Ok I'm back!! I've been extremely busy with cross country and homework. I will probably be more active in November, that's when cross country ends. So anyway, here is Holly :) This thread won't die!!

~Holly

It was a miracle, so she thought, that she hadn't been caught in the act when she and Evangeline pranked Terrence. Well, she was the unsuspecting one. Evangeline had been caught though, with a Hufflepuff boy they assumed did it with her. 

Don't think I'm doing that again, Holly thought with a grin as she entered the Great Hall. This year is going to be great! 

Abruptly, flash of an image went through her head. It was what she thought was a middle-aged Sirius crying. "She can't be gone, not now!" he shouted, tears streaming down his face. "Not here!"

And then the image faded. Holly shook her head, confused. She must have been imagining, or going crazy. Sirius crying about someone...? A witch? But who?

She shook her head again as she sat down next to Kelpie, her mind distracted. Her owl, George, landed on the table and dropped a letter to her. Holly opened it quickly.

Holly,

Meet me near the Whomping Willow tomorrow at 9:00 at night. There's a few things I need to tell you. I feel like you've been left out quite a bit from us Mauraders, and I felt bad. I mean, we're not rude to people (unless you're a Slytherin, which you're not) Anyway, hope to see you there!

Your friend, 

Sirius

Holly read the letter over and over. It was strange how she saw an older Sirius crying in her head and now he had sent her a letter. Well, she wanted to find out what Sirius had to say. Maybe it had to do with the image she saw. Or maybe not. But she was definitely coming at 9:00 sharp. Definitely.

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So, how did you like that? :D I thought it would be cool if Holly knew a bit of Divination. Tell me what you peeps think, if the image scene should stay or not. (btw, that October Cricket issue was awesome! Poor Ugly! He kept having nightmares about the buggies eating him! And Nighttown was creepy. I heard it on the Multi Media part in Cricket's Library here.) Well, tomorrow I probably won't be on because of cross country; I have a meet. Wish me luck :) I'll try to be on here more often!!

Helena reported to me during breakfast. She licked her lips and looked immensly satisfied with herself. "And?" I asked the newspaper I was reading. 

Helena climbed up into my lap and told me smugly, "His name is Remus Lupin. He's a Gryffindor. A third year. (If I got the year wrong, hit me with a frying pan and tell me what he is, but I think he's in third year. Right?) He's a very nice boy, I can hardly believe he transforms into a horrid dog."

"How do you know he's a good boy?" I asked the paper.

"He called me a pretty cat and gave me a fish," she said smugly.

I snorted. "You just like flattery." Someone shot me a quizzical glance. I shrugged apologetically and said, "Sorry, it's the article." A girl muttering to herself about a newspaper article attracts far less attention than a girl carrying on a conversation with a cat. 

"So do you," Helena shot back.

"Do you want to be the one to go tell her High High Highness the discovery?" I asked.

Helena made a derisive noise. "She doesn't care two bits for the werewolf. She's only distracting you. I think she's stalling for time."

"I'll go tell her at break."

The cold queen was enormously displeased I had solved her little "mission" so quickly. She charged me with the task of delivering a message- one I didn't really understand- to a tree in a courtyard in the school. I detested playing messanger, but what else was I to do? 

I've been able to talk with trees and other plants and animals ever since I was quite young. I find flowers vapid and dull, dogs horrifically simplistic, and humans terribly inane. I hold those species with great contempt. On the reverse, cats are sarcastic, back-stabbing creatures and trees ancient and complicated and both wonderfully fun to talk to.

Trees are not particularly pacifistic creatures. On the contrary, they rather hate the human race for enslaving them and murdering them but there is little they can do about it. They are under the impression that all humans have the power to understand them, if only they would listen. I listen and can understand a fair bit of what they say. Trees speak in a different language than humans and most other creatures- they have different words. Trees rely on complicated ideas packaged under one overlying feeling or emotion and they expect the listener to fully understand the entire idea or "word". I can't claim to know all of words but I understand enough to be an asset to the trees. The majority of trees can speak in the human languages but find them too shallow for any use besides communicating with me.

The trees here are planning a rebellion of sorts and I am the focal point. I've been moving pieces into play that they can't move. They ask me to run messages, cast certain spells that I don't understand, brew strange potions, leave certain messages for others to strategically find. I'm not entirely sure what they're doing, but I think they're trying to eradicate the human race or at least have a very good go at it. I'm not that interested in humans myself and I don't think I'll mind so much to see them all gone. I imagine I'll be allowed to live on for at least a short time after the fall of humankind as a reward for my service. The last human on Earth... I rather like that title.

(Info dump over. Victoria is a sociopath! She's so fun to write!)

The tree in question is near a study hall where you are allowed to practice potion brewing. Sometimes students are tutored there by older sudents or teachers. That tree watched all the potion making and it was able to use that information to help out the whole plan. Unfortunatly, it was too far for the other trees to communicate with which mean I had to run messages. 

I was able to visit it just before dinner. He took the message and gave me an alarming amount of information to return to her. He had to tell me his answering note three times before I had properly memorized it. Before I left, he tipped me the tree equivalent of a wink and a "good luck". 

It was too late to go give Her Highness whatever potion this was (I hadn't the faintest idea. It had mushrooms in it, I thought, and possibly hemlock.) so I promised myself I would deliver it tomorrow. Before the "Slug Club" party.

"Which of course you're going to go to. After all, why would you miss a chance to hear Professor Slughorn wax poetic about your achievements?" Helena sneered.

"I'll bring you back a fish," I promised her.

"Better yet, why can't I come along?" she asked innocently.

I ignored her begging and said, "Because you're a cat. And humans don't believe that cats should be allowed to go to the same places as humans."

"Wear me around your neck like a fur scarf and before you know it, you'll have started a fashion."

"Fine. I'll bring you. But if anyone says I look funny, you will have to pay for that!"

Ookay...sorry if I've been AWOL. But feel free to write about Emma when I'm not around, because its fun reading it!

Emma~

As I was sitting in detention, monotonously writing the words on the board (and trying to figure out if James Potter did that messy thing to his hair on purpose or if he was blissfully oblivious to how it looked), my eyes flickered down to my lap, where the shard of mirror rested. I didn't want to use it, becuase, frankly, I didn't know why I should talk to Terrence when he had landed me in the most horrible spot imaginable, but it interested me, the fact I could use it as a telephone. I turned it over and over and over in my hand, and I saw James look at me sideways. Why was he in detention, I thought. I didn't think he had done anything wrong in the past twenty-four hours, but one never knew with the Marauders. I thought I recognized Peter Pettigrew some seats behind him, but I wondered why Sirius wasn't here with his best buddy.

My attention was drawn, however, to a little piece of parchment he held under the desk, studying it when he should have been writing. To everyone else it looked like he was reading, but his eyes moved too erratically for it to be reading. It looked like he was studying some sort of map. He then mouthed something that looked like "Mischief Managed," and folded the parchment. I looked away and down at my mirror. I might as well called Terrence. I was about to mouth his name in front of the glass when the surface suddenly shivered and Terrence's goofy smile appeared.

"Awe, Emma, can you believe it? Azaela Prewett and Evangeline Reynolds totally got in trouble from dueling!" He exclaimed. "They're in here now! Professor McGonagall dragged them in by the ear and gave them fifty lines to write. Can you believe it? And guess what? Cindy Umbridge got out free! She went and tattled on the others. Can you believe that?!?!"

I repressed a devilish smirk. I knew Terrence was getting very mad about Cindy, and, knowling Evangeline, she wouldn't waste any time in getting back at the tattle-tale. I looked over at James again and my grin widened. Likely the Marauders would be in on this too, wouldn't they? I sincerely hoped they wouldn't mind a Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tagging along, because I was determined that CIndy would get her just desserts for everything she did.

"Terrence," I whispered quickly, because I saw by the clock that my detention was almost up. "Meet me by the lake later, and try to get a hold of some Marauders, if you can. We are going to make Cindy wish she never set foot in Hogwarts!"

Guys, I have TONS upon TONS of homework... in every subject. Spanish, English, Math, Social Studies, Science... ARGH! So I may not be on as often. I'm convinced the teachers are being somewhat controlled my Cyberman: You. Must. Obey. Do. Homework. Be. Mindless. Sigh. Anywho, here is Holly!

~Holly 

I looked at my watch. 8:00 p.m. I sighed. Why couldn't time hurry up? I was waiting in the common room, all done with my Charms, Potions, and DADA homework. I was really eager to see what Sirius wanted to show me at the Whomping Willow. Did it have to do with my dream at all? 

I waited and waited. Soon I drifted into sleep out of boredom... I jolted awake with a start. 8:55 p.m. I cursed under my breath, and snuck out quickly and quietly. 

I made sure there was no Peeves and sprinted down the corridors to the grounds. When I got to the Whomping Willow, I didn't see anyone. Just... the Whomping Willow. I looked around in confusion.

"Holly! The tree's alive! Get out of the way!"

Well, no duh. I thought. Oh course the tree's alive. Why would it be--

Suddenly, I got shoved and down a tunnel I went. "WHAT THE HECK?!" I screamed at the random person.

"Just saved your life, I did. You should be thanking me," I heard a voice say as we got to the bottom of the tunnel and into a... house.

I turned around. Sirius!

"Um... how?" I asked, embarrassed. 

"Like I said, the tree's alive. That means it can smack you! Grab you! Anything!" Sirius was now shouting.

I looked at the ground, still embarrassed. "Sorry. I didn't know."

His face softened. "Hey, it's ok. I mean, your first time here trying to get to the Shrieking Shack."

"The Shrieking Shack?"

"Yep, that's the name. Or at least, we called it that." Sirius grinned. "For reasons. I'll show you as soon as the others get here."

Well, this was going to be strange. Third year wasn't the year I had expected.

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Ok, I'm leaving it there for now, but I'll add more hopefully tomorrow. So, with Holly's vision, she's good at Divination (skillfully, not mystic and predicting Harry's deaths all the time like Trelawney) and so she saw and older Sirius crying about... wait for it... her! So what do you guys think about that? In the future, Holly might die.... dunno. I might change it or delete it, tell me what'cha think :) And BHR, awesome idea of introducing the Maurader's Map! Well, I gotta go. It's almost 8:30. Sigh. Sorry if my annoyed mood is irritating. Just having a tough week at school. 

Keep the Thread Alive!!!!!

**Terrence**

I was sitting in detention next to Emma serving my sentence, when some people (I wasn't really paying much attention) said something about two girls getting in trouble for dueling. A few moments later Emma leaned over toward me and whispered frantically, "Terrence, meet me by the lake later, and try to get a hold of some Marauders, if you can. We are going to make Cindy wish she never set foot in Hogwarts!"

Then Slughorn came over to us and told us detention was over and we could leave, and also, "I'll let it slide this once, but if I see you two talking in detention again, that means double detention, I'm afraid! Run along now."

We left, and I went to go find the Marauders.

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They were all too busy today, but they said they would be able to show tomorrow. "We're planning a prank on Lucius Malfoy," said James, "but come back to us tomorrow and we'll negotiate something then!"

I went and met Emma at the lake that night and told her as much.

"Okay," she said, "I guess we'll wait." We lay down on the grass together and relaxed, watching the sun begin to set. I looked over at the Quidditch field and was reminded of something I'd been wondering about.

"Why do you have a Snitch?"

Emma looked a little cross with me. "None of your busin-" but then she stopped and looked thoughtful. Then she sighed. "It was my father's," she told me. "He gave it to me once as a birthday present when I turned seven, along with his old broom. He was a Quidditch star in his day at Hogwarts for the Ravenclaw team. He was hoping I would be one too. I started playing Quidditch with my family, and it was so much fun. We have a real Quidditch pitch with enchanted boundaries to keep the balls inside, and I was always Seeker. I wasn't bad, either."

She sighed again and said, "My whole family encouraged me to try out for Seeker at Hogwarts, and so I did, in my second year. I blew it. I flew higher than I'd ever flown trying to catch the Snitch. Our field back home is much smaller than the one here. I became frozen from my acrophobia, which tends not to kick in at high heights, but higher heights."

"And... ?" I asked.

"I fell. Broke my broom, my pride, and nearly every bone in my body. I had nightmares about falling to my death off a broomstick for months. When I got home, my family was so sorry and sympathetic. They offered to buy me a new broomstick, but I refused. I never wanted to fly again."

I felt so sad for Emma. Accidents had always happened to me while flying, but they never impeded me in the esteem department. I could never imagine not wanting to fly. I thought for a moment how I would feel if I was in her position.

Very badly for sure.

"I can help you," I told her.

"Help me what?"

"Help you fly again. I've got a backup broom. I can help you kick your acrophobia and try again for Seeker!" I declared confidently.

"No, you can't!"

"I can! And I will!"

"NO! Never again will I sit on a broomstick!"

"Don't you want to face you fear? Your dad to be proud of you?"

She considered.

"Okay. Fine, I'll try."

I smiled and grabbed her by the shoulders, then leaned over her. I hastily picked food bits out of my teeth with my tongue and prepared to make contact. I moved my face toward hers, and my lips tingled in anticipation-

"Oh no, you don't!"

She slapped me in the face. "I only kiss a boy who's properly proven himself to me!" 

@ JtSF:

I love how Emma keeps slapping Terrence. Utterly hilarious.