Shinrei's fan club, was it? Fawning? He walked to where Sarah was now sitting and squatted down so they were now eye to eye.

"Are you okay, Sarah?" he asked the girl gently. "Has this got anything to do with the chiquita? Did somebody do something bad to you or...?" He let the question trail off.

"Banana girl - yeah it has kind of." said Sarah continuing to equate the word 'chiquita' with a brand of fruit. It slightly cheered her up though.

"No one did anything bad, Luis. It's just all the boys crowd round her showing off and 'ooowww you can destroy train cars in a single blow and stuff' and all I was trying to point out was that being able to become a human torch was maybe something that wizards might not like considering that fire tended to burn things up and suddenly I am like turning into a old fuddy duddy like Jon Sinclair where as 'ooooowww Shinrei makes things dance in the air by the power of her mind'. I mean geezze Luis what's the attraction? You gotta a thing for her haven't you? I mean you might have had that nice dinner with me and Katia but you wanted to be with her really."

She then realised she'd rambled, "It's that new kid Zidane who did the Torchy trick not Shinrei but no doubt he was showing off for her I know the signs."

She sighed, "I know what boys are like they always go ga-ga over the girls who are unobtainable. Shinrei doesn't need to do anything and like I said they are just fawning over her every utterance. Even Nat's kitten has a thing for her now. Anyway, she gave give them the kind of magic they want, fireballs and stuff - I can't."

She looked fed up but it was obviously very much a teenage thing. She liked a boy (or two) and they'd shown interest in another girl meaning to her mind she was history or relegated to boring, friend department.

"Anyway, I made a scene and now am totally humiliated in front of three house mates and of course Shinrei. My life is over. Maybe I could get a transfer to Slytherin."

Luis had moved to sit beside Sarah under the tree and proceeded to listen to her babble, switching from an angry to an uncertain to an anxious and finally to a disappointed tone as she delivered her "speech."

After she had lapsed into a few seconds of silence, most probably to catch her breath, Luis turned to look at her with a little smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Feel better now?" he asked in the same gentle voice he had used a little while ago. "Okay. You should go back there and forget anything happened. I'm sure they don't even know why you ran off in the first place. Leave it at that."

"Look. Sarah." He paused and looked away, into the distance, at the lake shimmering under the morning sunlight. "You said so yourself that you have a pretty good idea on how boys act around people like Shinrei Hikari. They probably fawn all over her because she seems like a comic book character or a movie star, or something. I've seen Sinclair and even Hupi do so. She's more like a fantasy than a real person. They know they can't have her. They're just having a few moments of being in the presence of someone so...untouchable."

"You familiar with the legend of Psyche? She was the most beautiful girl in all the land. Every man worshipped her and praised her beauty and all that jazz, but they did not love her. They moved on to love real women. Women who really lived and loved them in return. They knew it was no good to pine away for a fantasy."

He took his wand out of the back pocket of his jeans and pointed it at the air between him and Sarah. He muttered a few well-chosen words and a tiny ghostlike Shinrei appeared, revolving slowly in space, like a figure in a music box.

"This girl may be at Hogwarts, Sarah, but her heart and her life will never really be. She belongs to that high and mighty Japanese lord and that strange land we don't even have much of an idea about. She just passed us by the way we see our dreams sometimes. So real that we could almost touch them--"

His voice caught. Luis knew he was dangerously close to revealing the real depth of his feelings for Shinrei. He withdrew the wand from the air and the tiny illusion he had projected disappeared.

"But we wake up and find out it's otherwise." He raked both hands through his hair and rubbed his eyes, as if they were in pain. "So go back to your friends, Sarah. Wake them up."

Sarah sat silently as Luis waxed lyrical on the `wonders of Shinrei'. Without doubt this boy was self-appointed president of the Shinrei Appreciation Society and might give Marvo a run for his money on the wrong things to say to girls when they were upset over issues of this nature.

Still Sarah liked Luis and he had always been nice to her and bless him, he was trying to help. Plus, he had in a roundabout way. Sarah's keen observation of Branwen had indicated that while some boys might worship at the shrine of the unobtainable for a time, a warm smile and a genuine interest in others won more hearts even if one's magical ability didn't register on the Reicter scale and you were banned from duelling.

Of course, Sarah also realised what Luis was saying was about his own feelings for the Japanese girl and she actually felt quite sorry for him given the circumstances and resolved not to tease him. Sarah was playful but she wasn't knowingly cruel.

She gave a little sigh and wiped away the last of her tears, and smiled at him.

"Thank you Luis though I can't go back. I mean if it's true what you say and it hasn't even registered with them why I was upset then that would be almost as bad as if they did realise. I'd just feel even more stupid than I already do and Shinrei would still be centre of all their attention and look even cooler in contrast to wacky Sarah. No, I'll see them later anyway and just see how it goes."

She looked over in the direction of where they must be. "If you see them on your way back to the castle just say I'll meet them at the Quidditch field later OK?"

*********

Sarah saw StalksbyNight approaching about the same time she heard Nathaniel calling her name.

Her heart was pounding so loud that she figured Luis could probably hear it. Obviously she both wanted to be found but also was in sheer panic at being found and hoped she didn't look too pathetic. "Luis, what do I do?" she said with urgency.

Luis smiled and rose to his feet, holding out a hand to Sarah so he could help her up.

"In spite of what you said, wanting to go back inside and meeting whomsoever at the blasted Quidditch field, my advice still stands, Sarah."

He gestured to the direction of Nathaniel's voice. "Go back to them. I knew you were Sorted into Slytherin and Slytherins don't let a little thing like /that/ get them down. Show 'em what you got. And don't worry, you look gorgeous. Maybe just a little flushed." He gave her a teasing wink for good measure.

"Sarah?" Nathaniel called again, following the kitten round a tree.

Then he saw Luis and Sarah, holding hands.

That was, he resolved, the last time he followed the kitten anywhere. It always seemed to home in on people holding hands or sobbing, both of which were as embarrassing as each other.

He shook his long hair back out of his face and tried to put a brave face on his usual sullen scowl. The kitten was winding around Sarah's ankles, so he was damned if he could get away without being noticed.

"Hullo, Luis." Nathaniel said somewhat awkwardly. "I ..uh.. was looking for Sarah."

Of course, that's why he was wandering through the woods yelling her name. Way to go, Nat, he silently congratulated himself.

The kitten just purred. Nathaniel hated it with a vengeance.

Sarah had taken Luis' offer of a hand to get to her feet and just at that moment Nathaniel had come around the tree and so it looked as though he was walking into a tryst.

Sarah thought that Nat's expression looked fairly neutral and so she could only assume that he wasn't bothered by the fact she was talking with someone else even if that someone else was ga-ga for Shinrei. Well she guessed that answered any questions she might have about whether his feelings towards her were more than 'just friends'.

"Oh hi, Nathaniel. I emmm.. " She decided to test Luis theory that the boys wouldn't realise why she'd stormed off. "I was just coming back down."

She turned back to Luis and gave him a warm smile, she started to giggle suddenly because the kitten was winding around her ankles so enthusiastically and it was tickling a little.

"Oh, damn, this is going to sound stupid, but I ... uh... was worried, I didn't know why you left, I ... uh.. .didn't quite understand it..." Nathaniel jammed his hands into his pockets and looked at Luis briefly.

"Worried..?" echoed Sarah, suddenly totally unsure if there was a way to be cool and collected in this kind of situation. "no that doesn't sound stupid. I probably was being ..it ...stupid that is."

"I just thought that after all your talk about fireballs and stuff yesterday that you two would probably want to hang out with Shinrei now you see she has all that firepower and.." *mysterious, oriental beauty* though she didn't voice that concern - "... Zidane and see the kind of magic they do."

*That sounded totally lame* thought Sarah. *Now if he starts going all dreamy-eyed at the sound of her name I may throw up!*

"Shinrei?" Nathaniel looked, if possible, even more confused than ever. "What on earth does Shinrei have to do with anything?"

The kitten lay down on the fallen leaves underfoot and put both paws over its eyes. Nathaniel tried very hard to ignore it.

"Or Zidane, for that matter? Was it wrong for me to watch Zidane showing me what he does, Sarah? Have I broken some kind of etiquette amongst wizards?"

Sarah glanced down at Stalks by Night, wondering if the kitten was commenting on her or Nathaniel or just making an observation on the ridiculousness of the situation in general.

"Shinrei... well I ..." she stopped, realising this was going into deep embarrassment territory. She shouldn't care if Nathaniel was interested in Shinrei.

She glanced towards Luis with a quiet desperation. She then shook her head, "No...you haven't broken any kind of etiquette - Nathaniel not at all. I was just worried that Zidane's magic might be dangerous - but then it seemed I was being boring ... and so... I left you all to get .. to know each other better."

"You thought you were being boring?" Nathaniel stared at her.

"Yes." said Sarah quietly. "Hanging out with too many prefects I guess."

The kitten scampered off into the trees and Nathaniel looked after it with a soft curse. "I ought to go make sure it doesn't get eaten by anything." he hesitated.

"Yes, I mean there are things in the forest and it is a very small kitten."

They looked at each other for a moment and then Nathaniel grinned cheerfully at Luis. "Excuse us."

"I'm no expert out here but..." she turned to Luis to excuse them. If Nathaniel wanted her help.

He glanced at Sarah hesitantly. "That is if you want to come..?"

"Yes. I'll come."

Looking for the errant kitten seemed a much better occupation than awkward conversations.

Luis had wisely kept quiet throughout the awkward exchange between Sarah and Nathaniel. He did not have a part in the whole thing. He was an outside entity who just happened to stumble into the "party."

He nodded and waved a little when they excused themselves and began to walk away to look for the mostly black kitten who had located Sarah first before the boy did.

Cute-looking couple, he thought, his eyes following Sarah and Nathaniel as they walked off together. It was nice to know that the "story" had a happy ending on Sarah's side.

"Sarah, what was the matter? Really?" Nathaniel asked quietly, once they were out of earshot of Luis.

Or maybe not... Sarah wanted to be able to talk to him openly .... she took a deep breath. "OK.... everytime I like anybody there always seems to be someone like Shinrei around. Only most of the time it is Shinrei."

Nathaniel came to a halt under an oak tree, leaves crunching under his boots, and turned to face her. "Ah, so it's not something I did?"

"No, of course you need to make friends and she is very .."

"Sharp, I think is the word you're looking for?" Nathaniel supplied helpfully, a hint of a grin at the corners of his mouth.

"Sharp?" Sarah was confused, "what do you mean? Luis thinks she is every man's unobtainable dream girl ..like Psyche in the myths."

"Unobtainable dream...." Nathaniel's words trailed off into a smile. "Maybe to Luis, she is. Not to me."

"Oh...."

"I found her very... stand-offish?" Nathaniel crinkled up his nose a little. "She was crying. I stopped to see if I could help. Next thing she just …. closed up again. Nothing I could do."

"You did!" Sarah tried not to look too happy. "Oh yes, well I think she doesn't really know how to relate that well to Western boys."

He grinned, and the expression crinkled up the corners of his green eyes in merriment. "Nah, I think it's just me. I have that effect on girls usually."

"What sort of effect? Crying?" she was starting to relax a little.

He nodded. "Made you cry and didn't even realise it."

She had hoped he hadn't noticed. "I'll get over it - tough as nails."

"Sarah, I'm sorry." Nathaniel replied softly. "I didn't mean it."

Now tears were threatening, "Look Nathaniel, you weren't leading me on or anything. I was leading myself on. OK. I do want to be friends."

"I wonder where Stalks has gotten to?" she tried, desperately trying to change the subject.

He blinked once or twice very slowly, and touched his fingertips fleetingly to her wrist. "I would hope our friendship lasts more than two days, Sarah."

"So do I.," she said quietly.

He patted his pockets absently and produced the silver filigree ball with a shake of his sleeve.

A small wink and he let it spin from the back of one hand to the other, and presented it to her.

"A gift." he said quietly.

"Thank you." she said taking it gently from him.

"Ah... the right words... best if you know the right words." he said absently. "Sol... sol solis, somnio... yes, somnio amor."

He was, Sarah felt, just so beautiful, gentle and wise. ....

"It won't work without the right words." he added helpfully.

"Oh yes... those words...sol, solis, somnio amor? I say those words?"

As she spoke them, the sunlight gleamed on the silver and the crystal beneath, and at the last syllable, the silver filigree casing snicked back, folding into itself.

"It's a thing of dreams, I think." Nathaniel said softly. "Of flights of dragons and the summer country."

"Have you ever seen such a thing, Nathaniel - flights of dragons and the county of the summer stars?"

He nodded, and touched a fingertip to the gleaming crystal. "In there, I have. What you see in there, I don't know."

"I'm not sure what I might see. My head's a bit... at the moment. This place to me is so full of magic."

"Look." he suggested gently. "There's nothing of harm in it, I know that much."

She looked within the crystal's heart.

Within the crystal's heart she saw a cave glittering with crystalline forms. A high cave of such beauty - it was a place she had travelled in her dreams. At one end from a high fissure fell water into a pool and within the pool was a mystery and she wished to plunge deep into that pool and touch the mystery that lay beneath it.

Nathaniel watched her look deep into the crystal, unblinkingly, and simply waited.

Sarah came to herself - how long had she been away. Nathaniel was there - they were in the woods but she felt she'd been elsewhere or could have journeyed elsewhere and she knew this was no slight of hand but what was it?

"Sarah?" he asked her very gently.

She looked at him, her blue eyes quite soft in the diffused light of the woods, "Yes, Nathaniel?"

"Nothing." he smiled. "You just looked a little lost."

"No, I'm fine. That was .... thank you."

His smile became a grin. "I'm glad you liked it. The words are yours and yours alone. If you lose it, it'll probably come back to me because it knows me best right not."

She took a deep breath, "We still haven't found Stalks by Night"

The grin became something mischievous. Without changing his tone or taking his eyes off Sarah, he said, "And I know you're up there, you little devil, so get down here right now."

The mostly black kitten dropped out of the tree above their heads and landed in a heap of fallen leaves, and had the grace to look ashamed of itself.

Sarah smiled at the kitten. "It's an amazing kitten."

"You're an amazing girl." he said simply.

She felt like she had survived. Nathaniel knew that he had won her heart and though her feelings were not reciprocated, they were still friends.

She didn't know what to say. "I don't know if I am that but thank you. You are a very kind person."

"Close it like this." He lifted his hands to cover hers, and stroked them over the silver casing of the crystal, and it slid closed and was nothing more than an ornate sphere again. "It can't be confiscated, it's just a contact juggling ball. The magic's up here..." he tapped his forehead with a finger "... though I still don't believe it. And yes, you are amazing, Sarah. Do you want to see how I see you?"

She smiled at him; "They only confiscate things that could hurt ... nothing of beauty even if this was magical." she was a little disconcerted by his touch but could cope. "Yes.... if you wish to show me."

He patted his pockets and sighed, and flung his hand out towards the ground. A small 'pop' and one of the small plain glass spheres levitated up to his hand. "Don't ask me how I did that." he looked at it. "Because I have no idea."

To the sphere he whispered some low words, and let it slide this way and that in his hands, and then held it up spinning on the tip of one finger. Within was a vision of Sarah in the sunshine, her blonde hair silvered by the light, smiling.

She looked, slightly embarrassed by this image of herself. She thought back to the small vision that Luis had conjured of Shinrei and thought she was happy that Nathaniel saw her as smiling.

"I'm bad with words." he said, and made the ball vanish into his sleeve. "'Leading on' implies that... " he made a face "... something was being offered that wasn't meant. I meant nothing more than that I liked you. A lot."

He cleared his throat and shuffled his feet in the leaves. "What time is Quidditch?" His turn to be desperate to change the subject.

"I didn't mean to imply you were..offering..." she didn't wish to return to uncomfortable country after such magic. "and I like you Nathaniel and Quidditch is about now."

He grinned an infectiously mischievous grin at her. "Come on then, you can watch me make an idiot of myself all over again then."

"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself."

"Come on." He offered her his arm. "It'll be fun."

"It's supposed to be fun you know... and I saw you last night, Not bad for a first time."

She took his arm and prepared to leave - making sure naturally that Stalks by Night was still with them and not off slaying monsters.

"Uh-huh." Nathaniel grinned lazily as they strolled back out of the woods, the kitten trotting at his heels, waving his tail impudently at the world.