimes... His hand slipped unconsciously into his left pocket, and then came out again. his wand was in his hand, although he wasn't holding it in the right way, only the tip poking out between his left index and middle fingers. He waved it vaguely around, not really paying attention, just liking the feeling in his slightly bruised hand.

"It's what the Muggles call an abnormal thing," Zidane had said. What was it about these muggles? From before... he'd had no problem with other folk. Although, to be honest, that hadn't been surprising. But even... in the last six months... there hadn't been a major problem... had there?

The fire that Zidane was using was... beautiful. "How do you do that, Zidane?" asked Raphael, half to himself. "It'd be... like if you could that with air... it'd be... she'd... er... envocatem?... envocate... ausolious?... auster? envocate auster... well..." As Raphael tried to remember something that was just out of his grasp, muttering as he did, the buzzing filled his head until it started to pound. He gave trying to remember anything beyond the six month mark up for a bad job, and stuck both hands in his pockets in annoyance.

"Let alone the teachers....." finished Sarah.

"It shouldn't be a problem, should it, Sarah...?" butted in Raphael, motioning at Zidane. "I mean... well, people tend to be accepting of most things. I don't get why you've had problems with... muggles..." said Raphael to Zidane, the word uncomfortable.

"But..." he said, glancing to his left. The rose petals were floating uncertainly about a meter in the air, the pouch lying dead on the floor below. Raphael looked at the two people who he hadn't been watching, and made an educated guess. "Thanks... Shinrei?... for doing that. Zidane, do you want to have a go now at drying out these leaves? Impress us," added Raphael, grinning, as he pulled his empty pouch out of reach. "I think your magic is cool. I wonder what else it can be used for?"

For a second Sarah looked as though she might try to explain what she meant about danger.

She realised that she was very angry with Shinrei for having done that to the rose petals. Shinrei had practically every boy in the school hanging round her dead impressed with her abilities and now she was working her thing on Nathaniel and Raphael.

"Oh wait. I think as a mere mortal I'd don't qualify for membership in this club. I'd better go find some normal kids to hang out with! You know the kind that actually are here because they need to learn not just show off all the time."

Then she moved away swiftly not looking back. Some yards away she realised she was crying but didn't stop.

She hated herself for losing her cool like that. She wanted to find the deepest, darkest dungeon and just..... just ... be miserable on her own. Still her feet were carrying her towards the nearby trees. She considered skirting around the lake and going to Hagrid's hut. She could wait for him there because he would understand.

Sarah wasn't really looking where she was going when she practically ran into Luis on his way back to the Castle. "Oh, the Shinrei Hikari fan club is meeting over by the lakeside, Luis. I'd get a move on if I were you! You might miss a fawning opportunity!"

She sat down on the grass near a tree and waited for him to leave.

********

Shinrei, very impressed with Zidane's unusual abilities, had been quietly watching the very animated conversation between Sarah and Zidane. When the boy called...Raphael?...said that she had made the rose petals float in the air, her eyes widened.

"I am not the one who made those petals float in the air, Raphael-san," she said to the boy. But Sarah had made her outburst at almost the same time and had not seemed to hear her.

She looked from one person to another surrounding her. She definitely did not use any of her spells on those petals. She was too...empty to do any magic just now. So who had done so?

Raphael was the only person holding a wand in his hand, waving it vaguely around. The power was there--she could sense it. Dim, undirected, but *there.*

"Raphael-san, I believe it was *you* who made those petals float in the air."

Raphael stepped back from Shinrei rather quickly when she spoke, both surprise and shock registering from both Sarah's outburst... what had she said?!... and then she was gone and this other girl was accusing him accusing him... what was she accusing him of doing? He hadn't done anything... not like magic... at all...

He put both hands up in the air - both being completely empty - and shook his head vehemently towards Shinrei. "I didn't do anything, really! I can't... do... things like that. I've never... had... well... I've never managed to even get a spell out of this thing," he said, retrieving his smooth laurel wand from his right pocket and throwing it to Shinrei carelessly. He hadn't done anything... had he? "I don't know what I'm meant to do when we-"

Sarah - remember!

"... oh buggery what was that all about with Sarah?" Raphael said directly at Nathaniel, forgetting that he was meant to be talking to Shinrei. But... she'd turned up... and then she had a go at them. She'd said that she wasn't... she didn't like hanging around with them... because they weren't normal... and... and she'd been crying, hadn't she? And... as Raphael looked at Nathaniel, who was standing, so silent, so brooding, so damned uncaring all of a sudden, anger swept over him. Walking past Shinrei - and splashing water from the damp ground on her as he did - Raphael grabbed Nathaniel's arm.

"Just damn well go and deal with her, will you?" he muttered harshly at him, before turning and walking away further down the lake past Shinrei. As he did he kicked harshly at the rose petals without thinking, missing and hitting the air below - with something that sounded like a squeak of pain, they fell out of the air and to the ground. Halting, he stood about a meter down from Shinrei, looking out at the lake.

Shinrei easily caught the wand that was thrown her way. Unperturbed by the commotion caused by the very emotional and quite panicky Raphael, she ran her hands along the laurel wand, feeling the static of leftover magical energy still humming from within it.

When the boy rushed past and splashed parts of her clothes with half-muddy water, she almost carelessly used the wand to cast a cleaning spell and render her clothes spotless once more.

"Raphael-san is right, Nathaniel-san," she said. "You should go after Sarah-san and find out if she is well."

As Zidane was the only one left who seemed to be more composed, she turned her attention to him. "Zidane-san, are you familiar with the theory of 'priori incantatem'?" She looked meaningfully at Raphael's wand that she was still holding.

*********

Niki finally finished her meal, and hurried back to the Slytherin common room to get her broom. After which, she hurried through the Great Hall and onto the grounds, making for the Quidditch field as quickly as she could. She was very excited about the try-outs--getting a good night's sleep had made a remarkable difference in her demeanour.

Unfortunately, letting her mind wander had led her to a rather unfortunate place--the side of the lake, where Shinrei and the rest were standing and talking. Staring around discontentedly, she frowned at them, but couldn't help being curious as to what was going on.

The wand itself seemed odd, the laurel peaceful, and the hum from it seeming to be like a tune... a melody of some kind. Any magic within the wand itself barring this lovely tune that had started to wind it's way into Shinrei's mind was dormant, still. And somehow... leafy.

Raphael stood at the edge of the crowd, looking out to the water, waiting for Nathaniel to... to *move*, to do anything. It made him angry - no - it made him furious. Couldn't he see that -

Someone else was coming. A girl. Raphael recognised her, from on the train, vaguely, a girl by the name of Niki. There'd been something wrong with her yesterday, hadn't there...? He strolled over.

"Hi," he said easily. "You feeling better today? Here for the Quidditch?" he asked, making himself look away from Nathaniel, hoping the other boy would get the hint that he didn't plan to go and find Sarah, as it wasn't his job. "We went flying last night," Raphael told Niki, "and I can't wait to get started again."

Niki nodded in relief. "Yes, I'm going to Quidditch. I wanted to play last year, but I couldn't..." She peeked over Raphael's shoulder, but couldn't see what else was going on, so she gave up. "I'm feeling much better--actually managed to sleep last night, so I'm all rested and shall probably be bouncing off the walls, but that's all for the good. What position do you play?"

Zidane glanced at where Raphael now stood. He was talking to a girl who had just joined their little lakeside gathering.

At Shinrei's question, his sharp mind snapped into focus and began a thorough search of its internal data banks. Priori incantatem. Ah-hah.

He grinned. "Yeah. It's a wand recall thing, right? You do something to make the wand remember the spells it has done before. I dunno, but isn't it a little advanced or something?"

Fire.

Reds-golds-oranges-umbers-yellows.

The ripple of it.

Fire was such a beautiful thing.

So deadly.

Nathaniel watched Zidane and almost immediately things in his mind ripped, tore, fell bleeding in puddles of flame.

A terrible feeling of .. 'age'.. came over him. He felt older, not just in body, but in mind. A thousand thoughts leapt and spun and danced and stabbed and fought for supremacy.

He just stood there, trembling, a dazed look in his green eyes again.

Rose petals. Someone had said - done - something about rose petals. He gathered that much from beyond the dream that was not a dream; and that was about it. Nathaniel didn't even realise that Sarah had gone somewhere until Raphael grabbed his arm.

"Just damn well go and deal with her, will you?" he muttered harshly at Nathaniel, and stormed off.

Nathaniel blinked around. No one seemed to notice that Nathaniel had been lost in nightmares of a woman burning at the stake. Maybe that was for the better, because these kind of thoughts Nathaniel was not in the mood to share with anyone, far less these new acquaintances.

The mostly black kitten became his saviour.

Waving an imperious tail that beckoned the boy to follow, the mostly black kitten - Stalks by Night, his vague memory supplied - trotted off into the woods.

Nathaniel followed, his indigo overrobe billowing in the breeze. "Sarah?" he called.

*********

"It is advanced magic, I have to agree." Shinrei smiled approvingly at the American boy. Zidane knew his magical theory *and* he had unusual powers with the way he could manipulate fire. "However, I can execute a minor version of Priori Incantatem on Raphael-san's wand to find out if he really made the petals float."

She pulled out her own hand from within the sleeve of her kimono and held its tip to Raphael's laurel wand. "This is a similar but much easier spell I learned from my teacher in Nippon," she explained. "It only allows the quick recall of the last three spells of the wand."

She concentrated on the wand tips and said: "Sankakou'hou-Mi!"

Niki snickered. "Priori incantatem isn't difficult!" she announced. "It's one of the easiest spells there *is*, if you don't count light and hovering spells and such. We learned it in our first year--it won't regurgitate all the spells, but it will go for the past several years, if you keep contact..."

She shook her head. "And I can't believe it would be so very different between Morocco and Japan--but then again, to each his own..."

********

"What position do you play?" asked the girl Niki, who Raphael had found bounding up and down on her feet around him, looking over his shoulder at the action.

"I don't know ye-" was all the response he managed to stammer out to her before the syllables of Shinrei's spell echoed behind him. On that wand. That stupid damned wand that did a little less then nothing. He spun around, something tightening around his chest as he looked at the assembled crowd.

"Sankakou'hou-Mi!"

Silence. Oh silence, even though the echoes in his mind were getting louder... the sudden burning golden light of her spell. And then it changed. Changed to an oily black. The oily black of raven feathers.

First to come splashing out was a spectre of dirty water, a spell that Shinrei herself had performed just seconds before. Raphael sighed in thanks - perhaps... then a bucketload of raven feathers came pouring out of the tips of the wands, an oily sheen cascading down as if it was water, impacting on the ground and disappearing into blackness, with a strange haunting melody in the background pulsing in time with the feather-water...

And then as the feather halted, and the next spell started to come through, Raphael called out in his mind, once: a command. Just a warning. Just in case. Because those feathers looked just like...

THUM!

...the wand had... exploded? No... as the last spell had started to come through the wand, it seemed to jellify for a second in Shinrei's hand, and then with an explosion of air pressure, it had... expanded, violently pushing away from the Japanese girl's wand, and almost hitting Zidane in the stomach.

Raphael picked up what the wand had... changed into. A five-foot long quarterstave, in deep, creamy, smooth laurelwood. For a second as he took it off Shinrei, he seemed unsure, simply staring at the wood.

Then he adjusted his grip, spun the stave fluently three times around his head, did a quick figure of eight, adjusted his grip in mid air to hold it at the end, switched and drove the stave into the ground, holding on to it like a walking stick. He grinned at the others around him. "I didn't know it could do that," he said simply.

And then it changed back into its 12-inch long form and Raphael fell over face flat into the mud.