Zhenya walked from the stairs to the common room, exhausted. She took a seat by the fire and closed her eyes to relax by the hear. It was so lovely! She pulled her knees up and opened her eyes to look into the flames and think about her... her new love.

She came down from the girls dorm where she had been studying for her OWLs, it was ages away but she didn't really want to fail. She took a seat one of the couch's and made herself comfortable in a sort of lying down to the side position. She stroked her hair as she got warm around the fire. Picking up a book she took a look at it and remembered that it was her candy making book so she decided to read it thoroughly.

Finishing the first chapter she stroked her smooth hair again. It needed something to it, so she got a hair band and started side braiding it. It didn't take too long it was quite quick actually, less then a minute. Finishing her braid she grabbed some candy out of her pocket and started chewing it. It was a jelly snake- her favorite.

She sat down properly again and looked around the room. She had just noticed a smaller, younger girl that looked familiar had walked in looking a bit... nevermind. She looked daydreamy. She suddenly remembered her. It was Zhenya! "Uh, Zhenya is it?" she asked the younger girl.

Zhenya was startled when someone started talking to her. OH it was her! Her Divination partner in crime. Ha!

"Hey! Yes it's Zhenya," she said, slightly peeved off that this girl, LIESEL, never seemed to remember her name. Shrugging, and getting over it, she said "How are your lessons going?" how lame, talking about lessons. She was starting to slack off herself, but just had no motivation to keep up with the work.

How were her classes going? What question was that? Eh, she was going to answer it anyway despite her dismay to think. "There going...good I guess. I've just been focusing on my OWLs the most though." she told the younger girl. She looked at the girl with no expression but trying to figure out what was going on. She wasn't like the first time she met her, she was back then more fun like or childish. "You look like your daydreaming sort of." she let the girl know.

She took some other candy and plopped it in her mouth. It was nice as candy usually was.

Zhenya listened to her talk about her OWL's. Zhenya was glad she didn't need to worry about that for another two years, but... that meant... well, it didn't matter, it was still two years.

"Oh... I... I do?" she asked. Was she that obvious? She couldn't help it. A certain someone just kept flooding her mind. She just wanted to go to the library and study but she couldn't focus, and it was a miserable pointless attempt if she would have tried.

She was eating lollies. Zhenya remembered she had half of a chocolate frog still, and she dug around in her bag and pulled it out. YES!!!

Why was she talking to this girl? She seriously needed to do something other than get distracted by someone like right now. To hide what she was thinking she just put on a grin and HOPEFULLY that would do the trick. She was a good smiler, wasn't she?

"Yeah, you do." She really wanted to find out more. "Whats wrong or what happened?! You can tell me." she said hoping that the girl would answer. She was dying to know since she was a very nosy person.

Zhenya wasn't sure why this girl wanted to know what was going on. Only her brother ever did that, mostly everybody let her keep to herself. It was weird. She looked at Liesel with her lollies and said, "Can I have one?" with a smile. "Please."

Then she started thinking about WHAT it was that was making her so weird. "Well... something really bad happened. But then something really good happened. So I'm happy, I'm sad, and I'm just... caught in the middle," she said with a shrug.

Desiree walked out of the girls dormitories and into the common room, the familiar room welcoming her back. She had really missed it, New Zealand was nice, but it was nothing like this. Besides being "home-schooled" was practically a half-year long vacation. Not that she was complaining, but she had to admit she was actually excited to go back to class..

.. her thoughts stopped there as she saw the back of someone's head on the couch. She KNEW that head.

Could it be.. Excitement rushed over her at the thought of seeing her friend. It had been horrible being gone so long, she had never wanted to leave in the first place. She wanted to call out and run over to her, or tackle her or something. She was leaping for joy on the inside. But she noticed an unfamiliar girl next to her, and didn't want to scare her. Soo instead Des crept up silently behind her and quickly put her hands over her eyes.

A smile spread across her face, "Guessss who?" she said with a laugh, wondering if Zhenya would recognize her voice after so long. She wasn't that different really, just a little taller, well kind of a lot taller, and her hair was definitely longer. (She had refused to let her mom cut it)

Zhenya was talking with Liesel when SOMEONE covered her eyes! At first she thought it was Gary. She put her own hands against the hands on her eyes, realising that it was most definitely not Gary. Could it be Raven? Her heart started hammering in her chest! But then whoever it was started talking, and she knew it wasn't Raven. But it was familiar. Who was it?

Zhenya frowned and started rubbing the hands on her eyes, as if it would TELL her who they belonged to. Then she laughed! AND IT ALL CLICKED!

"OH MY GOSH!" Zhenya screamed very loudly, pushing the hands off her and jumping up. "DESIREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" She ran over to her friend and gave her a humongous hug. "HOW have you been? WHERE have you been? OH MY GOSH! I missed you sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!" she said, giving her another hug.

She heard screaming coming from part of the common room,"Such loud nosies." She muttered.

Ariana Stood in the common room leaning against a wall waiting for her 'serpent sidekick' assignment a first year named Allie something, she didnt know. she didnt know how she would find the girl either.

Allie was a bit nervous to meet her 'Slytherin Sidekick'. Maybe it was the fact that it was an older student that would be helping her, or if it was just the fact that she was meeting someone new. Taking a deep breath she entered the common room from the girl's dorms and took a look around the room. It wasn't really easy to pick out who she was supposed to be meeting with since she had never really spent much time in the Slytherin common room but instead was off running around with Nettie.

"Are you Ariana?" Allie asked quietly, hoping that it was indeed Ariana and make the mission of finding her short and simple. If it wasn't, well, Allie didn't know what she would do next.

Ariana Looked over at the blonde "depends, Are you Allie?" Only then will she say who she was, just because this was hogwarts didnt mean stranger danger didnt exist. Ariana stood up straight from leaning on the wall before she realized what she had gotten herself into .. 'should of made a checklist or something.' she thought to herself then maybe just maybe she wouldnt seem so lame.

Allie suddenly wished she had stayed in bed with the covers over her head, Ariana, if it really was her, wasn't what Allie had thought she would be. The elven year old nodded her head slowly, "Allie Murphy." She introduced, though she didn't really make much movement from where she was standing. You could run for it! She thought to herself. What would Nettie do? She asked herself....Pretend to be a superhero!, but she wasn't going to start jumping on the furniture and pretending she could fly down from them. No, that wasn't Allie, but the idea gave her a little bit of a boost of confidence.

"Allie?" good! "then Yes i am Ariana" She said offering the first year a hand as a smiled played on her face as to not terrify the girl much more

Allie let out a sigh of relief. At least she knew now who her sidekick was, even if she wasn't the most personable person she had met yet. "It's nice to meet you." Allie said as she shook Ariana's hand. "What year are you?" She asked lightly, fifth year?, fourth year?, Allie didn't know.

Gah, there were so many girls in his house. Sometimes He wondered how many there were in the whole school. More than the boys it seemed. He didn't care too much about it though but he knew interactions with girls would be harder than with boys. Boys tended to like the same things that he did at least that's what they told him and they never once mentioned girls being very intelligent. The girls at Hogwarts seemed smart though, they were where most of the house points came from but honestly when there's more girls than boys where else would the points come from so was it really that they were smarter or that they were more.

Either way he didn't want to get into the semantics of it all, girls didn't like to be told they weren't smart. It got them in a bind. Anyhow he liked to keep to himself and to do so properly would mean not telling girls they were stupid. They tended to attack in packs too. Much like lionesses and the older they got, the more vicious and the larger the pack. Unless of course they were warring amongst themselves. That was the funniest. Girls became so easily angered with one another it was hard to keep track of the gossip.

Jacques slumped into his chair trying to ignore the voices of the girls.

Desiree laughed as Zhenya jumped up, immediately realizing it was her. Apparently she had recognized her voice. She gasped for air as Zhenya squeezed her, but returned her friend's hug with an equally ginormous one."ZHENYA!" she managed to squeak out while being hugged. "I missed you too!! You have noo idea."

She smiled, still laughing as Zhenya started rattling off questions, when she seemed to finally take a breath Desiree started to explain, "I'm SO sorry, I didn't get a chance to tell you before I left.. I just didn't know I was leaving. My parents thought it would be good for me to experience a different part of the world, so they sent me to stay with my aunt in New Zealand, and be home-schooled for awhile. It was great really. I even got a tan." She smiled and displayed her bronzed arms, which had been almost ghost-like months before.

"It was beautiful there too, especially the water. It was turquoise and you could see straight to the bottom, and all the colorful fish.." she paused, fishing in her bag "Here" she said handing her the photograph of the ocean, since a picture is worth a thousand words. especially when it moves!

"But... I told them that I wanted to come back. It just wasn't the same without my friends I guess." Wow that sounded corny, but she grinned anyway; it was true. She scanned the common room again.. "speaking of, where's Raven?" it seemed weird the two wouldn't be together. Huh.

Zhenya beamed at her other best friend who she was scared she would never see again. She gave her ANOTHER hug and put her hand against her cheek, just to make sure it was real. It was!! Desiree was back!!

"WOW New Zealand? I've heard a bit about there, my father had to go there for like six months before he met my mother. He said it was magnificent," Zhenya said. She admired Desiree's arms with an ahhh. They were so nice and tan. Zhenya herself was prety pale, having never lived somewhere that Sun was a daily view. It was usually clouds and rain, sometimes snow. Every now and then sun, but not enough to get tanned. She took the photo and her eyes widened, "WOW It looks so amazing! I want to go there now," she laughed. Maybe she could as her father if he would take her for a few days. As a family. The big family!

Raven? Desiree didn't know about Raven? "Well she... last year she got really sick and kept... er... pa-passing out and then... and then..." Zhenya said, and felt her bottom lip wibble. She felt the warmth in her eyes as the tears welled up and before she knew it she had burst into tears, covering her face with her hands and sobbing into her sleeve. How could she possibly tell Desiree about Raven? They were the three best friends!

Desiree was just so happy to be back with her friend, back at Hogwarts, just like old times. She nodded her head and smiled "It really was amazing!" she agreed, "If I ever go back there, you're definitely coming with me." she laughed, but she was serious. Even if she had to sneak Zhenya in in her suitcase. hehe.

Oh! She suddenly remembered, and pulled out a wrapped package. Inside was a small beaded leather bag with a long shoulder strap. She smiled and held it out to her friend, "I almost forgot, I got this for you. It's a leather bag that was hand-made by the locals, I just thought you might like it."

..But all thoughts of New Zealand were instantly wiped from her mind when Zhenya started talking about Raven.. her best friend was sick? and then passed out? then.. what? What happened? WAS SHE OK? Desiree hadn't known anything about this!
Zhenya had burst into tears, and Desiree couldn't help herself as tears began to well up, a single one escaping down her face. She didn't even know what was wrong yet.. but just the sight of her friend crying was too much for her. She tried to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "And then... then what?" she asked quietly, "Is-is Raven.. is she ok?" she stuttered out in shock. She had to be ok, right? Desiree felt sick to her stomach..

Pre-Crying
Zhenya nodded along enthusiastically, of course she would LOVE to go back there with Desiree. They would have so much fun! She took the gift from Desiree and opened it. It was beautiful. Zhenya smiled at Desiree and said "Thank you so much! I love it! And hand made? Seriously? That's really impressive!"

Crying
She looked up, face red and wet, and felt awful that she had made Desiree start to cry without even telling her. She knew she owed it to her to explain it to her, but she couldn't cry. So, she spoke in the middle of all her sobs and just hoped Desiree could understand it.
"She has..... has brain cancer. They said she... she... might not live much longer, and she is in the hos-pital, but I don't know which one and and I'm... I don't know what's going to happen," she cried out.

"pleasure" Ariana Said "third year" so not too Much ahead of you. The girl Said happily, this girl was lucky she woke up in a good GREAT! mood today. "So are you familiar with the castle yet? Would you like to walk around a bit?" she asked Allie

So much for being happy. Desiree tried to wipe away the tears from her eyes, as she struggled to understand Zhenya's broken sentences: Brain Cancer.. hospital.. they don't know..
All she felt was numbness, and it took awhile for it to sink in. But when it did, she immediately broke into silent sobs along with Zhenya. She didn't want to believe it, and above everything else she felt guilt. She hadn't been there when it happened. She had been off having fun, while her friend..while she... another sob. If she had been there.. maybe she could have done something.. now she might never see her again? She just really wished she had gotten letters about this, at least then she would have known. But this wasn't exactly easy to write about..

She managed to choke out a few words , "But there's.. there's a chance .. she could get better" she was almost talking to herself. She couldn't help it, she was an optimist, there had to be some hope. "What about St. Mungos? They can fix anything ri-ight? there has to be some magic to.. to reverse it?" Really she already knew the answers, but denied them. She took a deep breath and controlled her sobbing a bit. Desiree almost never cried.

Fee made her way to the Slytherin common room,it had been a stressful day and she was happy she was done.Some of her lessons just got so intense sometimes.How would that be next year wioth her graduating?Oh my.

Looking around she noticed this really comfy armchair looking rather lonely and a smile crept onto her face.As the girl plopped down on the soft fabric she sighed happily.Finally some freedom and time to read. Unfortunately none of her friends were here yet.

The sixth year got her book about ancient runes out and snuggled deeper into the armchair.

Allie could sense that maybe Ariana wasn't much of a people person. Or maybe she just wasn't in a good mood today, she seemed like she was trying really hard to be nice to Allie... "Well, I've wandered around a lot, but I keep getting lost when I actually try to go somewhere specific." Allie explained. "I kind of lose sense of direction after a while." She added on. Granted, wandering around the castle was fun too, but sometimes getting lost when it wasn't intended was a bit scary for the first year.